October 31, 2009

Banking regulators seized nine related community lenders in California, Illinois, Arizona and Texas, representing the collapse of one of the nation's largest privately held bank holding companies that grew through a string of acquisitions dating back to the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1990s.The nine small banks represented the holdings of FBOP Corp., based in Oak Park, Ill., and owned by a banker who had plowed into real-estate lending around the country.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said that FBOP, the holding company, wasn't closed as a result of Friday's actions. The nine banks, however, essentially represented all of FBOP's assets, which would potentially leave it without any other operations.U.S. Bancorp, the large Minneapolis-based regional bank, agreed to assume essentially all of the nine banks' combined assets of $19.4 billion and deposits of $15.4 billion. It is the latest in a flurry of failed-bank acquisitions for U.S. Bancorp, which avoided much of the banking industry's pain due to its conservative strategy.