Bank Failures

Three years ago, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. collected $54 million from Deutsche Bank in a settlement over unsound loans that contributed to a spectacular California bank failure. The deal might have made big headlines, given that the bad loans contributed to the largest payout in FDIC history, $13 billion. But the government cut a deal with the bank's lawyers to keep it quiet: a "no press release" clause that required the FDIC never to mention the deal "except in response to a specific inquiry.

A federal foreclosure-prevention effort that earmarked nearly $2 billion to help troubled California homeowners has delivered only about one-sixth of those funds during its three years in existence. The pace of assistance is finally accelerating, according to officials overseeing the state's delivery vehicle for the funds, known as Keep Your Home California. They said the pipeline is swelling because Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank and Chase Bank -- the biggest providers of mortgage customer service -- all have now agreed to use the funds for principal reduction.

A federal foreclosure-prevention effort that earmarked nearly $2 billion to help troubled California homeowners has delivered only about one-sixth of those funds during its three years in existence. The pace of assistance is finally accelerating, according to officials overseeing the state's delivery vehicle for the funds, known as Keep Your Home California. They said the pipeline is swelling because Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank and Chase Bank -- the biggest providers of mortgage customer service -- all have now agreed to use the funds for principal reduction.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has begun posting online more than 200 previously undisclosed settlements related to bank failures that accompanied the financial crisis. The revelations come in response to a Los Angeles Times story last week that examined the FDIC's policy of quietly settling civil claims involving failed banks, sometimes with "no press release" clauses to help bankers avoid embarrassment. The first three settlements, involving Florida banks that failed in 2008 and 2009, were put online Friday at FDIC.gov.

Ninety-two U.S. banks and thrifts failed in 2011, down from 157 in 2010 and 140 in 2009. In a report this week, SNL Financial generated a series of charts that showed the number of failures were far greater during the savings-and-loan meltdown that began in the 1980s and extended into the early '90s. The assets of failed banks peaked in 2008, however. No surprise there: Among the institutions seized by regulators was Seattle's Washington Mutual Bank, the largest savings and loan in the nation with $307 billion in assets and the biggest bank ever to fail . WaMu is now part of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Another big failure that year was Southern California's IndyMac Bank, another savings and loan, which had $32 billion in assets.

More than 150 banks will fail in 1986 and more than 1,400 institutions are on the troubled list, the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said today. "So far this year, we have had 117 failures and assistance transactions," L. William Seidman, FDIC chairman, told bankers attending the American Bankers Assn. annual meeting. "We will probably handle another 35 cases before the year is over." Seidman said the agency "does not expect a dramatic decline in the number of failures next year.

Bank failures in the oil-patch states of Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana pushed closings nationwide to a post-Depression record in 1987 and a top federal regulator said Tuesday he expects only a small improvement this year at best. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported 184 banks closings among the 14,000 commercial banks it insured last year. More than half the failures -- 95 -- came in three states plagued by the moribund oil market.

A record number of banks--up to 160--will either fail or need government assistance by the end of the 1986, the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Thursday. William Seidman said that between 140 and 160 banks will either fail or fall into the help-required category this year, up from last year's record of 120. The FDIC is the agency that insures deposits of up to $100,000 for about 15,000 commercial and savings banks nationwide.

The latest banks to fail were in California, Texas and Missouri, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said. The pace of bank failures is far ahead of last year's, and the FDIC has said it expects that a record number of federally insured banks will fail this year and that the number could exceed 140. Deposits in all three recently failed banks were assumed by other institutions, the FDIC said. Frontier National Bank of Vista, Calif.

A record number of banks are expected to fail or require federal financial assistance by the end of the year, the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said today. L. William Seidman told a meeting of the United States League of Savings Institutions that between 140 and 160 banks will fall into the failed or help-needed category in 1986, up from last year's record 120 that failed or needed assistance.

Three years ago, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. collected $54 million from Deutsche Bank in a settlement over unsound loans that contributed to a spectacular California bank failure. The deal might have made big headlines, given that the bad loans contributed to the largest payout in FDIC history, $13 billion. But the government cut a deal with the bank's lawyers to keep it quiet: a "no press release" clause that required the FDIC never to mention the deal "except in response to a specific inquiry.

