Banks closed in Neb., Utah; 87 failures in 2011

[November 05, 2011]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- Regulators on Friday closed a small bank in Nebraska and another in Utah, bringing to 87 the number of bank failures in the U.S. this year.

The number of closures has fallen sharply this year as banks have worked their way through the bad debt accumulated in the recession. By this time last year, regulators had shuttered 143 banks.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized Mid City Bank, based in Omaha, Neb., with $106.1 million in assets and $105.5 million in deposits, and SunFirst Bank, based in Saint George, Utah, with $198.1 million in assets and $169.1 million in deposits. Purdum State Bank, based in Purdum, Neb., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Mid City Bank. Cache Valley Bank, based in Logan, Utah, is acquiring the deposits and $177.3 million of the loans and other assets of SunFirst Bank.

In addition, the FDIC and Cache Valley Bank agreed to share losses on $128.9 million of SunFirst Bank's assets.

The failure of Mid City Bank is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $12.7 million; that of SunFirst Bank is expected to cost $49.7 million.

Mid City Bank was the first bank in Nebraska to fail since June 2010; SunFirst Bank was the first Utah lender to be shuttered since March 2010. Failures have been concentrated in California, Florida, Georgia and Illinois.

In all of 2010, regulators seized 157 banks, the most in any year since the savings and loan crisis two decades ago. Those failures cost around $23 billion. The FDIC has said 2010 likely was the high-water mark for bank failures from the Great Recession.

In 2009, there were 140 bank failures that cost the insurance fund about $36 billion, a higher price tag than in 2010 because the banks involved were bigger on average. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force; only three were closed in 2007.

From 2008 through 2010, bank failures cost the fund $76.8 billion. The FDIC expects failures from 2011 through 2015 to cost $19 billion.

The deposit insurance fund fell into the red in 2009. With failures slowing, the FDIC's fund balance turned positive in the second quarter of this year; it stood at $3.9 billion as of June 30.

[Associated Press]

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