BANKING/FINANCE

Meantime, another “American” was hurt by the news of regulators paying a record $1.35 billion to depositors after closing American Diversified and North America Savings & Loan, also in Costa Mesa.

American Savings & Loan saw $40 million flow out of deposit accounts in branches throughout the state. Most of the damage was done in Northern California, said William J. Popejoy, chairman of the S&L; and its long-troubled Irvine parent, Financial Corp. of America.

“Some of the media coverage, including Kelly Lange on Channel 4, dropped the ‘North’ in North America Savings & Loan, and people thought we were being closed down,” Popejoy said. Lange corrected herself the next day.

“There was much more confusion in Northern California because people thought the media was saying there was trouble at the northern branches of American Savings,” Popejoy said.

Beleaguered as American Savings is, it was not closed down. The deposit run, which would be disastrous for a small institution, barely caused a ripple at American Savings. The S&L; has $30 billion in assets and $15 billion in deposits. It survived a deposit run of nearly $7 billion in 1984 when regulators ousted the management and Popejoy stepped in.

This week’s mini-run on deposits has “pretty much subsided now . . . that reality is hitting that it’s not us,” Popejoy said.