The impact of the coronavirus crisis continues to show in bank performance, with two more local stock banks seeing income losses in the first quarter.

Brookline Bancorp, the holding company for Brookline Bank and Bank Rhode Island, had a first quarter net loss of $17.3 million, or $0.22 per basic and diluted share, compared to net income of $22.5 million, or $0.28 per basic and diluted share, in the first quarter of 2019. Fourth quarter net income was $22.2 million, or $0.28 per basic and diluted share.

Total assets increased to $8.5 billion in the first quarter, up from $7.9 billion at the end of 2019 and $7.5 billion in the first quarter last year.

The commercial real estate portfolio was the primary factor driving Brookline Bancorp’s loan growth in the first quarter. Total loans were $6.8 billion, up $84.7 million from the fourth quarter and $434.3 million from March 31, 2019.

Total deposits in the first quarter increased to $5.9 billion, up $59.9 million from the fourth quarter and $269.3 million from the first quarter last year.

Brookline adopted the new current expected credit loss methodology in 2020. The provision for credit loss was $54.1 million in the first quarter compared to $3.6 million in the fourth quarter.

Envision Bank also saw losses in the first quarter. The bank had a net loss of $818,000, or $0.16 per share, for the first quarter compared to a net loss of $51,000, or $0.01 per share, for the first quarter of 2019. Last quarter the bank had net earnings of $828,000, or $0.16 per share

A change in leadership partially affected Envision Bank’s income. The bank had one-time charges totaling $1.375 million related to the retirement of senior executives, including CEO Jim McDonough and CFO Mike Devlin.

Net loans increased $7.1 million, mainly in residential and commercial real estate loans. The growth was partially offset by decreases in consumer and commercial and industrial loans.

Envision’s provision for loan losses was $724,000 in the first quarter compared to no provision in the prior year quarter.

“The first quarter of 2020 was a very eventful period for our company,” new President and CEO William Parent said in a statement. “We are very pleased with the strong performance of our mortgage banking operations during this low interest rate environment. Meeting the demands of our customers, we realized record levels of mortgage banking revenue from loan sales and origination activity during the quarter. We also continued our focused growth in core deposits, growing our non-brokered deposit base at a 13 percent annualized rate.”

Brookline, Envision Banks See Losses in First Quarter

by Diane McLaughlin time to read: 2 min
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