BOG President Lou Leon Guerrero last Friday announced they have formed the BankGuam Holding Company, which is now the parent of Bank of Guam. As well, Bank of Guam is now a billion-dollar company.
Leon Guerrero, who was crowned earlier this year as the 2010 Executive of the Year, shared her father’s dream to help the people of Guam after years of being denied by other lending institutions.
“It started in a small butler home in Santa Cruz with $1 million in resources and a staff of four people. Thirty-nine years later today, our people can stand up proud and humbled by the fact that their Bank of Guam, the people’s bank, is now a billion-dollar company,” Leon Guerrero said.
More importantly, she said, the company on Aug. 17 officially registered as the BankGuam Holding Company, several months after receiving the nod from the Guam banking commissioner, federal regulators, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Federal Reserve board.
“This has been the vision of my father, Jesus, and my brother, Tony, in their leadership as president, CEO and chairman of the board,” she said.
Now that BOG is a holding company, Leon Guerrero said island residents can look forward to many more financial options and opportunities with the bank.
“We currently have within our structure our trust and wealth management services with the BankGuam Holding Company. We can pull those out and make it a subsidiary and then we can do more things [such as] financial investment banking, real estate and so on,” she said.
Leon Guerrero added that BGHC can also form a high-risk financial lending institution to assist those who would otherwise be denied loans from other institutions due to bad credit.
She also said the move will not disrupt current operations and will have the same board governance as BOG, which is also currently the only subsidiary of the BGHC.
“For the people of Guam, what this means historically, now and in the future, is greater financial stability and greater foundation,” said Leon Guerrero.
“We can provide more services so they can avail of themselves to make their lives of greater quality.”
