
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 20, 1995                   TAG: 9504210050
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SIGNET BANK REPORTS EARNINGS

Signet Banking Corp. cited the addition of $190 million in consumer and commercial loans and efficiencies as reasons for improved earnings reported Wednesday.

Chairman Robert Freeman also cited Signet's focus on its consumer and commercial banking business in the wake of the spinoff this year of its credit-card business into a new company, Capital One Financial Corp.

Excluding the contribution of Capital One, Signet said Wednesday that its income grew 48 percent from $18 million in the first quarter last year to $26.7 million in the period ended March 31. Per-share earnings were up from 31 cents to 45 cents. The credit-card operations were excluded from figures of both periods for comparison purposes in the earnings report.

But including the interest in Capital One for all of last year and for two months of this year's first quarter, earnings were down 20.5 percent from $53.1 million or 93 cents a share last year to $42.2 million or 71 cents a share this year.

The credit-card business was spun off, primarily to Signet stockholders, on Feb. 28.

The number of employees dropped 38 percent from 6,072 a year ago to 3,758, but some of them transferred to Capital One. Exact figures were not available.

Adjusting for Capital One, Signet's total revenues increased 18 percent over last year as a result of healthy loan growth and an improved balance sheet mix. Excluding Capital One, revenues were up 3 percent from last year's first quarter.

Loans amounted to $6 billion at the end of March compared with $5.8 billion at the end of December and $4.6 billion on March 31, 1994.

by CNB