BANKING : S&L; on Comeback Trail Is in Market for More Investors

When it opened in Newport Beach in 1984, it was called Westmark Savings Bank. It became Sherman Oaks Savings Bank in late 1987, and its new owners had grandiose plans for increasing the thrift’s size tenfold to at least $300 million in assets.

The thrift did move to Sherman Oaks the following year, but lost money and never grew much at all.

Now, it is called Golden State Bank. It is healthy, and it is coming back to Orange County. And at a little more than $500,000, it could be a bargain for any investor looking to pick up a sizable stake in an S&L.;

Corporate offices have already moved to Irvine, and the S&L;’s owners are awaiting regulatory approval for a new branch in Corona del Mar, which the thrift is buying from giant California Federal Bank in Los Angeles. That branch eventually will become its main office, though it will keep its Sherman Oaks branch open.

“We’re looking for additional investors,” said Steven E. Tartaglini, the S&L;’s president, chief executive and acting chairman. “We do want to be a community-based institution and want to build a strong base in south Orange County.”

Golden State Bank, with $65 million in assets, exceeds federal requirements for capital levels and earned $70,000 in the first seven months this year, Tartaglini said. In August, it sold its only foreclosed property for a $260,000 gain.

Still, it is seeking investors. That is because the thrift’s parent company, Sherman Oaks Financial Corp., has troubles, having been caught up in the financial woes of its primary shareholder, Stanley I. Glickman. Glickman was vice president in his father-in-law’s Property Mortgage Co., a Sherman Oaks mortgage broker accused by a bankruptcy trustee in a federal lawsuit of running a Ponzi scheme that lost more than $150 million in investor funds.

Glickman resigned his S&L; and holding company positions, but not before arranging for a $500,000 loan from a friend to be used as part of a $1.8-million capital infusion for the S&L.;

Glickman, who had personally guaranteed the loan, defaulted on it after Property Mortgage Co. fell apart last year. The lender donated the rights to the loan to the United Cerebral Palsy organization to get the charitable tax benefits, and the organization put a lien on all the assets of the parent company.