BUSINESS BRIEFING / BANKING

Guaranty Bank, a big Texas lender that succumbed to losses on loans to home builders and mortgage-tied securities, was shut by regulators and most of its operations sold to a major Spanish bank.

It was the second-largest U.S. bank failure this year. The transaction approved by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. marked the first time a foreign bank bought a failed U.S. bank. The FDIC sold all of the Austin bank’s deposits and assets to BBVA Compass, the U.S. division of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Spain’s second-largest bank.

Guaranty’s failure Friday, along with those of three small banks in Georgia and Alabama, brought to 81 the number of U.S. bank failures this year.