Bank Failures in the U.S.

Failed Banks May Get Pension-Fund Backing as FDIC Seeks Cash

March 8, 2010

Bloomberg - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is trying to encourage public retirement funds that control more than $2 trillion to buy all or part of failed lenders, taking a more direct role in propping up the banking system, said people briefed on the matter.

Direct investments may allow funds such as those in Oregon, New Jersey and California to cut fees for private-equity managers, and the agency to get better prices for distressed assets, the people said. They declined to be identified because talks with regulators are confidential.

Oregon’s retirement fund may contribute $100 million as regulators seek “the support of state pension funds to solve the crisis surrounding ongoing bank failures,” Jay Fewel, a senior investment officer at the Oregon State Treasury, said in a presentation at the fund’s Feb. 24 meeting. New Jersey’s fund may also participate, said Orin Kramer, chairman of New Jersey’s State Investment Council.

The FDIC shuttered 140 lenders last year and expects the tally may be higher in 2010. Regulators have avoided signing up private-equity firms as rescuers on concern that they might take too much risk. Pension funds, whose 100 largest members manage $2.4 trillion, could provide capital to acquire deposits and outstanding loans from collapsed banks, according to the people.

Welcome Mat

“The FDIC is constantly looking at structures where we can get the greatest opportunity to tap into capital that we have not had the success reaching through previous disposition methods,” FDIC spokeswoman Michele Heller said in an e-mailed statement. “We welcome and work with all investors.”

Current rules don’t prohibit pension funds from buying failed banks. Until now, they have typically chosen to invest through private-equity firms using limited partnerships, which gives pension funds little to no control over the day-to-day management of the investments. They also pay management fees levied on the amount of money committed as well as a percentage of any profit.

“We’ve been examining a broad range of alternatives to take advantage of what I believe are attractive transactions coming out of the FDIC,” said New Jersey’s Kramer.

The state pension system faced a shortfall of about $46 billion as of last year because of investment declines and a failure to make full contributions, according to annual financial reports ...

Calpers Presentation

After the credit crisis ate into private-equity returns, pension managers started looking for ways to trim fees and boost returns. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest U.S. public pension fund, said in a Feb. 16 presentation that one of its goals is to increase its “co-investments” in transactions alongside money managers. That kind of structure could give the pension fund an actual stake in firms purchased, rather than the private-equity firm’s buyout fund, according to the people.

Known as Calpers, the pension fund plans to “explore unique structures with select general partners,” according to the presentation. The fund’s investment portfolio was valued at $203.3 billion as of Dec. 31, according to the Calpers Web site. Spokesman Brad Pacheco didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Regulators have been debating how much leeway to give private buyers of failed banks on concern that they’re more likely to put federally insured deposits at risk, or will look to flip the bank for a quick profit.

Longer Horizon

Private-equity managed funds typically promise they’ll return funds to their investors in about 10 years. Pension funds are aiming to fund retirements that are decades away and thus can hold on to investments longer, which would help ease the FDIC’s concern, said one of the people.

FDIC guarantees may soften the risk of investing public pension money in distressed banks, Whalen said. When the FDIC sells a failed bank, it typically shares a portion of the loan losses.

“Financially sophisticated people do not assume that banks have recognized all of their real estate losses,” Kramer said, adding that it can still be a bad deal if a buyer overpays for a deposit franchise or if loans perform worse than expected. “We are in the early innings for commercial real estate.”

FDIC Hits Record "Default" Level As Deposit Insurance Fund Plunges By $12.7 Billion To NEGATIVE 20.9 Billion

February 23, 2010

Zero Hedge - The U.S. banking industry continued to struggle in the fourth quarter, as the number of banks on the brink of failure continued to rise and the government’s fund to protect deposits fell sharply into the red.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Tuesday that its deposit-insurance fund fell to $20.9 billion at the end of 2009, a $12.6 billion drop in the final three months of the year, as bank failures continued at a pace not seen since the savings and loan crisis. The fund's reserve ratio was -0.39% at the end of the quarter, the lowest on record for the combined bank and thrift fund.

The deposit insurance fund is unlikely to soon see a respite from a decline in the number of failing banks: The FDIC said the number of banks on its "problem" list climbed to 702 at the end of 2009 from 552 at the end of September and 252 at the end of 2008. The number of banks on the list, which have combined assets of $402.8 billion, is the highest since June 1993.

"The continued rise in loan losses and troubled assets points to further pressure on earnings," FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said in a statement. "The growth in the numbers and assets of institutions on our 'Problem List' points to a likely rise in the number of failures."

Industry indicators deteriorated nearly across the board. The FDIC said loan losses for U.S. banks climbed for the 12th straight quarter, while the total loan balances for U.S. banks continued to fall. The agency said the quarterly net charge-off rate and the total number of loans at least three months past due both were at the highest level ever recorded in the 26 years the data have been collected.

Net charge-offs of troubled loans occurred across all major loan categories, led by a $3.3 billion increase in residential mortgage loans. The FDIC said U.S. banks' coverage ratio--reserves divided by the amount of noncurrent loans--fell to 58.1% in the fourth quarter from 60.1% in the third quarter.

The FDIC did cite some reasons for optimism. The banking industry was able to report a modest profit of $914 million in the fourth quarter, compared with a record loss of $37.8 billion in the final three months of 2008. And while the largest banks were the beneficiaries of much of the earnings improvement, the agency said more than half of FDIC-insured banks saw a year-over-year improvement in their net income.

Banks' profits were helped by improvements in trading revenue, which totaled $2.8 billion the fourth quarter, and servicing income, which represented a gain of $8.0 billion. The FDIC also said that more than half of all banks reported higher net interest margins in the fourth quarter compared with third-quarter levels.

"Resolving these credit market dislocations will take time," Bair said, describing banks as "bumping along the bottom of the credit cycle."

Here is the full abysmal Q4 FDIC report.

Bring Back Glass-Steagall Curbs for Banks

March 2, 2010

CNBC - The government should restrict bank actitivities far more than proposed under the so-called Volcker plan, which would prevent banks from investing for their own accounts, John Bogle, founder of mutual fund giant Vanguard Group, told CNBC on Tuesday.

“I would be cheering for the return of the Glass-Steagall Act,” Bogle said, referring to the Depression-era law that banned banks from owning brokerage firms and other financial firms, among other restrictions. “It’s pretty much common sense that if you’re in the business of taking deposits, you shouldn’t be speculating on your balance sheet.”

Bogle also called for higher capital requirements for banks and stringency on the kinds of assets allowed on balance sheets. Meanwhile, the concentration of bank assets due to the rise of mergers over the last two years, is leading the country in the wrong direction, he said.

The Volcker plan, named after former Federal Reserve Chairman and current Obama adviser Paul Volcker, is intended to curb the market speculation by banks that helped trigger the recent financial crisis. While the plan gained initial support, it has been watered down somewhat in negotiations over a financial reform bill being hammered out in the Senate Banking Committee.

“It takes a powerful political force to take steps that are necessary, and I don’t see anybody, any Congress in a position to do it,” Bogle said. “We pretty much have a hung Congress because the Democrats don’t have much discipline in the House to enforce their will. And in the Senate that 60 votes becomes 59 and that stymies everything. So we go to the lowest common denominator time after time without taking the real steps, or the big steps.”

Bogle likes the idea of a financial consumer protection agency, whether it's an independent unit of the Fed or it's own entity:

"We do need the consumer protection; no question."

Under the latest version of the financial overhaul bill, the agency would be part of the Federal Reserve but would include autonomous rule-writing authority.