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Guaranty Financial Group Inc. is the talk of Texas this week. With the $14.4 billion-asset Austin company warning of its imminent failure, speculation has abounded about who will make the winning bid on its lucrative branches and deposits.
August 12
Guaranty Bank in Austin is set to be sold to Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA on Friday.
Sources close to the deal said Wednesday that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. had chosen Spain's second-largest banking company to take over the subsidiary of the $14.4 billion-asset Guaranty Financial Group.
Losing bidders were told Wednesday they had not won, the sources said. As part of a consortium, Blackstone Group LP, along with other private-equity groups, was also bidding on Guaranty.
BBVA has done three deals in Texas, plus its purchase of the $61 billion-asset Compass Bancshares Inc., now operating the combined banks under the name BBVA Compass. It also has a subsidiary bank in California, BBVA Bancomer in Diamond Bar, a state where Guaranty has 59 branches and $2.3 billion in deposits.
Guaranty has 103 branches in Texas with $6.9 billion in deposits.
Guaranty said last month that it had little chance of raising capital. It also said its board had consented to the Office of Thrift Supervision's move to seize the company.
