7-29-09

 
7-29-09
Merced Sun-Star
Merced sets meetings to discuss Wal-Mart project...SCOTT JASON
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/974835.html
The battle over the proposed Wal-Mart distribution center will begin Aug. 19.
Merced city officials have sent out public notices about the meeting, which will be the first step in approving or denying the 230-acre project in southeast Merced. The final draft of the environment report -- 1,500 pages of criticisms and responses in two volumes -- will be released Thursday for public review. CDs will be given away free. Printed copies cost $145. A PDF version will be posted on the city Web site.
The timeline marks the beginning of the approval or denial process and the culmination of four years of planning. Wal-Mart proposed the project in 2005 and with the hope it would open much sooner than it has taken.
The plan is to build it on a swath of land between Childs and Gerard avenues.
Residents supporting and opposing the project will have the chance to sway the City Council to their side and decide the fate of the project.
The Planning Commission meeting will start at 6 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall. Scores of people are expected to offer their thoughts on the project, so the city's setting aside multiple days to hear from the public.
The Aug. 19 hearing will probably be continued to Monday, Aug. 24 and, if even more time is needed, Aug. 26.
The first meeting will begin with a presentation from city staff members. Wal-Mart officials can then give a 15-minute speech on why the project should be supported. Opponents can have one person take 15 minutes to argue their case.
Each member of the public will also have three minutes to offer their input.
Once that's complete, the five-member Planning Commission will vote on whether it supports the project. That recommendation will then go to the City Council.
The council is tentatively scheduled to begin hearing from the public Sept. 21, a Monday. That meeting can be continued to 9 a.m. Sept. 26, a Saturday, and possibly the following Monday.
Merced Stop Wal-Mart Action Team co-chairman Kyle Stockard said the group was meeting Tuesday evening to discuss the upcoming hearings.
He believes EDAW, the consultant writing the report, rushed through responding to the 300 comments because the final draft is being released three months after the input period closed.
The firm began work on evaluating the project in June 2006. Its report, which went through a peer-review, was released in February after months of delays.
Still, Stockard said his group found issues with its review. "There were lots of questions and lots of problems they have not addressed," he said.
Aaron Rios, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said the company has been keeping its network of customers and supporters aware of the upcoming hearing and cited the Greater Merced Chamber of Commerce's survey of 300 voters that showed that 78 percent want the project approved. "It speaks for itself," Rios said.
(Opponents wondered whether the sample represented a cross-section of Merced and how the questions were phrased.)
Many Wal-Mart officials will be at the meeting to tout the project's benefits and answer questions.
Wal-Mart is familiar with trying to build projects in California, which has more levels of review than other areas, so the delays in Merced haven't dissuaded the company, Rios said.
"We're absolutely committed to moving forward through the approval process," he said.
The project is Merced's largest development under way. Wal-Mart said the center will create 900 full-time jobs by the time it's completely operational. Opponents tout the damage to the air and congestion on roads as two key reasons for why the project is not good for Merced. It's up to the City Council to decide.
Foster Farms sues Livingston over water rate increase...JONAH OWEN LAMB
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/974823.html
The city of Livingston broke state law and health codes when it adopted a resolution that will increase water rates by an initial 40 percent, according to a lawsuit filed in Merced County Superior Court by Foster Farms, the city's largest water user.
The suit also claims the company will be negatively impacted by the city's July 7 resolution and demands that the court order the city to rescind the increase.
The lawsuit was filed July 14.
"The city has pursued a 'shell game' in which the city announces proposed water rate increases yet fails to justify the basis for massive increased rates in the manner required by law," states the lawsuit. "The increased rates cannot be justified because they are intended to pay for unrelated city activities to generate unlawful surpluses, not to provide water service to the city's residents."
The city's legal reply, filed July 16, claims that Foster Farms will not be negatively affected immediately by the rate increase so the lawsuit should be put on hold.
Foster Farms' new rates will be lower than before the rate increase for six months, according to the city.
The city's reply does not address Foster Farms' other concerns that allege the city broke state law.
The city says that the new rate for industrial customers will be less than the current rate for at least six months.
Under the current rate, Foster Farms pays 59 cents per 1,000 gallons. Its new rate, according to the city, will be 51 cents per 1,000 gallons.
