Shareholders of First City Bancorp, a troubled...

Shareholders of First City Bancorp, a troubled Texas bank, approved a $1.5-billion bailout spearheaded by investor A. Robert Abboud. The bailout is the largest in Texas’ troubled banking industry and second only to the $4.5-billion rescue of Continental Illinois Corp. of Chicago in 1984. First City, based in Houston, has been under siege because of bad energy and real estate loans. It lost $1.1 billion in 1987. The First City bailout, to which a group led by Abboud will contribute $500 million and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. $970 million, should become final in a few weeks, the bank said. Abboud is the former chief executive at First Chicago Corp. and the former president of Occidental Petroleum. For the buyout to be approved, the bank needed the votes of two-thirds of the 37 million shares outstanding.