Billionaire Gerald J. Ford, who earned his fortune selling California thrift to Citigroup in 2002, has been scouring the country for cheap banks to buy, according to Bloomberg.
The 64-year-old Texan is scouring the country with a team of analysts, researchers and former bankers, looking for banks on the cheap after regulators in November granted his investment group a charter previously restricted to federally insured depository firms. The group has already bid unsuccessfully on two failed banks in the past month.
Weve had a history in troubled financial institutions and there are plenty of troubled financial institutions out there today, said Ford, who has $300 million of his own money in the pool. Weve just got to, as investors, make the right investment and as operators, we need to go out and operate it properly. I dont think we have to be in a hurry, Ford said in an interview last week at his New York office.
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