Market Currents

• Friday, August 28, 2009

• 13:42 PM Guaranty Financial (GFG) - the holding company left behind after Guaranty Bank was seized by regulators and sold to Spain's BBVA - files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The banking unit had some $13B in assets, while the holding company has just $24.3M. 1 Comment

• Friday, August 21, 2009

• 19:24 PM With its takeover of Guaranty Bank (GFG), BBVA is the first foreign company to buy a failed bank in the current crisis, but others are lining up to make bids, including France's BNP Paribas (BNPQY.PK), Canada's Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD), and the Netherlands' Rabobank. Fortune: Foreign banks have their own issues and can't rescue everyone. Comment!
• 19:12 PM BBVA, Spain's second-largest bank, assumes deposits of Guaranty Bank (GFG), in the year's 81st - and second-biggest - bank failure. Guaranty, Texas' second-biggest lender, had $13B in assets. Guaranty's 162 branches will reopen tomorrow as BBVA Compass banks. A loss-share transaction on $11B in assets means the estimated cost to the DIF is $3B. Comment!
• 13:19 PM There will be more than 300 failed banks before it's over, Meredith Whitney says: "The small-business owner on Main Street continues to see liquidity come away." There have been 77 failures in FDIC-insured institutions this year, and eyes are on big lender Guaranty Bank (GFG +9.7%), which could be taken over by BBVA as soon as today. 3 Comments
• 09:09 AM With the imminent failure of Guaranty Financial Group (GFG), the banking crisis is poised to enter a new phase: banks failing not due to the bad loans they made, but those they bought. Thousands of banks invested in similar securities backed by subprime mortgages, and analysts say the boomerang effect that killed Guaranty could cripple them too. 2 Comments

• Wednesday, August 19, 2009

• 17:34 PM Spain's BBVA, its second-largest bank by market value, has reportedly been chosen to take over the $16B in assets of Austin, Texas-based Guaranty Financial Group (GFG). Last month, the Office of Thrift Supervision took over Guaranty's board functions and directed the bank to turn itself over to the FDIC, indicating its transactions were likely to wipe out shareholder value. [[GFG]] -10.3% AH. 2 Comments

• Tuesday, August 18, 2009

• 07:45 AM Regulators reportedly extend the bidding deadline for Guaranty (GFG) until today. Guaranty said in a filing yesterday it no longer believes it can continue as a going concern. (previously) Comment!

• Monday, August 17, 2009

• 07:15 AM Regulators reportedly ask potential bidders to submit bids for Guaranty (GFG) by today, and are hoping Toronto Dominion (TD), JPMorgan (JPM) and BBVA will step up. A P-E consortium, including Carlyle, Blackstone (BX) and TPG, are also considering a bid. Comment!

• Friday, August 14, 2009

• 13:41 PM With Colonial BancGroup (CNB -11.9%) to become the year's biggest bank failure today, who's next? More than 150 publicly traded lenders have nonperforming loans of 5% or more of holdings - a big risk to survival - and Corus (CORS +42.2%) and Guaranty (GFG -13.8%) are above 6.5%. Comment!

• Tuesday, August 11, 2009

• 16:58 PM Assets of Guaranty Bank (GFG -8.3%) - the large Texas lender on the verge of collapse - are drawing bidding interest from Blackstone Group (BX), Flexpoint and U.S. Bancorp (USB). A Guaranty failure would be the largest since the September seizure of Washington Mutual. Comment!

• Tuesday, August 4, 2009

• 14:10 PM An SEC memo reportedly says that on-the-ropes Guaranty Bank (GFG) - Texas' second-largest publicly traded bank, with nearly $16B in assets - will be seized, not sold. The combined failures of Guaranty and Colonial Bank could wipe out what's left of the FDIC's budget. (via) Comment!

• Friday, July 24, 2009

• 12:35 PM Stung by almost $1.5B in mortgage writedowns, Guaranty Financial (GFG -32%) - one of the biggest banks in Texas with nearly $16B in assets - is nearing collapse and has agreed to let the FDIC take over its banking subsidiary, though that's not happened yet. Comment!