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WaMu: …and, there it goes.

Posted on September 25, 2008 by The Tim

Bloomberg: JPMorgan Buys WaMu’s Deposits as Thrift Is Seized

JPMorgan Chase & Co., the third- biggest U.S. bank by assets, agreed to pay $1.9 billion for the deposits of Washington Mutual Inc. after the thrift was seized by regulators in the biggest bank failure in U.S. history.

The U.S. government closed Seattle-based Washington Mutual amid customer withdrawals of $16.7 billion since Sept. 15, the Office of Thrift Supervision said in a statement. WaMu had “insufficient liquidity” and was in an “unsound” condition, the OTS said.
…
“JPMorgan is getting a steal compared with what they were going to pay,” said Scott Adams, a pension and investment analyst at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Oakland, California, which owns WaMu shares. “It’s very tragic.”

WaMu collapsed after its credit rating was slashed to junk and potential suitors passed on making a bid. Facing $19 billion of losses on soured mortgage loans, the lender put itself up for sale last week.

New York-based JPMorgan won’t acquire liabilities of the lender, including claims by shareholders and subordinated and senior debt holders, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said.

For those of us that still have some money in accounts, the FDIC page on the failure/sale has some details about how the transition is going to go down.

I left a few hundred dollars in an account there just out of morbid curiosity. Also, it allows me to write about the process from the perspective of a depositor.

I hope none of you bought lots of WaMu stock when it was $2 thinking it was a good deal…

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