Troubled assets are growing faster than some banks in the hard-hit market of Northeast Florida can set aside capital.

During the third quarter of 2009, six banks exceeded 100 percent of the measurement called the Texas ratio, the first quarter when that many banks based in Northeast Florida surpassed the marker during this recession. The Texas Ratio is a formula created by RDC Capital Markets banking analyst Gerard Cassidy during the savings and loan crisis of the early 1990s by calculating a bank’s nonperforming assets against its loan-loss reserves and tangible equity, or capital.

“It’s a simple measure of credit-risk exposure facing a bank relative to the size of the bank’s ability to bear this credit risk,” said Tony Plath, associate professor of finance at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “The higher the number, the greater the level of risk in relation to the bank’s ability to bear the risk; and the lower the ratio, the safer the bank.” Banks and other financial institutions have sought to lower their risk profile since the financial crisis began two years ago. As the experience of banks in Northeast Florida shows, getting rid of bad assets can be like removing unwanted house guests: easier said than done.

While it does become a concern for bankers when they exceed 100 percent, they cautioned that it does not mean a bank will fail, nor is it a measurement created by government regulators, who would make the ultimate decision to take down a bank.

“The FDIC is the only meaningful evaluator of the safety and soundness of a bank,” said Alex Sanchez, president and CEO of the Florida Bankers Association. “The FDIC has the intimate knowledge of a bank’s operations.”

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. also does not publicly release such findings to prevent bank panics.

Most Florida banks taken over by regulators in the past few months were in the 200 percent range or higher, which no seasoned bank in Northeast Florida has reached.

“While banks can and do survive a Texas ratio in excess of 1.0 [100 percent], virtually all failed banks demonstrate a frighteningly excessive ratio here, which is one of the big reasons why they fail in the first place,” Plath said.