US regulators close three more banks in trouble

New York: Regulators closed banks in Florida, Georgia and New Mexico, awarding a third financial institution to Bond Street Holdings, an investment firm that first bought banks in January.

Bond Street's Premier American Bank purchased Englewood, Florida-based Peninsula Bank, according to a statement on the Federal Deposit Insurance's website. Friday's three failures cost the agency's deposit-insurance fund $284.6 million (Dh1.04 billion).

"The FDIC's [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] preference is for an orderly resolution of institutions that are in trouble," said Walter J. Mix III, a managing director at Emeryville, California-based LECG LLC, a financial services advisory company, and a former commissioner of the California Department of Financial Institutions. "With the emerging commercial real estate problems and the continuing home loan problems there will be many more banks that fail."

Failures

The FDIC has now closed 86 banks this year and is on pace to exceed last year's total of 140, which was the most bank closings since 1992 as lenders across the country buckle under the weight of soured real-estate loans. The failures will drain $60 billion (Dh220 billion) over the next three-and-a-half years from the FDIC's fund, the agency said June 22. The fund dipped into deficit in the third quarter.

The Peninsula acquisition is the third this year for Bond Street, a Naples, Florida-based investment firm that was the first to use a regulatory shelf charter, which gave it advance approval to purchase failed lenders. Bond Street bought two banks in January. Premier American picked up $580.1 million in deposits, and added 13 branches to its existing network of 15 offices. The FDIC shared losses on $437.6 million of the failed bank's assets.

Regulators also closed First National Bank of Savannah, Georgia, and sold its deposits and some of the assets to Savannah Bank, the FDIC said. The lender paid the agency a 0.11 per cent premium to acquire $231.9 million in deposits.

High Desert State Bank of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was also closed by regulators and sold to Artesia, New Mexico-based First American Bank.

There were 775 banks with $431 billion in assets on the FDIC's confidential list of problem lenders at the end of the first quarter, an increase from 702 banks with $402.8 billion at the end of last year, the agency said in its quarterly report.

• 13 more branches added by Premier American
• $60b to be drained off FDIC's fund in three years