A group including such major investors as Blackstone, Carlyle, Centerbridge and WLRoss won an auction for BankUnited on Thursday after the Florida lender – worth nearly $13bn by assets – was closed by federal regulators in the biggest US bank failure of 2009.

The auction, conducted by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, was the second of a troubled US bank during the credit crisis. Earlier, a group including JC Flowers, hedge fund manager John Paulson and Dune Capital won the bidding for IndyMac’s assets.