Florida

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta announced Tuesday that OptimumBank Holdings Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has signed an agreement to maintain financial soundness.

There's a group of community banks flush with capital, unburdened by delinquent loans and busily expanding assets — at the expense of troubled kin. The de novo class of '07 and '08 fortuitously opened its doors just before regulators said Do Not Enter, but late enough in the game to realize strict loan standards were necessary to navigate the real estate recession. Now they're coming for troubled banks' lunch money.

BankAtlantic Bancorp Inc. in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has given bondholders another month to cash out trust-preferred securities.

First Southern Bancorp Inc. has paid the Treasury Department $11.5 million, repurchasing all of its outstanding preferred stock in the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Old Harbor Bank said Thursday that Anthony N. Leo would take over as chief executive to handle its restructuring and lead its new growth strategies. The $243 million-asset thrift also announced a new capital raise in conjunction with the executive shuffle as the bank tries to redeem itself from being undercapitalized.

Simply put, experts respond, what goes down must come up. Florida was one of the first states to feel the pain of the crisis, and most analysts and private-equity groups see a bottoming out in the real estate and banking markets happening there before it occurs in similarly troubled states such as Arizona, California and Nevada, or in most of the other states in the Southeast.

MidFlorida Credit Union, one of the state's healthiest big credit unions, has agreed to acquire the troubled Bay Gulf Federal Credit Union in the latest in a series of large credit union mergers shaking up the market in the Sunshine State.

Longtime Midwest banker Marty Adams is heading south on a rescue mission. The struggling TIB Financial Corp. in Naples, Fla., announced late Friday that Adams, former chief executive of Sky Financial Group, would join TIB to help it secure the $150 million it needs for a recapitalization.

BankAtlantic Bancorp Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Thursday announced pricing for its $25 million rights offering. The $4.7 billion-asset company said it would sell shares to existing shareholders at $1.50 a share, a 21% discount to the stock's price on June 1, the day before the company announced the rights offering.

Three and a half years after selling Harbor Florida Bancshares Inc. at the top of the market, the company's former executives have decided it's time to buy.

BankAtlantic Bancorp Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said it hopes to raise up to $25 million of fresh capital through a rights offering to existing shareholders.

EverBank has thrived as one of the most profitable banks in Florida by becoming a dominant player in the online banking realm. Last week, though, the Jacksonville company made a detour into brick-and-mortar banking by acquiring three failed Bank of Florida franchises, snapping up 13 branches across the state and increasing its assets by 15%, to $11 billion.

Five more banks failed Friday — including the subsidiaries of Bank of Florida Corp. — costing the government an additional $317 million.

More than two months after regulators issued what ordinarily are final warnings to Bank of Florida Corp., the company's banks have received a fresh set of marching orders.

Horizon Bancorp. Inc. in Bradenton, Fla., is hoping a last-minute private placement will keep its critically undercapitalized bank from failing.

Two already troubled community banks recorded additional first-quarter losses this week in revising their results after re-evaluating problem loans.

For months now, private-equity executives and bankers have been in opposing camps in the battle for struggling banks. But Jacksonville Bancorp Inc. in Florida showed this week that it's sometimes better to recruit a rival than fight it.

Four small banks totaling $730 million in assets were closed late Friday on a relatively light evening for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The Federal Reserve on Monday announced it has taken enforcement action against banks in Montana and Florida.

BankUnited Financial Corp. has countersued the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in the fallout from one of the costliest failures of the financial crisis — that of Florida's BankUnited FSB.