American Home Mortgage Investment Corp., Melville, N.Y., which originates residential loans, said it had agreed to buy 23 Irwin Financial Corp. mortgage-loan branches.
Morgan will pay $1.9 billion to the government for WaMu's loans, branches and deposits, but expects to write down the loans by more than $30 billion.
At Zions Bancorporation, a Utah lender battered by losses on commercial real estate loans, branches in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods dropped by 24, compared with a decrease of just one branch in an upper-income area.
More competition may be coming: Washington Mutual, the nation's largest savings and loan, whose branches are mostly out West, is considering a move into the New York area, investors in bank stocks said.
Abbey, the second-largest mortgage lender in Britain, makes home loans through branches in England and Northern Ireland.
Citi passed on the chance, which would have brought it a $97 billion portfolio of mortgage loans and branches throughout the West.
Piraeus, Greece's third-biggest lender, said it has signed an agreement to acquire all of the deposits, loans and branches owned by the Greek subsidiaries of three Cypriot banks - Bank of Cyprus, Laiki, and the Hellenic Bank - for 524m euros (£445m).
You would want to own the stock because "Many of our assets would sell at a substantial premium to what currently is on our books; e.g., credit card loans, consumer branches and others," Dimon writes.
However, it may not pay to revisit the subject following Alastair Darling's £100m olive branch loan but, if the money is being used to service Landsbanki's debt to the British public, then this is arguably just an extension of the blinkered self-interest already demonstrated so crudely by Gordon Brown.
There's some question whether your branch loan officer can be your best adviser here.
