Valley National Bank snapped up a troubled three-branch New York bank this morning at a bargain basement price with an ironclad guarantee, said some analysts.

Lipkin

“The acquisition of LibertyPointe Bank is expected to provide us with immediate earnings accretion,” said Valley chief executive officer Gerald H. Lipkin. His bank, which already had New York locations, paid a 0.15 percent premium for LibertyPointe’s $209.5 million of deposits, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

“It’s a cheap way for banks to expand,” said Nancy A. Bush, an independent bank analyst at Annandale-based NAB Research LLC. “The premium that Valley paid for LibertyPointe’s deposits is very low by historical standards.”

Valley took over LibertyPointe from the FDIC under a purchase and assumption agreement that includes a loss-share clause that basically shields the Wayne-based institution from taking a beating on $181.5 million of LibertyPointe loans.

LibertyPointe racked up five years of back-to-back losses, said Peter J. Ostrowski, a former analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, who now serves as a managing director at the Cranford-based bank-consulting firm Ostrowski & Co. Inc.

“In October 2009, LibertyPointe received a ‘prompt corrective action’ letter from the FDIC,” he said. “That’s a very serious warning to quickly boost your capital one way or the other. So the sale to Valley is not surprising at all.”

The timing was surprising though, since the federal agency usually schedules transfers like this on a Friday afternoon.

But regulators likely considered the fact that LibertyPointe's prime customer base,  the Orthodox Jewish community, does not conduct work during the Jewish Sabbath that lasts from sundown Friday through sundown Saturday, Ostrowski said.

E-mail Martin C. Daks at mdaks@njbiz.com