Florida Community Bank In Trouble?

Put On Watch List By Rating Company - Worst Asset Quality

LABELLE, FL. --  Thirteen Florida banks including the Florida Community Bank have been placed on a "watch list" of troubled banks by TheStreet.com Ratings Inc. according to an article published this week.

Philip van Doorn, a senior analyist at the company, looked at Florida bank and Savings and Loan data from December 31, 2007 and picked out those with a nonperforming assets ratio greater then five percent, and then added data for March 31 where available. 

Florida Community Bank is based in Immokalee and has branches throughout Soutwest Florida including LaBelle. Doorn says large national bank groups are able to raise additional capital in public markets, but local and regional banks are struggling to raise additional money anyway they can from local investors or private equity.

Florida Community is the second-largest institution on the watch list and among those with the worst asset quality. Nonperforming assets, mainly construction and commercial real estate loans, made up 15.1% of total assets as of March 31, and reserves covered just 13.87% of nonperformers, said Doorn.

Doorn pointed out the bank's net charge-offs of $338,000 during the first quarter were far less than its $906,000 provision for loan losses. For all of 2007, Florida Community reported net charge-offs of just $2.1 million or 0.27% of average loans, says Doorn.