Purchase of Failed CU Opens new Vistas for Single Sponsor CU

DETROIT – If timing is everything, then Detroit Edison's wait for Huron River Area CU paid off big for the utility sponsored credit union. The $485 million credit union, serving a single sponsor and operating just one branch, had been eying possible merger partners–including the failed $340 million Ann Arbor credit union–as a way to expand its membership base.
 
“We were getting ready to make that phone,” calls said William Thiess, president of Detroit Edison. That is, until the February takeover of Huron River Area by regulators.
 
But the 63-year-old credit union made its continued interest known to NCUA and Michigan’s Office of Financial Insurance Services, leading to last week’s acquisition of the remains of the troubled credit union.
 
The deal will allow Detroit Edison to serve the eight surrounding and gives them Huron River Area’s seven branches with which to do it.
 
Under a so-called purchase and assumption, Detroit Edison will take over Huron River Area’s physical plant and 37,000 members, while NCUA will assume $170 million in loans made in two south Florida real estate developments and pay Detroit Edison a financial inducement.