Bankrupt global financial institutions

Latest Major Bankruptcy News

2007 06 13 IndyMac Sued Over Investor Claims It Hid Loan Losses
2008 06 30 IndyMac to Trim Operations, Not Shut Down, Perry Says
2008 07 01 IndyMac Chief Financial Officer A. Scott Keys Resigns
2008 07 07 IndyMac Cuts Half its Staff as Mortgage Losses Mount
2008 07 08 IndyMac Falls After Regulators Say It Isn’t `Well Capitalized’
2008 07 10 Roskilde Bank Receives Liquidity From Danish Central Bank
2008 07 11 Danske Bank ikke interesseret i Roskilde Bank
2008 07 11 Danish Central Bank Bails Out Roskilde Bank
2008 07 11 Roskilde Drops in Denmark After Central Bank Bailout
2008 07 11 IndyMac Bancorp Is Seized By Federal Regulators
2008 07 11 IndyMac Seized by U.S. Regulators Amid Cash Crunch
2008 07 25 My Experience at Indy Mac: Fraud, Corruption, Criminality
2008 07 26 Sinking IndyMac sought funding lifelines
2008 08 15 McCain’s Son Sat on Troubled Bank’s Board
2008 08 20 FDIC Releases Details on IndyMac Loan Mods; Questions Remain
2008 08 20 California mulls probing senator over IndyMac crash
2008 09 05 Regulators Shutter Silver State Bank
2008 09 19 Ameribank of West Virginia closed by regulators
2008 09 25 WaMu Seized by U.S., Assets Sold to JPMorgan in Record Failure
2008 09 25 WaMu’s 42-Story Seattle Headquarters Acquired in JPMorgan Deal

UPDATE: The latest bankruptcy is Washington Mutual. See my story here.

Intro

As many readers know, I chronicle the writedowns of our venerable global financial institutions in my credit crisis timeline. It is perhaps the definitive guide to getting a handle on writedowns on the web today.

However, despite the Armageddon scenario of $1.6 trillion in eventual writedowns painted by Bridgewater Associates in their leaked study, I do not anticipate many more writedowns as a result of SIVs or RMBSs or CDOs based on subprime mortgages. Perhaps we will see another $30-50 billion worth before year end 2008 and another $100-150 billion more before all is said and done. But this is paltry compared to the $450 billion already written off and the $1.6 trillion anticipated by Bridgewater. Subprime is largely contained!

That said, I do expect to begin to see massive write-offs going forward in a number of other areas. And it is here that I expect to see major financial stress. As the real economy moves centre stage, the question should become:

Where else have our previously cautious bankers made cheap loans to dubious debtors?

The most obvious areas are the following:

Alt-A Mortgages
Payment Option Mortgages
Negative Amortization Mortgages
Leveraged Loans
High Yield Bonds
Credit Card Receivables and Asset Backed Securities
Auto Loan Receivables and Securitized auto Loan Bonds
Commercial Real Estate Loans
Construction Loans

As the real economy turns down and recession becomes a reality in the US, the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Spain, South Africa, Germany, Japan, Canada and many others already showing significant weaknesses, one should expect this generalized weakness to uncover many more bad debts than is currently being anticipated.

This is one reason for the $1.6 trillion figure by Bridgewater. While I may differ from Bridgewater in that I would put my figure at $900 billion, the result will be the same: major financial bankruptcies

So, as with the credit writedowns, I will begin to chronicle them here in this blog. I will be looking only to add banks that collapse because of the credit crunch and housing bubble.

For example, NetBank went bust in September 2007, but it seems unrelated to the housing bust so I don’t have it on the list. Another example is tiny Hume Bank, which was too small to consider on the list.

Here is the present list.

#1 Northern Rock
#2 Bear Stearns
#3 ANB Financial
#4 First Integrity Bank
#5 Roskilde Bank
#6 IndyMac
#7 First Heritage Bank
#8 First National Bank of Nevada
#9 IKB (basically insolvent after gov’t intervention)
#10 Silver State
#11 Fannie Mae
#12 Freddie Mac
#13 Lehman Brothers
#14 AIG
#15 Washington Mutual

As the bankruptcies begin in earnest, expect to find at this blog entry a host of links and other information to help you get up to speed on the individual cases. As with the credit crisis time-line I will be updating around the clock and back-filling where appropriate.

To see all the failed U.S. banks taken over by the FDIC, including ones that don’t meet my criteria like (Columbian Bank and Trust of Kansas), see U.S. FDIC List of Failed Banks. Here is the present list below.

Bank Name	Closing Date	Updated Date
Meridian Bank, Eldred, IL	10-Oct-08	10-Oct-08
Main Street Bank, Northville, MI	10-Oct-08	10-Oct-08
Washington Mutual Bank, Henderson, NV and Washington Mutual Bank FSB, Park City, UT	25-Sep-08	25-Sep-08
Ameribank, Northfork, WV	19-Sep-08	19-Sep-08
Silver State Bank, Henderson, NV	5-Sep-08	5-Sep-08
En Español
Integrity Bank, Alpharetta, GA	29-Aug-08	29-Aug-08
The Columbian Bank and Trust, Topeka, KS	22-Aug-08	22-Aug-08
First Priority Bank, Bradenton, FL	1-Aug-08	1-Aug-08
First Heritage Bank, NA, Newport Beach, CA	25-Jul-08	25-Jul-08
First National Bank of Nevada, Reno, NV	25-Jul-08	25-Jul-08
IndyMac Bank, Pasadena, CA	11-Jul-08	11-Jul-08
First Integrity Bank, NA, Staples, MN	30-May-08	25-Jul-08
ANB Financial, NA, Bentonville, AR	9-May-08	25-Jul-08
Hume Bank, Hume, MO	7-Mar-08	25-Jul-08
Douglass National Bank, Kansas City, MO	25-Jan-08	25-Jul-08
Miami Valley Bank, Lakeview, OH	4-Oct-07	25-Jul-08
NetBank, Alpharetta, GA	28-Sep-07	25-Jul-08

Stay tuned: the bankruptcies certainly are coming. One thing to note is that uninsured deposits will NOT necessarily be reimbursed. Be very cautious with having more than $100,000 at a dodgy bank. Read the FDIC rules for deposit insurance here. If you are concerned about your large bank going bust, see the list of writedowns here.

As for a list of all American institutions, large and small, the Bank Implode-o-Meter has the best information on the web for that.

The Bank Implode-O-Meter