In Depth October 29, 2009, 5:00PM EST

Banking: Mr. Cleanup

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Dennis Trimper of the FDIC's Dallas office spearheaded the Friday night seizure and turnover. After the branch closed for the evening, he brought Edwards and his team into the branch through the back door. They quickly began poring over the books. "He was there with about 80 people from the FDIC, and they went right to work basically auditing the bank, so you knew exactly what you were getting when you opened for business on Monday," says Edwards. "I don't think he slept all weekend, which is pretty amazing for a government employee." Trimper declined to comment.

A sweet deal for Edwards was even sweeter for employees: Of the 40 or so employees of First Coweta, all but five are still with the bank. "I don't think we could have gone out and handpicked a better acquirer," says Harold McCoy, vice-president of retail lending at First Coweta, now United.

United being a family bank, it put John Edwards, Jim's cousin, in charge during the transition. John, 49, is United's chairman. (Two other Edwardses work for United: Jim's younger brother, Chris, is the chief information officer, while John's older sister, Allie, is a lawyer.) John, beefier than Jim and a bit more blunt, has done a good job of bringing First Coweta into the United fold, say employees. One customer, Unity Baptist Church, faced the prospect of losing part of a construction loan that had been arranged by First Coweta. When United took over, John Edwards set up a meeting with the church. "He looked me in the eye and told me this was the first loan United Bank is going to do here in Newnan," says Carey Jackson, 54, a deacon at the church.

Saving two community banks has bolstered Jim Edwards' reputation in the Atlanta suburbs. "He's the man on the white horse," jokes Brannen of the Georgia Banker's Assn. "He shows up and people say, 'Oh, thank God, it's Jim.'"

LOOKING FOR A SAVIOR

The bad news for the FDIC and the Georgia economy is that Edwards is done making deals for a while. Integrating the new branches, employees, and assets is consuming all of his time. "I can't say if something came along we wouldn't take a look at it," he offers while cruising in his 11-year-old black Mercedes from Newnan to Griffin. "But for now I think we have enough on our plate."

That means bankers like Pat Shepherd will have to find rescue elsewhere. Shepherd is a founder and CEO of Bank of Georgia, in Peachtree City, which lies between Griffin and Newnan. It's headquartered in a new and nondescript office park just off a highway that's lined with competitors: Regional giants BB&T and Suntrust are just around the corner from Bank of Georgia, while rival Delta Credit Union is a few miles up the road.

In 1999, Shepherd, an effusive and informal career banker with salt-and-pepper hair, hooked up with some other investors, amassed an $11 million grubstake, and opened Bank of Georgia. Building loans were soon fueling fast growth: Between the end of 2003 and this June, the bank's assets more than doubled, to $448 million, with over 85% of its loans in real estate.

Now Shepherd, an avid duck hunter, is fighting to save his bank. In August the FDIC and the Georgia Banking & Finance Dept. placed First Georgia under a cease and desist order. After that, says Shepherd, it was hard to overcome the impression among locals that "Y'all are going down in 60 days."

Shepherd says he's optimistic about the bank's survival but admits his efforts to attract new capital haven't yielded much. He has tried without luck to sell bonds and has talked with private equity firms about acquiring a stake. As for healthy institutions that might be interested in buying his bank outright, he says: "In Georgia, there aren't a whole lot of them."

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Walking Wounded

The Georgia banks that weathered the collapse of the housing market could yet be knocked out by losses on commercial property loans, wrote Paul Donsky in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Oct. 17. One sign of trouble: In Atlanta, the retail vacancy rate has risen by almost 50% in the past two years, Donsky reported.

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Carbonara is a senior writer for BusinessWeek.