Proud to Be Solid, Secure and Independent

We didn’t want you to miss this statement, previously seen as a letter to the editor in the Evanston Review and the Evanston Roundtable and cited in Robert Reed’s blog in Huffington Post, so, in its entirety, this is the statement of our Managing Directors regarding the Bank’s financial strength and our intention to remain independent of government involvement.

BAILOUTS—NOT ACCEPTED HERE!

Last week, our senior management group met to consider whether or nor First Bank & Trust should avail itself of the Treasury’s Capital Purchase Program under which the US Government proposes to inject capital into banks across the country. To a person, our senior management group unequivocally rejected the idea of taking any US Government funds. One may ask why? Plain and simple—we don’t need the capital.

From its founding in 1995, First Bank & Trust has always maintained a very strong capital base and has always been among the most highly rated banks in the country by independent bank rating agencies. We have no subprime loans; our asset quality is very high; our balance sheet and liquidity are very strong; and we are aggressively pursuing new loan business.

There is, however, another reason we would not accept an injection from the US Government. Frankly, we would prefer not to have the government as a partner in our business. Our bank was started by a group of community leaders with the idea of building a strong independent bank to serve the communities in which we operate and to do so in an exemplary fashion. Taking government funds is inconsistent with our original mission. Years from now, as citizens of the communities in which we operate look back on the present financial crisis, we hope they take pride in reflecting that First Bank & Trust never took a dollar of government assistance. And so we say: Bailouts—Not Accepted Here!

Sincerely yours,

Robert R. Yohanan
Howard I. Kain
James C. Lytle
Founders and Managing Directors of First Bank & Trust