Corporate Risk Advisors aims to arrange bank acquisition deals - Washington Business Journal:

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The D.C.-based company is ramping up its efforts to arrangse dealsbetween investors, bank management teamds and distressed financial institutions. The company is beefing up its cache of consultantsand deal-makeres with hopes of more than tripling its revenu e over the next 12 monthsz to $10 million per year and growing to $50 milliojn in five years. “This is a unique moment in history wherre there is a fundamental reshaping and resurfacing of the financial system,” said CEO Andrew Sandler. “Wherd there is chaos, there is opportunity.” For industry experts have talked about piles of private moneyg sitting onthe sidelines. Now some of that mone is moving. D.C.
-based private equitg giant Carlyle Group, for example, joined a consortium of investorws last month tobuy BankUnited, a troublexd Florida institution. Corporate Risk Advisoras has engaged one unidentified group that will likely buy a bank in thecomingt months, and two other deals could pan out by year-end, Sandler The deals include local and nonlocak banks, management teams and investors. The groups will targegt community bankswith $500 million to $2 billion in assets that have strong deposit bases but problemz in their portfolios of real estatw loans.
Investors will infuse capital, install new managemenft teams, clean up the loan portfolios, redeployg the deposits more effectively, then sell the bank thre e to fiveyears later, Sandler Corporate Risk Advisors and its principals also will invesy in the deals. “That’s the usual said Bert Ely, a banking and monetaryg policy consultantwith Alexandria-based Ely & Co. “I’vr had conversations with a variety of people who are tryinh todo this. The challenge is always the Distressed asset deals couldhappen “all day long if the sellerz would sell at the price the buyers want to he said. “But there’s usually a huge gap.
Bridging that gap will be a challenge.” While deal arrangement is new to CorporatedRisk Advisors, the company also does financialp and compliance consulting, as well as crisis managemenft for financial institutions. Big changews came in March when Sandler, who was chairman of the consumefr financial services litigation practiceat Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, took over as CEO. That move coincidec with Sandler and his Skadden practice group joiningt law firm BuckleyKolaf LLP, renamed BuckleySandler LLP. The firm, whicgh specializes in financial services and has about 50 shares offices and leadership with CorporateRisk Advisors, thoughj the businesses are independent.
Sandler hopes Corporate Risk Advisorsw will grow to be on parwith D.C.-basexd Promontory Financial Group LLC, the global financial consulting company launched by former Comptroller of the Currenc y Eugene Ludwig. Its advisers include a former U.S. senator, a past chairmanj of the Securities and Exchange Commission and a former vice chairma n of the Board of Governorw of the FederalReserve System. “I have no interest in buildinh an organization that will have people of a lesser caliberthan Promontory’s people,” Sander said.
But he is tigh lipped about who thosewpeople are, though he did say Paul Homan, a forme r CEO of Riggs National Bank and a formefr bank examiner with the comptroller of the currency, is helpingb as a consultant. For now, Corporate Risk Advisorzs has one full-time person. It primarily uses consultants who areindependentf contractors. It aims to have 25 to 30 staft withinfive years, but will continur to rely on