Now, I first noticed them doing this back in December when they had a larger than normal list of bank failures.
It's not like it takes them hours upon hours to type the Bank information into the form. I'm pretty sure they already know which banks have already failed during the week come Friday evening when they post their list online. After all, the banks have usually already been auctioned off.
My suspicion is that they when they have an obscene number of bank failures to post, they slowly add them, in hopes that Newspaper editors will check the total early in the evening, before going to press, and thus, misreport the numbers as being lower than what they really are.
Anyway, that's the only thing that makes sense to me. Any ideas, anyone?
Friday night news dump.
failing or being taken over?
Having talked to a banker who was involved in a take-over of a failing bank (ie, they were offered the failing banks assets by the FDIC a couple days before the announcement), the logistics are such that I think the announcements are sent out as they get word from the FDIC field teams who are seizing the failed bank. ie, the press release doesn’t go out until the field team leader calls DC to OK the announcement.
When I was in banking, it was pretty standard to “takeover” a failed bank or S&L on Friday after close of business.
This info was to be kept private until the bank was closed and all assets secured. Sometimes the bank itself had been seeking to merge or be aquired by another institution.
After due-diligence, if the potential buyer felt that there was too many bad loans,and the parties could not reach agreement, then the feds would step in.
Often they could then fashion a deal which would be more attractive to the buyer, and would still cost the FDIC less money than just taking over the bank (ie nationalizing).
During the S&L crisis, they got so good at it, that the S&L closed on Friday, and then reopened on Monday with a new name and barely a ripple to note the change.
Sounds about right. They trickle them out at just long enough intervals to insure that they get reported in small batches, and you have to be really paying attention to realize how many there really are.
internets/ping
370 banks list FDIC as a scam and failure for America!