IndyMac sale will be a challenge

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has its work cut out to get failed IndyMac Bank in shape for a buyer, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair suggests in a Bloomberg TV interview to be broadcast this weekend.

“There are a number of things about this institution that, to be honest with you, make it unattractive to a potential purchaser,” Bair says in the interview, according to a Bloomberg story previewing the interview.

She cites the Pasadena bank’s mortgage losses, its reliance on brokered deposits and its relatively small “core deposit base,” Bloomberg says.

“What we’re trying to do now is do what we can to strengthen it, strengthen the asset quality, strengthen the servicing portfolio, so we can sell it off and get a better value, hopefully,” Bair said.

Not much news in that, but it raised the question of whether Bair was signaling that the FDIC wouldn’t be able to sell IndyMac within 90 days, as per the plan it announced when it took control of the bank July 11. An FDIC spokesman, however, said the agency still expected to make the sale in that time window.

-- Tom Petruno