PrivateBancorp reaches Detroit-area communities through Bloomfield Hills acquisition. PrivateBancorp has agreed to buy Bloomfield Hills Bancorp in a $64 million cash deal. Chicago-based PrivateBancorp says the acquisition of the Michigan wealth management holding company is in keeping with its strategy of extending its outreach to selected urban-area markets in the Midwest.

Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based PrivateBancorp controls the Private Bank, its one and only subsidiary. The Private Bank offers private banking, mortgage banking wealth management services through offices in the Detroit-area communities Bloomfield Hills, Grosse Pointe and Rochester.

Publicly traded PrivateBancorp operates the PrivateBank and Trust Company and the PrivateBank Mortgage Company, formerly Corley Financial. The PrivateBank and Trust Company has a controlling interest in Lodestar Investment Counsel, a Chicago-based investment advisory. PrivateBancorp, which had assets of around $2.5 billion at the end of 2004, has eight offices in Illinois, including two in Chicago, and offices in St. Louis, Mo., and Milwaukee.

�Our entry into the Detroit [market] is another example of our strategy to use selected acquisitions and de novo start-ups to expand the reach of our private banking franchise,� says Ralph Mandell, chairman and CEO of PrivateBancorp. �Combined with our earlier entries into the St. Louis and Milwaukee [markets], we will have essentially doubled the size of our potential target market since our initial public stock offering in 1999.�

Mandell says that PrivateBancorp will get rid of Bloomfield Hills Bancorp�s company names and operate the Michigan private banking, trust and mortgage businesses under its own PrivateBank and Trust Company and PrivateBank Mortgage Company brands. He adds that his company expects to keep Bloomfield Hills Bancorp�s �solid� management and staff in place for now.

David Provost, CEO of Bloomfield Hills Bancorp�s Private Bank, says the acquisition gives his bank �the ability to better serve its current clients as well as to reach new clients by providing capital to support balance sheet growth, an increased legal lending limit and expanded banking, trust and wealth management product and service offerings.�

Private Bancorp also reported that its net income for the first quarter, ended 31 March, was $7.8 million, an increase of 31 percent over first-quarter 2004 net income of $6.0 million. �Our continued earnings growth reflects strong financial performance throughout [PrivateBancorp] as well as the expansion of our unique brand of private banking into select Midwestern metropolitan markets," says Mandell. �FWR