| BSB Bancorp more than doubled net income year-over-year to $1.4 million in the first quarter, compared with $680,000 in the year-ago period.
“I don’t like to speculate on the year ahead, but we had a great first quarter,” Chief Operating Officer Hal Tovin said. “We’re finally starting to see some operating leverage through all the efforts we’ve made and it’s good to be delivering profit.”
Net interest and dividend income before provision for loan losses totaled $8.8 million, up 19.6 percent from $7.3 million in the year-ago period. The holding company for Belmont Savings Bank set aside $338,000 to cover loan losses, a 12.9 percent decrease from $388,000 in the first quarter last year.
Noninterest income in the first quarter totaled $757,000, compared with $724,000 a year ago. The company said this was driven largely by additional income from bank-owned life insurance and partially offset by a decline in loan servicing fee income.
Noninterest expenses also ticked up 3.9 percent to $6.9 million in the first quarter, and the company improved its efficiency ratio to 72.9 percent from 83 percent a year ago.
Total assets were $1.47 billion, up about 3 percent from $1.43 billion at year-end 2014. Net loans increased $51.7 million, or 4.4 percent, over that time, as well. Residential one-to-four family loans, commercial real estate loans, construction loans and home equity lines of credit increased by $26.3 million, $15.8 million, $9 million and $3.2 million, respectively, and the asset growth was funded primarily by deposits.
Deposits totaled $1.04 billion at March 31, an increase of $58.4 million, or 5.9 percent, from $984.6 million at year-end 2014. Core deposits, which the company considers to be all deposits other than CDs and brokered CDs, increased $32.6 million over that time.
Tovin attributes that deposit growth partially to the bank’s investment over the past few years in supermarket branches. That, along with deposit growth in Belmont’s business banking division, is finally paying off, he said.
“We don’t just make loans. We build relationships there also, so our lending relationships tend to have strong core deposit relationships with the business owners and the people in their companies,” he said.
Total stockholders’ equity increased by $1.9 million from $137 million at year-end 2014 to $138.9 million on March 31. This increase is primarily the result of earnings of $1.4 million and a $440,000 increase in additional paid-in capital related to stock-based compensation.
The allowance for loan losses in the first quarter totaled $9.2 million and represented 0.75 percent of total loans, compared with $8.9 million and 0.75, respectively, at year-end 2014. In the first quarter of 2015, the company recorded $16,000 in net charge-offs, compared with $4,000 a year-ago. Total non-performing assets were $2.8 million, or 0.19 percent of total assets, compared with $2.8 million, or 0.21 percent of total assets, at year-end 2014.
