Friday Big Bank Failure Is Largest of 2009
Some bank-failure news we're mopping up from Friday: The FDIC seized Colonial Bank and sold its branches and most of it assets -- including deposits -- to BB&T. It was the biggest bank failure so far of 2009 and the sixth-largest ever.
Colonial is a regional bank based in Montgomery, Ala. It had $25 billion in assets and 346 branches.
It failed because it made too many bad mortgages in Florida, one of the big foreclosure states.
The FDIC is sharing Colonial's losses with BB&T on $15 billion of the $22 billion in assets that convey in the deal. It will take $2.8 billion out of the FDIC's remaining $13 billion rescue fund.
Colonial is the 79th bank to fail so far this year, making this the biggest bank-failure year since 1992.
As Great Depression historians know, it was not the stock market crash of October 1929 that sent the U.S. (and world) into depression. It was the bank failures that followed.
-- Frank Ahrens
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By
Frank Ahrens
|
August 17, 2009; 11:53 AM ET
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| Tags: BB&T, Colonial Bank, bank failure
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Posted by: Dermitt | August 17, 2009 2:11 PM | Report abuse
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Quote: "If you would've told me three years ago that I'd be going on a trail ride and roping calves in downtown L.A., I would've said you were crazy," said Sgt. Randy Melton, a "mule skinner" or wagon driver, for the Horse Detachment.
The horses aren't failing and make their own next model year.