Mr Cooper Group Inc (COOP)

[WaS]

Citigroup Bid on WaMu Before JPM Bought Them?

Sounds like it was pre-seizure. Did anyone else know this? Any idea what documents mentioning this bid are or what the offer was? Maybe I knew this as well and forgot. My mind isn't what it once was.

"In the frantic days before Washington Mutual was seized by the federal government, a handful of suitors — including eventual buyer JPMorgan Chase — were rumored to be interested in acquiring the beleaguered Seattle bank.

In fact, newly released documents show that only one other company made a bid for WaMu: Citigroup. But the bid was nonbinding.

Citigroup’s offer did not meet the criteria set by regulators, leaving JPMorgan Chase & Co. as the sole firm bidder for the 119-year-old Seattle institution.

If Citigroup’s proposal had been accepted by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which was handling the sale of WaMu, the fate of WaMu’s banking operations and employees could have been significantly different, according to legal experts and a former executive of the bank."

http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2008/12/22/tidbits1.html