Underage Banking

REVIEW SUMMARY
Industry. Banking
Trend. Charters formed in the last few years appear to be faring better than those around for awhile.
Key. Real estate lenders remain in morning-after mode.
By the Numbers. Click here for ROE and ROA charts. Click here for assets and net income charts.

There's a simple reason many of the Gulf Coast region's newer banks are faring better than their well-established counterparts so far this year. They missed the party in the latter half of the last decade, therefore they aren't nursing the hangover.

Only a third of the locally based banks showed positive return on both assets and equity through the first quarter of 2010, according to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., though at least half showed marked improvement from the same period last year.