Closed Friday, August 14, 2009 · Montgomery, Montgomery County, Alabama
Colonial Bank
By total assets Colonial Bank is the sixth-largest of the 3,375 bank failures since 1934 for which the FDIC records a size, counted in dollars of the day. Its estimated cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund makes it the seventh-costliest failure on FDIC record since 1934. No bank in Alabama had failed for 16 years, since Birmingham Federal Savings and Loan Association closed in 1992.
On the books, 2001 to 2009
Total assets peaked at $27.3 billion in the first quarter of 2008 and were 7% lower at the final report. Equity capital went from 7.3% of assets in the third quarter of 2001 to 3.6% at the last report. The deepest annual loss, $849 million, was booked in 2008.* 2009: January to June only, the last report before closing.
Size against the other 2009 failures
Total assets of each 2009 failure, log scale; Colonial Bank in red.
By assets it ranked first of the 140 failures in 2009. No failed bank in Alabama was larger, of 35 on record there since 1934. Across the failures of 2009, the median estimated loss came to 27% of assets. The next-largest failure of that year was Guaranty Bank of Austin, Texas ($13.5 billion, no estimated loss). Every 2009 failure in the explorer.
Regulators closed five banks that day. The largest of the others was Community Bank of Nevada of Las Vegas, Nevada, at $1.4 billion.
Failures in Alabama
It was one of three banks in Alabama to fail in 2009. The next was CapitalSouth Bank of Birmingham, on August 21, 2009. No other failed bank in the FDIC's records was based in Montgomery County.