At 10:30, on the morning of Oct. 30, in a press conference on Chicago’s Near West Side, an Oak Park bank company got $50 million in tax credits for neighborhood development from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and a national pat on the back. At 4:58 that afternoon, at the corner of Madison and Austin in Oak Park, three other federal workers showed up on the company’s doorstep. Two hours later, the company – nine banks, $19.4 billion in combined assets, $15.4 billion in deposits – was in a national choke hold.
By 5 p.m. Pacific time, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was made receiver of a community institution. And its CEO and sole owner, Mike Kelly, lost Park National Bank, the village icon that was one of FBOP’s healthiest subsidiaries and the near bottomless funding source for Kelly’s legendary philanthropy.
Click here for complete coverage, and community reaction at wednesdayjournalonline.com.
