It represents the average fees earned by this division as a percentage of the total assets that it has under management.

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Proxies in place, the team dove into the data and came up with surprising results: Between 2002 and 2007 (the years covered by the database), public firms increased their gross fixed assets (as a percentage of total assets) by 4.0 percent a year on average versus 9.7 percent at similar private firms.

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The bank's nonperforming assets are rising, but at a recent 0.38% of total assets they are much lower than the 0.74% year-end industry average.

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