Aug. 28--As many U.S. banks grapple with bad investments and weakened loan portfolios, Spanish-owned BBVA Compass is plotting an American expansion.

Exhibit A is the bank's acquisition last week of Guaranty Bank, the failed Austin-based lender, from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The Guaranty deal made BBVA Compass the 15th-largest U.S. commercial bank, with about $49 billion in total deposits and 767 branches stretching across the Sun Belt from Florida to California.

More than 400 of its branches are in Texas, where it ranks as the fourth-largest bank by deposits.

And $7.3 billion of its deposits are in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, it said.

"The U.S. is really the frontier of growth for BBVA right now," said Manolo Sanchez, president and chief executive of BBVA Compass. "I think we will be a household brand for the banking industry going forward."

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA has been snapping up U.S. banks since its 2004 purchase of Valley Bank in California.

Turning its attention to Texas, it then bought Laredo National Bank in 2005 for $850 million; Texas State Bank in 2006 for nearly $2.2 billion; and Fort Worth-based State National Bank in early 2007, for $480 million.

It bought Birmingham, Ala.-based Compass Bank later in 2007, for about $9.6 billion. Last year, it integrated its acquisitions into BBVA Compass and rolled out the company's blue-and-white logo at branches.

The company plans to rebrand the Guaranty branches next year, Sanchez said. It's also apt to close some branches in Texas, but not many, he said.

Now the challenge is to build the business, said Antonio Ramirez, a banking industry analyst in London with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Ltd.

BBVA Compass has been producing less than 5 percent of its parent company's earnings, and that total needs to rise, Ramirez said.

"For an investment that has been relatively important, the contribution it's producing right now is quite low," he said. "In the longer term, BBVA would like the U.S. to contribute at least 10 percent of the group's earnings," he said. "That would require not only that the current operation become more profitable, but it probably would require more acquisitions."

Financially solid

BBVA, the second-largest bank in Spain, and Banco Santander SA, Spain's largest bank, were recently downgraded by Moody's Investors Service due to concerns about the weak Spanish economy as well as pressures from the U.S. and Mexico. BBVA also owns BBVA Bancomer, the largest bank in recession-battered Mexico.