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After coming under criticism for their lending standards and a panicked withdraw of $1.3 billion by depositors, IndyMac is filing for liquidation of its remaining assets. An article on Bloomberg today discussed what this entails.

IndyMac's liabilities are between $100 million and $500 million, according to the Chapter 7 filing by the bank holding company yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles. IndyMac said it has less than 50 creditors, including law and accounting firms and other banks, none of whose outstanding claims were listed.

IndyMac was seized by U.S. regulators on July 11 after a run by depositors left the mortgage lender strapped for cash. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is running a successor institution, IndyMac Federal Bank, and regulators have said they intend to eventually sell the seized bank.

The FDIC ``has been in sole possession custody and control of all of the books and records of'' IndyMac Bancorp and the court filing was made without access to information that bankruptcy laws typically require, Chief Executive Officer Michael W. Perry said in court papers.

While banks are prohibited from filing for U.S. bankruptcy protection, bank holding companies aren't. Perry is Pasadena, California-based IndyMac Bancorp's sole remaining employee, according to the filing. The company has $50 million to $100 million in assets.

IndyMac Bancorp racked up almost $900 million in losses as home prices tumbled and foreclosures hit records. California ranked second among U.S. states, with one foreclosure filing for every 192 households in June, 2.6 times the national average.

IndyMac was the largest OTS-regulated savings and loan to fail and second-biggest financial institution to close behind Continental Illinois in 1984, according to the FDIC. The failure will cost the federal deposit insurance program that repays customers when a bank fails about $4 billion to $8 billion, the FDIC said in a statement last month.