Washington Mutual positioned for sale

SEATTLE, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- A major Washington Mutual bank stockholder waived off a critical deal that allows the troubled bank greater capacity for selling itself, sources said.

With markets plummeting, the window of opportunity for the bank to save itself is shrinking, The Seattle Times reported Thursday.

But, equity firm TPG, which paid Washington Mutual $8.75 a share in a $7.2 billion deal in April, has sacrificed a contingency in that deal that said the bank would pay TPG millions in compensation if the bank sold more than $500 million in new stock or sold itself in its entirety.

TPG, which owns 16 percent of the bank, watched market value of Washington Mutual shares fall to $2.01 Wednesday, the Times reported.

The short list of possible buyers for the bank includes JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and HSBC, Citigroup, U.S., Bancorp, Barclays, Banco Santander and BNP Paribas, the Times reported.

The bank could also sell its retail branch operations, which retired Executive Vice President Lee Lannoye told the Times was "an absolutely irreplaceable, cannot-be-duplicated network of physical locations and good people in place."