In May 2009, Foster Farms used 131,003 gallons and paid $77,550, according to the city.
"The water rates under the new rate structure actually represent a reduction of petitioner's rate," said the city's reply.
But that will change as soon as February 2010 when the new industrial rate will be 95 cents per 1,000 gallons, said Victoria Lewis, the city's finance director.
The rate will increase again in 2011.
The Foster Farms lawsuit further alleges that the city went about raising its rates in an underhanded way that failed to work with residents or business owners to reach a compromise.
Not only did the city attempt and fail to pass a water rate ordinance five times, but went against its attorney's legal opinion on the matter, stated the suit. The suit says that the city then attempted to "circumvent constitutional and legal requirements by gaming the system."
The court filings go on to say, "As part of the plan, the city abruptly fired its city attorney after she insisted that the city follow the law requiring the proposed water rate increase be adopted by ordinance passed by a two-thirds majority vote. The city then magically declared that the water rate increase could be adopted by resolution and could be passed by a simple majority vote."
UC Merced extends deadline for spring semester applications...DANIELLE GAINES
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/974819.html
UC Merced has pushed back the undergraduate deadline to apply for the spring 2010 semester.
Prospective students now have until Aug. 17 to file applications. The original deadline was to be Thursday, said Kevin Browne, assistant vice chancellor for enrollment management.
UC Merced officials decided to extend the deadline in light of prolonged wranglings over the state budget that affected the University of California system budget and may have confused prospective students.
"In this critical time, every single place in the University of California is a precious commodity," Browne said. "And we want to make sure that we can get qualified UC applicants into each of those spaces."
UC Merced generally enrolls between 80-125 new students each spring, and this one won't be much different, Browne said.
"While many universities have been forced to reduce enrollment growth, we are able to maintain our enrollment while continuing to offer students the services, classes and individual attention they need," Browne said. "That is something students and their families are finding reassuring in these uncertain times."
In June, UC officials announced that the Merced campus received 1,358 statements of intent to register from prospective students for the fall semester, a 27-percent increase from the previous year, and a 94-percent increase over projections for the fall 2007 semester.
Total campus enrollment this fall is expected to be at least 3,200.
On July 10, CSU Stanislaus closed admission for the 2010 winter and spring terms.
In a typical year, approximately 1,000 new community college transfer and graduate students are admitted to CSU Stanislaus during the winter and spring terms, according to a campus press release. A CSU systemwide effort to reduce student enrollment to bring it in line with limited state funding prompted the decision.
Prospective students to UC Merced can apply online at http://admissions.ucmerced.edu/applying-uc-merced. For information on admissions and financial aid workshops, call the campus visitor's center at (209) 228-6316.
Modesto Bee
Cardoza pressed on health care during Modesto rally...Ken Carlson
http://www.modbee.com/local/v-print/story/797834.html
Rep. Dennis Cardoza has some of the same concerns as other "Blue Dog" Democrats about the Obama administration's proposals for sweeping health care reform.
The Merced Democrat said a House bill favored by the president doesn't have enough cost controls, and he questions how many people could afford to buy the required coverage. The bill also would require recession-weary small-business owners to provide health insurance for employees or pay fees.
"I support the concept of health care reform," Cardoza said, "but I am not committed to any particular legislation until the bill is written correctly."
Cardoza was responding to health care advocacy groups that held a rally Tuesday near his downtown Modesto office, urging him to vote for the bill in the House of Representatives. About 30 people holding signs alongside J Street called for passing motorists to "honk for health care" and later met with Cardoza's staff at Tenth Street Place.
Oakland-based Health Care for America Now led the rally, supported by members of the Modesto Teachers Association, other labor groups and grass-roots organizations. A similar rally was held outside the office of Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno.
The group said support from moderate to conservative Democrats will be critical to passing health care reform this year. The Blue Dogs are a group of more than 50 Democrats from conservative congressional districts.
"These reforms will cost money, but it will cost a lot more if we don't do anything," said Linda Leu of Health Care for America Now.
Backers of reform believe there's a small window of time for overhauling the nation's health system, with the midterm elections looming in 2010. But it is appearing doubtful that key legislation will be passed before Congress starts its summer recess Aug. 7.
