Cape Fear Bank succumbs to a rising tide of closings.

• Position: Eastern

Not since 1993 had a bank failed in North Carolina. That was until Good Friday, when state regulators ordered Wilmington-based Cape Fear Bank Corp. to close. Its eight offices reopened the following Monday as branches of First Federal Savings and Long Association of Charleston, S. C. That came after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. brokered a deal in which most of the bank's assets and its $403 million in deposits were acquired by First Financial Holdings Inc., First Federal's...