By Ranjan Bhaduri
San Diego, California, Feb 20, (THAINDIAN NEWS) In a development that has created sensation in the economic circle, Federal Regulators seized a total of 4 banks on Friday, taking the total count of the year to 20. The FDIC later revealed that the regulators seized California’s La Jolla Bank, Texas’s La Coste National Bank, Illinois’s George Washington Savings Bank and Florida’s Marco Community Bank. Incidentally, La Coste National Bank did not have any other branch and it will resume operations as a section of Community National Bank. The Marco Community Bank will be a Mutual of the Omaha bank.

The La Jolla Bank located at San Diego County was closed down by the Federal regulators on Friday and its assets were sold to OneWest Bank. La Jolla had 10 branches overall and the branches are scheduled to resume operations as OneWest branches, as has been confirmed by the regulators and the company. OneWest has agreed to acquire almost all of the assets of La Jolla worth $3.6 billion in loans and other kind of assets. OneWest bank is owned by Steven Mnuchin and some other private investors. The group has some hedge fund operators like John Paulson and George Soros. Besides, it also has the Dell computers founder Michael S. Dell.

The group tasted success last month with its acquisition of what was earlier known as IndyMac. Besides, OneWest acquired Los Angeles’s First Federal Bank after it failed last year. Similar to a lot of banks that failed the previous year, La Jolla got into rough weathers for commercial loans that went down as the economy suffered a setback.