Regulators Seize Troubled S&L; in San Clemente : Takeover: The solvent but cash-short thrift’s assets and liabilities have been transferred to a newly chartered institution.

IRVINE —  Federal thrift regulators, unable to find a buyer for troubled San Clemente Savings Bank during the past four months, seized the solvent but undercapitalized savings and loan on Friday.

The Office of Thrift Supervision transferred the thrift’s assets and liabilities to a newly chartered institution called San Clemente Federal Savings Bank. The new savings and loan will open for business as usual on Monday under conservatorship of the Resolution Trust Corp., the federal agency charged with liquidating failed thrifts.

Deposits remain insured up to $100,000 for each account holder.

“It is with great reluctance that we seize institutions like San Clemente Savings, which could have attracted a buyer and been resolved at less cost to the taxpayer,” said T. Timothy Ryan, director of the Office of Thrift Supervision.

As he has in other recent federal takeovers, Ryan blamed a lack of congressional funding to help troubled and insolvent institutions. With some government funding, buyers can be enticed into buying marginal thrifts. Without it, buyers just wait until the institutions are seized.

Executives at the Irvine-based thrift had asked the OTS in February to put the institution in the agency’s so-called accelerated resolution program, which is designed to sell troubled S&Ls; without subjecting them to costly government takeovers and receiverships. San Clemente Savings made its request after the OTS rejected the thrift’s plan to raise $9 million.

The thrift is the first in Orange County to be seized this year but the 25th since the wave of federal takeovers began in the early 1980s. For several years, Orange County has been the state’s biggest graveyard for failed thrifts. No county has had more.

San Clemente Savings is a victim primarily of the real estate recession and changes in federal laws that limit the amount of money that thrifts can invest in real estate projects.

The OTS said the quality of the thrift’s assets was poor and pointed out that 10% of its $220.4 million in assets were bad loans and investments. In basic capital--its final reserve against losses--the thrift had $1.7 million, or about 0.8% of its assets. That’s about half the minimum requirement, and the minimum is being raised soon.

The thrift reported a loss of $110,000 for the first quarter, adding to the $6.5 million it lost last year. But the OTS acknowledged that the losses came from the real estate development and other subsidiaries and that those problems couldn’t be resolved separately from the thrift.

With six offices in south Orange County, San Clemente Savings had a strong branch network that should have attracted a buyer, the OTS said.

The thrift is a subsidiary of American Pacesetter in Irvine, which announced in February that it would likely lose its investment of $6 million if the government seized the subsidiary.

“I just feel like we’re a pawn in a political chess game,” said John Polen, president of the savings and loan and executive vice president of American Pacesetter.

Last week, he added, “Tim Ryan of the OTC sent a message to Congress that if they wouldn’t give him the money to dispose of the S&Ls; in an orderly fashion, through the accelerated resolution program, that he would place four or five a week in the conservatorship program, which will be more costly to the taxpayer. I think it’s a political statement that he’s trying to make to Congress.

“I feel like they’re slaughtering a couple of lambs to save the herd.”