Canada Firm Acquires Three Failed U.S. Banks; Others Shut (50 so far this year that have failed)

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Wall Street Journal

By ROBIN SIDEL

Canada's TD Bank Financial Group, accelerating its march on the U.S. banking industry, gobbled up the operations of three failed institutions in Florida.

Regulators seized a total of eight banks, marking 50 so far this year that have failed. In addition to the three in Florida, they shuttered two in Michigan and Massachusetts that represented the first failures of the year in those states, two in California, and one in Washington.

Two of the deals call for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to profit if the stock price of the acquiring bank rises over a certain period of time. The FDIC previously has profited from such "value appreciation" instruments and has expressed an intention to do more of them under the right circumstances

In Florida, TD acquired the banking operations of AmericanFirst Bank in Clermont, First Federal Bank of North Florida in Palatka, and Riverside National Bank of Florida in Fort Pierce. The three failed institutions weren't affiliated with one another.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304180804575188500188987636.html?mod=WSJ_business_whatsNews

[Captain Hilts]

1. Toronto Dominion is opening up branches all over the DC area. nt

[Dover]

2. It's called Consolidation. There has been serious discussion in white papers

at the World Bank and IMF about needing to get rid of many of the banks (particularly the mid-sized ones) in order to create greater "efficiency".

Examples:
http://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/12128.html
http://hubpages.com/hub/Bank-Consolidation

[Grand Taurean]

7. So monopolies are good so long as they are private.

I see.

[iandhr]

3. TD is my bank.

I am pleased with their services.

[OnlinePoker]

5. I'm assuming from the Yankee's logo you're an American

As a Canadian, my wife and I moved our accounts out of TD in 2004 because they kept raising their bank fees on everything and changing account types without notice (no fee checking suddenly became a checking/savings account that had fees on all but the first 6 or 7 transactions per month). We moved to our local credit union and haven't paid a service fee since (I can also withdraw money at any credit union in BC without being charged an external institution fee, typically $2.50 per transaction).

When we closed our account at the bank, they couldn't care less and the teller actually said "Oh, we've had a lot of people doing that lately". We knew right there we had made the right decision.

[wolfgangmo]

4. Wait a freakin' minute...

Are you saying that a mid sized bank, from a country with tight banking regulations has the capital to buy banks in the US of A? If they are regulated, then how did they keep from failing before our glorious banks who are given a free reign to operate without regulation, just like Jesus commanded them to?

WTF? We're number 1. Those darned Canadians can't do that, can they?

[MetaTrope]

6. Probably the same way a Canadian mining company

managed to buy the richest gold deposits in the U.S. for pennies on the dollar, before putting George H.W. Bush on their board of directors...

[provis99]

9. probably the same way a mine collapse in Saskatchewan resulted in zero deaths

A potash mine had a mine explosion, collapsing sections of the mine, but because of government regulations, mine safety and survival zones with food, medical supples and water, as well as two-way radios, not a single miner died. Incidently, some of the miners who survived the Saskatchewan mine collapse were advising the West Virginia government and coal miner unions on how to make their own mines safer, but the gov't and companies decided regulations were a bad idea.

Damn those Canadians and their government loving citizens!!Why do they hate free enterprise!!!

[boppers]

8. But but but...

I thought we we giving banks all kinds of free money, no strings attached, so they could stay in business with no accountability!

:sarcasm: