Proposed Lake Charles bank has B.R. ties

A startup Lake Charles bank plans to start installing its temporary branch later this week. Lakeside Bank, which features a number of officials with ties to Baton Rouge, has raised more than one-third of its initial $12 million capital campaign. “There are no new bank charters around,” says Hartie Spence, Lakeside’s CEO. “The last bank to open was the South Louisiana Business Bank in Prairieville, and that was 18 months ago. People like to invest in bank stocks.” Lakeside Bank will be a “plain-vanilla community bank,” catering to small- and medium-sized businesses and households. Spence was the president and chairman of Hancock Bank Louisiana from the late 1990s to the early part of this decade. Mike Anderson, the former CEO of Omni Bank of Baton Rouge, who is the chief lending officer, joins him. Board members include Willie Staats, a longtime LSU banking professor, and State Sen. Willie Mount, a former mayor of Lake Charles. Spence says he’s not concerned about installing a temporary location before all start up capital is raised. “We know we’re going to raise the money,” he says. “We want to get going as fast as we can.”—Timothy Boone