BankUnited strong

The Jan. 22 article BankUnited stops making retail mortgage loans quotes South Florida banking consultant Ken Thomas, who speculated that “BankUnited’s private-equity owners may be positioning the bank for a sale.” Had a modest amount of fact checking been done on his guesswork, it would have been discovered that the private-equity investors who helped acquire the bank in 2009 have long since exited their ownership.

Your article accurately points out that BankUnited is now a public company (BKU: NYSE).

Thomas also implied that the bank got $4.9 billion in a taxpayer bailout. For the record, not one dollar of taxpayer money went into the purchase of BankUnited. In fact, nearly $1 billion of private capital was invested in 2009 in order to recapitalize the company.

BankUnited is a valued member of the community, having originated more than $2 billion in new loans to Florida companies in 2015. As one of the fastest growing banks in America, we have also hired more than 400 employees this past year and expect to continue that trajectory.

This story was originally published February 6, 2016 at 12:00 PM with the headline "BankUnited strong."