University Savings and Loan Association opens Monday at 5250 S. Lake Park Ave. as the first new savings institution chartered in Illinois in almost nine years.
After an effort lasting almost 2 1/2 years, a group of local investors including D. Gale Johnson, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, signed the final papers last week to purchase the Hyde Park facility from Home Savings of America, a California S&L holding company.
The purchase price was not disclosed. Home Savings owns several other S& Ls in the Chicago area through a subsidiary, Savings of America.
George W. Miles Jr., executive vice president and chief operating officer of University Savings, said the new institution has obtained deposit coverage from the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp. and has assets of more than $50 million and deposits of about $49 million.
The thrift also has a capital ratio of 8 percent and ”we are profitable from Day One,” said Miles, a former executive vice president of Talman Home Federal Savings and Loan Association.
Robert S. Engelman Jr., former executive vice president of American National Bank and Trust Co., is president and chief executive officer. Johnson is chairman of the association.
The association`s assets consist almost entirely of variable-rate Federal National Mortgage Association certificates at this point, Miles said. But he said the firm plans to launch an effort to write mortgage loans in the Hyde Park-Kenwood community.
”We have a commitment to serve the community,” he said. ”That was the main idea behind our long effort to return the association to local ownership.”
Miles said the association`s management has a two-phase program initially. ”The first phase is to assure a continuity of operations and stabilizing our service levels,” he said. ”In April or May, we plan a renovation of the facility, with the addition of automated teller machines and a credit card network.”
