American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. As excerpted from the Comments sections of AmericanBanker.com articles.

A Virginia Beach investment group has pulled the plug on its plan to buy a struggling bank in the Washington, D.C., suburbs.

Lehman Brothers said Friday it has sold its Aurora Bank subsidiary, a move that, coupled with an earlier sale of Lehman's Woodlands Commercial Bank, should help funnel some $1.5 billion into the pockets of Lehman's creditors.

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods CEO Thomas Michaud discusses the market for mergers and aquisitions, the close competition for deals with chief rival Sandler O'Neill & Partners, and what the future holds for his boutique investment bank.

The prospect of better spreads at Oriental Financial Group trumps the hit to book value under its $500 million agreement to buy BBVA's unit in Puerto Rico.

Doug Tuttle knows all too well what goes on at struggling banks, and that is exactly why his new boss at American Momentum says he hired the industry veteran in Tampa, Fla.

Continuing its string of Texas acquisitions, Prosperity Bancshares in Houston announced Thursday that it is buying Community National Bank in Bellaire for $26.6 million in cash and stock.

The company announced Thursday that it is selling its banking operations in Puerto Rico to Oriental Financial Group (OFG) in San Juan for $500 million in cash.

Trustmark Corporation (TRMK) in Jackson, Miss., announced Wednesday that it is selling eight mutual funds with roughly $903 million of assets to Federated Investors (FII) of Pittsburgh and its subsidiaries.

Banks and government agencies face several problems with their plans to rent out their backlog of foreclosed homes, especially if they try to securitize those rentals, according to Morningstar Credit Ratings.

R. Eugene Taylor's Capital Bank would have to pay nearly $4 million more for F. Scott Bauer's Southern Community in a new, all-cash deal thanks to market swings that complicated their earlier cash-and-stock agreement.

The Treasury Department has sent letters to 200 remaining Tarp banks indicating that the agency may auction its stakes as parts of pools this fall. While the move removes the government from the banks, it presents new challenges, particularly for recapitalizations.

Capital Bank Financial in Coral Gables, Fla., has upped the price it is paying for Southern Community Financial (SCMF) in Winston-Salem, N.C., by more than $3 million and will now pay all cash instead of a mix of cash and stock.

Already a market leader in Chicago and Milwaukee, BMO Harris Bank is eyeing "tuck-in" acquisitions in St. Louis, Minneapolis and Kansas City in its quest to achieve top five deposit share in all of its major markets.

New accounting standards on how hospitals report bad debt expense will improve hospital balance sheets and the comparability of some financial metrics, according to a report from Fitch Ratings.

A breakdown of M&A announcements for the week ended June 23.

The insurance unit of BancorpSouth (BXS) has agreed to buy the assets of Securance Group, an insurance agency in Brewton, Ala.

The Treasury Department is auctioning off shares it owns in seven more community banks still left in the Troubled Asset Relief Program and at least five of the banks intend to bid on all or some of the shares themselves.

Axa Private Equity has raised $8 billion to buy something a lot of banks need to unload — their ownership stakes in private-equity funds, the firm's Benoit Verbrugghe says.

Wells Fargo (WFC) has agreed to buy a subscription finance portfolio with $6 billion in commitments from WestLB, European commercial bank based in Germany.