OneWest Purchases Failed IndyMac
March 19, 2009 by Stephen Kersey
Filed under Business
IndyMac, one of the many banks that went belly up during the current national economic struggles, has been purchased by OneWest. The deal was completed by the FDIC on Thursday in a sale that cost OneWest a total of slightly less than $14 billion.
The main reason why IndyMac failed was the housing crisis. Once that bubble burst, IndyMac didn’t have enough money on hand to stay afloat.
Michael Dell (Image: Flickr)
OneWest is a bank based in Pasadena, California that has a lot of big names backing it including billionaires Michael Dell and George Soros. Dell is the founder of computer giant Dell Inc., while Soros is a businessman and stock investor with a net worth of approximately $11 billion.
The transfer over to OneWest will be swift. On Friday morning, all of the nearly three dozen IndyMac branches will become OneWest branches. OneWest announced that it doesn’t plan on closing any of the branches.
Founded in 1985, IndyMac was originally Countrywide Mortgage Investment. Over the years, the bank acquired a major presence in the city of Los Angeles and was one of the top ten largest mortgage originators in the nation. When it collapsed, IndyMac was reported by many outlets to be the third largest bank to fail in the United States in terms of total assets.
