In a statement, the group's president, Douglas Lowenstein, said the proposals would "deter future private investments in banks that need fresh capital."
The proposals will be subject to a 30-day public comment period, after which the bank regulators likely will meet again to finalize the rules, said FDIC spokesman David Barr.
The FDIC monitors the health of banks to ensure that they have enough capital to stay afloat and cover their deposits. When banks get in trouble, the FDIC can seize and sell them. Prior to Thursday, the FDIC already had closed 45 banks this year, many of them community or regional institutions. That compares with 25 failures last year and three in 2007.
The FDIC already has brokered two sales this year to entities controlled by private equity firms. In March, the government sold IndyMac Federal Bank for $13.9 billion to a bank formed by investors that included billionaire George Soros and Dell Inc. founder Michael Dell.
But the business practices and ownership of the lightly regulated pools of investor funds often can be difficult to penetrate. The FDIC proposals include requirements meant to pry some information out of the investors, including disclosing the owners of private equity groups. The FDIC rules also would prevent the groups from using overseas secrecy laws to shield details of their operations.
Under the regulations, banks also would not be sold to investors with so-called "silo" structures that make it hard to determine who is behind a private equity group.
The FDIC had 305 banks with $220 billion of assets on its list of problem institutions at the end of the first quarter, the highest number since the 1994 savings and loan crisis.
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AP Business Writer David Pitt reported from Des Moines, Iowa.
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