D.C.'s Newest Bank

Two banking veterans have applied to start D.C.'s second city-chartered bank.

Mike Fitzgerald and Curtin Winsor III have leased two branches for the Bank of Georgetown -- one in Georgetown, the other in Friendship Heights.

If approved for a D.C. charter, the bank will open by the end of March. The first D.C.-chartered bank was WashingtonFirst, which opened this past April . The application faces a public hearing Jan. 28.

CEO Fitzgerald and Chairman Winsor originally applied for a charter with the federal Office of Thrift Supervision in May but withdrew the application Oct. 25 and refiled it with the D.C. Office of Banking and Financial Institutions.

There was some speculation that the duo withdrew the first application because their business plan didn't pass the federal qualified thrift lender (QTL) test, meaning it did not have the minimum 65 percent of assets in residential loans. Winsor says that's not true.

"We sort of bumped up against the boundaries," he says.

Fitzgerald hails most recently from Bethesda-based SequoiaBank, where he was senior vice president of commercial banking for eight years before Sequoia was acquired by United Bank in October 2003.

He brings with him several people from Sequoia, including CFO Domingo Rodriguez. The two founding directors of Sequoia, Michael McCarthy and John Ryan, will sit on the board of Bank of Georgetown.

Before his stint at Sequoia, Fitzgerald spent 15 years at Riggs Bank.

Winsor was director of Riggs Investment Management Corp. for three years before helping found Columbia Partners.

Fitzgerald and Winsor raised $15 million from 160 private investors, blowing away the District's required $6 million. Their offering remains open until the end of the quarter.

The bank's business plan calls for 60 to 70 percent of its loans to be real estate related. The remaining loans will go to small and medium-size businesses and not-for-profits. Although the bank will be based in Georgetown, it will look for business all over D.C.

"These people have been commercial real estate lenders," says bank consultant Arnie Danielson (www.danielsonassociates.com). "... They are going to be an areawide lender."

Fitzgerald, 48, and Winsor, 41, are looking to create a hip, urban bank that attracts a young, diverse clientele. "We don't want to be your grandmother's bank," says Winsor, adding with a chuckle, "but we want your grandmother's business."

© 2005 American City Business Journals Inc.

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