Silver State, the Nevada-based bank that had John McCain's son on its board until July, has become the eleventh bank in the United States to fail this year after losses from souring house loans and land forced regulators to shut it down.

The group's $1.7 billion (£961million) in deposits are being assumed by Nevada State Bank of Las Vegas, which will take on the running of the accounts.

A spokesman for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the regulator, blamed “poor-quality loans primarily related to real estate development” for Silver State's untenable position.

“When the housing market slowed down, people who bought raw land to build new homes didn't need that land, so they couldn't do anything with it and repay their loans,” the spokesman said.

Silver State, from which Andrew McCain resigned for “personal reasons” after six months on the board, is the latest in a series of bank failures this year, of which IndyMac, the Californian group, was the biggest.

Its closure came as Lehman Brothers continued to scramble to secure its own future after billions of dollars of losses on mortgage-related investments and the prospect of billions more to come.

Nomura became the latest group to emerge as a potential investor in Lehman yesterday, after the Japanese bank confirmed market rumours that it was considering bidding for a minority stake in Lehman.

Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ is also thought to be mulling over a similar approach, although its management played down the suggestion last week.

Neither Nomura nor Bank of Tokyo is expected to make any move until after Lehman has announced its third-quarter results, expected in the next two weeks. Traders in Tokyo said that the Japanese banks were waiting to see whether Lehman's latest results are a “kitchen sink” admission of further problems on its books.

Analysts believe that potential Japanese bidders may take advantage of the lower price that would result if Lehman's results are particularly bad. Alternatively, they may walk away from a target with too much risk for their conservative tastes.

Some analysts are predicting that Lehman could announce a further writedown of $5 billion on its mortgage-related holdings.

The Wall Street brokerage is close to finalising a plan to turn itself into two separate companies: a “good” bank and a “bad” bank.

The so-called bad bank would comprise Lehman's approximately $30 billion of risky residential and commercial mortgage assets and the good bank would comprise the rest of the business, which includes brokerage services and advice on mergers and acquisitions and initial public offerings.

Lehman would inject about $7 billion of equity into the bad bank as a cushion against further losses, allowing the good bank to function free from the uncertainty that has dogged it in recent months.

One source said that, although Lehman was actively pursuing a plan to split the group, it remained one of several options. The others comprise a takeover by a consortium including the Korean Development Bank (KDB), or a $6 billion solo investment by KDB in return for a minority stake and the sale of the group's Neuberger Berman fund management unit.

Lehman declined to comment.

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