MetLife Opts to Forgo TARP Cash

MetLife, the insurance company, said on Monday that it would not participate in the government’s program to provide emergency funds for troubled assets.

The company pointed to other steps it had taken in recent months to build up its capital position, and said it decided that it did not need to take money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program as well.

In March, MetLife took advantage of a separate federal program, operated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, to raise about $397 million for general corporate purposes through a sale of floating-rate notes. Under the program, the F.D.I.C. guaranteed the notes, allowing MetLife to borrow at a lower rate than it could have on its own. MetLife was eligible for the F.D.I.C. program because it owns a bank and is regulated by the Federal Reserve.

MetLife also sold $2.3 billion of stock last fall to replenish its capital and remarketed more than $1 billion of debt earlier this year. In a statement, MetLife’s chief executive, C. Robert Henrikson, said the company now had “approximately $5 billion in excess capital” and did not need TARP money, “although a number of economic challenges remain.”

Two other life insurance companies have also recently found themselves out of the running for TARP money, despite having submitted applications last fall. Both had been trying to buy federally chartered financial institutions to meet a condition the Treasury set under the former secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr.

The Protective Life Corporation, an insurer in Birmingham, Ala., said it had terminated its efforts to acquire the Bank of Bonifay, a federally chartered institution, at the end of March. Protective Life said it had waited in vain until then for news about its application. The Bank of Bonifay had decided that because of the uncertainty, calling off the deal “was in its best interest.”

Protective said it had no plans to acquire any other federally chartered institution, but considered itself “well capitalized with ample liquidity.”

Genworth Financial, a life insurer and mortgage guarantor in Richmond, Va., dropped its application for TARP money last week after the Obama administration confirmed that insurers would have to have federally chartered affiliates to qualify for the TARP. Genworth had been trying to acquire InterBank, a thrift in Minnesota, but its application was not approved in time by the Office of Thrift Supervision.