Existing users please login

Home / Markets / Industries / Finance

UPDATE: Regulators Close Banks In NY, Florida, Louisiana

 
By Meena Thiruvengadam
Dow Jones Newswires
     

    (Adds details on two additional failures.)

    WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- State regulators on Friday closed small banks in New York, Florida and Louisiana, bringing to 30 the tally of financial institutions that have failed in the U.S. so far this year.

    The failures bring the number of banks that have fallen since the beginning of 2008--just after the official start of the U.S. recession--to 195.

    The Park Avenue Bank in New York, N.Y., was the largest to fail Friday. It had total assets of $520.1 million and total deposits of $494.5 million as of the end of 2009, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said.

    The FDIC has arranged to sell all of the bank's deposits and almost all of its assets to Valley National Bank (VLY), based in Wayne, N.J. Valley National Bank has agreed to pay a premium of 0.15% to assume the deposits. The FDIC has agreed to share in losses on a $379.8 million pool of assets sold to Valley National Bank.

    Florida regulators closed Orlando-based Old Southern Bank, selling its deposits to Centennial Bank, based in Conway, Ark.

    Old Southern Bank had total assets of $315.6 million and total deposits of $319.7 million as of the end of December. Centennial Bank is paying a premium of 1% to assume Old Southern's deposits and will purchase most of the failed bank's assets as well. The FDIC has agreed to share in losses on $282.7 million of the purchased assets.

    Louisiana regulators closed Covington-based Statewide Bank, selling all of its deposits and most of its assets to Home Bank in Lafayette, La. Statewide Bank had total assets of $243.2 million and total deposits of $208.8 million as of December's end. Home Bank paid no premium to assume Statewide's deposits. The FDIC will share in losses on $163.5 million of the assets Home Bank purchased.

    The Park Avenue Bank, headquartered just blocks from Manhattan's ritzy Fifth Avenue shopping strip, is the second to fail in New York this year. LibertyPointe Bank, closed Thursday, was the first.

    The FDIC expects this week's failures to cost its deposit insurance fund a combined $208.2 million.

    The FDIC also arranged to sell all of LibertyPointe Bank's deposits and most of its assets to Valley National Bank, which received $300 million through the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program and has since repaid those funds.

    Valley National Bank agreed to pay a premium of 0.15% for LibertyPointe's deposits. The FDIC has agreed to share in losses on $181.5 million of the assets the bank is purchasing from LibertyPointe.

    Old Southern Bank is the fourth to fail in Florida this year, where the struggling real-estate sector continues to inflict pain on smaller banks.

    Statewide Bank is the first to fail in Louisiana since 2002.

    Copyright © 2009 Dow Jones Newswires

    Fox Business Video


    Last 5 Stocks

    Find More Stocks

    • Ticker
    • Company
    • Price
    • Change
    Powered by