Naming rights are sign of U.S. Bank's major push in L.A.

In just four years, U.S. Bank has vaulted to the highest pinnacle in Los Angeles.

The bank signed a 12-year lease in April that will put its red and blue logo on top of Library Tower, the 73-story downtown skyscraper that is the tallest building west of the Mississippi.

Its name is showing elsewhere in the city as well, including on the center field wall at Dodger Stadium, where it has made an aggressive push to become a sponsor.

Three weeks ago, the U.S. Bancorp subsidiary moved downtown with the intention of becoming a major corporate player.

"We've done a few things strategically to get our name out to the market," said the understated David Rather, 46, an L.A. native who is president of U.S. Bank California.

Though its parent is located more than 1,500 miles away in Minneapolis, Los Angeles already is a home of sorts for the bank, which has 200 employees here.

Jerry Grundhofer, U.S. Bancorp's chairman and chief executive, grew up in Glendale and attended Loyola Marymount University. He headed Security Pacific National Bank in the late 1980s and early 1990s, while a handful of the bank's top executives hailed from Wells Fargo & Co.'s Los Angeles office.

"Even though our company is based far away, the business opportunities in Los Angeles are well understood," Rainer said.

Sitting in a sparse 30th-floor office that was last occupied by the defunct accounting firm Arthur Anderson (U.S. Bank even bought Anderson's furniture), Rainer pointed out the window, past the panoramic view of downtown, to the vast expanse of businesses stretching southwest to the ocean.

"We wanted to be in the epicenter," he said, "because Los Angeles is the middle-market capital of the world."

That may be so, but U.S. Bank isn't the only one to notice.

With the world's 12th-largest economy, Los Angeles has become an expansion target for many large banks. The exit of major players in the 1990s, including Security Pacific and First Interstate Corp., meant the area was no longer dominated by regionals, with the exception of Beverly Hills-based City National Corp.

That has made competition intense.

In 2001, Comerica Inc. doubled its size in California with the purchase of Imperial Bancorp. BankOne in Chicago is adding employees while Bank of America Corp. plans to open a wealth management office on Wilshire Boulevard to attract high net worth clients. And late last year, Citigroup Inc. completed its acquisition of Golden State Bancorp, parent of Cal Fed.

"Despite everything you read about the California economy and troubles in Sacramento, this is an area for high-fee business, from wealth management to lending," said Brooks Dexter, senior managing director at USBX Advisory Services.

Though the U.S. Bank name is relatively unknown, he characterized the new marketing efforts as "pretty tangible evidence that they're making a statement in L.A."

Since 1999, U.S. Bank has made seven acquisitions in California, six of them in Los Angeles. Its footprint began with Newport Beach-based Western Bancorp, parent of Santa Monica Bank and Southern California Bank.

But the bigger push came when U.S. Bancorp merged with Firstar Corp. and Grundhofer became chief executive. He made California, and Los Angeles in particular, target markets. The bank now has 220 branches statewide.

Kris Rone, executive vice president of business operations for the Dodgers, said U.S. Bank pursued a partnership last year that she now considers a model for the baseball franchise. "They have a home plate sign that gets viewed by millions," she said. "And they actually execute their strategy."

Jodie Verb, head of retail banking for Southern California, said 7,000 new checking account customers have joined U.S. Bank through its relationship with the Dodgers. Deposit and loan growth are in the double-digits, she said.

Rainer, who lives in Encino and got his MBA from the University of Southern California, said U.S. Bank tries to differentiate itself by operating like a small bank even though its parent company is the largest real estate lender in the U.S. and the eighth-largest financial institution. In both California and Los Angeles, U.S. Bank is the No. 1 lender for Small Business Administration loans.

Rainer credits Grundhofer for creating a sales-driven culture that crosses product lines. The bank succeeds, he said, by keeping managers informed of what others in the organization are doing.

In Los Angeles, the bank's 35 top executives meet once a month to discuss what business opportunities or new clients they are pursuing. Grundhofer also speaks with the bank's top 60 sales people on a conference call every two weeks to monitor new client growth.

Just last month, U.S. Bank stole a major account in the San Fernando Valley from a competitor because one of its private bankers had a personal relationship with the client and introduced the company to U.S. Bank's commercial team.

"It's different from any other bank I've ever worked for," said Rainer, the fomer head of Santa Monica Bank, who helped build a little-known institution called California United Bank to 20 branches before its sale to Bank of Hawaii in 1997. "It starts at the top and permeates down so it makes people very jazzed about working here."

For now, U.S. Bank has a small market share in Los Angeles, but it is quick to pounce on new opportunities. Its local headquarters had been located in the Water Garden in Santa Monica when it began negotiating with Maguire Properties Inc. for what will be named U.S. Bank Tower by years end.

"Our challenge was to quickly come in and create a name in the community," Rainer said. "And that's a tough thing to do when you start off at zero."