BankUnited Financial Corp. in Coral Gables, Fla., announced Monday that earnings for its fiscal first quarter, which ended Dec. 31, increased 69% from a year earlier, to $27.4 million.
But the $13.8 billion-asset thrift company also said nonperforming assets as a percentage of total assets had more than tripled, to 0.33%.
BankUnited blamed the spike on the Florida housing slowdown.
"While we expect the level of nonperforming assets to increase, we do not anticipate that they will exceed levels that we have experienced in the past several cycles," Alfred R. Camner, BankUnited's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a press release. "We expect that our historically conservative credit standards and relatively low loan to values will keep our loss experience well below industry averages."
Additionally, BankUnited sold $14.3 million of loans - at a $2.6 million discount - to limit its exposure to a troubled commercial real estate project. The thrift company now has just $3 million of exposure to a $675 million syndicated loan to the home builder Technical Olympic USA Inc., which warned creditors of its deteriorating financial condition in September.
BankUnited's shares fell 2.8%, to $26.31 late Monday.
