The credit crunch has hammered small businesses over the past couple of years as their access to credit has simply vanished. Well, it looks as if the same thing is now happening to regional banks. The Oregonian reports:
After opening a crack in August and September, the window of opportunity for Northwest banks to raise badly needed capital may have slammed shut. Cascade Bancorp, parent company of the Bank of the Cascades in Bend, has withdrawn a secondary stock offering it had hoped would raise $150 million. Banner Bank of Walla Walla disclosed it too was putting the kibosh on an effort to raise $75 million….Three Oregon banks and one in Clark County have failed in the last 12 months. Now 16 months since chaos on Wall Street plunged the economy into a deep recession, 2010 looks to be another challenging year for the industry.