Farmers Has 4Q Net Income of $3.2M, $8M for Year

CANFIELD, Ohio – Farmers National Banc Corp., holding company of Farmers Bank and Farmers Trust Co., Wednesday reported fourth-quarter net income of $3.18 million, or 12 cents a share, and full-year 2015 net income of $8.06 million, or 36 cents a share.

This compares to third-quarter net income of $1.86 million, or seven cents a share, and fourth-quarter 2014 income of $2.15 million, or 12 cents a share.

Full-year 2014 net income was $8.97 million, or 48 cents a share, 10.2% higher than last year.

Excluding income related to acquisition expense, fourth-quarter net income would have been $4.3 million, or 16 cents per share, Farmers said.

At the outset of the last quarter, Oct. 1, Farmers completed its purchase of Tri-State 1st Bank Inc., East Liverpool, merging the four branches of 1st National Community Bank into Farmers National Bank, Farmers noted.

In a statement, the president and CEO of Farmers Bank and its holding company, said, “2015 was an exciting year for our company. … We continue to be encouraged by our organic [internally generated] loan growth, which has increased 20% during the past 12 months, and improvements in our levels of noninterest income.”

Key performance ratios

For the quarters ended Dec. 31 and Sept. 30, 2015, and Dec. 31, 2014:

  • Net interest margin (annualized), 3.99%, 3.84%, 3.63%.
  • Efficiency ratio (annualized), 73.07% (65.4% excluding merger expense), 76.55%, 71.20%.
  • Return on average assets (annualized), 0.68%, 0.43%, 0.75%.
  • Return on average equity (annualized), 6.51%, 3.97%, 6.91%.

For full years 2015 and 2014:

  • Net interest margin, 3.81%, 3.59%.
  • Efficiency ratio, 75.26%, 70.24%.
  • Return on average assets, 0.54%, 0.79%.
  • Return on average equity, 4.97%, 7.45%.

With the acquisition of First National Bank of Orrville and 1st National Community Bank, total loans at Dec. 31 were $1.30 billion compared to $663.85 million a year earlier, Farmers reported, the Orrville bank adding $432 million and the East Liverpool bank adding $66 million. Loans make up 74.2% of Farmers Banks fourth-quarter average earning assets, up from 61.2% the same quarter a year ago.

Most of the loan growth resulted from commercial real estate, commercial and industrial and residential mortgages, Farmers said.

Asset quality remains strong, the company said, noting the ratio of nonperforming assets to total assets is 0.61%. Early stage delinquencies (loans 30 to 89 days past due) remain at low levels, $8.9 million, or 0.69% of total loans. Net charge-offs for the quarter were $296,000, up from $211,000 the last quarter of 2014.

Noninterest income (fees, mortgage service fees, trust administration) rose 23.4% to $5.2 million the quarter ended Dec. 31, from $4.2 million the year-ago quarter.

Noninterest expense (such as salaries and employee benefits, rents, marketing, data processing, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. premiums) $14.88 million plus $1.74 million in merger-related costs for the fourth quarter compared to $13.02 million and $2.5 million in merger-related expense the preceding quarter. For the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2014, noninterest expense was $9.87 million.

Salaries and employee benefits in the fourth quarter were $8.22 million compared to $7.21 million the third quarter and $5.43 million the last quarter of 2014.

Total assets were $1.870 billion at Dec. 31, of which $1.701 billion were earning assets. Loans made up $1.262 billion of earning assets.

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