Nov. 7--United Commercial Bank, a Bay Area bank with branches in the East Bay and South Bay has been seized by regulators, who turned over the bank's assets to East West Bank.

San Francisco-based United Commercial, which catered to Chinese customers and businesses with operations in Asia, had operated 63 branches in the United States, including 23 in the Bay Area.

Loan losses, misstated financial reports and the ouster of its chairman and chief executive officer helped to doom the bank, the latest in a string of bank failures unleashed by an economic meltdown that is the worst in decades.

The local branches included four in the East Bay, three on the Peninsula, four in the South Bay and 12 in San Francisco.

In 2008, UCBH Holdings Inc., the owner of United Commercial Bank, lost $68 million on $748 million in revenue. In the first quarter of fiscal 2009 ended March 31 -- the last time UCBH disclosed quarterly results -- the bank lost $86 million.

As of October 23, United Commercial Bank had total assets of $11.2 billion and total deposits of $7.5 billion. East West Bank assumed all of the deposits of the failed bank and agreed to buy $10.2 billion in assets of the failed bank.

United Commercial's East Bay branches included two in Fremont and two in Oakland.

The bank also had a branch in Stockton and one in Sacramento, along with branches in Orange County. The bank also had branches in New York, Atlanta, New England, the

Pacific Northwest and Houston, along with operations in China.

"Depositors of United Commercial Bank will automatically become depositors of East West Bank," the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said.

The FDIC will continue to insure U.S. deposits.

"Customers should continue to use their existing branch until they receive notice from East West Bank that it has completed systems changes to allow other East West Bank branches to process their accounts as well," the FDIC said.

A week ago, the FDIC seized and closed San Francisco-based Pacific National Bank and turned over its 17 Bay Area branches and deposits to U.S. Bank.

George Avalos can be phoned at 925-977-8477

-----

To see more of the Contra Costa Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.contracostatimes.com/.

Copyright (c) 2009, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

Dhaka:UCBL, NASDAQ-NMS:UCBH,

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.