The last couple of years haven't been easy for the parent company of Baylake Bank.

Baylake Corp. has posted losses three times in the past eight quarters. It was one of the first banks to suspend its dividend to preserve capital as loans deteriorated, and the bank has drawn special scrutiny from regulators.

But Sturgeon Bay-based Baylake recorded profits of $2.3 million in the first quarter of this year, and followed up that good news with an announcement that partial repayment of a soured $10 million agricultural loan relationship, along with other factors, would keep that relationship from being a drag on earnings in the future.

Though like many banks Baylake still has more delinquent loans on its books than management deems acceptable, it has been making progress.

"It's probably going to take a good 12 to 18 months for us to really get to what I would call a normalized level of problem loans," said Robert J. Cera, president and chief executive of Baylake Corp. ""But we do think that we're starting now to see the tide turn for us."

That hope apparently put some sheen on Baylake's thinly traded stock in April, making it the biggest winner among state-based public companies in the Wisconsin Ticker, a monthly analysis of state stock prices by Bloomberg News. A $1,000 investment at the beginning of the month in Baylake stock would have been worth $2,375 at month's end, according to Bloomberg.

Cera said that while the bank has been working through its problem loans, it has been going slow on new lending.

"We've continued to lend, but certainly our loans have not grown over the last couple of quarters. That's very much by design," Cera said. "We need to get ourselves in a position where we feel good about our risk position on the overall bank and we're continuing to work on that."

Nonetheless, Baylake isn't just trying to straighten up loans that have run into trouble. It is looking to the future as well. For example, it has kept up with new technology in the industry, offering mobile phone banking to its customers.

Baylake's home base of Door County has its share of challenges right now, in part because of all the building done by real estate speculators in the Wisconsin vacation mecca in recent years, said Jon C. Bruss, chief executive of Fortress Partners Capital Management in Hartland.

"There are a lot of 'For Sale' signs in Door County today," Bruss said. "That can't be good for that economy in total."

But Bruss said Cera, who joined Baylake in 2006 after serving as an executive with Associated Bank and State Financial Bank, has a reputation as a "savvy lender" and is likely to be up to the challenge.

Cera says it's too soon to say when a dividend, which was 16 cents when it was suspended in early 2008, might be restored for Baylake shareholders.

The Wisconsin Ticker

If you invested $1,000, value as of April 30, 2009

Value

Monthly winners

1 Baylake Corp. $2,375.00

2 Journal Communications Inc. $1,987.18

3 Mid-Wisconsin Financial Services Inc. $1,950.00

4 MGIC Investment Corp. $1,706.67

5 Manitowoc Co. $1,676.06

Monthly losers

1 Briggs & Stratton Corp. $882.04

2 Alliant Energy Corp. $920.98

3 Tomotherapy Inc. $941.61

4 Twin Disc Inc. $953.85

5 Marshall & Ilsley Corp. $964.94

Source: Bloomberg News

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