Wilshire Bancorp Announces Purchase of Certain Assets and the Partial Assumption of Operations of Bank of Manhattan's Mortgage Lending Division

Wilshire Bancorp, Inc.

, the parent company of Wilshire Bank, announced today the signing of an asset purchase agreement in which Wilshire will acquire certain assets and assume certain operations of Bank of Manhattan's Mortgage Lending Division. First formed in 2010, the Mortgage Lending Division has primarily offered conforming, super-conforming and jumbo residential mortgage products, and has originated over $3.0 billion in residential loans since 2012. Wilshire Bancorp is acquiring and will operate on an ongoing basis a scaled down model of Bank of Manhattan's current mortgage lending operations: Wilshire will continue to conduct mortgage lending operations at certain existing loan production offices while others will be consolidated into existing Wilshire premises. Wilshire plans to retain the high performing employees consisting of selected loan officers and operations personnel. Significant cost savings have been identified which will increase the combined mortgage operations efficiency. Consummation of the transaction is subject to the satisfaction of general closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close on February 27, 2015. The anticipated financial impact of the transaction for the first year of operations subsequent to the transaction includes the following: Wilshire expects the acquired mortgage lending division to originate approximately $550 million in residential mortgage loans. The loans originated after the acquisition are expected to contribute approximately $1.0 million in net interest income and $15.0 million in gain on sale and other income. The addition of the two locations, retained employees, and other costs are expected to add approximately $13.0 million to Wilshire's non-interest expense. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to earnings per share and generate net income before tax of approximately $3.0 million. Minimal capital outlay and acquisition-related costs. Anticipated strategic benefits from the transaction include: Substantially increasing Wilshire's residential mortgage origination platform; Increasing the non-interest income component of Wilshire's revenue mix; Further diversifying Wilshire's loan portfolio and helping to reduce the concentration of commercial real estate loans; Incremental loan production opportunities will be added by expanding the mortgage lending division's production from Southern California to other Wilshire Bank markets in Texas and New York/New Jersey; and Increasing the Company's exposure to non-ethnic markets and generating cross-selling opportunities for deposit products in markets. "The addition of the Mortgage Lending Division operations is a significant step in the continued growth of our franchise," said Jae Whan Yoo, President and Chief Executive Officer of Wilshire Bancorp. "We believe the Mortgage Lending Division can steadily grow to the point of originating more than $1 billion in loans annually and will position Wilshire Bancorp as the leading mortgage lender in the Korean-American banking industry. With our existing residential mortgage unit, we believe we are well suited to efficiently integrate the personnel and locations we will be adding from Bank of Manhattan and capture the synergies that will make this transaction accretive to our earnings in 2015. We believe this transaction will provide another catalyst for growing Wilshire Bancorp in the future, while also creating a more diversified business model."