Simsbury Bank says fees from commercial-loan bookings were strong in the first quarter, but a nationwide falloff in home mortgage refinancings and a one-time bill tied to the retirement of its longtime finance chief deeply cut net income.
For three months ended March 31, parent SBT Corp. netted $78,000, or 6 cents a share, before preferred dividends, down from $517,000, or 56 cents a share, netted the same quarter last year.
Without the $252,000 pre-tax retirement settlement with former Chief Financial Officer Anthony Bisceglio’s first-quarter retirement, the parent said its net income was $245,000, or 25 cents a share.
Commercial loans grew by $12.6 million, or 21 percent, in the quarter, the bank said.
Despite that and overall deposit growth, SBT CEO Martin J. Geitz said the “disappointing” profit drop was “primarily due to our decision to maintain a strong residential mortgage infrastructure to support our goal of growing that business regionally despite the dramatically lower mortgage demand since the spike in interest rates last year.”
Geitz said the bank already has realigned its mortgage origination operations with market realities, including reducing staffing by 12 employees to shave around $750,000 from annual overhead.
On Wednesday, the day its earnings were released, the bank announced it filed papers with the state’s bank regulator to open a mortgage-loan production office in Middlebury.
Simsbury Bank ended the first quarter with assets of $404.7 million vs. $395.5 million a year earlier.
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