THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 1, 1995 TAG: 9502010454
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM SHEAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
Helped by strong loan growth, two Hampton Roads community banks reported double-digit increases in net income for the Dec. 31 quarter and for 1994.
Resource Bank in Virginia Beach said its fourth-quarter net income climbed 31 percent, while earnings for the full year jumped 86 percent.
Heritage Bankshares Inc., the Norfolk parent of Heritage Bank & Trust, reported a 25 percent increase in fourth-quarter net income and a 41 percent rise in earnings for the full year.
``What we're seeing now is business expansion rather than borrowers shifting from one institution to another,'' said Robert J. Keogh, Heritage Bankshares' president and chief executive officer. Some of the bank's commercial customers have stepped up their borrowing to add inventory and put up new buildings, he said.
Heritage Bankshares said its net income for the October-through-December period totaled $140,000, up from $112,000 in the comparable three months of 1993. Per-share earnings were 18 cents vs. 15 cents.
The company's net interest income - its biggest source of earnings - rose 23 percent to $655,000 from $531,000 in the 1993 fourth quarter. During the recent quarter, ``We had more loans on the books and more of those loans were at floating rates,'' Keogh said.
For the full year, Heritage reported net income of $547,000, up from $387,000 in 1994. Earnings per share were 71 cents, up from 50 cents.
Return on average assets, a measure of bank profitability, climbed to 0.92 percent from 0.69 percent in 1993.
In Virginia Beach, Resource Bank said its net income for the three months ended Dec. 31 totaled $168,238, up from $128,793. Earnings per share were 20 cents, compared with 15 cents in the year-earlier quarter.
Resource benefited from a 52 percent increase in net interest income for the recent quarter, which totaled $621,141. Its net loans at the end of December, $40.54 million, were up 32 percent from $30.65 million at the end of 1993.
For the full year, Resource earned $650,732, or 77 cents a share. That compared with net income of $350,500, or 42 cents a share, in 1993.
Resource's return on average assets for 1994 advanced to 1.18 percent from 0.93 percent the previous year.
Separately, the Annandale-based parent of Ameribanc Savings Bank reported a 55 percent drop in fourth-quarter net income, which it blamed on a narrower spread between the cost of its funds and earnings from loans and investments.
However, Ameribanc said it posted a profit for the full year after losing money in 1993.
For the three months ended Dec. 31, Ameribanc earned $546,000, or 1 cent a share. That was down from $1.22 million, or 3 cents a share, for the comparable period of 1993.
Part of the decline in net interest income for the recent quarter was offset by higher deposit service charges and other non-interest income, Ameribanc said.
For the full year, the thrift holding company reported net income of $2.19 million, or 6 cents a share, a turnaround from its net loss of $2.93 million in 1993. Ameribanc's 1993 results included large provisions for loan losses and substantial write-downs of its nonperforming assets.
Ameribanc is in the process of being acquired by First Union Corp., the Charlotte-based parent of First Union National Bank of Virginia.
The two companies announced last October that First Union had agreed to pay $3 a share in cash, or slightly more than $100 million, for Ameribanc and its thrift subsidiary. Ameribanc shareholders are scheduled to vote on the offer Feb. 9. by CNB