Santa Rosa’s Poppy Bank extends reach throughout California

Poppy Bank has taken its expansion on the road — deep into other regions in California and onto Highway 101 in Santa Rosa.

The Sonoma County-based bank, with $6 billion in assets, has gained regulatory approval on opening 13 additional branches, CEO Khalid Acheckzai confirmed Friday .

Of the 13 new locations, six branches have already opened within the last year. They include Sacramento, Folsom, Elk Grove, Laguna Hills, Del Mar and San Jose. The seven other branches due to open within the next six months are located in Calabasas, Carlsbad, Santa Monica, Scripps Ranch (San Diego), Pasadena, Brea and Walnut Creek.

Poppy Bank operates nine branches in the North Bay.

“A lot of banks are closing branches because, frankly, they can’t afford to keep them open. We’re opening 13,” he said. “We want to be across the state.”

He declined to say how much the privately held bank invested in the expansion.

Despite the growth, Acheckzai pledged the financial institution would still “operate like a community bank” because he believes the “personal touch” is important for maintaining good customer relations.

With that, Acheckzai said the branch expansion has involved increasing its workforce by 60 staffers to support the efforts.

“That’s what community banking is all about,” he said.

That said, there are “no plans across state lines,” he added.

Locally, Poppy Bank has eyed buying into another Santa Rosa-based community bank — Summit State Bank. Last July, Big Poppy Holdings filed a legal notice to take over a significant stake (24.99%) in Summit State Bank, which is publicly traded, with assets of $1.1 billion, according to fourth quarter results from 2023. When one bank owns over 5%, the Federal Reserve must be notified.

Acheckzai said Poppy Bank has nothing more to report on the matter at this time.

The bank has also beefed up its exposure on a billboard facing northbound lanes of Highway 101 south of Friedman’s Home Improvement. The bank’s billboard was long held by Exchange Bank whose President and CEO Troy Sanderson said was getting costly to keep.

“We had leased the billboard for over 30 years from a company that is now based out of state. Over the past three years, they doubled the rent, and then doubled it again, bringing it to a level that makes no economic or business sense to us from a marketing perspective,” Sanderson said.

Susan Wood covers law, cannabis, production, tech, agriculture as well as banking and finance. She can be reached at 530-545-8662 or susan.wood@busjrnl.com