May 27--Ask prominent New York banker John Kanas why he's back in the banking game at the helm of BankUnited, and the new chief executive responds: "I always thought I had one more good one in me."

Kanas -- who led a group of private-equity firms in a winning bid for BankUnited -- has ambitious plans, near term and long, to remake the recapitalized thrift into Florida's leading homegrown bank.

The 62-year-old banker, who exudes charm and confidence, wants to refocus the thrift on commercial banking to small and medium businesses, to work through its mountain of troubled mortgages and to snap up other faltering Florida banks to round out the network.

"It's a long-term commitment, not hit and run," says Kanas, who first looked at BankUnited last year. "I expect to devote five-plus years to this."

But first, Kanas, who became chairman, president and chief executive, is meeting with his troops and reassuring them the newly fortified bank has better days ahead.

Gregarious and media savvy -- he often appears on CNBC's Squawk Box and on Bloomberg TV -- Kanas sees banking as a people business and knows the importance of communicating.

"Remember, these people have been devastated over the last couple years," Kanas said Tuesday at BankUnited's Coral Gables headquarters. "They need some patting on the back and hand shaking. They need to know there is life after all this."

SEIZURE, SALE

On Thursday, the Coral Gables-based thrift was seized by federal regulators and placed in receivership with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which sold it to Kanas' group. When it reopened Friday morning for business as usual, BankUnited had a new owner and much stronger financial underpinnings.

Kanas spent much of Tuesday meeting with senior management "to put a face with a name" and begin laying out his agenda.

Such introductions are nothing new to Kanas.

Kanas, a former school teacher, became president and chief executive of Melville, N.Y.-based North Fork Bancorp's predecessor at age 29 and built it into a $60-billion-asset powerhouse. It expanded from Long Island to New York City through an aggressive, sometimes hostile, acquisition spree.

The highly profitable bank was acquired by Capital One Financial Corp. in December 2006 at a rich premium to book value.

Kanas personally made a fortune on the sale, drawing some criticism over executive compensation. "It was a jaw-dropping number," he says. "But I worked there 35 years and that was the only stock I owned."

SENIOR ADVISOR

Last year, Kanas joined WL Ross & Co. as a senior advisor with the precise plan of acquiring troubled financial institutions.