Washington Mutual Bank Information

Washington Mutual, Incabbreviated to WaMuwas a savings bank holding company and the former owner of WaMu Bank, which was the United States' largest savings and loan association until its collapse in 2008.A savings bank holding company is defined in United States Code: Title 12: Banks and Banking; Section 1842: Definitions; Subsection (l): Savings Bank Holding Company See: On Thursday, September 25, 2008, the United States Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) seized WaMu Bank from WaMu, Inc. and placed it into receivership with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The OTS took the action due to the withdrawal of $16.7 billion in deposits during a 9-day bank run (amounting to 9% of the deposits it had held on June 30, 2008). The FDIC sold the banking subsidiaries (minus unsecured debt and equity claims) to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion, which JPMorgan Chase had been planning to acquire as part of a confidential plan internally nicknamed Project West. The holding company, WaMu, Inc., was left with $33 billion in assets, and $8 billion in debt, after being stripped of its banking subsidiary by the FDIC. The next day, WaMu, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 voluntary bankruptcy in Delaware, where it was incorporated. Regarding total assets under management, WaMu's closure and receivership is the largest bank failure in American financial history. Before the receivership action, it was the sixth-largest bank in the United States. According to WaMu Inc.'s 2007 SEC filing, the holding company held assets valued at $327.9 billion. On March 20, 2009, WaMu filed suit against the FDIC in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking damages of approximately $13 billion for an alleged unjustified seizure and unfair low sale price to JPMorgan Chase. JPMorgan Chase promptly filed a counterclaim in the Federal Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, where the WaMu bankruptcy proceedings had been continuing since the Office of Thrift Supervision's seizure of the holding company's bank subsidiaries.