[8][14][15] In 2003, the company acquired Southern Pacific Bank based in Torrance, California, with three branches and $834 million in deposits, after it was shut down by regulators.

[18] Between 2004 and 2007, the company slowed its asset acquisition and began to let its loans run off, as the founder was correctly worried about an impending crisis.

[26] In 2016, the bank acquired Sundevil Holdings LLC, the owner of two gas-fired power plants in Arizona, for a credit bid of $150 million after the company filed bankruptcy.

Regulators determined in June 2019 that clean-energy providers had been “receiving unfair subsidies that allowed them to submit low bids to power purchasers”.

According to the New York Times, Beal’s complaint against this discrimination aimed to “create a fair market and ensure system reliability, not to impede California’s transition to a carbon-free electric grid”.