NewAlliance Bancshares Inc., the New Haven lender preparing to open a downtown Hartford branch, said today fees from loans and services pushed fourth-quarter profits up 26 percent from a year earlier.
The holding company for NewAlliance Bank said it earned $12.1 million, or 12 cents a share, in the three months ended Dec. 31, up from $9.6 million, or 10 cents a share, a year earlier.
For 2009, the bank earned $46.4 million, or 47 a share, up 2.5 percent from $45.3 million, or 45 cents a share, in 2008.
The bank’s profitability prompted its board of directors to declare its 23rd consecutive quarterly dividend, paying 7 cents a share on Feb. 18 to shareholders of record as of Feb. 8.
In December, NewAlliance announced plans to open this year a street-level branch in the 36-story Hartford 21 residential tower at Trumbull and Asylum Streets downtown.
“Despite a challenging economic environment, we maintained excellent credit quality while improving performance in nearly every other key metric, including revenue growth, market-share gains and earnings growth,” Chairman and CEO Peyton R. Patterson said in a statement today.
NewAlliance has 87 branches in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts and ended the year with $8.4 billion in assets.
