As per the Wednesday reports by The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News, the Spanish banking bigwig Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) will be acquiring the Texas-based Guaranty Bank in a government-assisted deal, after having won the bidding for the assets of the staggering lender.

The Guaranty Bank had announced last month that it was "critically undercapitalized" and would probably not be able to stay in business.

Other than BBVA, the other bids that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) received for Guaranty on Tuesday included those by US Bancorp of Minneapolis, Minn.; and a private equity alliance led by Dallas banking billionaire Gerald J. Ford. Sources also revealed that JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo Bank, and Toronto-Dominion Bank also "looked closely" at acquiring Guaranty.

After the formal announcement by FDIC next week, BBVA, operating in the US as BBVA Compass after its 2007 acquisition of the Alabama-based Compass, will take over Guaranty's nearly 100 branches in Texas and 60 in California; thereby expanding its foothold in the US. Already, BBVA has a notable presence in the country, with 583 branches in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas.

Referring to the imminent Guaranty takeover by BBVA, Dan Bass, an investment banker at Houston's Carson Medlin, said: "It really strengthens their position in Texas. The California piece is big for them."