Bank Failure Alert - Community Bank and Trust - West Georgia

The second bank failure of 2026…
 
On 5/1/26, the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance closed Community Bank and Trust – West Georgia in La Grange, GA (FDIC 25796; total assets $288M; total deposits $268M as of the 12/31/25 call report) and appointed the FDIC as receiver.  Anchor Bank in Palm Beach Gardens, FL (FDIC 57931; total assets $607M) to assume substantially all insured deposits and acquire certain assets of Community Bank and Trust - West Georgia.
 

• The FDIC estimates that the failure will cost its Deposit Insurance Fund approximately $97 million.
• Approximately $27 million of the deposits exceeded FDIC insurance limits.
• Source - Anchor Bank Assumes Insured Deposits of Community Bank and Trust - West Georgia, LaGrange, Georgia | FDIC.gov

 
 
Additional FedFis insights as of the 12/31/25 call report:

• Community Bank and Trust – West Georgia had a FedFis Rating© of 4.64 for the Dec 2025 QTR placing them in the lowest percentile of all US banks (and 3.68 YTD Dec 2025 placing them in the bottom 3% of all US banks).  The bank has struggled with Assets Quality issues for the last two years.
  • The $97M estimated cost to the DIF is substantial considering the asset size of the bank at $288M (includes $32M in cash and $23M in AFS securities).  For reference, the Metropolitan Capital Bank & Trust failure earlier this year had an estimated cost to the DIF of $19.7M with total assets of $261M.
• The bank’s $191M loan portfolio consists primarily of $84M in Commercial & Industrial loans (44% of total loans) with $65M of that being CRE (34% of total loans).
  • Total nonperforming loans of $19.4M with an Allowance for LLL of only $4.7M creating a past due loans / loan loss allowance ratio of 536.6%.  This is after net charge-offs of $10M YTD.
• Community Bank and Trust – West Georgia had tangible equity capital of $12.2M at 12/31/25 with a Texas Ratio of 122.81% and an Adjusted Texas Ratio of 96.55% (taking into account certain government guaranteed loans).

 
It is also worth mentioning that the holding company (Community Bankshares, Inc.) had recently received a cease-and-desist order dated April 14 from the Federal Reserve related to the BHC’s “growth strategy focused on purchasing and originating United States Department of Agriculture and Small Business Administration loans through certain nonbank subsidiaries requiring significant financial and managerial resources and support from Bankshares.”

• Reference - https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/files/enf20260416a1.pdf

 
That nonbank subsidiary appears to be Pheonix Lender Services, LLC per the NIC and confirmed through this press release in November 2025 - https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/11/04/3180292/0/en/phoenix-lender-services-facilitates-record-325-million-in-sba-and-usda-loan-closings-in-first-full-year-of-operations.html.
 
 
Sean Mayo
Sr. VP, US Financial Institutions Group
[email protected]