TD Bank buys S.C.-based South Financial

The Boston Business Journal reports that TD Bank Financial Group, the parent of TD Bank, said Monday it has struck a deal to acquire a money-losing South Carolina-based bank with an elevated amount of problem loans on its balance sheet.

Editor’s note: TD Bank is a DDIFO Sponsor.

As part of the deal, Toronto-based TD Bank Financial said it will inject an estimated 250 million Canadian dollars ($241.7 million) in capital to stabilize the operations of acquisition target, The South Financial Group.

In addition, TD Bank Financial (NYSE: TD) said it will pay about $61 million in cash or common stock for South Financial Group (Nasdaq: TSFG) of Greenville, S.C. Before the deal is completed, the U.S. Treasury also will sell to TD its $347 million of South Financial preferred stock and discharge all accrued but unpaid dividends for total cash consideration of about $131 million.

Though South Financial Group has had a problem with troubled loans, TD Bank Financial emphasized that deal adds 176 branches to its footprint in the Southeast, including 66 in the Florida market.

“This is a relatively small acquisition and exactly the kind of unassisted transaction that we’ve said we’re comfortable doing,” TD Financial Group CEO Ed Clark said in a press release.

At the end of March, South Financial had $8 billion in loans and nearly $10 billion in deposits on its balance sheet.

Since the beginning of 2008, however, South Financial’s operations have generated more than $1.3 billion in losses, TD Bank said. The losses stem mostly from residential construction and land development loans.

The bank recently entered into a consent order with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and was told to raise capital and pare problem loans. The bank is not considered to be well-capitalized by bank regulators.

The South Carolina-based bank lost $85.8 million in the first quarter, compared with a net loss of nearly $194 million in the year-earlier period.

The bank set aside $95.1 million for anticipated loan losses, down from $171 million in the year-earlier period.

Nonperforming assets, as a percentage of total assets, were 4.17 percent at the bank.

Read more: TD Bank buys S.C.-based South Financial – Boston Business Journal

Citizens’ pain: A $600M loss

A unit of Citizens Financial Group recently reported a full-year net loss of $600.4 million for 2009 after charging off more than $2 billion in bad loans.

RBS Citizens, the No. 2 retail bank in Massachusetts, disclosed the loss in a financial report filed with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The bank was not available to comment for this story.

With about $117 billion in assets, RBS Citizens accounts for most of the operations under the umbrella of Citizens Financial Group, a Providence, R.I.-based holding company with about $151 billion in total assets. Citizens Financial is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, which also owns CharterOne Bank in the Midwest.

RBS Citizens set aside nearly $2.5 billion for anticipated loan losses in 2009. And during the year, the unit charged off $2.2 billion in bad loans. The bank has been hit hard by soured residential mortgages and commercial loans, FDIC filing show.

Deposits at RBS Citizens totaled $72.8 billion at the end of 2009. That compared with $74.2 billion at the end of the third quarter, FDIC filings show.

Why Does Dunkin’ Donuts Lobby The Federal Reserve?

Arthur Delaney writes in the The Huffington Post thagt financial firms have long lobbied the Federal Reserve, high-minded maker of monetary policy. But the Fed’s foray into lending during the financial crisis this year has opened it up to lobbying from niche industries like recreational boat manufacturers, rental car companies, and — Dunkin’ Donuts?

Indeed. Dunkin’ Brands, parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins, began lobbying the Fed in the second quarter of this year, according to lobbying disclosure reports filed with Congress.

The New York Times reported in June that economists were uneasy with the Fed’s role as a credit allocator, because decisions to favor one industry or another can be seen as political, and the Fed is supposed to be insulated from such pressure.

The number of special interests that reported lobbying the Fed shot up from 102 to 143 from the second to third quarters of 2008, as the Fed prepared to announce its Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), which lends money to investors who buy asset-backed securities from lenders in order to keep credit flowing to borrowers. When it was announced last November, the program was for securities collateralized by student loans, auto loans, credit card loans and loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration. The program officially launched in March, and was expanded to include commercial mortgage-backed securities in July.

So what does Dunkin’ want from the Fed, exactly?

In a statement to the Huffington Post, Dunkin’ Brands emphasized the fact that its franchises across the country are small businesses, and said its lobbying is on behalf of its franchises and “our nation’s entrepreneurial spirit.”

“While financing is still available for strong brands such as ours, for the small business community as a whole, gaining access to credit has been challenging and this has limited opportunities for entrepreneurs to go into business for themselves,” said Cicely Simpson, top lobbyist for Dunkin’ Brands. “On behalf of our nation’s entrepreneurial spirit and in honor of our more than 2,200 franchisees, Dunkin’ Brands has engaged in conversations with the Federal Reserve, the Administration, and Congress to ensure that they are aware of the credit needs of small business owners.”

Simpson was not made available for a conversation, but LobbyBlog wanted to know more. What exactly was on the table during Dunkin’s conversation with the Fed — Donuts? Ice cream?

Joking aside, economists queried by LobbyBlog confirm that there is, in fact, something funny about Dunkin’ lobbying the Fed.

Read more at: The Huffington Pos