Three Failures Friday Follow Rare Thursday Closure, Boosting '11 Total to 68

A trio of bank failures Friday seemed quite familiar following an atypical Thursday closure in an unusual state.

Regulators closed banks in Florida, Georgia and Illinois Friday, all in places were many banks have already met their demise. On Thursday, a bank failed in Pennsylvania, one of just a handful to fail in that state in the last few years.

The week's failures brought the year's total to 68. Collectively, the failures are expected to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund $374.8 million.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency closed Lydian Private Bank in Palm Beach, Fla. The $1.7 billion-asset bank's failure is expected to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund $293.2 million. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. sold the bank's assets to Sabadell United Bank, the U.S. bank of Spain's Banco Sabadell. Sabadell and the FDIC entered into a loss-share agreement on $907.1 million of Lydian's assets. The buyer also agreed to assume the bank's $1.24 billion of deposits.

The OCC also shuttered the $164.6 million-asset First Southern National Bank in Statesboro, Ga. The FDIC sold the bank's assets to Heritage Bank of the South. Heritage Bank, which is based in Albany, Ga., and the FDIC entered into a loss-share agreement for $115.7 million of First Southern's assets.

Heritage also agreed to pay a 1% premium to assume all of the bank's $159.7 million in deposits. That failure is expected to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund $39.6 million.

Also, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation closed the $141 million-asset First Choice Bank in Geneva. The FDIC sold that bank's assets to Inland Bank & Trust in Oak Brook, Ill., which also agreed to assume all of the bank's $137.2 million in deposits. That failure is expected to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund $31 million.

Although the industry expects failures to occur on Friday evenings, this week's bell-tolling began a day early when the Pennsylvania Department of Banking closed the $46.8 million-asset Public Savings Bank in Huntingdon Valley, Pa., the first bank to close in Pennsylvania this year. That bank was closed on Thursday because it serves an Orthodox Jewish community and regulators wanted to avoid conflicting with the Jewish Sabbath, which begins at sundown on Friday.

Capital Bank in Rockville, Md., assumed all of the deposits and agreed to buy essentially all of Public Savings Bank's assets. The cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund is estimated to be $11 million.

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