Chase Manhattan to Buy 3 Troubled Maryland S

The Legislature voted today, after 18 hours of negotiations, to allow Chase Manhattan Corp. to buy three troubled savings and loans in a move expected to free $500 million in frozen deposits.

Final passage came at 4 a.m. as the 47-member Senate approved the banking legislation by the minimum 29 votes, following intense lobbying by Gov. Harry Hughes and the Senate president.

Bowing to the House and the governor, the Senate agreed to go along with Chase’s request for $25 million from a state insurance fund to cover some of the projected losses at Merritt Commercial Savings and Loan Assn. of Baltimore.

Hughes hailed the action as a major step toward ending the state’s savings and loan crisis. Deposits are now frozen at six troubled thrift institutions, including the three the New York-based bank intends to buy: Merritt, Chesapeake Savings and Loan of Annapolis and Friendship Savings and Loan of suburban Washington.

Chase needed the legislation to convert the S&Ls; into commercial banks.