The industry marked a stark milestone Friday — the 100th bank failure of 2009. It is the first time since 1992 that failures hit triple digits.
By deadline Friday, two failures had pushed the total to 101 as the Office of Thrift Supervision closed $65 million-asset Partners Bank in Naples, Fla., and Stonegate Bank took over its operations. Partners is the seventh failure in Florida this year, and the 13th thrift nationwide. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. estimated the failure's cost at $28.6 million.
American United Bank in Lawrenceville, Ga., also failed, and its $101 million in deposits were transferred to Ameris Bank in Moultrie. Ameris paid a 1.02% deposit premium, and entered into a loss-share agreement with the FDIC for roughly $92 million of the failed bank's assets. That failure is expected to cost $44 million.
The last time more than 100 banks failed was 17 years ago when 122 institutions were taken over by the government. Since then, and before 2009, the most failures in a given year were 41 — in 1993.
