FDIC Bank Failure Report - Insanely Late Edition

This past weekend, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation closed six banks: Buckhead Community Bank of Atlanta, Georgia; First Security Bank of Norcross, Georgia; Tattnall Bank of Reidsville, Georgia; AmTrust Bank of Cleveland, Ohio; Benchmark Bank of Aurora, Illinois; and Greater Atlantic Bank of Reston, Virginia. The total assets of the closed bank were $13,424,600,000, and total deposits were $9,368,300,000. The cost to the FDIC is estimated at $2,386,400,000.

According to our methodology, the recoverable value of the banks were $6,981,900,000, or only 52.01% of the declared asset value. This makes this week's closures distinctly below the cumulative recoverability since December of 2007, which stands at 57.56% (down from last report's 57.70%).

Cumulative cost-to-FDIC so far in the Depression was brought to $53,886,900,000. These closures bring the total declared assets of FDIC-failed banks (since December of 2007) to $529,028,280,000, and total FDIC-insured deposits to $358,374,220,000. The recoverable value of all failed banks was only $304,487,320,000 (57.56% of the declared value).

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As if to make up for the prior two weeks, the FDIC went to town. Following its usual pattern, it muted the failure of a moderately large regional bank - AmTrust - by closing it along with several smaller banks. AmTrust was a particularly sad case with a recoverable value according to our method of only 50% of assets. It had been on a death watch for over a year having received a cease-and-desist order from the Office of Thrift Supervision in the fall of 2008. One wonders how much extra the FDIC's dithering cost the Deposit Insurance Fund.

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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%)
2. California (42.43%)
3. Colorado (42.76%)
4. Michigan (43.18%)
5. Nevada (50.13%)
6. Ohio (50.91%) - new to the list due to now having two closures
7. Georgia (54.75% up from 53.79%)
7. Utah (55.39%)
8. Arizona (56.08%)
9. Washington (56.18%)

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The Frugal Scotsman's FDIC Cash Burn Through O'Meter gets adjusted with a subtraction of $2,386,400,000. The value stands at $41,600,600,000.