BankUnited on Wednesday reported improved earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011, as the Miami Lakes-based bank redirects its course to remain independent and grow in Florida and the Northeast.

For the quarter ended December 31st, BankUnited reported net income of $41.3 million or 41 cents per share, compared to $27.8 million, or 30 cents per share for the same period of 2010.

BankUnited Chairman and Chief Executive John Kanas attributed the improvement largely to strong loan growth.

“We grew by almost $840 million this year,” Kanas said. “This bank is continually going through the process of shrinking the old loans off and growing the new loan book, and that really became magnified this quarter. We really had an all-around very strong performance heading into this year.”

Recent weeks have been rocky, however, as BankUnited admitted it had undertaken an attempt to sell the bank only to give up those efforts when bids came in too low. Among the banks rumored to have been interested were BB&T and TD Bank.

Kanas said Wednesday that Goldman Sachs had approached the bank’s board to solicit a sale but declined to name the bidders.

“The board heard an investment bank say, ‘We have guys who will pay you a lot of money,’ and they had an obligation to shareholders to see what would happen,” Kanas said.

“The board understands how valuable this bank is, particularly with the growth of earnings and size, and we certainly do not intend to sell it unless there was a very substantial price to be paid above market,” he added. “So the board looked at the offer and said, ‘No, thanks,’ and now we are back to what we hoped to be back to, which is to continue to build the bank.”

Gene Kirsch, senior banking analyst with Weiss Ratings in Jupiter, said he expects BankUnited to revisit a sale someday.

“At some point I would expect them to try to [sell the bank] again, to put it on the market,” Kirsch said. “But for now, at least for 2012, to try to grow the franchise and take over one or two institutions that become troubled or fail.”

Kanas said BankUnited is on track to complete in February its first acquisition in the New York market of Herald National Bank and then to expand further.

“Our stated strategy has always been the same: to leverage up on the tremendous amount of capital we have in this company and the excess capacity of management and technology, to build a much larger institution, hopefully in New York and also in Florida.

Potential acquisition targets apparently aren’t hard to find. During the past two years, BankUnited has looked at 40 to 50 banks, Kanas said. “We think the environment for us as an acquirer in the next two years will get better.”

Kanas said the acquisitions would need to be “strategically important and financially reasonable for us, so that we don’t destroy any of the value we have already created.”

“They have to be in places where we think we can continue to grow, so strategically located in areas where banking has a bright future,” he said.

In Florida, that would particularly include South Florida, as well as the Orlando and Tampa areas, he said.

“I would expect them to look for acquisitions that are favorable, that have guarantees from the government,” Kirsch, said, “because that is how they have built this franchise.”

BankUnited went public last January, raising nearly $800 million less than two years after the bank was shut down by regulators and sold to a private equity group.

The failure of Florida’s largest financial institution at the time — which symbolized pioneering hybrid adjustable mortgages and collapsed with the burst of the real estate bubble — cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. $5.7 billion. It was the second most costly failure, after IndyMac, since the banking crisis began in 2007.

Kanas, a longtime New York banker, was part of the group of investors who purchased the assets of the failed BankUnited, with a $900 million private equity investment.

Now, BankUnited’s improved fourth-quarter earnings reflect a strengthening trend among Florida banks, Kirsch said.

Weiss rates BankUnited a ‘C+,’ or ‘fair,’ based on third-quarter results, on a scale of A to E. That rating reflects an upgrade from a ‘D,’ or ‘weak,’ six months earlier, he said. Weiss bases its ratings on five factors, including capital, profitability, asset quality, liquidity and stability.

“They have made great strides in the last couple of quarters,” Kirsch said. “Still the biggest thing is to shore up liquidity and asset quality.”