ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 1, 1994                   TAG: 9404020020
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VALLEY BANK TO OPEN AT END OF THIS YEAR WITH $7.5 MILLION

Valley Bank, which is being organized by a group of Roanoke Valley investors, will have capital of $7.5 million when it opens at the end of the year, according to the application filed Thursday with regulators.

The capital, or total initial worth of the institution, is half again as much as the $5 million minimum required by federal law to charter a new bank. The bank's organizers applied to the Controller of the Currency for a national charter to operate a bank with that amount of capital.

Also, a legal notice published by the organizers in Thursday's Roanoke Times & World-News said the bank asked for authorization to issue 10 million shares of stock.

A. Wayne Lewis, senior vice president and chief operating officer, said the bank will sell 750,000 of those shares to a holding company, Valley Financial, at $10 a share. That will provide the capital of $7.5 million for the bank.

The holding company's shares will be offered to the public in late May or early June, with the per-share trading price to be set by the public-trading marketplace. The opening price to the public has not yet been decided, said Guy W. Byrd Jr., Valley Bank's president and chief administrative officer.

Lewis said the organizers have not yet reached a final agreement on selection of underwriters for the stock issue, although there is a preliminary agreement. He declined to identify the company until arrangements are final.

The organizers also applied Thursday to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for deposit insurance. Byrd said the organizers will apply in about two weeks to the Virginia Corporation Commission for authority to form a corporation and sell stock.

If the effort to sell stock is successful, Valley Bank will open downtown at Church Avenue and First Street Southwest in the former First Federal Building. The bank plans a branch in the Tanglewood Mall area, but Byrd said that location has not yet been chosen. 


 by CNB