"There are a number of us who feel we have to address these concerns," said Cardoza, who keeps an updated tab of the national debt on his Web site. "We need to take time to do it right."
Cardoza said he is well aware of the health needs of uninsured Americans. His 18th Congressional District, which includes Merced County and parts of Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties, has one of the highest concentrations of uninsured people in the nation.
Recent state budget cuts took such benefits as dental and podiatric care away from adults covered by Medi-Cal, slashed other programs, and are expected to cause thousands of valley children to lose Healthy Families coverage.
People at the rally said it's time to fix the system.
"I have a lot of health problems," said Becky Soria, a coordinator for San Joaquin Grassroots Action of Stockton. "I've had to file bankruptcy once before because of medical bills."
It's not hard to find other residents who believe the reform proposals are moving too fast.
"I would hate to see us jump in with both feet and not know where we are going," said William Fogarty, an Oakdale cattle rancher who has a high-deductible plan to insure against catastrophic illness.
The federal government could start by offering a catastrophic insurance option for people spurned by private insurers, he said. "Make that work first and then go from there."
Stockton Record
Stockton to pay $4M in sewer spill settlement...Alex Breitler
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090729/A_NEWS/907290313
STOCKTON - The City Council on Tuesday approved a $4 million settlement with environmentalists who claimed that a slew of sewer line spills placed the city in violation of the federal Clean Water Act.
The Stockton-based California Sportfishing Protection Alliance sued the city in September, claiming 1,530 sewer overflows during the previous five years endangered human health and the environment.
Tuesday's settlement requires a gradual decline in the number of spills over the next five years through more vigilant inspections and maintenance, and requires the city to consider new rules requiring private sewer line connections to be inspected prior to the sale of a home.
"These are all things that we are essentially doing now," said Jeff Willett, assistant director of the city's Municipal Utilities Department. "The real struggle and cost issues are the time frame in which they need to be completed."
Bill Jennings, head of the fishing alliance, has claimed the city failed to maintain the sewer system and postponed repairs for lack of funding. The number of spills in Stockton per mile of pipe exceeds the state average, he said.
"The primary goal (of the lawsuit) was to bring the city into compliance," he said Tuesday. "We think we've got sufficient yardsticks, performance measures and goals to secure that."
"We're patching one of the thousand cuts" that are killing the Delta, Jennings said.
Sewer spills are a threat to the estuary because waste-water from a leaking or burst pipe may find its way into storm drains, which empty directly into rivers and streams.
Residents can help by not pouring grease down their drains, Willett said. Grease congeals inside the pipes, forming blockages that can lead to spills.
Under the settlement, the city must hire an additional employee to inspect grease traps at restaurants. It also must conduct closed-circuit television inspections of 1,000 miles of sewer line over the next five years.
The cost also includes $300,000 for environmental mitigation projects elsewhere and $250,000 in fees for the alliance's attorneys and consultants. The alliance itself, Jennings said, does not make money off the numerous lawsuits it has filed but rather is funded through contributions.
Willett said the cost of the settlement will be carried by the Municipal Utilities Department's roughly $70 million budget, which is separate from the city's general fund, the focus of the city's recent budget struggles.
He said should the city adopt rules requiring the inspection of pipes connecting private homes to the public sewer system, homeowners trying to sell those properties would have to pay that expense.
Guaranty Bank collapsing...Staff and wire reports
Institution bought Stockton Savings Bank in 1997
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090729/A_BIZ/907290305
Guaranty Financial Group Inc. probably can't continue as a going concern, the company said.
Its subsidiary, Guaranty Bank, which has 10 branches in San Joaquin County, is "critically undercapitalized" after recent write-downs related to its mortgage-backed securities portfolio. Guaranty's primary shareholders are unwilling to inject additional capital, the company said.
"In light of these developments, the company believes that it is probable that it will not be able to continue as a going concern," Austin, Texas-based Guaranty said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Guaranty Bank has agreed to be taken over by federal banking regulators, but a takeover has not yet occurred. Guaranty could end up as the largest U.S. bank failure of the year so far.
Guaranty Bank's board continues to operate, but the federal Office of Thrift Supervision "is exercising a significant degree of control over what had heretofore been the functions of the board," Guaranty Financial said in the filing.
