7 banks died yesterday: San Fran biggest; $11.2B

Banks in Ga., Mich., Minn., Mo., Calif. closed
Regulators shut banks in 5 states; marks 120 US bank failures this year
Leva M. Augstums and Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writers
10:11 pm EST, Friday November 6, 2009

CHARLOTTE, N.C (AP) -- Regulators on Friday shut banks in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and California, bringing the number of bank failures this year to 120 amid the struggling economy and a cascade of defaults on loans.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over United Commercial Bank in San Francisco, with $11.2 billion in assets and $7.5 billion in deposits. East West Bancorp Inc., parent company of East West Bank based in Pasadena, Calif., is buying all of the deposits and most of the failed bank's assets.

The FDIC also closed United Security Bank, based in Sparta, Ga., with $157 million in assets and $150 million in deposits; Home Federal Savings Bank in Detroit, with $14.9 million in assets and $12.8 million in deposits; Prosperan Bank, based in Oakdale, Minn., with $199.5 million in assets and $175.6 million in deposits; and Gateway Bank in St. Louis, with $27.7 million in assets and $27.9 million in deposits.

Ameris Bank, based in Moultrie, Ga., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of United Security, while Liberty Bank and Trust Co., based in New Orleans, is buying the assets and deposits of Home Federal Savings.

The 120 bank failures are the most in a year since 1992 at the height of the savings-and-loan crisis. They have cost the federal deposit insurance fund more than $27 billion so far this year, and hundreds more bank failures are expected to raise the cost to around $100 billion through 2013.

The number of banks on the FDIC's confidential "problem list" jumped to 416 at the end of June from 305 in the first quarter. That's the most since June 1994. About 13 percent of banks on the list generally end up failing, according to the FDIC.

The 120 failures this year compare with 25 last year and three in 2007.

To replenish the insurance fund, the FDIC wants the roughly 8,100 insured banks and savings institutions to pay in advance about $45 billion in premiums that would have been due over the next three years.

More:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Banks-in-Ga-Mich-Minn-Mo-apf-3...