Bank Of Boston Corp

Bank of Boston Corp. will buy back up to $50 million worth of its stock to make up for shares being issued for employee stock plans and the purchase of an Orange County finance company. The bank said earlier this month that it plans to purchase Ganis Credit Corp. in Newport Beach for up to $36 million in stock. Ganis, which employs 120 people, makes collateralized loans for recreational vehicles and boats.

A Boston bank has sold the second of two office buildings on which it foreclosed in 1991, a deal that one real estate broker said set a new low for local office prices. The three-story building not far from John Wayne Airport sold for $3.6 million, or $51 a square foot. Had the building been fully leased instead of less than half full, it would have sold for about $81 a square foot.

When a bank takes over a building it doesn't want, it typically treats the property like a stepchild. The building isn't a long-term investment on which the new owner wishes to lavish a lot of tender, loving care. Rather, it is a nuisance--something to unload as soon as possible. Such was the fate of 4100 Newport Place, a nine-story office tower in Newport Beach on which the Bank of Boston foreclosed in 1990 after the building's developer, McLachlan Investment Co.

Bank of Boston Corp. and Shawmut National Corp. are close to a merger that would create the largest bank in New England, a source close to the negotiations said Friday. Talks between the banks have been going on for some time, but spokesmen for both declined to comment. "A merger is imminent," the sources said. "It could be two weeks away." Earlier this year, Fleet Norstar Financial Group of Providence, R.I.

Federal regulators Monday said that they will sell the failed Bank of New England to an unusual partnership of a Rhode Island bank and a major takeover firm in what will become the second-costliest bank bailout in U.S. history. The partnership was selected over bids from San Francisco-based BankAmerica Corp., which had been viewed as the front-runner, and Bank of Boston. Fleet/Norstar Financial Group Inc., based in Providence, R.I., and the Wall Street firm of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.