Milwaukee Thrift to Liquidate by April

The Office of Thrift Supervision has approved the liquidation of Milwaukee-based Universal Savings Bank, a spokesperson for the agency tells insideARM. 

The thrift announced it planned to liquidate in an email sent to shareholders Thursday by Chairman David C. Beck, according to a report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper this morning. Beck wrote that all deposits will be gone by the end of this month and all employees let go by the end of April, according to the paper.

A spokesperson for the Office of Thrift Supervision said Universal opted to voluntarily liquidate. "They decided they did not want to be in business," said the spokesperson. Universal informed the OTS it would first reimburse investors and depositors, and any remaining funds would go to shareholders.

The OTS said Universal had assets of $8 million at the end of January. The Journal Sentinel reported that Universal lost $6.2 million last year.

Universal has had continuing regulatory problems with the OTS. The regulator found last June that the savings and loan’s holding company had engaged in unsafe and unsound practices, “failing to maintain adequate financial management policies and procedures." Also that month, the OTS ordered the thrift to write up a liquidation plan.

Beck and other investors bought Universal in 2002 and focused on credit card services and mortgage processing. Beck told the paper that subprime mortgages did not lead to the thrift’s dissolution.