KEY WEST, Fla. – NCUA said it is accepting bids to acquire Keys FCU, a one-time $200 million credit union taken under federal conservatorship last September.
NCUA declined to disclose the bidders for the troubled credit union, but credit union giant Navy FCU is believed to be among the interested parties for the credit union that serves the Naval Air Station in Key West. Representatives for the $45 billion credit union would not comment, only to say the credit union is always interested in serving U.S. Navy personnel wherever they are.
An NCUA spokesman Friday would only say the agency has made no final decisions on Keys FCU.
Financial institutions in Key West, the southern Florida outpost located 160 miles from Miami, have been battered by the recession. On Friday the FDIC shuttered Key West Bank, one of just two banks based in the Florida Keys, and assigned the remnants of the failed $88 million institution to Centennial Bank of Conway, Ark.
Keys FCU, the largest credit union in the Keys, a string of islands in south Florida, reported a loss of $1.8 million for 2008 and a loss of $4.9 million for 2009, while its assets had declined to $165 million by year end.
Separately, NCUA last week settled a lawsuit with Keys FCU’s former CEO John Dolan-Heitlinger, who was fired in 2007 well before the NCUA takeover and was seeking more than $700,000 in deferred compensation and back pay. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
