Texas S&L; Loses $1.2 Billion in March

A single savings institution in Texas lost nearly $1.2 billion in capital in March, the government said Wednesday, but refused to reveal the institution’s name.

The Federal Home Loan Bank Board, which regulates 3,120 federally insured S&Ls;, said capital for the industry as a whole declined $2.4 billion in March, with nearly all of that coming from ailing institutions in the Southwest, where the economy is hard hit by depressed oil prices and a real estate bust.

James Barth, chief economist of the bank board, said in a statement that nearly half of the decline was attributable to a single institution in Texas.

Bank board spokesman William Fulwider said he could not identify the institution, adding, “It’s not a public institution and it has not filed its report yet for the period.”

The loss was revealed in a monthly statistical summary of bank balance sheets. The March decline alone means the eventual resolution of the institution’s case would rival, if not surpass, the bank board’s costliest bailout ever.

The costliest bailout ever for the bank board was the $1.3 billion rescue in September of Vernon Savings & Loan Assn. in Dallas.

The bailout of the institution with the tremendous March loss could easily surpass that if it has posted losses in previous months. The March decline alone accounts for a fifth of the money--$6 billion--that the bank board is allotting to clean up Southwest institutions over the next three years.

Figures released by the bank board Wednesday indicate that the industry, which suffered its worst loss since the Great Depression last year at $6.8 billion, is likely in for another bad year.

“Those are terrible numbers,” said Bert Ely, an Alexandria, Va., financial institutions analyst. “What’s really concerning is . . . that annualizes out to a $12 billion to $13 billion loss for the year, which is roughly double what the industry showed in 1987.”