(By Balaseshan) Eagle Bancorp Montana Inc. (NASDAQ: EBMT) slipped to a quarterly loss due to an adverse impact of acquisition costs as well as higher non-interest expense. However, revenue grew 14% on higher net interest income and non-interest income.
Loss for the second quarter was $40,000 or $0.01 per share, compared to a profit of $487,000 or $0.12 per share last year. The latest quarter results was adversely affected by $731,000 in acquisition costs.
Net interest income rose to $2.91 million from $2.83 million. Non-interest income jumped 78.3% to $1.92 million.
The net interest margin was 3.36% in the second quarter, compared to 3.72% in the preceding quarter and 3.81% in the second quarter a year ago.
Non-interest expense was $4.79 million, higher than last year's $2.88 million.
Total deposits increased 92.8% to $414.7 million at the end of December, due to the $181.6 million in new deposits. Total assets increased 53.1% to $508.1 million at December 31, 2012. Total loans increased 17.3% to $215.8 million.
Nonperforming loans (NPLs) decreased 34.4% to $1.5 million at December 31, 2012 from last quarter, and decreased 58.0% from a year ago. Nonperforming assets (NPAs) plunged 36.6% to $2.7 million at December 31, 2012 from last quarter and dropped 52.2% from last year.
The company also said its board of directors has declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.07125 per share, payable March 1 to shareholders of record February 8.
"While our earnings were adversely affected by $731,000 in acquisition costs, we expect expenses to return to more normal levels as the majority of the acquisition costs have already been recorded during the last six months," said Peter Johnson, President and CEO.
EBMT is trading down 1.28% at $10.81 on Thursday. The stock has been trading between $9.75 and $11.07 for the past 52 weeks.