(By Balaseshan) CNB Financial Corp. Inc. (NASDAQ: CCNE) reported a 0.5% marginal increase in quarterly earnings on higher net interest income despite a 18.8% drop in non-interest income. However, results missed Street's expectations.
Earnings for the fourth quarter were $3.890 million or $0.31 per share, compared to $3.869 million or $0.31 per share in the same period last year.
Net interest income increased 8.3% to $13.59 million, driven by strong and growing deposit base and low cost of funds, as well as an increase in average earnings assets.
Analysts, on average, polled by Thomson Reuters had expected a profit of $0.36 per share on revenue of $14.56 million for the fourth quarter.
Net interest margin was 3.47% in the first and second quarters of 2012, 3.53% in the third quarter of 2012, and 3.49% in the fourth quarter of 2012 as CNB was able to attract and deploy low cost core deposits into loans within its markets, the company noted.
Total non-interest income fell 18.8% to $2.80 million. Net realized losses on available-for-sale securities were $21,000 for the latest quarter, compared to a gain of $456,000 in the previous year quarter.
Although the yield on earnings assets decreased to 4.42% during the year ended December 31, 2012 from 4.84% last year, CNB's average earning assets increased from $1.41 billion to $1.62 billion, or 14.9%, resulting in an increase in interest income of $2.4 million, or 3.7%.
Loans rose 9.2% to $927.8 million at December 31, 2012 from last year, while deposits increased 9.7% to $1.49 billion.
Non-performing assets of $15.1 million, or 0.85% of total assets as of December 31, 2012, compared to $17.5 million, or 1.09% of total assets, at December 31, 2011.
CCNE is trading up 0.71% at $16.98 on Thursday. The stock has been trading between $14.24 and $18.20 for the past 52 weeks.