Two More S&Ls; Close; Total at 201

Federal regulators announced the closing of two more insolvent savings and loan associations today, pushing the total for the year to 201, with officials predicting that that figure would climb to a post-Depression record well above 200 before the year-end rush to complete deals is over.

The latest sales, involving insolvent S&Ls; in Montana and Oklahoma, were announced at midday as the three-member Federal Home Loan Bank Board continued to meet behind closed doors in reviewing applications to take over failed institutions.

Bank Board Chairman M. Danny Wall scheduled a late afternoon press conference to announce further agreements and to answer charges raised by critics that many of the multimillion-dollar bailouts represented bad deals for the government.

Critics have complained that in its rush to complete sales before midnight Saturday, when tax breaks for buyers will be cut in half, the bank board failed to drive the best bargains possible.

The latest acquisitions involved the sale of the insolvent Community Federal Savings & Loan Assn. of Tulsa, Okla., to the Local Federal Savings & Loan Assn. of Oklahoma City. The agreement was the first acquisition under the bank board’s Oklahoma Plan, providing for accelerated review of cases in that state. The government pledged assistance of $89 million and Local Federal agreed to invest $16 million in cash.

In the other deal, the insolvent Great Falls Federal Savings & Loan Assn. of Great Falls, Mont., was taken over by Western Savings & Loan Assn. of Missoula, Mont. The agreement, in which the government pledged $11.4 million in assistance, resolved the final insolvent S&L; in Montana.

The 201 insolvent S&Ls; that have been closed compared to 48 closed in 1987 and would be the highest figure since 277 S&Ls; failed in 1938, during the Depression.

Even with the year-end rush of closings, there are still more than 400 insolvent S&Ls; operating, and estimates of cleaning up the total mess range as high as $112 billion.