Regulators Close Banks in Fla., Ga., N.M.

Regulators on Friday shut down banks in Florida, Georgia and New Mexico, lifting to 86 the number of U.S. bank failures this year.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over Peninsula Bank, based in Englewood, Fla., with $644.3 million in assets and $580.1 million in deposits.

The agency also seized First National Bank in Savannah, Ga., with $252.5 million in assets and $231.9 million in deposits, and High Desert State Bank, based in Albuquerque, N.M., with $80.3 million in assets and $81 million in deposits.

Miami-based Premier American Bank agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Peninsula Bank. In addition, the FDIC and Premier American Bank agreed to share losses on $437.6 million of Peninsula Bank's assets.

The Savannah Bank is assuming all the deposits and some of the assets of First National Bank; the FDIC will retain most of the assets for eventual sale.

Florida and Georgia are among the states with the highest concentrations of bank collapses and where the meltdown in the real estate market brought an avalanche of soured mortgage loans. Peninsula Bank was the 14th institution in Florida to fail this year, matching last year's total for the state.

First National Bank was the ninth to succumb this year in Georgia - where 25 banks failed in 2009, more than in any other state.

Also high on the list of failure-heavy states are California and Illinois.

First American Bank, based in Artesia, N.M., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of High Desert State Bank, and to share losses with the FDIC on $67.6 million of the failed bank's assets.

The failure of Peninsula Bank is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $194.8 million. The failure of First National Bank is expected to cost $68.9 million; that of High Desert State Bank, $67.6 million.

With 86 closures nationwide so far this year, the pace of bank failures far outstrips that of 2009, which was already a brisk year for shutdowns. By this time last year, regulators had closed 45 banks. The pace has accelerated as banks' losses mount on loans made for commercial property and development.

The number of bank failures is expected to peak this year and be slightly higher than the 140 that fell in 2009. That was the highest annual tally since 1992, at the height of the savings and loan crisis. The 2009 failures cost the insurance fund more than $30 billion. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force, and only three succumbed in 2007.

As losses have mounted on loans made for commercial property and development, the growing bank failures have sapped billions of dollars out of the deposit insurance fund. It fell into the red last year, and its deficit stood at $20.7 billion as of March 31.

The number of banks on the FDIC's confidential "problem" list jumped to 775 in the first quarter from 702 three months earlier, even as the industry as a whole had its best quarter in two years.

A majority of institutions posted profit gains in the January-March quarter. But many small and midsized banks are likely to continue to suffer distress in the coming months and years, especially from soured loans for office buildings and development projects.

The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to total around $60 billion from 2010 through 2014.

The agency mandated last year that banks prepay about $45 billion in premiums, for 2010 through 2012, to replenish the insurance fund.

Depositors' money - insured up to $250,000 per account - is not at risk, with the FDIC backed by the government.
By AP Business Writer Marcy Gordon