WaMu Center |
The nation's largest savings and loan, Washington Mutual of Seattle, used to be known for the slogan, "Friend of the Family," which it recent tried to update to, "Simpler Banking, More Smiles." But that it had held to either one: The phrase used in association with it in Wall Street now is, "Junk."
It has been a stunning fall. Only a year ago, WaMu (its preferred designation for all purposes other than formal - as if there was something wrong with spelling out something sounding relatively human, like "Washington Mutual") had 336 home loan office and about 12,000 employees. If our count of the subsequent cutbacks is right, then almost all of those home loan offices are now gone, along with close to half of those 2007 jobs.
Today, Standard & Poor's investment ratings downgraded WaMu to BBB-, three steps under the standard investment grades - just about as low as they go. Bloomberg's financial reports say that the S&L "had its credit rating cut to junk by Standard & Poor's because of the deteriorating housing market."
You could probably say that, at least compared to Lehmann Brothers and Merrill Lynch, WaMu is still standing, and S&P at least didn't indicate a collapse is imminent. But it's not standing steadily, and that has big implications for the Northwest.