Community Bank & Trust, taken over by state and federal bank regulators Friday night and sold to Orangeburg, SC-based SCBT N.A. Saturday, was a victim of both fraud and bad loans, a former official insists.
“There’s some people in our company going to jail,” said Elton Collins, who until Friday evening at 5:00 was president of Jackson County operations. “I know damn well they’re going to jail.”
Collins, however, called the takeover by SCBT “the best switch-over I’ve ever seen of that type,” and said it “really worked out good” for Community Bank & Trust employees.
“SCBT has been very good to everybody,” said Collins. “They are just as nice as they can be at this point. There was not all of that embarrassment Friday night that you typically see.”
That could be because SCBT didn’t know it was getting the bank until Thursday, according to Collins.
“BB&T had the bid. They were going to get the bank,” he said. “Then, Thursday afternoon, because of all the fraud involved, they got cold feet. Thursday afternoon they (FDIC) called SCBT and gave it to them.”
The FDIC and the State Banking Office took over the bank Friday night at closing time. They put it into receivership and bankruptcy Saturday, which relieves the new owners of the obligations of contracts and contingencies, then sold the assets to and turned over the deposits to SCBT with a loss share agreement.
“Basically it was fraud and bad loans that got the bank,” Collins said. As for the fraud, he said the FBI is handling that at the Cornelia office.
The FDIC’s move doesn’t affect depositors, but it did affect Community Bank & Trust stockholders.
“We got wiped out Friday night as stockholders,” Collins commented, adding that he considered it “very likely” that there will be lawsuits over those losses.
CB&T had assets of over $1.2 billion.
