An interesting development this evening. The FDIC seized nine banks which are all a part of a holding company in Oak Park, Ill. Here is a link to the WSJ article on the demise of these institutions as well as a link to the FDIC website.

There isn’t any mystery about the failure of this mini-empire. All nine grew by plowing money into commercial real estate. The chickens are coming home to roost in this sector and it isn’t going to be pretty. Extend and pretend is just about at the end of the line.