Business Notes THRIFTS

Danny Wall, the chief U.S. regulator of savings and loans, is on a bailout binge. Last week the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, whose Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation guarantees thrift deposits, said it would spend $1.9 billion to rescue 14 ailing Oklahoma S and Ls. The Bank Board merged the thrifts into six larger institutions in the hope of selling them to private investors. With the Oklahoma rescue, the agency has laid out a total of $9.8 billion in the latter half of August to salvage 45 thrifts, most of them in the financially troubled Southwest.

Wall's spending spree is motivated partly by deadlines, he acknowledges. The regulator wants to expedite bailouts before the current fiscal year ends, on Sept. 30, so that next year's FSLIC spending will stay within the confines of the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law. Wall's next rescue candidate could be a whopper: the American Savings and Loan Association of Stockton, Calif., whose bail-out may cost $2 billion.