Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (NYSE: MET) has restructured its bank sale deal with GE, so that it will no longer have to fight for approval of the sale from the FDIC, but instead hope for the warmer embrace from another—in this case, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
According to an analyst comment, which favored the switch, the change will be positive toward getting the deal approved but that the timing would likely come in 2013, not by year's end, as MetLife has hoped with the FDIC.
MetLife announced last winter the planned sale of $7.5 billion in retail banking deposits to GE Capital. The company noted at the time it also intended to transfer the remaining $3 billion in other deposits out of MetLife Bank over the next six months.
"From MetLife's perspective, the new arrangement does not impact the key terms of the agreement and still enables MetLife, Inc. to ultimately deregister as a bank holding company following completion of the deal," said a spokesman for MetLife.
Although MetLife wasn't commenting on its pre-stated plans to refile its stress test before the Sept. 30 deadline, the analyst from Stern Agee, John Nadel, wrote that he expects the New York insurer with the increasingly global portfolio will need to be granted another extension from the Federal Reserve to avoid refiling its stress test, but added that Met may still have to submit a stress test anew to the Fed as a Bank Holding company for the 2013 process.
In June, the Federal Reserve Board gave MetLife until the end of September to resubmit a capital plan after a previous one had failed a stress test.
