FDIC Bank Failure Report - Super Late Edition

We're very late on this one; apologies. We saw the FDIC had closed only one bank on Friday evening, and thought "naw, they wouldn't close only one bank." Well, they did, and we forgot to write about it.

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This past weekend, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation closed one bank: Commerce Bank of Southwestern Florida, Fort Myers, FL. The total assets of the closed bank were $79,700,000, and total deposits were approximately $76,700,000. The cost to the FDIC is estimated at $23,600,000.

According to our methodology, the recoverable value of the bank was $53,100,000, or only 66.62% of the declared asset value. This makes this week's closures distinctly above the cumulative recoverability since December of 2007, which stands at 57.70% (unchanged from last week).

Cumulative cost-to-FDIC so far in the Depression was brought to $51,500,500,000. This closure brings the total declared assets of FDIC-failed banks (since December of 2007) to $515,603,680,000, and total FDIC-insured deposits to $349,005,920,000. The recoverable value of all failed banks was only $297,505,320,000 (57.70% of the declared value).

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We're not quite sure what the FDIC is thinking, but perhaps they don't either. Even so, it is interesting that Florida saw the only bank failure, despite the relative smallness of the closure. We really don't know what to say about that, because we're fairly confident the United States' banking system has not enjoyed the 'laying on of hands' over the past week. Sickness is still in the system, and it appears the FDIC would prefer to let the sickness spread.

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On the basis of the ratio of bank closures to population (i.e. simply the number of failures in each State, with no account of assets or deposits), the ten most afflicted States are listed here. Only those States which have two or more closures are considered.

1. Georgia
2. Nevada
3. Illinois
4. Minnesota
5. Utah
6. Kansas
7. Missouri
8. Oregon
9. Florida
10. Arizona

The recoverable value represents how much of declared assets are worth by our estimate on the open market. The following are the ten States with the lowest recoverable value; only those States which have had two or more closures are considered in this analysis.

1. Florida (36.13, up from 36.00%)
2. California (42.43%)
3. Colorado (42.76%)
4. Michigan (43.18%)
5. Nevada (50.13%)
6. Georgia (53.79%)
7. Utah (55.39%)
8. Arizona (56.08%)
9. Washington (56.18%)
10. North Carolina (56.7%)

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The Frugal Scotsman's FDIC Cash Burn Through O'Meter gets adjusted with a subtraction of $26,600,000. The value stands at $43,987,000.