Eight banks were seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp on Friday last week, pushing to 118 the total of bank failures this year so far and setting the stage for beating out the 140 failures registered by the regulator last year.

FDIC chair Sheila Bair told Bloomberg Television that the financial situation could prove to be far worst this year as the eight failed banks spread in Chicago, California, Florida and Virginia, would easily cost the federal regulator an estimated $473.5 million in deposit-insurance fund.

The most note-worthy of the closures was the ShoreBank Corp located in Chicago, which is reportedly affiliated with prominent officials of the Obama administration and maintains significant connections with notable investors such as Goldman Sachs among others.

Immediately after its closure by the FDIC, ShoreBank’s assets and deposits worth about $2.16 billion and $1.54 billion respectively, were turned over to a group of investors and assumed the new name Urban Partnership Bank, and headed by William Farrow, ShoreBank’s president and CEO at the time of the bank’s collapse.

Industry analysts said that the FDIC move was unique as its own regulations dictate that investors with more than 10 percent interests on a failed bank were automatically prohibited from bidding on its assets.

Atlanta banking lawyer Chip MacDonald called the FDIC-approved deal as highly unusual on its form.

A number of industry watchers were surprised that following a year of fierce efforts to shore up the beleaguered Chicago bank, the Obama administration eventually allowed its ‘demise’ but with a twist.

A source familiar with the deal revealed that ShoreBank has been effectively resurrected by a holding company largely comprised by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, all of whom by sheer coincidence have received some $400 million of federal funds to keep the bank alive and strutting.

Deducing from the FDIC statement on ShoreBank’s current standings on its assets and deposits, industry pundits said that the bank holds about 70 percent less of its face value and the group of investors currently managing it were actually collecting multimillion of federal funds in ensuring that the bank’s existing deposits were being serviced.

On top of that and according to a source privy to the ShoreBank-FDIC dealings, the bank’s auction was almost automatically awarded to Urban Partnership and the FDIC supported its decision by arguing that “it saved the FDIC’s insurance fund $250 million to $334 million over liquidation.”

Analyst Mike Shedlock characterized the whole process as fraught with glaring irregularities as he scored deliberate efforts to keep ShoreBank afloat at all cost no matter if irregularities marred its auction, its new management and the preference shown to giant US investors in taking over the failed bank.