WASHINGTON (AP) — Regulators on Friday shut down Guaranty Financial Group Inc., a big lender felled by losses on loans to homebuilders and borrowers, in the second-largest U.S. bank failure this year.
It marked the 81st failure of a U.S. bank in 2009, a mounting toll and the most in a year since 1992 at the height of the savings-and-loan crisis.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of Guaranty Financial, based in Austin, Texas, which had about $13 billion in assets and $12 billion in deposits as of June 30. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, Spain's second-largest bank, agreed to buy all the failed bank's deposits and $12 billion of the assets. It was the first foreign bank to buy a failed U.S. bank.
The failure of Guaranty Financial is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund an estimated $3 billion.