Middlefield Banc Corp. 1Q Net Income Is $1.63M

MIDDLEFIELD, Ohio – Middlefield Banc Corp., holding company of The Middlefield Banking Co., reports first-quarter net income of $1.63 million, or 79 cents per common share.

This compares to net income for the quarter ended March 31, 2014, of $1.76 million, or 87 cents per basic common share and 86 cents per diluted common share.

Middlefield cited these highlights in comparing the first quarter to the year-ago quarter:

• Net interest income rose 3.3% to $6.15 million from $5.96 million.
• Noninterest income grew 11.3% to $796,000 from $715,000.
• Noninterest expense (wages and benefits, marketing, rents, data processing, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. premiums) jumped 13.8% to $4.81 million from $4.23 million.
• Total net loans increased 7.5% to $469.37 million from $436.72 million. (They stood at $463.74 million at Dec. 31.)
• Nonperforming assets (loans past due 90 days and repossessed real estate) fell to $10.47 million from $13.40 million.

Said the president and CEO, Thomas G. Caldwell, in a prepared statement, “Overall, we are pleased with how 2015 started. Noninterest expenses were up and impacted our overall net income. We were able to partially offset the impact of the 13.8% increase in noninterest expense through higher levels of both interest and noninterest [fees and commissions] income and reducing our interest expense by 14.5%. We selectively added staff, improved our capabilities and increased our advertising budget to support our growth objectives.”

Interest expense fell to $883,000 from $1.03 million the first quarter of 2014. The advertising budget was increased to $196,000. The year-ago quarter’s expense was $123,000.

Key performance ratios for the quarters ended March 31, 2015 and 2014:

• Return on average assets, 0.96%, 1.08%.
• Return on average equity, 10.23%, 13.10%.
• Net interest margin, 4.02%, 4.20%.
• Efficiency, 65.56%, 59.90%.

Total assets reached a record $699.93 million at March 31, up from $677.53 million at Dec. 31 and $670.02 million March 31, 2014.

Total deposits also rose to $617.14 million, up from $586.11 million at year-end and $594.77 million a year ago.

During the quarter, Middlefield paid cash dividends of 26 cents a share, a payout ratio of 32.8%, the company noted. It has just more than two million shares outstanding.

SOURCE: Middlefield Banc Corp.

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