IndyMac

IndyMac Bank
Company typeSavings bank/federally-owned bridge bank
IndustryBanking
FoundedJuly 16, 1985 (1985-07-16) (as Countrywide Mortgage Investment)
July 1, 1997 (as independent entity)[1]
FounderDavid S. Loeb
Angelo Mozilo
DefunctJuly 11, 2008 (2008-07-11)
FateChapter 7 bankruptcy and seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
SuccessorsOneWest Bank
Headquarters,
ProductsAlt-A mortgages and reverse mortgages
Total assets$32.01 billion (at time of seizure by FDIC)
Subsidiaries
  • IndyMac Federal Bank
  • Financial Freedom
  • New York Mortgage Company
  • Barrington Capital Corporation

IndyMac, a contraction of Independent National Mortgage Corporation, was an American bank based in California that failed in 2008 and was seized by the United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Before its failure, IndyMac Bank was the largest savings and loan association in the Los Angeles area and the seventh largest mortgage originator in the United States.[2] The failure of IndyMac Bank on July 11, 2008, was the fourth largest bank failure in United States,[3] and the second largest failure of a regulated thrift at that time.[4] "Mac" is an established contraction for "Mortgage Corporation", usually associated with government sponsored entities such as "Freddie Mac" (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation) and "Farmer Mac" (Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation). Indymac, however, had always been a private corporation with no relationship to the government.

It was heavily involved in Alt-A mortgages and reverse mortgages which in part resulted in its dramatic rise and has been suggested as the cause for its demise, as a large number of these questionable loans failed during the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–2009.[5]

The FDIC put the assets up for auction and the bulk of the business was sold to IMB HoldCo LLC who turned this into OneWest Bank. The FDIC kept some of the assets and liabilities that it could not sell in a holding entity known as IndyMac Federal Bank, which would be slowly wound down.

  1. ^ https://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/NYS/NDE/reports/89831-final.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  2. ^ "IndyMac Bancorp Announces Earnings Webcast & Teleconference Call for First Quarter 2008 Financial Results". Reuters. 2008-08-08. Archived from the original on 2008-12-05. Retrieved 2008-07-13.
  3. ^ Shalal-Esa, Andrea (2008-09-25). "Factbox: Top ten U.S. bank failures". Reuters. Thomson Reuters. Retrieved 2008-09-26.
  4. ^ Veiga, Alex (2008-07-12). "Government shuts down mortgage lender IndyMac". Associated Press (Newsday). Archived from the original on July 17, 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-12.
  5. ^ John Devcic. "Too Good To Be True: The Fall Of IndyMac". Retrieved September 15, 2014.