By Becky Yerak |
Despite being the state with the second-highest level of bank failures
since the start of 2009, buyer demand for failed Illinois lenders has
remained strong, a new report shows.

Eighteen of the state’s 23 failures between Jan. 1, 2009, and Feb. 19,
2010, received three or more bids, SNL Financial found in a study
released Thursday.

The tracker of bank-industry data noted that each of the half a dozen bank failures in both Texas and Washington have drawn at least three bids.

But the other major failure hot spots of the current cycle — Georgia, California and Florida — have seen spottier interest in deals for seized banks with Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. assistance, SNL said.

Georgia, for example, has been home to the most bank failures in the cycle, with more than 25, but more than 15 of those have received fewer than three bids each.

Illinois banks receiving fewer than three bids included Mutual Bank of Harvey, Platinum Community Bank of Rolling Meadows and Benchmark Bank of Aurora.