EMEA

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has charged nine former directors of Southern Community Bank in Fayetteville, Ga., with approving risky loans that later led to its collapse in 2009.

Robert Braswell is set to become president and CEO of the Community Bankers Association of Georgia just days after retiring as the state's banking commissioner.

Fidelity Southern (LION) in Atlanta is planning to raise $60 million in a public offering and use the proceeds, along with cash on hand, to exit the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Regulators shut down Douglas County Bank in Douglasville, Ga., and Parkway Bank in Lenoir, N.C. Between them they had assets of $425 million and will cost the Deposit Insurance Fund an estimated $105 million.

Ameris Bancorp (ABCB) in Moultrie, Ga., will redeem preferred shares it had issued to the Treasury Department as part of the Trouble Asset Relief Program.

Charter Financial in West Point, Ga., plans to sell additional stock and convert to a full public company from a mutual.

WASHINGTON — State regulators in Georgia closed the $125 million-asset Hometown Community Bank in Braselton late Friday, stretching the industry's failure toll this year to 50.

C&I lending exploded at SunTrust in the third quarter, it cleared its balance sheet of some lingering problems and CEO Bill Rogers is bullish on mortgages. But the question remains whether the Atlanta company will need to do more to exorcise the past.

Robert Hill, SCBT's president and CEO, announces his second open-bank deal in nine months as it looks to consolidate in South Carolina and Georgia. SCBT has also bought three failed banks since January 2010.

State Bank Financial's (STBZ) second-quarter earnings nearly doubled what it reported a quarter earlier as the serial acquirer's organic growth outpaced growth from acquisitions.