Regulators Seize Florida’s Largest S

Federal regulators Friday took over the largest savings and loan in Florida, charging it with dissipating its funds on high salaries and luxuries such as yachts, limousines and art.

CenTrust Bank, based in Miami, was declared operating in an unsafe and unsound condition by the Treasury Department’s Office of Thrift Supervision and turned over to the Resolution Trust Corp. for sale or liquidation.

With $8.2 billion in assets, CenTrust is the largest savings institution in Florida and the 23rd largest in the nation.

The seizure, long predicted by industry analysts, capped a lengthy effort by regulators to rein in the institution, which had invested $1 billion in junk bonds.

CenTrust’s offices remained open for business as usual, with all deposits guaranteed up to $100,000 per account.

The thrift office, in announcing the takeover, said that as of Sept. 30, CenTrust was $245 million in the red, had lost at least $43 million in the fourth quarter and continued to deteriorate.

It said the thrift’s junk-bond portfolio, the third-largest in the S&L; industry, was experiencing “large and mounting losses.”

The agency also cited “substantial dissipation of assets and earnings due to violations . . . (including) excessive and inappropriate expenses and investments.”

In December, the thrift office had issued a “cease and desist” order instructing CenTrust to sell what was left of its $30 million art collection, much of it displayed in the home of CenTrust Chairman David L. Paul, as well as limousines, a corporate jet and the “Bodacious,” a $233,000 company sailboat.