Guaranty Bank's customer deposits remain fully insured up to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. limits, the bank and regulators said. The FDIC's standard insurance amount is $250,000 per depositor.
"We continue to work with our regulators," Guaranty said in a statement. "We are focused on providing the best customer service possible and believe we can avoid any disruptions to our customers. As a member of the FDIC, Guaranty depositors enjoy the same coverage as customers of other FDIC member banks."
Guaranty Bank has five branches in Stockton, two in Lodi and one each in Manteca, Escalon and Tracy.
Texas-based Guaranty acquired most of those branches through its 1997 merger with Stockton Savings Bank.
Outside bankers interpreted Guaranty's filing as an acknowledgement that the bank has lost its struggle to stay in business. They added that regulators may be negotiating with buyers interested in Guaranty's business, although the company said any transaction would not be expected to result in proceeds for shareholders.
"The game is over as an independent company," said Jim Gardner, a longtime banker who is now chairman of Commerce Street Capital LLC, a Dallas-based investment banking firm. "The shareholders are wiped out and the government is calling the shots."
Guaranty Financial Group's stock closed Tuesday at just under 13 cents a share. Its 52-week high was $6.75.
While Guaranty is technically based in Austin, its top executives work in Dallas. The bank has about 160 branches in Texas and California.
The bank's assets include a weakened loan portfolio and a large chunk of mortgage-backed securities, many based on risky California mortgages.
In its filing Thursday, Guaranty Financial said it wrote down the value of its mortgage-backed securities and took accounting charges of about $1.5 billion.
The write-downs left it with a core capital ratio of negative 5.78 percent as of March 31 and a total risk-based capital ratio of 5.52 percent.
Guaranty was spun off from Temple-Inland Co. of Austin in late 2007, a move sought by Temple-Inland shareholder and New York billionaire Carl Icahn.
A year ago, Guaranty picked up a $600 million additional investment from Icahn and Dallas billionaire Robert Rowling.
In April, Guaranty said banking regulators ordered it to raise its capital levels.
In June, it said it might seek an unusual "open bank assistance" plan, in which its shareholders would inject additional capital and regulators would absorb some of its losses.
Earlier this month, Guaranty said it had assets of about $14.4 billion as of March 31.
The largest bank failure so far this year was Florida-based BankUnited FSB, which had assets of $12.8 billion when it went down in May. An investor group acquired nearly all its assets.
Los Angeles Times
Home prices may be stabilizing, market tracker shows
The S & P/Case-Shiller index of prices in 20 major cities rose in May over its April level for the first time since 2006. Analysts say it's too early to declare that the free fall in prices is over...Peter Y. Hong
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-home-prices29-2009jul29,0,5601852,print.story
Another sign emerged that the nation's struggling housing market may be nearing its bottom as a widely followed national home-price index posted its first gain in nearly three years.
The S&P/Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 metropolitan areas was up slightly in May over its April level for the first time since 2006.
Cleveland, Dallas and San Francisco showed the largest gains in May figures released Tuesday, but Los Angeles prices continued to fall. The index was the latest surprise following reports showing monthly gains in new-home sales and housing starts nationwide, and higher median home sales prices in California.
"The data do show for the first time in quite a few years some potential signs of turnaround," said Maureen Maitland, vice president of index services at Standard & Poor's.
But "in terms of a sustained recovery, we're not out of the woods yet," Maitland cautioned. "What we need is for this to continue for quite a few months."
The nationwide index of house prices was still down 17% in May from the same month last year. But the rapid deterioration in prices has slowed since January.
Many housing market analysts agree that cheers over a few bright spots in the data must be weighed against a more complex range of indicators. Home prices are still falling in many areas, with high unemployment and looming foreclosures likely to weigh down real estate for the foreseeable future.
Even the May index rise over April -- by a half-percentage point -- turns out to be a decline when adjusted for seasonality.
May is a busy month for home sales, which usually bumps prices up. Seasonally adjusted, the index for May was down by nine-tenths of a percentage point from April.
The slowing decline in home prices means "the free fall housing has been in is clearly over," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. "But I'm not confident at all we're seeing the end of the period of price declines."
