Security Pacific Likely to Buy Mercury S

Federal regulators are expected to announce today that they have sold insolvent Mercury Savings & Loan to Security Pacific Corp., which outbid several other institutions for the Orange County thrift.

Industry sources said Thursday that the Los Angeles-based holding company for Security Pacific National Bank earlier this week won the bidding to acquire Huntington Beach-based Mercury’s 24 branches and most of its $2 billion in assets.

The branches are expected to be reopened Monday as offices of Security Pacific. Deposits will continue to be insured by the federal government up to $100,000.

Mercury was declared insolvent and seized by federal regulators in February. It has been operated since then under auspices of the Resolution Trust Corp., the federal agency charged with selling or liquidating government-run S&Ls.;

If the sale is completed today, it would mark one of the quickest sales of a thrift under RTC supervision. The agency is overseeing several hundred S&Ls; nationally, including 18 that have been offered for sale in California since June.

Edward Carpenter, a banking consultant with Southport/Carpenter Group in Santa Ana, said several of his firm’s clients were active bidders for Mercury and valued the thrift for what is widely considered one of the industry’s better branch networks and customer bases.

Other bidders reportedly included Great Western Financial Corp. of Beverly Hills, American Savings Bank of Irvine and Santa Monica-based First Federal Savings Bank of California.

Officials at Security Pacific confirmed Thursday that the company, with nearly $95 billion in assets, had submitted a bid for Mercury. They declined further comment.

Security Pacific has been shopping for troubled thrifts this year. In June, the company acquired 83 branches of Simi Valley-based Gibraltar Savings.

At RTC regional headquarters in Denver, spokesman Kevin Shields would not identify the winning bidder.