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan tribunal handed down the first jail sentences Tuesday in the colossal Kabul Bank corruption case, sentencing the two former top executives to five-year sentences and ordering them to repay hundreds of millions of dollars in embezzled funds. The convictions of former bank Chairman Sherkhan Farnood and former Chief Executive Officer Khalilullah Ferozi were the first to stem from the conspiracy by politically connected Afghans to loot the country's biggest bank, whose collapse in 2010 nearly brought down the war-beaten economy.

SAROBI, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan, notorious for institutionalized corruption, has reached breathtaking new levels of officially sanctioned theft as fresh details emerge of a massive conspiracy to loot the privately owned Kabul Bank. An independent review released Wednesday said hundreds of millions of dollars was embezzled in a sophisticated scheme that allegedly involved close associates of President Hamid Karzai, including his brother. The review described brazen fraud driven by cronyism and nepotism, perpetrated by politically connected Afghans who stole the bank's deposits and forced its collapse.

The demise of Washington Mutual Bank in September 2008 resounded across the U.S. and internationally, but it was overshadowed by the catastrophic failure of Lehman Bros. At any other time WaMu's collapse would have been big news. But as Sheila Bair, former head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., recalls: "It was below the fold, if it was even on the front page.... It was the largest bank failure in history, but it was really a blip given everything else that was going on. " In a new book from Simon & Schuster, "The Lost Bank: The Story of Washington Mutual — The Biggest Bank Failure in American History," author Kirsten Grind, a Wall Street Journal reporter, deftly restores the "lost bank" to its rightful place in the annals of financial disasters.

Palm Desert National Bank was seized by regulators Friday and sold to Pacific Premier Bank of Costa Mesa, which promised to be open for business as usual Monday.  The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said depositors of the one-branch bank would be unaffected because Pacific Premier agreed to take all $123 million in Palm Desert deposits. Pacific Premier President Stephen Gardner said customers of the Palm Desert bank "will continue to conduct business as normal with the employees with whom they have built a solid long-term relationship.

California-based banks expanded lending much faster over the last year than the national average for the industry, reflecting an economic recovery taking hold in the Golden State, according to a study conducted for the California Bankers Assn . The study, produced by Los Angeles research firm Beacon Economics, said loan volumes overall are up more than 8% at banks headquartered in California since bottoming out in 2010. In the remainder of the United States, lending bottomed out a year later and is now up by just 1%. Commercial and industrial loans, which are non-real-estate loans to businesses for expansion, equipment purchases and the like, led the way. The Beacon analysis said that since hitting bottom early last year, such lending by California-based commercial banks has risen 15%. Commercial and industrial loans at California banks totaled nearly $51 billion at the end of last year, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Despite earlier predictions of a decline in the number of bank failures this year, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. officials now believe 1985 will be a record year for bank collapses, The Times has learned. A growing number of farm-loan losses in the Midwest is largely responsible for the revised estimate for 1985, but Southern California's independent banking industry is likely to account for a sizable share of the failures, industry and regulatory sources say.

The severe slump in commercial real estate is making the outlook increasingly grim for the banking industry, with several big institutions likely to fail next year, driving the federal insurance fund for deposits into a deep deficit, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman L. William Seidman warned Congress on Thursday.

Ninety-two U.S. banks and thrifts failed in 2011, down from 157 in 2010 and 140 in 2009. In a report this week, SNL Financial generated a series of charts that showed the number of failures were far greater during the savings-and-loan meltdown that began in the 1980s and extended into the early '90s. The assets of failed banks peaked in 2008, however. No surprise there: Among the institutions seized by regulators was Seattle's Washington Mutual Bank, the largest savings and loan in the nation with $307 billion in assets and the biggest bank ever to fail . WaMu is now part of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Another big failure that year was Southern California's IndyMac Bank, another savings and loan, which had $32 billion in assets.

A Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. lawsuit against former IndyMac Bancorp Chief Executive Michael W. Perry is the agency's second-largest attempt to recover money from bank officials whose approval of risky home loans during the housing boom allegedly caused the institutions to fail. The negligence suit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Los Angeles, seeks $600 million, a fraction of the $13 billion the deposit-insurance fund lost because of IndyMac Bank's collapse in July 2008.