FDIC crashes WaMu’s birthday bash

It was WaMu’s 119^th birthday on Thursday.

The thrift’s predecessor was incorporated on Sept. 25, 1889, “to offer its stockholders a safe and profitable vehicle for investing and lending.” This helped Seattle residents rebuild after a fire torched the city’s downtown.

The government’s choice of the day to seize the thrift, which became the largest U.S. bank failure, is unusual in other ways as well: Regulators typically take over failed banks on Friday afternoons. It gives them more time to sort out things over the weekend.

The FDIC said it did the deal on Thursday due to media leaks and to calm WaMu’s customers.

For JPMorgan Chase, which offered to take over the thrift for about $7 billion only a few months ago but got spurned, it must look like poetic justice. It is paying $1.9 billion to get the cleaner version of the troubled savings & loan.

Finally Jamie Dimon got to open his WaMu account on Thursday. And he did it with a “whoo hoo!”

(Photo credit: Reuters)