Florida Going Bust -- Half of Its Banks Are Unprofitable

Wells Fargo Bank, NA -- held by Wells Fargo (WFC) -- is in second place for Florida Deposits, with a 16% share as of June 30, 2011, declining slightly from a year earlier. Wells Fargo's extensive Florida operations were acquired when the company doubled in size through the purchase of the troubled Wachovia of Charlotte, North Carolina, when that company was pressured by regulators to sell amidst the worst of the credit crisis in 2008.

Since the Wachovia acquisition, Wells Fargo's deposit market share in Florida has fallen from Wachovia's #1 ranking in June of 2008, with a 19% share.

SunTrust Bank -- the main subsidiary of SunTrust Banks (STI) -- ranks third in Florida, with a 10% market share as of June 30. Although it's headquartered in Atlanta, SunTrust has been a major presence in Florida for generations, and counts the state as "our largest banking state in terms of loans and deposits." As of Dec. 30, 20% of SunTrust's commercial loans were in Florida, while 27% of its residential real estate loans were secured by properties in the Sunshine State.

Here are the 10 largest banks headquartered in Florida along with key metrics as of Dec. 30:

The largest Florida bank is Everbank of Jacksonville, which had $13 billion in total assets as of Dec. 30, and operates mainly over the Internet. In October 2010, Everbank Financial Corp. -- Everbank's privately owned holding company -- announced that it would go public through an offering of common shares.

The public offering still hasn't taken place, however, in an updated public filing on Feb. 3, Everbank Financial Corp. said it would go ahead with a public offering "as soon as practicable," and listed Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Credit Suisse as joint book-running managers.

While Everbank's nonperforming assets ratio was a high 16.29% as of Dec. 30, the holding company said in the Feb. 3 public filing that it had achieved "positive earnings in every full year since 1995, consistently achieved double-digit returns on equity in every year since 2000."

The Everbank subsidiary earned $55.5 million during 2011.

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