| AnchorBank selling 11 branches |
| News - Financial News |
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--(www.FinancialNewsUSA.com)-- 11/20/2009 - Banking industry news provided by Financial News USA. AnchorBank, which had previously announced plans to sell "non-core" branches to improve its capital position, said late Monday that it reached an agreement to sell 11 branches in northwestern Wisconsin to Royal Credit Union of Eau Claire. The agreement calls for Royal Credit Union to assume approximately $177 million in deposits and receive "a corresponding amount" in loans, real estate and other assets. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2010, said Madison-based Anchor BanCorp Wisconsin Inc. (NASDAQ: ABCW). The sale will shrink Anchor's assets while enhancing its capital and ability to address asset quality and other obligations, said CEO Chris Bauer. The sale also will move AnchorBank closer to complying with an Office of Thrift Supervision supervisory agreement that calls for higher capital ratios. "This transaction . . . allows AnchorBank to make significant progress toward our goal of increasing our capital ratios in order to continue to address the challenges we're facing in this economic climate," said Bauer. The branches in the transaction are in Amery, Balsam Lake, Centuria, Menomonie, Milltown, New Richmond, Osceola, River Falls, St. Croix Falls, Somerset and Star Prairie. Anchor had acquired the offices in its 2008 acquisition of S&C Banco. Once the acquisition is complete, Royal Credit Union, which had about $1 billion in assets as of June 30, will have 23 offices across central and western Wisconsin and three in the Twin Cities metro area with more than 140,000 members. About Financial News USA Financial News USA is a Next Generation Financial Communications firm focused on the distribution of market moving news. Financial News USA has developed leading edge e-publishing tools including programming proprietary RSS feeds and enabling open source press release publishing across its network. Financial News USA has been aggressively expanding its news distribution network by targeting direct feeds to financial news and data providers such as FinancialContent, Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO), among others. Financial News USA offers a free news feed available online (www.financialnewsusa.com) to websites and financial services looking for content and for individual investors looking to stay informed on the financial markets. Financial News USA and its affiliates charge each client cash for news distribution and may take an equity position in the companies mentioned herein, please visit the disclaimer at www.financialnewsusa.com. 
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