Last week a handful of struggling companies either closed on capital raises or announced plans to raise capital despite pending or expected agreements with regulators.

Regulators closed the $2 billion-asset Georgian Bank in Atlanta on Friday, the industry's 95th failure of the year. Despite its relatively small size, regulators estimated it would take a heavy toll on the Deposit Insurance Fund, costing $892 million.

When it bought the failed bank and thrift units of Irwin Financial Corp. from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. last week, First Financial managed to get terms so attractive that others are taking notice.

A small Florida bank raised $70 million through an initial public offering Wednesday, in what is believed to be the first such deal in the banking sector in two years.

With as much as $196.6 million headed to its war chest, Old National Bancorp in Evansville, Ind., could be striking deals for failed banks soon.

SOUTHEAST

With its expansion into Pennsylvania underway through two large acquisitions there, First Niagara Financial Group said Wednesday that it intends to sell $400 million of common stock so it can continue the buying spree.

With its stock trading under a dollar since June 23, Midwest Banc Holdings Inc. is in danger of being delisted.

Some of the country's healthier midsize banks are losing interest in buying failed institutions, contending the deals are costly, time-consuming and in some ways not worth the trouble.

Merger and acquisition activity has been almost nonexistent, but that is not to say it has been uninteresting.

First Busey Corp. of Illinois plans to sell at least 18 million shares of common stock and $39.3 million in 9% convertible preferred shares to raise funds to boost capital at its Busey Bank unit and other purposes.

CIB Marine in Pewaukee, Wis., is on track to turn more than $110 million of life-threatening debt into an abundance of capital and another shot at selling itself.

The $1.8 billion-asset company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday that it has 60 days to submit a plan for maintaining sufficient capital, under a written agreement it signed Sept. 15 with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Metro Bancorp Inc. in Harrisburg, Pa., plans to sell $75 million of its common stock, in an offering that could help smooth its pending acquisition of Republic First Bancorp Inc. in Philadelphia.

While stock sales by large publicly traded banks have been in the spotlight this year, smaller banks have also been on a capital-raising binge.

The failures of $2.7 billion-asset Irwin Union Bank and Trust Co. and $493 million-asset Irwin Union Bank were estimated to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund a total of $850 million.

WASHINGTON — Under pressure from lawmakers not to charge banks another special assessment, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair said the agency would consider other alternatives — including some obscure ones — before it decides to act.

James Gutierrez, chief executive of Progress Financial in San Jose, believes he has found the key to reaching unbanked Hispanics — credit.

The failures of $2.7 billion-asset Irwin Union Bank and Trust Co., of Columbus, Ind., and $493 million-asset Irwin Union Bank, of Louisville, Ken., were estimated to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund a total of $850 million.