THE SALE OF AMERICAN SAVINGS : The Buyer, the Sellers . . . : Selling Sick Thrifts Is Danny Wall’s Metier

The sale of American Savings would be a major milestone in the career of M. Danny Wall, the chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board.

Wall, 48, is a career public servant. He has spent his entire adult life in government service, first in North Dakota and Utah and later in Washington as a key staff member for Sen. Jake Garn (R-Utah). Though an unknown to the public, Wall was a must-know inside the Beltway if the subject was the Senate Banking Committee, which Garn chaired.

Wall came to the bank board job in June, 1987, with all the right political and industry backing. Top executives at California’s influential savings and loan institutions approved of him, as did the people who counted most around President Reagan.

Many saw Wall as a welcome antithesis to Edwin J. Gray, whose four years as chairman were tarred by scandal, turmoil and complaints of inconsistent management.

Wall never did have much of a honeymoon in the job as the industry’s troubles were mounting at too fast a pace. Losses at sick thrifts were mushrooming alarmingly--particularly at American Savings and throughout Texas--while the condition of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp., which insures S&L; deposits, continued to deteriorate.

Politically astute and an unrelenting optimist, Wall has always maintained a stiff upper lip on FSLIC, insisting that a taxpayer bailout is not necessary even though many around him say that it is all but inevitable.

Though some came to view him as too optimistic and unable to make quick decisions, Wall has either closed or sold many of the sickest thrifts in California and Texas. And with the sale of American Savings, he will have finally rid the industry and regulators of a massive headache that has lasted more than five years.