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No accounting for bank's top honorsBy JEFF HARRINGTON © St. Petersburg Times, published September 11, 2000 Florida, a banking colony hardly known as a bastion for the best in the industry, can boast the best-performing bank in the country. Well, sort of. BFC Financial Corp., the holding company for Fort Lauderdale's BankAtlantic, had the best return on assets in the second quarter among publicly traded banking companies, trade publication American Banker noted in a Top 100 list released last week. The list, based on information from Sheshunoff Information Services, cited BFC's astounding 5.56 percent return on assets of $97-million. No. 2 MBNA Corp. of Wilmington, Del., wasn't even close with a 3.61 percent return. BFC executives had a singular response when told of the honor: "Huh??" Turns out the data are a bit skewed. Since it holds just under 50 percent of BankAtlantic stock, BFC does not include all the bank's assets in its financial reporting even though it includes the bank's earnings. "It's an accounting situation. . . . It really is somewhat misleading to have us with publicly traded banks," BFC chief financial officer Glen Gilbert said. "But it's definitely an honor." The rest of the state didn't fare as well. Only one other Florida bank made the list. Hamilton Bancorp, a $1.7-billion bank in Miami, squeezed into the middle of the group at No. 42. None of the biggest out-of-state players in Florida -- Bank of America, First Union and SunTrust -- made the cut.
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From the Times Business report
From the AP
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