Regulators shut down 2 Florida banks, 1 in Virginia; makes 113 US failures this year

Regulators shut 3 banks in Fla, Va

WASHINGTON — Regulators on Friday shut down two Florida banks and one in Virginia, lifting to 113 the number of U.S. bank failures this year.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over Community National Bank at Bartow, in Bartow, Fla., with $67.9 million in assets, and Independent National Bank of Ocala, Fla., with $156.2 million in assets. CenterState Bank of Florida, based in WinterHaven, agreed to assume the assets and deposits of the two failed banks.

The FDIC also seized Imperial Savings and Loan Association, with one branch in Martinsville, Va., with $9.4 million in assets. River Community Bank, also of Martinsville, agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Imperial Savings.

In addition, the FDIC and CenterState Bank of Florida agreed to share losses on $51.9 million of Community National Bank at Bartow’s loans and other assets, and on $119.7 million of Independent National Bank’s loans and other assets.

The failure of Community National Bank at Bartow is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $10.3 million; that of Independent National Bank is expected to cost $23.2 million and that of Imperial Savings and Loan Association, $3.5 million.

With 113 closures nationwide so far this year, the pace of bank failures far outstrips that of 2009, which was already a brisk year for shutdowns. By this time last year, regulators had closed 81 banks.

The pace has accelerated as banks’ losses mount on loans made for commercial property and development. Many companies have shut down in the recession, vacating shopping malls and office buildings financed by the loans. That has brought delinquent loan payments and defaults by commercial developers.

The number of bank failures is expected to peak this year and be slightly higher than the 140 that fell in 2009. That was the highest annual tally since 1992, at the height of the savings and loan crisis. The 2009 failures cost the insurance fund more than $30 billion. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force; only three succumbed in 2007.

The growing bank failures have sapped billions of dollars out of the deposit insurance fund. It fell into the red last year, and its deficit stood at $20.7 billion as of March 31.

The number of banks on the FDIC’s confidential “problem” list jumped to 775 in the first quarter from 702 three months earlier, even as the industry as a whole had its best quarter in two years.

The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to total around $60 billion from 2010 through 2014.

The agency mandated last year that banks prepay about $45 billion in premiums, for 2010 through 2012, to replenish the insurance fund.

Depositors’ money — insured up to $250,000 per account — is not at risk, with the FDIC backed by the government. That insurance cap was made permanent in the financial overhaul law enacted last month.