Equity firm said to win bidding for IndyMac
A private equity firm led by former Goldman Sachs & Co. executives is the likely buyer of IndyMac Bank, according to a report published Friday.
The winner of the bidding for the Pasadena thrift is New York-based Dune Capital Management, founded in 2004 by ex-Goldman partners Steven Mnuchin and Daniel Niedich, according to the report on the Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter website.
But the report, which cites an IndyMac insider, describes the deal as “fluid” and suggests that even the price remained subject to negotiation between Dune and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which has been operating IndyMac since it was seized in July.
The FDIC has said it expects to announce a deal for IndyMac by the end of the year.
Dune would buy the entire bank, including its 33 branches, reverse-mortgage unit and $176-billion loan-servicing portfolio, the Implode-O-Meter report says.
IndyMac has 2,000 employees, most of them in Southern California.
The report also says a consortium of private equity firms led by Los Angeles-based giant Oaktree Capital Management would finance the acquisition by Dune.
Oaktree, a well-known investor in so-called distressed assets, had been among the firms that looked over IndyMac’s books in the spring, when the bank was desperately seeking a cash infusion.
The FDIC has estimated that IndyMac’s failure will cost the deposit insurance fund $8.9 billion. The final loss figure will depend on how much the agency gets for the bank.
Friday’s report gives no indication of the fate of IndyMac customers who had deposits that exceeded insurance limits when the bank failed. Those customers have had access only to half of their uninsured funds.
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