Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer, Bankunited
Search every verified Rajinder Singh interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Rajinder Singh, Chairman, President and CEO of BankUnited, discussed the bank's 10-year anniversary and its growth since its founding in 2009, which he described as "the perfect time to start a bank." He stated that "what's good for the economy is generally good for banks" but expressed uncertainty about the business cycle's duration. Singh noted conflicting signals, saying that while the bank's loan book and clients appear healthy, market indicators give "some pause." He assessed that trade disruption would have some impact on South Florida and New York economies but called it "more noise at this point than real trouble." Singh commented on the banking industry's structure, predicting a "barbell" evolution with very large universal banks and highly specialized banks like BankUnited. He noted that the U.S. has roughly 6,000 banks, a number he called "unique," and said consolidation is likely to continue. Regarding M&A, Singh described it as a "secondary strategy" for BankUnited, with the primary focus on organic growth. He observed that recent large acquisitions have not been "rewarded by shareholders," though he noted that two recent "mergers of equals" saw positive stock performance, while cautioning that such deals are "especially hard to pull off." On regulation, Singh said there has been no major deregulation of Dodd-Frank but that the "attitude of regulatory bodies" toward businesses has become "much more reasonable."
“What's good for the economy is generally good for banks, so we've enjoyed it and we hope to keep enjoying it, but the thing that we worry about as a bank is how long will this carry on and where is the end of this business cycle.”
“I think of banking eventually evolving to a sort of a barbell structure of this industry: you're gonna have very large behemoth Universal banks like JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, BFA and so on, and you're gonna have more specialized banks like us which will cater to one or two or three niches and specialize and earn our econ...”
“There are six thousand banks still in America which is kind of unique; no other country has that many banks. Eventually consolidation will happen and you'll end up with a structure where there are very large banks and highly specialized banks.”
“When we look at our loan book and our clients, we feel very encouraged that everything is good, but when we look at Bloomberg screens and what's happening in the marketplace, there are signs that give us some pause.”
“There will be some impact from trade disruption if it gets beyond what it is today. We are based in South Florida and New York; both economies have a big element of freight and it will be impacted. Will it be big enough to cause a recession? I'm not sure. I think it'll be fine; I think it's more noise at this point tha...”
“There hasn't been any major deregulation; it's not like Dodd-Frank has been reneged on or pulled back. There have been some changes in regulation like the Crapo bill last year, but what's more important than changing regulation is actually the attitude of regulatory bodies towards businesses and private capital, and th...”
“The expectations from regulators for the banks they're regulating haven't changed much, but the way they're engaging with banks has changed for the positive in a very material way, and that's good news.”
“There is a fair amount of geopolitical concerns not that things that affect us directly or our clients directly but indirectly, there's still a lot of noise around what happens with China and trade policy and then there are other geopolitical issues which could impact the economy.”
“The Fed's policy of tightening over the last three years now has had an impact. Where the Fed goes from here, it looks like there are pauses but are they going to tighten more? That will also eventually have a chance, there's a probability that also causes some stress in the economy.”
“Miami and Manhattan are actually the best markets in the country. Both markets are doing very well. Miami has been such a rebound story it's hard to believe.”
“For the most part, I would say 95 percent of the lending landscape looks very healthy and our market especially looking very strong.”
“There are almost 6,000 banks in America which is I don't think any other country has that many banks. That has to do with the way the state bank system was and the consolidation gave us a surge in the mid 80s and has been going on since the downturn.”
“If you look over the last three or four years, the few deals that have actually happened have not been rewarded by shareholders. The stock price performance of acquiring banks over the last three years of deals over a billion dollars, almost every one of them is lacking.”
“There were two deals announced earlier this year that were termed mergers of equals and the stock performance of the buyer has been surprisingly very good. There is a lot of talk that this is the new model for M&A but I'm not too eager to call that the new model because those deals are especially hard to pull off.”
“While M&A is always on the table, it's a secondary strategy. Our primary focus is always on organic growth. If you can build it, don't buy it. Be patient, don't use shareholder capital just to get there quickly, just be patient and build.”
BankUnited CEO Rajinder Singh joins CNBC's "Closing Bell" team to talk about the bank, earnings and his economic outlook.
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