Westfield Financial boosted net income to $1.6 million in the third quarter, representing a 6 percent increase over the year-ago period.
Total loans increased $87.3 million, or 12.1 percent, to $806.9 million at Sept. 30 from the year-ago quarter. Residential loans, commercial real estate loans and commercial and industrial loans increased $69.7 million, $8.6 million and $6.3 million, respectively.
Net interest and dividend income increased about 5 percent, or $326,000, year-over-year to $8.2 million in the third quarter.
Securities decreased 10.8 percent year-over-year to $455.9 million at Sept. 30.
“One of our strategic objectives has been the improvement of our asset mix through reducing securities and growing our loan portfolio,” President and CEO James C. Hagan said in a statement. “The results through Sept. 30, 2015 demonstrate that we continue to execute on this strategy, and in doing so, we have improved our net interest income. We remain committed to growing our core customer franchise and our shareholder value.”
The allowance for loan losses totaled $8.4 million at Sept. 30, compared with $8.3 million at June 30 and $7.7 million a year ago. That represented 1.04 percent, 1.09 percent and 1.07 percent of total loans, respectively, and 114 percent, 103.5 percent and 86.8 percent, of nonperforming loans. Nonperforming loans totaled $7.3 million and $8 million in the third and second quarters, respectively, and represented 0.91 percent and 1.06 percent of total loans.
Total deposits increased $80.2 million, or 9.7 percent, to $909 million at the end of the third quarter, compared with the year-ago period.
Shareholders’ equity totaled $139.6 million at Sept. 30 and $139.8 million at June 30, which represented 10.3 percent of total assets at Sept. 30 and June 30, respectively. The decline in shareholders’ equity during the quarter reflects a decrease in accumulated other comprehensive income of $744,000, the repurchase of 97,579 shares of common stock for $740,000 and the payment of a quarterly dividend of $523,000. This was offset by net income of $1.6 million in the third quarter.
On March 13, 2014, the company announced a repurchase program under which it may repurchase up to 1,970,000 shares, or 10 percent of its outstanding common stock. At Sept. 30, 2015, there were 614,154 shares remaining under this repurchase program.
