BankUnited Announces Prepayment of Selected Long-Term Debt.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- BankUnited Financial Corporation (Nasdaq:BKUNA) today announced it prepaid certain high-rate, long-term debt and related swaps with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta (FHLB) on Friday, June 17. BankUnited prepaid $305 million of long-term FHLB advances with a weighted average fixed rate of 6.03%. In addition, BankUnited prepaid $100 million of high-rate, long-term FHLB advances and their related swaps, which had a floating rate of 3 month LIBOR plus 260 basis points. The company anticipates this prepayment will allow it to obtain lower cost funds from borrowings, deposits or others sources in the future.

As a result of these extinguishments of debt and related swaps, BankUnited will pay prepayment fees of approximately $37.7 million. On an after-tax basis, this will reduce the company's earnings not yet reported for the quarter ending June 30, 2005, by approximately $24.5 million

Alfred R. Camner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, "BankUnited's net interest margin has been significantly, negatively impacted for some time by various long-term, high-rate FHLB advances obtained prior to 2001. Given the movements of the interest yield curve, we had an opportunity to prepay these advances and some related swaps at a substantially lower amount than that which would have applied in the past. We decided to take advantage of this opportunity with the expectation that, although it will result in a loss for the current quarter, these special prepayments should help to increase our profitability in future quarters."

About BankUnited

BankUnited Financial Corporation (Nasdaq:BKUNA) is the holding company for BankUnited FSB, the largest banking institution headquartered in Florida as measured by assets. BankUnited had assets of $9.3 billion at March 31, 2005. Serving customers in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin and Collier counties through 55 branches, BankUnited, FSB offers a full spectrum of consumer and commercial banking products and services, including online products that can be accessed through www.bankunited.com. For additional information, call [phone].

Forward-Looking Statements 

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