US FINANCIAL regulators are drawing up new rules to facilitate private equity acquisitions of troubled banks in an effort to unlock tens of billions of dollars that could be deployed to recapitalise ailing lenders. People close to the situation said the plan, which has yet to be finalised and could still change, might require private equity companies to inject substantial amounts of capital into troubled lenders and agree not to sell them for at least two years.

Buyout funds wanting to buy a troubled bank would also have to reveal their performance metrics and marketing materials to the authorities to allay fears they might use the banks to subsidise other companies in their portfolio.

Regulators are looking for “a long-term financial commitment to banks and not just a quick flip”, said one person familiar with the thinking in Washington.

Private equity groups have long sought to invest in banks, especially failed ones that can be acquired at cut price from regulators, often with financial help from the government. But the authorities have traditionally preferred selling troubled financial groups to other banks because of concerns over the potential conflict of interests created by buyout funds’ ownership of banks.

The Federal Reserve has restricted private equity groups to stakes of less than 25 per cent in banks. But the virulence of the latest crisis has prompted regulators to take a softer stance to private equity groups’ involvement in the rescue of the banking sector.