Wanna Buy A Bank?

mikec

I read in the paper the other day that The Hartford insurance(and a few others) are buying small banks(100 mill or so) so they can call themselves financial institutions, and qualify for federal bail out money. The return on their investment is between 1.1 and 3.4 BILLION in bail out money.
So guys, wanna all pool our dough and buy a bank?

Grumpy

Question is whya ren't these small banks taking advantage of the bail out money themselves?

TimelessQuality

The smaller 'local' banks here are pretty healthy. They didn't practice the sub-prime crap.

Many have said they don't want or need the bailout.

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-Steve

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boman47k

From what I am hearing, our local banks are in pretty good shape too.

mikec

I'm not sure why the small banks aren't going for the bailout. From what I read in the paper today the bank The Hartford bought is secure, and in no trouble. The article said, the bail out money is not supposed to rescue failing banks, but inject cash into healthy ones to open lending back up.
The Hartford's stock(don't quote me on exact numbers) was at about $50 0r $60 a share a year ago, now its under $10.
I follow this, because I used to be an in house carpenter there, and had to hang stupid pictures and golf plaques for the asswipe executives, who treated us like the help.

concretemasonry

The small banks may not have contributed enough to the election, so they probably recognize they are way down on the list and will not benefit. they do not have to sell anyway.

Big companies are looking at small banks because they are buying good assets that represent good loans. In this way the big company (with some questionable assets) can look better and may qualify for more potitical handouts after the 1/20/2009 bailout of the auto companies and unions.

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Dick

Engineer, designer and consultant recently active domestically and internationally on construction and design in about 35 countries.

MALCO.New.York

A true seer of what is ACTUALLY going on and how it works!

Hurray for Dick!

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