Washington Mutual has been seized by regulators and the deposits sold to JP Morgan Chase according to Bloomberg.com. WaMu also reported that customer withdrawals equaled $16.7 billion in the last 10 days. JP Morgan tried to acquire WaMu in a takeover valued at $4 a share. This is a much better deal for JP Morgan.
WaMu had about 2,300 branches and $182 billion of customer deposits with $310 billion in assets according to the report. Another report says it is $900 billion. JP Morgan will become the largest bank in the country and carry the Chase name.
JP Morgan also bought Bear Stearns in Febraury after that bank collapsed. Hopefully this won’t create a large impact in the bank for it’s customers. JP Morgan gains a strong, established foothold on the West Coast that was missing for them and branch closings should be at a minimum. I have a friend of mine who is a bank manager there and might have some more news tomorrow.
UPDATE: WaMu ends on the day they started 119 years ago.
The transaction ends exactly 119 years of independence for Washington Mutual, whose predecessor was incorporated on September 25, 1889, “to offer its stockholders a safe and profitable vehicle for investing and lending,” according to the thrift’s website. This helped Seattle residents rebuild after a fire torched the city’s downtown.
Customers should expect business as usual on Friday, and all depositors are fully protected, the FDIC said.
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The greater part of our accounts were in WAMUWe left them open, but switched a lot of funds to other banks.Especially the business account where landscape and tree planing down payments are deposited, just to be on the safe side.To bad for WAMU stock holders, but nice that a lot of employees still have work.M. D. Vaden of Beaverton