Thursday, September 25, 2008

Eated And Pooped

Cheap!

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co., the third- biggest U.S. bank by assets, agreed to acquire the deposits of Washington Mutual Inc. for $1.9 billion as the thrift was seized by regulators in the biggest bank failure in U.S. history.

...

WaMu had about 2,300 branches and $182 billion of customer deposits at the end of June. Its $310 billion of assets dwarf those of Continental Illinois Corp., previously the largest failed bank, which had $40 billion ($83 billion in 2008 dollars) when it was taken over in 1984.


Of course buying the deposits doesn't mean you're literally buying the cash. You're buying the customers and the right to be custodians of their accounts. Still a pretty good deal!

...but they did eat the loan portfolio, making it not so cheap.