Arthur A. Coren

Partner

  • Arthur A. Coren
  • Phone: +1 213 689 7460

    Import to Address Book

  • Duane Morris LLP
    865 South Figueroa Street, Suite 3100
    Los Angeles, CA 90017-5450
    USA
  • Duane Morris LLP
    Spear Tower
    One Market Plaza, Suite 2200
    San Francisco, CA 94105-1127
    USA

Arthur A. Coren is a seasoned business attorney who advises clients on a broad array of business and banking matters. He has represented large banking institutions as well as community banks and their holding companies for more than three decades. Mr. Coren’s experience advising financial institutions includes mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, SEC filings and regulatory reporting, corporate governance, regulatory enforcement, loan documentation and restructuring, and consumer compliance and operations. His other business clients include startup and established businesses, real estate developers and commercial property owners, licensed professionals, restaurants and entertainment industry clients. For these non-banking institution clients, Mr. Coren’s legal services include: real estate matters, including property acquisitions and leasing; general corporate and limited liability company work; asset acquisitions; entertainment law matters; company formations; and stock sales.

Mr. Coren is a 1979 graduate of the Temple University Beasley School of Law and a 1976 summa cum laude graduate of Temple University.

Areas of Practice

  • Corporate Law
  • Banking
  • Financial Services
  • Corporate Governance

Representative Matters

  • Represented Performance Trust Capital Partners, LLC as placement agent for CMUV Bancorp (OTCQB: CMUV) in its private placement of $7.5 million fixed-to-floating rate subordinated notes to institutional and accredited investors.

  • Represented Southern California Bancorp, the holding company for Bank of Southern California, N.A. (BCAL), in completing its acquisition of Bank of Santa Clarita, which merged with and into BCAL; the banks’ combined assets total approximately $2.2 billion.

  • Represented Southern California Bancorp, the holding company for Bank of Southern California, N.A., in connection with its sale of three bank branches located in Orange, Redlands and Santa Fe Springs, California, to Friendly Hills Bank (OTCMKTS: FHLB) of Los Angeles.

  • Represented Valley Republic Bancorp in negotiating its merger, an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $165.5 million, with TriCo Bancshares that will combine two service-focused banks and will make Tri Counties Bank the largest community bank by deposits in Bakersfield and Kern County, California.

  • Represented the Bank of Southern California, a $1.5 Billion commercial bank headquartered in San Diego, in a corporate reorganization forming a bank holding company and then acquiring another bank headquartered in Irvine, California, through a series of related transactions. 

  • Represented the Bank of Southern California in raising additional equity capital to permit its newly formed bank holding company to complete the acquisition of another bank in a merger by selling common stock in a private placement under Regulation D and raising $12.5 million.

  • Represented American Riviera Bank, a California state-chartered bank headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, in negotiating and documenting a private placement of common stock in the aggregate value of $8 million.  

  • Represented Southern California Bancorp in its $42 million capital raise through the issuance of common stock in a private placement to institutional and accredited individual investors at a price of $12 per share.

  • Represented BankUnited, N.A. in preparing Main Street Loan Program form loan documents and successfully closed six MSLP loans in two weeks in order to meet the deadline imposed by the Federal Reserve.

  • Represented American Riviera Bank (OTC Markets: ARBV), a full-service community bank, in its $8.5 million capital-raise of common stock, the net proceeds of which will support growth and expansion in California’s Central Coast.
  • Represented Stonemor Partners (NYSE: STON), a leading owner/operator of cemeteries and funeral homes in multiple states and Puerto Rico, in its $447.5 million recapitalization transaction, consisting of a $385 million private placement of 9.875% Senior Secured PIK Toggle Notes to various noteholders and concurrent private placement of $62.5 million of liquidation value of Series A Convertible Preferred Units of the Partnership to Axar Capital Management.

  • Represented Valley Republic Bancorp, a bank holding company, in its $20 million fixed-to-floating rate subordinated debt offering to institutional and private accredited investors.

  • Represented Bank of Southern California in its $33 million acquisition of CalWest Bancorp and its wholly-owned bank subsidiary, CalWest Bank.
  • Represented Gateway Bank, F.S.B., headquartered in Oakland, California focused on servicing the Asian ethnic community, in its private placement offering of common stock, resulting in raising $10.5 million in capital (a significant part of the Bank’s achieving compliance with the regulatory order to which the Bank is a party and returning the Bank to positive financial performance).
  • Represented Bank of Southern California in an acquisition including negotiating and documenting the merger agreement, conducting a fairness hearing before the California Dept. of Business Oversight for a stock permit, preparing the joint proxy materials and preparing the regulatory applications.
  • Represented GLR Services, Inc., an affiliate of PRISA Radio, SA, PRISA Radio, the world’s largest Spanish-language radio group, in the $7.5 million sale of GLR Southern California LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary, to H&H Group USA, completing PRISA’s divestiture of Mexican radio station XEWW-AM, which broadcasts programming across the border into the U.S.

Admissions

  • California
  • Pennsylvania
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

Education

  • Temple University School of Law, J.D., 1979
  • Temple University, B.A., summa cum laude, 1976
    - Phi Beta Kappa

Experience

  • Duane Morris LLP
    - Partner, 2017-present
  • Horgan, Rosen, Beckham & Coren LLP
    - Partner, 1989-2017
  • Argue, Pearson, Harbison & Myers
    - Partner, 1986-1989
  • Cohen & Ziskin/Ziskin, Horgan & Rosen
    - Partner, 1980-1986
  • Pennsylvania Supreme Court
    - Law Clerk to Justice Robert N.C. Nix, Jr., 1979-1980

Professional Activities

  • California Bankers Association (CBA)
  • Western Independent Bankers Association (WIB)
  • California Community Banking Network (CCBN)
  • Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA)
  • American Bar Association

Honors and Awards

Selected Publications

Selected Speaking Engagements

  • Speaker, "GLBA, Data Privacy and Cybersecurity," Duane Morris Fintech General Counsel Roundtable, Webinar, December 2, 2022

  • Presenter, "Cannabis 106: Banking and Financing in the Cannabis Industry," (video replay) Duane Morris Cannabis Webinar Series, June 19, 2018