Illinois

PrivateBancorp Inc. in Chicago reported its second straight profitable quarter as credit quality continued to show signs of stabilizing and it added commercial and industrial loans.

Wintrust Financial Corp. in Lake Forest, Ill., said Monday that its fourth-quarter earnings fell 50% from a year earlier, to $14.2 million.

Taylor Capital Group Inc. in Rosemont, Ill., is positioning itself to raise more capital. The $4.6 billion-asset company filed a shelf registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday to raise as much as $175 million.

Several banks rushed to repay investments under the Troubled Asset Relief Program in December, but hundreds head into the new year desperate for an exit strategy, even if it means selling.

First Busey Corp. in Champaign, Ill., has announced plans to raise almost $86 million in capital by selling common stock and preferred shares.

The $709.2 million-asset company said last week that James Miller would retire on Feb. 4 and that it would launch a search to find his successor. Miller has been with Princeton National since 1979.

First Mid-Illinois Bancshares Inc. in Mattoon said Tuesday that it would raise up to $25 million in capital through a private placement of preferred stock.

The $12.6 billion-asset company said on Monday that it had hired Thomas Doherty to lead business banking and promoted Richard Bechtel to oversee mortgage banking.

Wintrust Financial Corp. in Lake Forest, Ill., is raising capital to repay government funding.

The Federal Reserve Board has entered into written agreements with four community banks and their holding companies.

The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday issued written agreements against three community banks and their parent companies.

Roughly a year after announcing plans to halve itself to survive, Mercantile Bancorp Inc. in Quincy, Ill., is again in search of more capital.

Cascade Financial Corp., which received a government bailout, is among three small bank holding companies the Federal Reserve is scrutinizing.

Nearly two years after the regulator let a film crew tag along as it seized the $232 million-asset company in a segment for the news program "60 Minutes," the FDIC is going after former officers and directors. In what is expected to be the first of many professional-liability lawsuits against individuals associated with failed banks, the FDIC wants to recoup some losses sustained by its Deposit Insurance Fund in the current economic cycle.

Wintrust Financial Corp. in Lake Forest, Ill., on Wednesday reported earnings of $20.1 million for the third quarter, as interest income rose and its loan-loss provision fell dramatically.

PrivateBancorp Inc. in Chicago returned to the black in the third quarter. The $12.5 billion-asset company reported Tuesday that it earned $4.5 million, compared with a loss of $818,000 in the second quarter and a loss of $31.2 million a year earlier.

Seven banks failed Friday, bringing the total number of failures this year to within one of the number of failures in all of 2009. So far 139 banks have failed in 2010. Friday's failures are expected to cost the deposit insurance fund a collective $478 million.

MB Financial Inc. in Chicago on Friday posted a third-quarter loss of $5.4 million compared with earnings of $4.9 million a year earlier and blamed continued high credit costs.

The $7.8 billion-asset company in Itasca, Ill., announced late Monday that the bank's president and chief executive, Thomas J. Schwartz, plans to step down from those positions at the end of the year.

Nearly a year after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said it would resume revealing the losing bids for failed banks, bankers and others in the industry find its disclosures wanting.