Regulators shut AmTrust Bank in Ohio

Regulators have shut down Ohio8217;s AmTrust Bank,the fourth-largest American bank to fail this year. They also closed five others,bringing to 130 the number of US banks to be brought down so far in 2009 by recession and mountains of bad debt.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp took over AmTrust Bank,based in Cleveland,with about USD 12 billion in assets and USD 8 billion in deposits. Its failure is expected to cost the federal deposit insurance fund an estimated USD 2 billion.

Just last week,the federal Office of Thrift Supervision put restrictions on AmTrust because of concern that its reserves against losses were dangerously low. The regulators told the bank to limit new loans for land acquisition,development or speculative residential construction.