Mortgage interest rates and unemployment are rising, and "we continue to have a massive oversupply of houses by every measure," he said.
Such mixed signals are prompting confusion for homeowners and potential home buyers, and it brought warnings from veteran housing market observers.
"We are extremely concerned that policymakers, banking and real estate industry executives, investors and others will use misleading home price data to conclude that home prices have stabilized. They have not," John Burns, a widely followed Irvine consultant to home builders, wrote in a recent note to clients.
The glut of unsold homes was the mostly overlooked part of a report Monday that new-home sales jumped 11% in June over May. New-home sales were so low in May, however, that even with the double-digit percentage increase, June's new-home sales total was still the lowest for the month since 1982.
The median home sales price is another point of confusion. It has been rising in California and Southern California recently. The California median was up 7% in June from May, to $246,000, according to San Diego-based MDA DataQuick.
But the rise in median price actually reflected falling prices of homes in more expensive neighborhoods, not an end to the downturn. That prompted more sales of relatively pricey properties, changing the mix of all homes sold to a higher-value grouping.
Because the median is the middle of all values, it rises when the group is made up of higher-valued members. So the median can rise even as prices fall -- as long as the prices are falling at the higher end of the market.
Until January, the Case-Shiller index had been declining at a record pace for 16 straight months. Since then, the slide has slowly become less severe.
The index compares the latest sales of detached houses with previous sales and accounts for factors such as remodeling that might affect a house's sale price over time. From those data, an index score is used to show price changes. An index score of 100 reflects January 2000 prices.
The Los Angeles index, which includes Orange County, was down 19.8% in May from the year-ago month. In April, the Los Angeles area decline had been 21% from the same month in 2008.
Los Angeles prices are now 42% below their 2006 peak.
The largest year-over-year declines were in Phoenix (34.2%) and Las Vegas (32%).
Other cities showing sharp declines were San Francisco (26.1%); Miami (25.2%); Detroit (24.5%); Minneapolis (21.7%); Tampa, Fla., (20.8%); and Chicago (17.5%).
Despite the likelihood of further price declines, many home buyers are deciding prices have fallen enough. Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research is among them; he just purchased a house in Washington, D.C., after renting for five years.
"I didn't think I was hitting the bottom, but I figured I wouldn't get killed," he said. "If prices fall another 5% or 10% I'll be OK. If they fall 20% I'll be upset," he said.
Lenders lack incentive to halt some foreclosures
Banks can profit more by allowing certain types of borrowers to lose their homes, hampering government efforts to rein in foreclosures...Renae Merle. Merle writes for the Washington Post.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mortgage29-2009jul29,0,6439981,print.story
Government initiatives to stem the country's mounting foreclosures are hampered because banks and other lenders in many cases have more financial incentive to let borrowers lose their homes than to work out settlements, some economists have concluded.
Policymakers often say it's a good deal for lenders to cut borrowers a break on mortgage payments to keep them in their homes. But, according to researchers and industry experts, foreclosing can be more profitable.
The problem is that modifying mortgages is profitable to banks for only one set of distressed borrowers, while lenders deal with three types. Modification makes economic sense for a bank or other lender only if the borrower can't sustain payments without it, yet will be able to keep up with new, more modest terms.
A second set are those who are likely to fall behind on their payments again even after receiving a modified loan and will probably lose their homes one way or another. Lenders don't want to help these borrowers because waiting to foreclose can be costly.
Finally, there are those delinquent borrowers who can somehow, even at great sacrifice, catch up without a modification. Lenders have little financial incentive to help them.
These financial calculations on the part of lenders pose a challenge for President Obama's ambitious efforts to address the mortgage crisis, which remains at the heart of the country's economic troubles and continues to upend millions of lives. Senior officials at the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development on Tuesday extracted a pledge from 25 mortgage company executives to do more to help borrowers in danger of foreclosure.
The administration is seeking to influence lenders' calculus in part by offering them billions of dollars in incentives to modify home loans. Still, foreclosed homes continue to flood the market, forcing down home prices. That contributed to the unexpectedly large jump in new-home sales in June, reported Monday by the Commerce Department.
