Rochdale Securities analyst Bove says 150-200 more US bank failures possible in current crisis
Monday August 24, 2009, 1:27 pm EDT
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Banking equities analyst Richard Bove said Sunday that it's possible 150 to 200 more U.S. banks could fail in the current banking crisis, putting greater stress on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s deposit insurance fund.
The FDIC, which insures deposits, may be forced to turn to non-U.S. banks and private equity funds to help shore up the banking system, the Rochdale Securities analyst wrote in a note to investors.
Among the 81 banks closed so far this year -- compared with 25 last year and three in all of 2007 -- were a stream of smaller institutions, many ruined by losses on ordinary loans amid the souring economy, tumbling home prices and spiking unemployment.
The FDIC expects bank failures will cost the insurance deposit fund around $70 billion through 2013. The fund stood at $13 billion -- its lowest level since 1993 -- at the end of March. It has slipped to 0.27 percent of total insured deposits, below the minimum of 1.15 percent mandated by Congress.
Banks' payments to keep the FDIC afloat could eat up 25 percent of their pretax income in 2010, according to Bove.
The FDIC last week seized Colonial Bank, a big lender in real estate development, and sold its $20 billion in deposits, 346 branches in five states and about $22 billion of its assets to BB&T Corp.
It was the biggest bank failure so far this year, and the sixth-largest in U.S. history, expected to cost the insurance fund $2.8 billion.
On Friday, regulators shut down Guaranty Bank, a big Texas-based lender afflicted by loan losses. It was the second-largest U.S. bank failure this year.
The costliest failure was the July 2008 seizure of big California lender IndyMac Bank, on which the fund is estimated to have lost $10.7 billion.
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