May 22 (Bloomberg) -- WL Ross & Co., Blackstone Group LP and Carlyle Group’s purchase of BankUnited Financial Corp., the largest U.S. bank to collapse this year, came with a signal from regulators that they may be willing to let more buyout firms snap up banks as failures soar to a 15-year high.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., citing the interest of private-equity firms in buying banks in receivership, said yesterday that it will soon provide “policy guidance” for potential investors. Spokesman David Barr declined to elaborate on the statement.

“What the FDIC is saying is, ‘We see there is a demand out there and we have a need to have as many bidders as possible and we’re going to develop rules of the road for private equity firms to participate in this process,’” former FDIC Chairman William Isaac said in an interview today.

Carlyle and Blackstone, the world’s two biggest leveraged buyout firms, are among those considering buying banks on the cheap after global losses from the credit crisis topped $1.4 trillion. The FDIC in January agreed to sell IndyMac Bank to private-equity investors after failing for five months to find a buyer among the lender’s stronger rivals. BankUnited’s winning bidders are injecting $900 million into the Florida lender.

Flagstar Sale

“It is a lot like the IndyMac sale, except the FDIC found a buyer right away,” said Bert Ely, a banking consultant in Alexandria, Virginia. The BankUnited purchase will cost the FDIC $4.9 billion. IndyMac cost the agency an estimated $10.7 billion, according to a March statement from the FDIC.

The Office of Thrift Supervision in January cleared MatlinPatterson Global Adviser LLC’s purchase of Flagstar Bancorp Inc., based in Troy, Michigan. The Federal Reserve has told private-equity companies it won’t permit a firm that isn’t regulated as a bank to own a majority stake in a lender, even if it walls off its investment in a so-called silo deal, according to a Fed lawyer who declined to be identified.

Senator Jack Reed today wrote to regulators including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner raising “serious concerns” about private-equity firms buying banks.

“These activities represent another, particularly dangerous example of regulatory arbitrage whereby institutions and firms are shopping around a potentially risky activity until they find a regulatory who will allow it,” the Rhode Island Democrat wrote. Reed leads a Senate Banking subcommittee that oversees the securities industry.

Ex-North Fork CEO

In the case of BankUnited, none of the members of the buyer’s group will hold more than 24.9 percent control, according to John Kanas, the former North Fork Bancorp chief executive officer who will serve in the same role at the Florida lender. His group beat out at least one other bid from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Toronto-Dominion Bank.

“We just got a bunch of new capital put into the banking system through this transaction,” Isaac said. “As long as any potential conflicts of interest are addressed properly, I think it’s healthy.”

Kanas said on a conference call yesterday that he contacted the FDIC to express an interest in buying BankUnited four months ago. Unlike IndyMac, which was seized in July and not sold for five months, BankUnited’s seizure and sale took place on the same day. Pasadena, California-based IndyMac was sold to investors led by Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive, and including buyout firm J.C. Flowers & Co.

‘Short Notice’

BankUnited’s acquisition marked “the first time, to my knowledge, that private capital has come in on such short notice and at such size and begun to run a bank literally the next day,” he said on the call.

Other potential suitors would have instituted “drastic consolidation,” closing branches and eliminating “a great number of jobs,” Kanas said. He said his group would mostly avoid that and allow management to stay “largely intact.”

BankUnited, based in Coral Gables, had $8.6 billion of deposits as of March 31 and lost money for three straight quarters amid surging defaults on option adjustable-rate mortgages.

The FDIC deposit fund is down 64 percent from its peak at the start of the second quarter last year, reflecting the shutdown of 22 lenders from April through December. Total losses to the regulator’s deposit fund now top $10 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

FDIC’s Fee

The FDIC voted 4-1 today to impose a fee of 5 cents per $100 of assets, excluding Tier 1 capital, backing away from a proposal of 20 cents per $100 of insured deposits. The fee will rebuild the fund that started the year at $18.9 billion, the lowest since 1994’s first quarter.

BankUnited joined 33 banks that have been seized since January. The lender had assets of $12.8 billion as of May 2, according to the FDIC, and its 86 offices will be open today during normal business hours.

BankUnited’s fiscal second-quarter loss probably rose to $443.1 million, or $12.55 a share, from a loss of $65.8 million, or $1.88, a year earlier, the company said in a May 12 regulatory filing. Loans no longer collecting interest rose to 18 percent of total loans from 14 percent in December.

Bank of America Corp. and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP advised Kanas and the investor group. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP counseled Blackstone, Carlyle, and Centerbridge, and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz counseled Ross.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jonathan Keehner in New York at jkeehner@bloomberg.net; Linda Shen in New York at Lshen21@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 22, 2009 18:53 EDT