PrivateBancorp logs loan losses on CEO's watch

Larry Richman can't blame PrivateBancorp Inc.'s bad loans only on his predecessor anymore.

A big increase in delinquent loans and writeoffs of bad loans reported by the fast-growing Chicago-based bank surprised Wall Street on Monday and led to a steep sell-off in the stock, which was down more than 30% in afternoon trading.

For the first time in the two years since Mr. Richman, the former LaSalle Bank CEO, took over the much-smaller PrivateBancorp and attracted more than 100 lenders from what was Chicago's leading business bank, some of the loans now going bad were generated by the current lending team.