NYC business bank names new private-banking team for its Great Neck office. New York-based Signature Bank has named a pair of ex-Citigroup retail-bank branch executives -- John Spagnuolo and John Paglia -- as group directors to lead a new private-banking team based in its Great Neck, N.Y., office. Spagnuolo spent the last nine of a seventeen-year career in financial-service with Citibank; most recently as head of private-client services at its Manhasset, N.Y., and its Plandome, N.Y., branches. Paglia, a seven-year veteran of Citi, held an analogous position at the bank's branch in Port Washington, N.Y. Growing network

Jeffrey Greenberg, who has worked with Spagnuolo since 2002, is joining the Spagnuolo-Paglia team as a senior client associate. "The appointment of this experienced private-client banking team again demonstrates the vast opportunities out there in the marketplace right now to attract and retain top banking professionals who can bring solid relationship banking expertise to our franchise," says Signature Bank's president and CEO Joseph DePaolo. "These new group directors have years of experience serving a diverse client base on Long Island, and their appointments will compliment our Great Neck office and presence throughout Long Island." The creation of the Spagnuolo-Paglia team follows hard on a spate of private-banking hires by Signature Bank -- 10 teams in all this calendar year to date. These hires are indicative of "the enormous opportunities that are present in our marketplace today," says DePaolo. "We continue to identify experienced banking teams to join our franchise as we look toward further expanding our growing private-client banking network." Signature Bank -- which provides banking services to privately owned businesses as well as their owners and senior managers -- has been up and running since mid 2001. Publicly traded since early 2004, it just raised $127 million in a secondary offering (after underwriting discounts and commissions) to increase its total capital to more than $700 million. The bank has 22 branches in the metropolitan New York area. -FWR

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