U.S. private investment group to purchase IndyMac Bank

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 2 (Chinese media) -- The Federal Deposit

Insurance Corp. (FDIC) announced Friday that its Board of Directors has approved

the sale of failed IndyMac Bank to a private investment group.

The group, known as IMB Management Holdings, will purchase IndyMack Bank for 13.9 billion U.S. dollars, according to FDIC.

Customers wait outside the Encino branch of IndyMac Bank in Los Angeles on July 17, 2008. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) announced Friday that its Board of Directors has approved the sale of failed IndyMac Bank to a private investment group.
(Chinese media/Reuters Photo)
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Steven Mnuchin, a former vice president of Goldman

Sachs Group Inc., will serve as the consortium's chairman and chief executive

officer, said the FDIC.

Other members of the consortium include investment

advisory firms J.C. Flowers Co. and Paulson Co. Investment firm MSD

Capital is also involved, along with Stone Point Capital, SSP Offshore and SILAR

MCF-I, the FDIC said.

"The current economic climate is challenging for

selling assets, but this agreement achieves the goals that were set out by the

chairman and board when the FDIC was named conservator of IndyMac in July," said

FDIC Deputy Director James Wigand, who led the sale negotiations.

"Unfortunately, as expected, IndyMac's liability

structure, combined with aggressive real estate lending in California, had a

significant impact on losses," he said.

The transaction is expected to close in late January

or early February.

The IndyMac Bank, a California local bank

headquartered in Pasadena, Los Angeles, was seized by Federal regulators on July

11,becoming one of the largest bank failures of the year.