Word: thrift
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American Savings (assets: $30 billion), which was once the largest thrift in the U.S., had got into the same trouble as many other go-go S & Ls. During the early 1980s its maverick chairman, Charles Knapp, furiously pumped up the company's growth with brokered deposits and high-risk loans. When the thrift suffered a run on deposits in 1984, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board seized American and installed fresh management. But the new team gambled and failed in a multibillion-dollar investment in mortgage-backed securities. When the Bank Board went looking for help again, it eventually decided...
...total amount of cash that the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation will pump into the thrift to make it lucrative for the new owners is estimated at $1.7 billion to $2.5 billion. The arrangement clearly adds up to a sure-thing profit for Bass. American Savings will be split into two entities: a "good" S & L to hold $15.4 billion in healthy assets and a "bad" one that will liquidate $14.4 billion in sour loans and other assets. For a total investment of only $500 million, the Bass Group gets 70% ownership of the good thrift. FSLIC controls...
Bass has thus managed to buy a huge, healthy S & L, complete with a network of 186 branches, for a relatively tiny amount of capital. More than half of his thrift's assets consist of another sure thing: a $7.8 billion loan to the "bad" S & L that is fully guaranteed by FSLIC to pay a handsome 2% more than the going cost of funds. That will pump some $160 million in annual interest into the Bass thrift, no matter how much trouble FSLIC has in getting rid of the bad assets...
...part of the deal, Bass was also rewarded with some $300 million in tax benefits. Taking those into account, Bass stands to make straight profits of $400 million to $500 million over the next four years, which roughly equals his original investment. To post those earnings, the thrift will have to be well managed. For that Bass has hired Mario Antoci, one of California's most respected thrift executives...
FASTEST-GROWING REPAIR BILL The official estimated price tag to bail out the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, which guarantees the deposits of the troubled thrift industry, jumped from $20 billion at the start of 1988 to as much as $50 billion by year...