The Seattle Times posted an interesting article yesterday about Washington State’s banks titled Some Washington banks are recovering, others see their options narrowing
According to The Seattle Times’ quarterly analysis of Washington banks and thrifts, most of the state’s financial institutions seem to be weathering the upheaval reasonably well. Others, while clearly struggling, probably can survive.
But a dozen or so banks are running out of options.
“Pretty much every bank that had a high concentration in real estate (lending) is just getting crushed,” said Joey Warmenhoven, a senior vice president and community-bank stock specialist at McAdams Wright Ragen.
“It’s survival of the fittest,” Warmenhoven added. “The strongest are getting stronger, and the weakest are dying.”
Banks are, in effect, racing against time: Can they clear the piles of soured loans and foreclosed real estate off their books before they run out of capital or are shut down by regulators?
The article includes a few great charts that rank our state’s banks by comprehensive risk ratio, nonperforming assets ratio, and tier 1 leverage capital ratio.
Furthermore, they’ve provided a handy table of all the data for every bank they analyzed. Definitely some interesting stuff to poke around in there.
As a complement to the Seattle Times’ detailed table, here’s the map I made earlier this month of Washington’s 23 “troubled banks” according to Calculated Risk’s unofficial problem bank list.
View Washington’s Troubled Banks in a larger map
(Drew DeSilver, Seattle Times, 11.29.2009)