Federal regulators have told the managers of a troubled Nolensville community bank they need to raise its capital ratios by May and plan to sell the bank or merge it with another institution should they fall short. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in mid-November told Peoples State Bank of Commerce, which lost $7.5 million in the first nine months of 2011, it also needed to trim the amount of loans to insiders and "eliminate from its books, by charge-off or collection, all assets or portions of assets classified Loss by the FDIC or the State" during an examination in late 2010. The latter part of the order should have been completed by late last month. Check out the full order here.

Along with Peoples State, which took a $6 million loan loss provision in the third quarter, the FDIC in November also issued a similar order to Farmers Bank of Lynchburg. Both lenders were controlled by financier Ed Lowery but last summer gave up a chunk of their equity to Tennessee Commerce Bank to satisfy some of Lowery's debts.