Banking Industry San Diego

A federal grand jury on Friday charged four San Diego County residents with using a risky automobile-financing scheme to defraud Far Western Bank, a now-defunct Tustin institution, of $10 million during the late 1980s. The indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego, alleges that Rancho Santa Fe residents Richard L. Burns, Joyce C. Burns and David W. Watt used the scheme to take illegal insurance commissions from Far Western. The bank, once Orange County's largest, failed in 1990.

A local neighborhood with few banks has been identified as the first to get a nationally chartered bank under a new federal law designed to bring financial services to inner cities. A dozen or more communities nationwide, including Oakland, are expected to be sites of newly chartered inner-city banks this year, banking officials said. Nothing is yet in the works for Los Angeles.

Under pressure from federal regulators, Robert Adelizzi resigned Tuesday as chief executive of HomeFed Bank, further fueling fear among many analysts that the nation's fifth-largest thrift is heading for a government takeover. HomeFed, which has $18 billion in assets and 210 branches, said in a statement that Adelizzi tendered his resignation after the board received a "suggestion" from the Office of Thrift Supervision that he quit.

Four Accused of Defrauding Failed Bank: A federal grand jury charged four San Diego County residents with using a risky automobile-financing scheme to defraud the now-defunct Tustin institution of $10 million in the late 1980s. The indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego, alleges that Richard L. Burns, Joyce C. Burns and David W. Watt took illegal insurance commissions from Far Western. The bank failed in 1990. Rocco J.

Bank of San Diego Seized: The state Banking Department seized the nine-branch bank, which has $300 million in assets and offices in San Diego County, Long Beach and Santa Ana. Losses of $24 million over the last two years rendered the bank nearly insolvent, said regulators, who had anticipated the seizure and arranged beforehand to sell Long Beach and Santa Ana branch deposits to Harbor Bank of Long Beach. Deposits in the seven San Diego branches have been acquired by Grossmont Bank of La Mesa.

Hard hit by troubled real estate loans, HomeFed Bank has told federal regulators that if the economy fails to improve, its problem loans could increase by $250 million in the fourth quarter to a total of about $1 billion by year's end. That news from the nation's fifth-largest savings and loan was viewed as dramatic proof of California's weakening economy and its increasingly lackluster real estate market.

HomeFed Bank said Thursday that it expects to set aside about $200 million in loan-loss provisions for its first quarter, a charge that will likely result in a significant loss and render the ailing thrift deficient in one and possibly two of three minimum capital requirements imposed by federal regulators. The huge loan-loss provision casts further doubt on the troubled San Diego thrift's chances of survival and raises the specter of yet another failure of a once-formidable California thrift.

A federal grand jury on Friday charged four San Diego County residents with using a risky automobile-financing scheme to defraud Far Western Bank, a now-defunct Tustin institution, of $10 million during the late 1980s. The indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego, alleges that Rancho Santa Fe residents Richard L. Burns, Joyce C. Burns and David W. Watt used the scheme to take illegal insurance commissions from Far Western. The bank, once Orange County's largest, failed in 1990.

In what congressional overseers branded as evidence of loose controls in the savings and loan bailout, Price Waterhouse charged the government 67 cents a page to photocopy more than 11 million pages of documents at the failed Homefed Bank in San Diego, helping quadruple a $4-million contract to "$17 million and growing." The accounting firm obtained the contract from the Resolution Trust Corp.

Prospective buyers won't be allowed into HomeFed Bank's San Diego headquarters to look at the books for another two months, but bidders are already lining up to make a run at the San Diego-based thrift when regulators sell it later this year.

THE TWO MEN DIFFER SLIGHTLY IN THEIR RECOLLECTIONS OF the fateful 1955 chance meeting in the old Rexall Drugstore in downtown San Diego. Kim Fletcher, board chairman of HomeFed Bank, San Diego's largest savings and loan--where things have not been going well of late--remembers being with his wife, Marilyn.

Federal regulators Friday seized Great American Bank, the nation's 11th-largest savings and loan, as the thrift's capital base dwindled and losses from bad real estate loans continued to mount. The takeover by the Office of Thrift Supervision marks a sad chapter in the 106-year history of Great American, an institution once regarded as a thrift-industry innovator and a powerful financial and political force in San Diego.

Under pressure from federal regulators, Robert Adelizzi resigned Tuesday as chief executive of HomeFed Bank, further fueling fear among many analysts that the nation's fifth-largest thrift is heading for a government takeover. HomeFed, which has $18 billion in assets and 210 branches, said in a statement that Adelizzi tendered his resignation after the board received a "suggestion" from the Office of Thrift Supervision that he quit.

Seldom has a savings and loan fallen so far and so swiftly as has HomeFed Corp. A year ago, its managers were among the most admired in the industry, its capital enviably healthy, its 214-office California branch system highly coveted. Speculation that the S&L was a legitimate takeover candidate boosted its stock to $47.50 per share in late 1989.

Lincoln Savings & Loan, the Irvine-based thrift that has become a symbol of the nation's savings and loan debacle, was put up for sale Friday by federal authorities. Once owned by Charles H. Keating Jr., Lincoln was one of 18 failed savings and loans put on the block by the federal Resolution Trust Corp., the agency formed last year to clean up the S&L mess. Also put up for sale was Imperial Federal Savings Assn. in San Diego, the largest failed thrift in the state.

HomeFed Bank said Thursday that it expects to set aside about $200 million in loan-loss provisions for its first quarter, a charge that will likely result in a significant loss and render the ailing thrift deficient in one and possibly two of three minimum capital requirements imposed by federal regulators. The huge loan-loss provision casts further doubt on the troubled San Diego thrift's chances of survival and raises the specter of yet another failure of a once-formidable California thrift.