500 More Banks to Fail by End of 2010, According to Wilbur Ross
September 2, 2009
In this CNBC video clip, Wilbur Ross, Chairman and CEO of WL Ross & Co., states, “at least 500 more banks fail between now and end of next year.”:
“I’m not surprised that the [FDIC’s] list is continuing to grow,” Ross told CNBC. “I think there’s going to be at least 500 more banks fail between now and end of next year.”
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“The first wave of the big banks were the securitizations,” he said. “The regional banks are the ones now going down. They mostly didn’t have much in the way of securitization but they all have construction loans, they have development loans, they all have loans on little shopping centers and they’ve got that kind of portfolio very heavily.”
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“Yesterday, the FDIC held an auction for $1.3 billion of Alt-A loans, or liars loans, coming out of the failed Franklin Bank,” he said. “So that’s the first time FDIC has had an auction with them providing leverage to distressed investors. So we were bidders on it…I think it’s a good system that they’ve developed for getting rid of these assets.”
Hat Tip: Calculated Risk