ANB Investor Troubled by OCC’s Actions

One ANB shareholder not mentioned in the company’s annual report is J. Neal Ethridge of Springfield, a retired Archer Daniels Midland Co. executive. 

He figures he lost about $20 million in the forced closure, or about a 4 percent stake in the bank. He and his family were original investors in ANB.

Ethridge defends Dykema as an ethical man and said he feels like regulators made an example of ANB and now there is no recourse for the shareholders.

As far as he’s concerned, regulators decided in October to shut ANB down and proceeded to methodically advance that notion until it could do so.

“It’s un-American to have an entity that’s immune from checks and balances on authority,” Ethridge said of the FDIC and OCC.

He rests part of his claim on the fact that ANB had made a deal to sell to an Illinois bank three weeks before it was closed by the OCC.

The deal would’ve been for about $300 million in loans, full value of ANB branches and a premium on deposits. On paper, ANB would’ve been able to re-capitalize by about $40 million, he said. 

But the FDIC didn’t approve the deal and instead accepted the much lower offer from Iberiabank.