Two Weeks in September 2008: Part 1 - Washington Mutual
- Jul 27
- 2 min read
In September 2008, as the collapse of Lehman Brothers shook confidence across the global financial system, Washington Mutual became the largest bank failure in U.S. history. In this episode, former FDIC Director of Resolutions and Receiverships Jim Wigand joins John Bovenzi and Tom Vice to provide a firsthand account of the frantic days leading up to WaMu's collapse and its sale to JPMorgan Chase. Together, they explain how regulators balanced rapidly deteriorating market confidence, mounting deposit withdrawals, and intense time pressure to engineer a resolution that protected depositors without resorting to an FDIC-funded bailout.
Beyond recounting the events themselves, the discussion explores the innovative resolution strategies developed during the crisis, the difficult policy choices surrounding uninsured deposits and creditor losses, and why the Washington Mutual transaction became a model for resolving large financial institutions. The lessons learned continue to shape bank resolution policy today and remain highly relevant as regulators confront the challenges of preserving confidence in an era of increasingly rapid bank runs.
Our Guest for this episode:
Jim Wigand is currently the Managing Member of Great Point Financial, LLC, a financial advisory firm, and serves as a senior advisor to a top-tier investment bank. From 2013 to 2018, Jim served as a Managing Director of Millstein & Co., leading its financial institution advisory practice. His clients have included governments in North America and Europe as well as four of the five largest U.S. bank holding companies.
Previously, Jim served in various executive positions at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Resolution Trust Corporation, including Senior Advisor to the Chairman and Director of the Office of Complex Financial Institutions, where he led the development of strategic approaches for resolving distressed large financial companies. From 1997 to 2010, Jim oversaw the resolution of all failing insured banks in the U.S. and the sale of their assets.
In his various roles, Jim advised on the resolutions of the three largest bank failures in United States history.
Born in New York City, Jim received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland and a Master of Business Administration degree with a specialization in finance from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He currently lives in Carversville, PA and serves on several local historic/land preservation boards.
Resources:
The Lost Bank: The Story of Washington Mutual - The Biggest Bank Failure in American History by Kirsten Grind Simon & Schuster, 2012
