The Loan Committee™

The Fontainebleau Miami Beach is booked solid next week as bankers prepare to crowd the iconic lobby for cocktails at an annual bond-market convention. For owner Jeffrey Soffer, the conference helps justify a $1 billion makeover that almost cost him the property three years ago. read more here…  Author:  Sarah Mulholland.  Source:  Bloomberg.

Douglas Manditch expects regulatory costs to increase for Empire National Bank, the $455 million-asset bank in Islandia, N.Y., that he is chairman and chief executive of. History suggests he is right. In 2011, Empire allocated 13 percent of its revenue to compliance and governance. A year later, it was 16 percent.  read entire article…  Source:  TriNovus.

Merrill Lynch & Co., the 99-year-old firm known for its “thundering herd” of brokers pitching stocks to Main Street, may cease to exist as a legal entity more than four years after being acquired by Bank of America Corp.  While Bank of America will keep the Merrill Lynch brand for its retail brokerage and investment bank, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company plans to dissolve the subsidiary as early as the fourth quarter, according to an Aug. 2 filing. The firm will assume Merrill Lynch’s obligations and debt. read entire article….  Author:  Hugh Son.  Source.  Bloomberg

Florida Community Bank signed a deal to acquire Great Florida Bank, which has been under orders from regulators to raise capital. Weston-based Florida Community Bank, a subsidiary of private equity-funded Bond Street Holdings, missed out on a deal to acquire Jacksonville-based Atlantic Coast Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ACFC) in June when the shareholders of the selling bank voted against the deal.  Read entire article… Author:  Brian Bandell.  Source:  South Florida Business Journal.

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High demand from investors and low interest rates continue to push down capitalization (cap) rates in the commercial real estate market, according to an analysis from consulting firm PwC. The report noted that in the second quarter of 2013, the combined overall cap rate fell to 6.91 percent across the 34 United States markets included in the survey conducted by PwC. read entire article… Author:  Carisa Chappell.  Source:  REIT.com.

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The FIBA Wealth Management Forum will be held at the JW Marriott Marquis Hotel in Miami, FL.  The forum will facilitate knowledge exchange on cutting edge issues through targeted panel discussions and current case studies combined with the insightful perspectives of their invited experts.

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The wave of new banking regulations that Congress created to deter and punish Wall Street’s misdeeds is landing with much greater impact on the U.S.’s almost 7,000 community banks than on the too-big-to-fail lenders. Community banks didn’t cause the financial crisis; they played by the rules. Because of their time-tested business model, one based on customer relationships rather than transaction volumes, community banks aren’t a threat to the financial system. Yet they are being forced to pay a penalty in regulatory costs — to comply with rules aimed at preventing the bad behavior on Wall Street from happening again. read entire article…. Author:  Camden R. Fine, Source:  Bloomberg

The largest U.S. banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Bank of America Corp., would have to hold capital in excess of Basel III standards under a proposal being drafted by Senate Democrats and Republicans to curb the size of too-big-to-fail banks.  The current draft of the legislation would require U.S. regulators to replace Basel III requirements with a higher capital standard: 10 percent for all banks and an additional surcharge of 5 percent for institutions with more than $400 billion in assets. Senators Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, and David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana, have said they intend to introduce the bill this month. read entire article…. Author:  Cheyenne Hopkins; Source:  Bloomberg