JPMorgan Chase & Co is expected to acquire the deposits of Washington Mutual Inc, the largest U.S. savings and loan, in a government-brokered bailout, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The purchase could be a major step in cleaning up a U.S. financial system littered with toxic mortgage debt.
Acquiring the deposits could fulfill JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon's long-held goal of becoming a retail banking force in the western United States. It comes six months after JPMorgan, the No. 3 U.S. bank, agreed to acquire the failing investment bank Bear Stearns Cos at a fire-sale price. Branches would also be included in the transaction, the newspaper said.
JPMorgan said it would hold an investor conference call at 9:15 p.m. EDT on Thursday, but it did not say why. Neither company returned calls for comment.
The deposit acquisition is not likely to affect the roughly $45.2 billion insurance fund of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), which analysts expect will be tapped dozens of times in the next few years to cover bank failures.
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