May 27, 2009

You would think a semiobscure failed Florida thrift, hobbled by $10 billion or so of bad assets, wouldn't draw an A-list of potential acquirers. In the case of BankUnited Financial (BKUNA) of Coral Gables, however, you would be wrong. The company was seized last week by its regulators, who then immediately turned around and sold it to a group of Wall Street big shots including W.L. Ross, Carlyle Group, and Blackstone Group (BX).

To win the deal, the Ross group had to top competing bids from the likes of Goldman Sachs (GS). J.C. Flowers was said to be sniffing around, as well. This was a private-equity version of a buying frenzy.It's an example of the almost mystical hold the Florida banking market can have on investors.BankUnited may be insolvent, but it still has one distinction that sets it apart from the rest of the walking-dead banks in the Sunshine State: It's the largest locally based FDIC-insured depositary institution.