Wall Street occasionally leaves $20 bills lying on the sidewalk, but they don't stay out there for long. I had been giving Commercial Capital Bancorp (NASDAQ:CCBI) a pretty close look recently, and while its operations were less than impressive, I thought its price was getting interesting. Apparently, Washington Mutual (NYSE:WM) agreed with me -- and bought the entire company.

Word broke last night that WaMu had reached an agreement to buy this commercial real estate lender for about $983 million -- roughly $16 a share in cash. Given my overall feelings about WaMu, I think CCB shareholders should be happy with the cash.

As you might expect, the stock is up on this good news, but I wonder what would have happened had WaMu's news not come out today. This was hardly Commercial Capital's best quarter, with reported earnings down 40% and net interest income down a knuckle-whitening 18% as the net interest margin dropped once more. There seemed to be decent asset growth performance, so it would seem that the main culprit was the big increase in the cost of deposits -- from less than 2% last year to nearly 3.5% this quarter.

This should be an accretive deal for WaMu, and it certainly gives the company more exposure to the fast-growing California market. And in a sense, it does diversify some of its loan business, though I'd still like to see them add more non-real estate commercial lending to the portfolio. I do wonder a bit, though, about the advantages that WaMu will ultimately bring to the table -- even with this tough quarter, CCB still has a better efficiency ratio and lower cost of funds.

Honestly, since this bank is now a goner, there's little to gain from dwelling much more on this quarter's financials. Assuming the deal goes through, it's WaMu's problem now. I think WaMu is getting a good price here; before the latest quarterly numbers, I valued CCB a bit higher than its buyout price. It just proves once again that values don't float out there forever -- not when there's so much money looking for a good home.

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Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).