Office of Thrift Supervision shuts down IndyMac
LOS ANGELES (AP) - July 11, 2008 The bank is the largest regulated thrift to fail and the second
largest financial institution to close in U.S. history, regulators
said.
The Office of Thrift Supervision said it transferred IndyMac's
operations to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation because it
did not think the lender could meet its depositors' demands.
IndyMac customers with funds in the bank were limited to taking
out money via automated teller machines over the weekend, debit
card transactions or checks, regulators said.
Other bank services, such as online banking and phone banking
were scheduled to be made available on Monday.
"This institution failed today due to a liquidity crisis," OTS
Director John Reich said.
IndyMac had $32.01 billion in assets as of March 31.
Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bancorp Inc., the holding company
for IndyMac Bank, has been struggling to raise capital as the
housing slump deepens.
A spokesman for the lender did not immediately return an e-mail
request for comment.
The banking regulator said it closed IndyMac after customers
began a run on the lender following the June 26 release of a letter
by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., urging several bank regulatory
agencies that they take steps to prevent IndyMac's collapse.
In the 11 days that followed the letter's release, depositors
took out more than $1.3 billion, regulators said.
In a statement Friday, Schumer said IndyMac's failure was due to
long-standing practices by the bank, not recent events.
"If OTS had done its job as regulator and not let IndyMac's
poor and loose lending practices continue, we wouldn't be where we
are today," Schumer said. "Instead of pointing false fingers of
blame, OTS should start doing its job to prevent future IndyMacs."
The FDIC planned to reopen the bank on Monday as IndyMac Federal
Bank, FSB.
Deposits are insured up to $100,000 per depositor.
As of March 31, IndyMac had total deposits of $19.06 billion.
Some 10,000 depositors had funds in excess of the insured limit,
for a total of $1 billion in potentially uninsured funds, the FDIC
said.
Customers with uninsured deposits could begin making
appointments to file a claim with the FDIC on Monday. The agency
said it would pay unsecured depositors an advance dividend equal to
half of the uninsured amount.
IndyMac spent the last two weeks trying to reassure customers
that it was not near default.
On Monday, IndyMac announced it had stopped accepting new loan
submissions and planned to slash 3,800 jobs, or more than half of
its work force - the largest employee cuts in company history.
In the letter to shareholders, IndyMac Chairman and Chief
Executive Michael W. Perry said the drastic measures were made in
conjunction with banking regulators to improve the company's
financial footing and "meet our mutual goal of keeping Indymac
safe and sound through this crisis period."
The plan was supposed to generate roughly $5 billion to $10
billion per year of new loans backed by government-sponsored
mortgage companies, Perry said at the time.
But the run on its deposits ultimately short-circuited the
strategy, prompting regulators action Friday.
The lender, which opened in 1985, closed its run with a string
of quarterly losses.
The company posted its first annual loss in its history last
year, losing more than $614 million as it struggled through the
housing slump. It posted a $184.2 million loss in the first quarter
of this year and warned last month that it wouldn't return to
profitability this year unless the slide in U.S. housing prices
slowed.
The housing outlook was not improving, however, and Perry warned
he expected the company's second-quarter loss to be wider than its
loss in the first quarter.