as nasdaq wafd s & p 400 component industry finance investments and insurance headquarters seattle washington united states key people roy whitehead ceo products commercial and consumer banking investment banking insurance mortgage website washingtonfederal.com washington federal nasdaq wafd is a washington corporation headquartered in seattle washington . the company is a bank holding company that conducts its operations through a federally insured national bank subsidiary washington federal national association bank . founded on april 24 1917 as ballard savings and loan it kept the name of bothell s washington federal savings and loan after merging with it in 1958 . wfsl demutualized in 1982 and the present holding company structure was adopted in 1995 . history edit mergers and acquisitions edit seattle federal savings and loan 1971 first federal savings and loan association mount vernon washington 1978 united first federal boise idaho 1987 provident federal savings and loan boise 1987 northwest federal savings and loan boise 1988 freedom federal savings and loan corvallis oregon 1988 family federal savings and loan association dallas oregon 1990 first federal savings and loan association idaho falls idaho 1991 metropolitan savings association portland and eugene oregon 1991 first federal savings bank salt lake city utah 1993 west coast mutual savings bank centralia washington 1996 metropolitan bancorp seattle wa 11 29 1996 mergers and acquisitions since 2000 first mutual bank bellevue wa 2008 horizon bank bellingham wa 2010 south valley bancorp inc klamath falls or 2012 51 bank of america branches in washington oregon idaho new mexico arizona and nevada 2013 on may 20 2003 washington federal announced its planned acquisition of the four branch seattle based united savings and loan bank . united savings founded on july 6 1960 by robert and ruth j. chinn was the first asian american owned savings and loan in the united states . the completion of the sale was announced that september . the reported purchase price was 65 million . wafed acquired first mutual bank of bellevue wa . first mutual bank had vast experience in making commercial real estate loans and operates a wholesale residential department with an emphasis in residential construction lending . this transaction closed in the first quarter of 2008 . it is believed that this acquisition would give wafed a commercial lending ability to complement its residential real estate lending . on january 11 2010 washington federal acquired the 18 branch bellingham based horizon bank . horizon bank was seized by state regulators after the bank failed with assets of 1.3 billion dollars and deposits of 1.2 billion . horizon bank was the first bank that regulators shut down in 2010 . washington federal was able to purchase these assets at a discounted cost due to the number of risky loans on horizon bank s books . this transaction can ultimately cost the fdic 536 million dollars almost 50 % of the bank s assets . many of the assets were tied to speculative loans for commercial real estate purchased during the height of the real estate bubble in 2006 . when this bubble collapsed many of these risky loans lost their value . washington federal has agreed to absorb 20 % of these losses with the remainder being covered by the fdic . these costs can be reduced as the economy recovers due to rising commercial real estate values . if this occurs the losses by the fdic would be significantly reduced . washington federal stocks dropped 5.9 % on the announcement of this deal due to share holder expectations that a larger acquisition deal would have occurred . external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title washington federal & oldid 737201648 categories companies based in seattlebanks based in washington state economy of the western united statesbanks established in 1917companies listed on nasdaq navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 1 september 2016 at 09 22 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view