Guaranty Bank may have a buyer soon, analysts say
12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, August 12, 2009
By BRENDAN CASE / The Dallas Morning News
A number of investors are considering bids for the assets of Guaranty Bank and federal regulators could announce a winner by next week, said banking industry executives familiar with the bidding process.
"Today that's the timeline, but that could change," said Dan Bass, a Houston-based managing director of Carson Medlin Co., an investment banking firm.
Another Texas banking executive, who asked not to be named, also said Tuesday that a winner in the bidding process could be announced by next week.
A spokesman for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. declined to comment.
Bass and other analysts speculated that the list of potential bidders could include Gerald Ford, a Dallas billionaire who built his fortune in banking; BBVA Compass, a unit of Spanish bank giant BBVA; and a group of investors that earlier this year bought IndyMac, a Pasadena, Calif., bank that failed last year.
"I think the Ford group is definitely one of the front-runners," he said. "Ford no doubt, and BBVA Compass. And the private equity groups that bought IndyMac."
Ford and a spokeswoman for OneWest Bank, the new name of IndyMac, could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for BBVA Compass declined to comment.
Analysts said other potential bidders include Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp, parent of U.S. Bank, and Iberiabank Corp., the Lafayette, La., parent of Iberiabank. Executives at both firms declined to comment.
Also in the running, according to a Tuesday report by Bloomberg News, is the Blackstone Group LP, a high-profile private equity firm based in New York. A Blackstone spokesman declined to comment.
"The Ford group's interest in Guaranty has been speculated for a while," said Curtis Carpenter, managing director of Sheshunoff & Co. Investment Banking in Austin, referring to Gerald Ford.
"I think he's got the resources to pull off a transaction of this size, as would U.S. Bancorp and Blackstone," Carpenter said.
Guaranty Bank is "critically undercapitalized" after recent write-downs related to its mortgage-backed securities portfolio, according to a regulatory filing last month by its parent, Guaranty Financial Group Inc. 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," Guaranty said.
Guaranty's shareholders include Dallas billionaire Robert Rowling and New York billionaire Carl Icahn. Guaranty Bank, which had assets of $13.4 billion as of March 31, is technically based in Austin, but its top executives work in Dallas.
Guaranty has about 160 branches in Texas and California. About 100 of them are in Texas. It's unclear if regulators would sell the bank as a whole or in pieces.
"Texas would be a terrific state for any acquirer," said Stephen Skaggs, president of the Bank Advisory Group LLC in Austin.
"People have perceived that Texas has a demographic profile that would result in growth that would surpass the nation's," he said. "That proved to be true throughout the late '90s and early 2000s.
"Even today, while there's going to be some hiccups, I don't think the hiccups are going to be nearly as severe here as in Florida and California," Skaggs said.
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