Florida thrift with Tampa Bay locations fails; BankUnited seized by feds
May 22, 2009 at 6:27 am by Wayne Garcia
With three Tampa Bay locations, BankUnited is not most ubiquitous of Tampa Bay thrifts, but today its customers have discovered that the failing bank was seized overnight.
The AP reports:
The federal seizure of struggling Florida thrift BankUnited FSB is expected to cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. $4.9 billion, representing the second-largest hit to the FDIC’s insurance fund since the financial crisis began felling banks last year.
The costliest was last year’s seizure of California lender IndyMac Bank, on which the bank insurance fund is estimated to have lost $10.7 billion.
The Office of Thrift Supervision, a Treasury Department agency, said Thursday that BankUnited FSB reported $1.2 billion in losses last year as defaults on loans piled up. The thrift “was critically undercapitalized and in an unsafe condition to conduct business,” the agency said in a statement.
Coral Gables, Fla.-based BankUnited FSB is the 34th federally insured institution to be closed this year, and the biggest.
