Illinois bank buys de novo

Northwestern Financial Review, Nov 1-Nov 14, 2003

Wintrust Financial Corp., Lake Forest, Ill., has completed an acquisition of Advantage National Bancorp, Inc. Advantage is the parent company of Advantage National Bank, which has locations in Elk Grove Village and Roselle, Ill.

Advantage National Bank is a de novo bank that began operations in January of 2001 and has total assets of $107.5 million. Advantage National Bank is being operated as a separately chartered bank subsidiary of Wintrust. The merger allows the $4.1 billion Wintrust to expand into the northwest Chicago metropolitan area.

"This transaction is a win-win situation for both companies and more importantly for our customers," said Gary E. Umlauf, Advantage National's president. "For both firms, the clients' interests always come first and both organizations share a common market philosophy of community banking. As we have worked together since announcing the transaction, we have become even more convinced about the excellent fit of this merger for our two companies."

In addition to the Advantage merger, Wintrust has seven suburban Chicago community bank subsidiaries, each of which was founded as a de novo bank since December 1991.