For regulatory purposes, a commercial bank must have primary capital totaling at least 5.5 percent of its assets.

MBDA Minority Business Centers helped clients obtain capital totaling $4.76 billion during the last 5 fiscal years.

With capital totaling $250 million, Shearson Loeb Rhoades trailed only Merrill Lynch as the securities brokerage industry's largest firm.

Currently, the institutions must maintain capital totaling 3 percent of assets against liabilities that date from before 1987 and 6 percent for liabilities since then.

With an estimated population of 584,313 inhabitants, it is a regional capital of the Sorocaba microregion with 14 municipalities, totaling over 1.5 million inhabitants.