"There has been this policy push to use modifications as the tool of choice," said Michael Fratantoni, vice president of single-family-home research at the Mortgage Bankers Assn. But "there is going to be this narrow slice of borrowers for which modifications is the right answer." The size of that slice is tough to discern, he said. "The industry and policymakers have been grappling with that."
The effort to understand the dynamics of the mortgage business comes as the administration is prodding lenders to do more to help borrowers under its Making Home Affordable plan, which gives lenders subsidies to lower the payments for distressed borrowers. About 200,000 homeowners have received modified loans since the program began in March, while more than 1.5 million borrowers were subject during the first half of the year to some form of foreclosure filings, from default notices to completed foreclosure sales, according to RealtyTrac.
No doubt part of the explanation is that lenders are overwhelmed by the volume of borrowers seeking to modify their mortgages. Rising unemployment and falling home prices have added to the problem.
But a study released last month by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston was downbeat on the prospects for widespread modifications. The analysis, which looked at the performance of loans in 2007 and 2008, found that lenders lowered the monthly payments of only 3% of delinquent borrowers, those who had missed at least two payments. Lenders tried to avoid modifying the loans of borrowers who could "self-cure," or catch up on their payments without help, and those who would fall behind again even after receiving help, the study found.
Nearly a third of the borrowers who miss two payments are able to self-cure without help from their lender, according to the Boston Fed study. Separately, Moody's Economy.com, a research firm, estimated that about a fifth of those who miss three payments will self-cure.
The borrowers who are most determined to meet their obligations are often unlikely candidates for loan modifications.
"These are the people who will get a second job, borrow from their family to keep up," said Paul S. Willen, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and an author of its report. "From a coldblooded profit-maximizing standpoint, these are the people the banks will help the least."
CNN Money
Profiting from bank failures
Big banks are scooping up troubled, smaller institutions at a time when growth is hard to come by -- and thanks to favorable FDIC rules, more deals are likely...Colin Barr
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/29/news/economy/failed.banks.
fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009072911
Since the banking crisis started last year, six regional banks have bought at least two failed banks from the FDIC. The leader has been Zions Bancorp (ZION), a Salt Lake City-based institution that has acquired four banks from the FDIC.
Other buyers of multiple troubled banks include U.S. Bancorp (USB, Fortune 500), the Minneapolis-based bank that last year bought the remains of troubled thrifts Downey Savings and PFF, which failed on the same day. The joint purchase of Downey and PFF wound up being the third largest deal by assets for failed banks last year, after the WaMu and IndyMac sales.
FDIC rules require the agency to resolve bank failures in the manner that's least costly to the deposit insurance fund. The deposit fund is backed by fees paid by banks, but the FDIC has a credit line with the Treasury Department that it could tap in an emergency.
The rash of failures over the past year and a half has come at heavy cost to the fund, which is now 75% below its statutory minimum balance.
The cost to the FDIC fund in the U.S. Bancorp and Zions deals alone was $3.6 billion. The agency also agreed to so-called loss-sharing agreements on some of the transactions, which means the fund could end up shouldering additional costs on troubled assets taken on by the acquirers.
It's this provision -- capping the acquirer's losses at the expense of the fund -- that is most alluring to regional banks and their investors.
Strong regional banks "should benefit from picking up relatively attractive deposit franchises with low or no credit risk given the FDIC loan guarantees that have so far accompanied these deals," Morgan Keegan analyst Robert Patten wrote in a note to clients this month.
Patten pointed to Cincinnati's Fifth Third (FITB, Fortune 500) and Atlanta's SunTrust (STI, Fortune 500) as two of the banks that might be chosen to participate in future deals, while Keefe analysts said U.S. Bancorp and BB&T (BBT, Fortune 500) could be singled out as buyers of more failed banks.
Some bankers have downplayed questions about buying failed institutions. Such deals "really are off our radar," Fifth Third chief executive officer Kevin Kabat told investors last week, noting that there have been relatively few bank failures in the Midwest.
But given the advantageous terms, no one is ruling FDIC-assisted deals out, either.
U.S. Bancorp chief executive officer Richard Davis said in a conference call with analysts and investors last week that the bank "will always be available" for any "opportunities that come along" on the FDIC failed bank list, though it is keeping an eye out for bigger ones.