Regulators shut down more banks

WASHINGTON » Regulators on Friday closed banks in Tennessee, Florida and Minnesota, lifting to seven the number of U.S. bank failures this year following 92 closures in 2011.

The number of closures dropped sharply in 2011 from the two previous years, when banks were working their way through the bad debt accumulated in the recession. And the rate seems to be slowing more in 2012; by this time in 2011, regulators had shuttered 11 banks.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized Tennessee Commerce Bank, based in Franklin, Tenn., with $1.2 billion in assets and $1.1 billion in deposits.

It also closed BankEast, based in Knoxville, Tenn., with $272.6 million in assets and $268.8 million in deposits, plus First Guaranty Bank and Trust Co. of Jacksonville, in Jacksonville, Fla., with $377.9 million in assets and $349.5 million in deposits.

And it seized Patriot Bank Minnesota, based in Forest Lake, Minn., with $111.3 million in assets and $108.3 million in deposits.

In 2010, regulators seized 157 banks, the most in any year since the savings and loan crisis two decades ago. Those failures cost around $23 billion. The FDIC has said 2010 likely was the high-water mark for bank failures from the Great Recession.

Spain’s Spanair calls it quits

MADRID » Spanair ceased operations late Friday after a regional government in Spain announced it could no longer fund the airline, officials said.

Spanair’s financial woes were exacerbated by a 2008 crash that killed 154 people. Eighteen people survived what was Spain’s worst aviation disaster in 25 years.

The regional government of northeastern Cata­lonia, which had been investing in the country’s No. 4 airline since its 2008 purchase from SAS Scandinavian Airlines System International, said in a statement that it could no longer bankroll Spanair.