kijk eens aan; Aegon US wil via de koop van een "slechte" spaarbank in de USA in aanmerking komen voor geld uit het TARP Program. Het moet niet gekker worden, eerst worden ze met mijn belastingcenten hier gered, en vervolgens ook nog mijn amerikaanse belastingcenten ?
incoln, Aegon May Buy S&Ls With `Unsafe' Practices (Update1)
2008-11-17 21:50:03.480 GMT
By Andrew Frye and Linda Shen
Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Four of the world's biggest life insurers may acquire small banks that regulators have cited for improper practices to improve their own chances of getting cash from the $700 billion U.S. government bailout fund.
Lincoln National Corp. and Aegon NV, owner of Transamerica Corp., may buy savings and loan companies in Indiana and Maryland whose methods were found to be ``unsafe and unsound'' by the Office of Thrift Supervision. Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. is acquiring a Florida lender that was told by the OTS in May to curb lending. Genworth Financial Inc.'s target got a ``cease-and-desist'' order tied to potentially fraudulent loans.
Purchasing thrifts may allow insurers to qualify as savings- and-loan companies and tap the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program. Hartford's $10 million acquisition of Sanford, Florida- based Federal Trust Corp. may entitle it to $3.4 billion of U.S.
capital. Lincoln National in Philadelphia may win access to $3 billion by taking over Newton County Loan & Savings, which has three full-time employees and $7.3 million of assets.
``It's perverse,'' said Jason Arnold, a San Francisco-based analyst at RBC Capital Markets. ``Almost anyone can buy a thrift.
At a certain point, regulators will have to put a stop to it.''
Life insurance stocks dropped the most in more than a month today with the 11-company Standard & Poor's Supercomposite Life & Health Insurance Index down 14 percent. Hartford plummeted $3.39, or 27 percent, to $9.26 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, while Lincoln fell $1.80, or 13 percent, to
$12.55 and Genworth declined 8.8 percent.
Real Estate Lending
Aegon, the Dutch insurer that got 3 billion euros ($3.8
billion) from the Netherlands last month, is considering the purchase of Suburban Federal Savings Bank of Crofton, Maryland, the OTS said. Suburban Federal, with 72 full-time employees and
$325 million in deposits, engaged in ``unsafe and unsound real estate lending practices,'' according to a March cease and desist order.
Suburban, whose net loss widened to $3.19 million in the three months to June 30 from $328,000 in the same period a year earlier, is forbidden from making any new development, construction or land loans without written approval from the OTS.
Chief Executive Officer Ron Morrison didn't return a call for comment.
``We have indeed been looking at a thrift charter for some time,'' Aegon's Tucker said in an interview today. `` We decided to accelerate that, and pursue that now because it was a prerequisite to being considered eligible'' for U.S. aid.