Friday night bank failures: This week, Alpha Bank of Alpharetta, Georgia!!

[Pale Blue Dot]

Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Alpha Bank & Trust of Alpharetta, Georgia, was closed by regulators today, the 16th U.S. bank seized this year amid a collapse in the housing markets that led to a $700 billion rescue plan to unfreeze financial markets.

Alpha, with $354 million in assets and $346 million in deposits, was shut by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was named receiver. Stearns Bank, N.A., of St. Cloud, Minnesota, will assume deposits. Alpha's two offices north of Atlanta will open on Oct. 27 as branches of Stearns Bank, the FDIC said.

Regulators have closed the most banks in 15 years, and the collapses of Washington Mutual Inc. and IndyMac Bancorp Inc. were among the biggest in history. About 4.4 percent of Alpha's assets consisted of defaulted real-estate loans it took back on its balance sheet, quadruple the total for most U.S. banks, based on data compiled by Charlottesville, Virginia-based SNL Financial.

Alpha ``could no longer meet the regulatory minimum to ensure safety and soundness,'' Robert Braswell, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, said in an interview. He declined to say what activities or failed investments led to the bank's collapse.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aWqQSc8.54kE&refer=us