It appears that Wilbur Ross hit a home run on his first day out. The WL Ross & Co.-affiliated BankUnited Inc. raised $783 million in its initial public offering, more than 18% more than what it initially expected.
The Miami Lakes, Fla., company, which was bought in May 2009 by private investors including Ross, Blackstone Group and Carlyle Group, said in a press release that it sold 29 million shares of common stock at $27 a share. The stock is trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol BKU.
(WL Ross also controls American Home Mortgage Servicing, Irving, Texas, which ranks 14th nationwide among all residential servicers.)
Earlier in the week, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, BankUnited said it planned to sell 26.25 million shares at $23-$25 a share. The company said in its initial registration statement that it would use the funds "to grow opportunistically, both organically and through acquisitions."
The $11.2 billion-asset company's backers invested more than $900 million upon acquiring its assets from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
