FDIC closes two banks in Florida – count hits 122

Regulators have shut down two Florida banks, boosting to 122 the number of U.S. bank failures this year as loan defaults rise.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday took over Orion Bank, based in Naples, Fla., with about $2.7 billion in assets and $2.1 billion in deposits, and Sarasota-based Century Bank, with $728 million in assets and $631 million in deposits.

Iberiabank, based in Lafayette, La., agreed to assume all of Orion Bank’s deposits and $2.4 billion of its assets, as well as Century Bank’s deposits and $706 million of its assets.

Banks will make offers for warrants to exit bailout

The Obama administration on Friday established its process for pricing billions of dollars worth of warrants that large banks must repurchase to exit the $700 billion bailout program.

The Treasury Department said the banks will make the first offer for the warrants. Treasury will then decide to sell at that price or make a counteroffer. If the government and a bank cannot agree on a fair price for the warrants, the two sides will have the right to use private appraisers. Treasury also could auction to private bidders warrants from banks that choose not to repurchase them.

Regulators shut down banks in 5 states

Regulators shut down a big bank in California on Friday, along with two banks in Georgia and one each in Florida, Minnesota and Washington. That brought to 15 the number of bank failures so far in 2010 atop the 140 shuttered last year in the punishing economic climate.

The failure of Los Angeles-based First Regional Bank, with nearly $2.2 billion in assets and $1.9 billion in deposits, is expected to cost the federal deposit insurance fund $825.5 million.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the bank as well as the others: First National Bank of Georgia, based in Carrollton, Ga., with $832.6 million in assets and $757.9 million in deposits and Community Bank and Trust of Cornelia, Ga., with $1.2 billion in assets and $1.1 billion in deposits; Florida Community Bank of Immokalee, Fla., with $875.5 million in assets and $795.5 million in deposits; Marshall Bank of Hallock, Minn., with $59.9 million in assets and $54.7 million in deposits; and American Marine Bank of Bainbridge Island, Wash., with

Bank of America plans to raise more money

Bank of America Corp. said Thursday that it will raise more money than the government said it needed in order to withstand a deepening recession.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank will have raised $38 billion by the end of the week. That is $4.1 billion more than the $33.9 billion the Federal Reserve said last month the bank needed. The move was largely expected within the investment community. What was not expected, was the speed with which Bank of America raised the money, said Tony Plath, finance professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

News Tribune news services

U.S. banks post losses surpassing $26 billion in last quarter of 2008

The nation’s banks lost $26.2 billion in the last three months of 2008, the first quarterly deficit in 18 years, as the housing and credit crises escalated.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Thursday that U.S. banks and thrifts also more than doubled the amount they set aside to cover potential loan losses, to $69.3 billion in the fourth quarter from $32.1 billion a year earlier. More than two-thirds of all banks and thrifts turned a profit in that period, but a number of major banks suffered large losses.