North Bay Business Journal

As investigators continue to aggressively pursue allegations of business embezzlement in Sonoma County, regional fraud experts warn that many North Bay companies and nonprofits still lack the basic internal practices needed to catch and prevent those crimes.

The volume of small business lending backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration in the Bay Area reached an all-time high during the last fiscal year, and volume for such loans in three North Bay counties grew by more than one-third.

SANTA ROSA — Increasing competition, along with volatile U.S.-global economies and capital markets, are affecting the way wineries are being financed, according to banking and capital-management experts at the Moss-Adams LLP Wine Industry Financial Roundtable. The quarterly event attracted more than 65 CEOs, CFOs, winery owners and managers to the Vintner’s Inn on May 31.

SANTA ROSA – Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) has announced the hiring of Perry DeLuca as industry head and team leader for the Wine, Food & Beverage group in its Santa Rosa-based North Coast Commercial Lending Office.

n 10 years of selling private businesses, financial leverage has consistently been one of the key success factors in expanding the pool of buyers and closing deals. Fortunately for business owners, the SBA loan guaranty program is an excellent funding source for deals up to $5 million. And, lenders are lending now.

NORTH BAY — Santa Rosa-based First Community Bank loaned the greatest amount of dollars to small businesses in the North Bay through the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 7(a) program in the 2011 fiscal year, jumping 10 places ahead to No. 1 and joining a wave of lending both locally and across the country.

The cold 2011 season and wet harvest dampened North Coast crop yields by as much as one-third from norms by early estimates, and lenders are closely observing grower ability to make payments on crop and other loans with fewer tons to sell and higher vineyard-management costs.

Joining the staff are Dianna Berthinier, who joined as senior vice president and regional manager in August; Terrance Davis, who joined as senior vice president and business banking officer in September; and Brian Rose, who also joined in September as vice president and commercial loan officer.

SANTA ROSA — Comerica Bank has hired Jeff Clark, formerly with Wells Fargo, as vice president of commercial banking in an effort to expand the bank’s footprint in the North Bay.

Following are many of the leading professionals in commercial lending across the North Bay. (Listed alphabetically by institution name)

Veteran North Bay banker Jamie Williams has joined Sonoma Bank as commercial banking regional director. … Wells Fargo’s San Francisco-based economist Gary Schlossberg noted Sonoma County has about 200 food processors, an industry posting 3 percent growth. … Bingham, Osborn and Scarborough LLC, a wealth management firm with offices in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, has opened a new office in Healdsburg. … Umpqua Bank officially announced its first Santa Rosa location.

SANTA ROSA — Michael Sullivan, regional vice president in the north coast regional commercial banking office of Wells Fargo, is stepping out of his role and joining the Global Financial Institutions to U.S. Banks — also part of the Wells Fargo family. He will begin in his new position Feb. 1 and will be working out of the Bay Area.

Kimco Realty Corp., one of the nation’s largest shopping center owners, sold a 66,000-square-foot shopping center in Vallejo to a Southern California investor for $12.9 million in what is thought to be the first such sale in Northern California this year.

The foreclosure on one of the North Bay’s largest commercial properties earlier this month brought home a national debate over whether commercial mortgages will be the next wave of problems for the economy.