SDNY COURTHOUSE, October 14 –
EverBank and WaFd (Washington Federal) Bank announced a
reverse merger on Labor Day, proposing a combined bank in
FL, NY, AZ, CA, ID, NV, NM, OR, TX, UT and, of course,
Washington.
In that state, WaFd in 2025 made 65
mortgage loans to whites and only ONE to an African
American applicant. In Arizona it made 13 loans to whites,
NONE to African Americans.
That is disparate, and has now been raised
by Fair Finance Watch in timely comments in opposition
filed with the Federal Reserve Board and Office of the
Comptroller.
Now on October 14, after the Federal
Reserve has confirmed the application will go to the Board
in Washington, Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch has
filed FOIA requests for the parts of the EverBank / WaFd
application that the banks and regulators are keeping out
of sight. The application EverBank filed with the Office
of the Comptroller of the Currency on October 3 comes in
two volumes, public and confidential, and the lawyers at
Wachtell Lipton ask that the confidential one, Exhibits A
through L, be withheld under FOIA Exemptions 4, 6 and 8,
saying it would cause “substantial and irreparable harm.â€
What is in it? The pro forma financials and capital
ratios, due diligence, the “integration approach and
timeline,†EFC’s risk management program, the disclosure
schedules to the merger agreement, the shareholders of the
privately held EverBank Financial Corp, and its directors
and officers. That is a lot to call secret, when the
combined bank would be $73.8 billion in assets, and with
WaFd Bank’s own lending record (65 loans to white
applicants in Washington in 2025, one to an African
American) under question. We have asked the OCC for all of
it, with expedited processing and a fee waiver, on the
ground that the public cannot comment on what it cannot
see.
The Federal Reserve is the other half. The
OCC application says a separate application went to the
Fed and that the parties would provide the Fed a copy of
the OCC filing. The Fed, through a FRBSF staffer, told us
it would send us the application; so far, it has not given
Fair Finance Watch any of it. (We note this because the
comment period sure is running). So we have filed a
FOIA request with the Board, based on the OCC application,
for the Fed application and for the withheld exhibits as
the Fed holds them. We will publish what we get.
From WaFd's CRA Performance Evaluation from
the FDIC:
On Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, Arizona
MSA: "The relatively high level of community
development loans compensated for the poor geographic
distribution and very poor borrower profile performance in
this MSA... The distribution of borrowers reflects very
poor penetration among retail customers of different
income levels and business customers of different sizes.
This conclusion results from a distribution of home
mortgage borrowers that reflects very poor penetration
among retail customers of different income levels, and a
distribution of small business borrowers that reflects
poor penetration among business customers of different
sizes."
On moderate-income geographies;: "The
bank's level of lending in moderate-income geographies
lagged aggregate lenders as well as opportunities as
defined by the percentage of families considered
moderate-income in the assessment area, that performance
is considered very poor."
So why would this proposed merger be
approved? FFW has filed opposition.
The timing is worth pausing on: the Office
of the Comptroller of the Currency, which has
under-regulated both banks for years, now proposes to
further weaken the Community Reinvestment Act, as Inner
City Press and Fair Finance Watch have reported and
commented. There is an open comment period of the CRA
deform, which should be extended. There will be one on
EverBank - WdFd, natch.
