Bids Due Tuesday on POA Servicer BKUNA of Florida

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has extended to Tuesday the bid deadline for all offers on BankUnited Financial Corp., Coral Gables, Fla., a thrift that has roughly $5 billion in payment option ARMs on its books, according to an investment banking source familiar with the transaction. Final bids were originally set for Thursday, May 14 but the deadline was extended. At least three different consortiums are vying for the publicly traded BankUnited (stock symbol: BKUNA) whose shares trade for 80 cents. (Recently, Green Tree Servicing, St. Paul, Minn., bought some of BKUNA's conventional residential servicing rights.) One of the consortiums includes well regarded bottom fisher Wilbur Ross whose American Home Mortgage unit is already a large servicer of POAs. According to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ross' American Holdings recently bought 500,000 shares of BKUNA for 31 cents and then want out and bought 43,818 shares for 30 cents. (American Holdings is headquartered in Tortola.) The "Ross Group" includes the Blackstone Group, Centerbridge Capital, and the Carlyle Group. J.C. Flowers and Toronto Dominion Bank are bidding separately, said one source. The FDIC declined to comment as did BKUNA officials.