Pacific Rim Bank, a full-service community bank in Honolulu, HI, is merging into and will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Irvine, CA-headquartered First Foundation, which provides services such as investment and wealth planning.

Pacific Rim Bank, a full-service community bank in Honolulu, HI, is merging into and will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Irvine, CA-headquartered First Foundation, which provides services such as investment management and wealth planning.

Scott Kavanaugh, chairman and chief executive of First Foundation, said Hawaii has been an “important region” for the firm with respect to opportunities in the integrated banking, trust and wealth management sectors.

Under the terms of the merger agreement, shareholders of Pacific Rim Bank – which is led by CEO Austin Imamura – will become shareholders of FFI and each outstanding share of Pacific Rim Bank common stock will be converted into 0.3950 of a share of FFI common stock. In total, Pacific Rim Bank shareholders will own approximately 7.8 per cent of the outstanding shares of FFI’s common stock.

Based on FFI’s closing stock price of $18.18 on November 24, the merger consideration is valued at approximately $7.18 per share of Pacific Rim Bank common stock or $11.8 million in aggregate.

The transaction is expected to close by mid-year 2015, subject to various approvals. The agreement was unanimously approved by the board of directors of both companies.

As of September 30, 2014, First Foundation Advisors has $3.2 billion assets under management, while First Foundation Bank has $1.3 billion total assets. The firm has additional offices in Newport Beach, Pasadena, West Los Angeles, San Diego, Palm Desert and the Imperial Valley in California, as well as Las Vegas, NV. In other recent news at the firm, this week it brought in Tyler Resh as director of marketing and strategy (see here).