BANKING / FINANCE : Consultant Says RTC in No-Win Position, Cites Imperial Deal

Running the Resolution Trust Corp. is a no-win situation, says a consultant who helped arrange Friday’s purchase of failed Imperial Savings & Loan’s 78 branches statewide.

The RTC, the federal agency that manages and liquidates failed thrifts, has $167 billion worth of assets from collapsed U.S. S&Ls; to get rid of. Imperial, which was based in San Diego and had $7 billion in assets, was one of the bigger thrifts that the agency had been operating.

How the RTC is doing its job has engendered a great deal of criticism in Congress and elsewhere, said Robert S. Boyd, managing director in the Washington office of the Secura Group.

“If you were head of the RTC, what scandal would you want to be known for?” asked Boyd, who helped both Household Bank in Newport Beach and Bank of the West in San Francisco buy Imperial’s branch system.

“If the RTC sits on its hands and hopes for better economic times ahead to sell properties at a higher price, it has to keep employees at the thrifts, keep the lights on, pay the rent--and all that’s expensive,” he said.

“On the other hand, if you do sell a thrift at what’s deemed to be market value today, you’ll be criticized for giving away the farm,” he said.

Household paid $14 million for Imperial’s 48 Southern California branches and $2.9 billion in deposits--one of the cheapest deals to date.