Agencies Post Nonbanks' Initial Wind-Down Plans

WASHINGTON — Three nonbank giants, recently designated as "systemically important" by federal regulators, have joined their banking counterparts in drafting blueprints for how they could be unwound in a failure.

The firms — General Electric Capital Corp. and the insurance giants American International Group and Prudential Financial — submitted first drafts of their so-called "living wills" this week to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Federal Reserve Board.

The nonbank companies were recently added to the list of global companies — considered systemically risky — that the Financial Stability Oversight Council can subject to new regulatory standards created under the Dodd-Frank Act. Those requirements include developing plans outlining how they would be resolved in a traditional bankruptcy. The reform law requires resolution plans for each bank holding company with over $50 billion in assets as well as nonbanks that the FSOC designates as "systemically important."

The plans — which include condensed public portions the agencies posted Wednesday — are meant to encourage institutions to arrange corporate structures in a way that can be more easily wound down. Plans must be updated annually, and regulators can take corrective action against firms with subpar plans.

The three companies joined 13 bank holding companies that on Wednesday filed updates of their previously submitted plans. Some banking giants considered most complex by the regulators had submitted their first plans as early as 2012. Those banks have now filed a total of three installments, but are still waiting to hear feedback from regulators on their second-round plans, which were completed last year.

The plans' public portions provide a high-level description of each firm's structure as well as a basic narrative of how they would be resolved in a failure scenario. The more comprehensive versions seen only by regulators contain much greater detail, with some individual plans said to encompass thousands of pages.

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