US says 5% of S&Ls are on danger list

About 5 percent of all federally chartered savings-and-loan associations are having financial difficulties serious enough to warrant government monitoring, Richard Pratt, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, said. He said his agency's "problem list" of troubled associations has grown to between 260 and 265 this year, up from 120 last year, and he believed this was the highest number of institutions ever to be on the list. Just because an S&L is on the problem list does not necessarily mean it will go bankrupt. Historically, he said, only 10 percent of the institutions on the list will need federal infusions of cash, and only 1 percent are likely to go out of business.