The Bank of Princeton Announces 2nd Quarter Earnings; Strong Loan Growth, Increased Earnings

PRINCETON, N.J., Aug. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The Bank of Princeton (the "Bank) announced today that earnings for the 2nd Quarter of 2011 amounted to $749,000, compared to earnings of $623,000 for the 2nd Quarter of 2010.  This amounts to earnings per share of $.19 and $.18, respectively.

For the six months ended June 30, 2011, the Bank earned $1.4 million, or $.35 per share, compared to $1.0 million, or $.31 per share for the same period last year.  This is a 13% year-over-year increase in earnings per share.

Revenue growth has been strong for the Bank and for the first half of 2011 reached a total of $9.0 million, an increase of approximately 75% over the $5.2 million generated in the first half of 2010.  Operating revenue was aided by gains on sales of investment securities of $734,000 and $684,000 for the six months ended June 30, 2011 and 2010, respectively.

For the 2nd quarter and year-to-date, the Bank recorded loan loss provisions of $355,000 and $483,000 respectively.  These provisions were made to cover losses and to continue to build the reserves to cover anticipated loan losses and to keep pace with the Bank's strong loan growth.  At June 30, 2011, our allowance for loan losses was $4.1 million, compared to $2.4 million at June 30, 2010.  This represents an increase in reserves of over 70% when comparing the two periods.

The Bank continues to experience strong loan production.  During the 2nd quarter of 2011, loans grew by $22.0 million, ending at $328.3 million.  For the first six months of 2011, loans increased by $42.5 million, an increase of approximately 15%.

Deposit growth was significant as well.  In the current year, our deposit balances grew by approximately $37 million, or 8.6%.  Importantly, our demand deposit accounts increased significantly from approximately $29 million at year-end 2010 to approximately $36 million at June 30, 2011.  This represents an increase of over 20% in this important category.

Steve Ackmann, President of The Bank of Princeton commented, "We are gratified with the basic earnings growth of our company.  We now are beginning to see the solid core earnings that we have been working to achieve."

During the 2nd quarter of 2011, several significant events occurred.  We filed a Form 10 registration statement, which was approved by the FDIC as of the end of the quarter.  This requires the Bank to comply with public-company reporting requirements under the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, which will make required information available on prescribed dates.

Further, we are pleased to have Michael Sanwald join us as our Chief Financial Officer during this quarter.  Mike's broad financial background and industry experience was critical in our Form 10 process, and will be critical in our future growth.

We also experienced significant activity in our branch development this quarter.  The Lambertville, NJ branch, our tenth, opened to the public on July 19, 2011.  Additionally, we received approval this quarter for a new branch on Nassau Street in downtown Princeton.  This office will strengthen our presence in this core market area by allowing us to serve customers on the northern side of our local market.  We anticipate this office opening in the 4th quarter of 2011.  In our MoreBank market, we have been working toward the relocation of our North Wales, PA branch.  This branch will be moving from an in-store location to a store-front branch in the 4th quarter.  This will expand our service in the area considerably, and will allow us the opportunity to better serve our customers through a full-service branch.

On July 20, 2011, we mailed an offering circular for the sale of common stock to all shareholders.  Over the next few months, we will be offering 1,200,000 shares of The Bank of Princeton common stock for sale at $13.75 per share, pursuant to the terms and conditions contained in the offering circular.  This will raise additional capital of $16.4 million, which we plan to use for general corporate purposes and to help continue to grow throughout our market. Please refer to the offering circular for all information concerning our stock offering.  For a link to the offering circular and to sign up for one of two meetings scheduled to answer questions, call Steve Distler at 609-216-7314 or go to the shareholder resources section of our web page http://www.thebankofprinceton.com/ShareholderResources/index.asp.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS. This release contains "forward-looking statements", which involve risks and uncertainties. Such statements are not historical facts and include expressions about management's confidence, strategies, and expectations about new and existing programs, products, relationships, opportunities, technologies, and market conditions. These statements may be identified by the use of such words as "believe," "expect," "continue," "anticipate," "should," "may," "strong," "solid," "potential," or similar statements or variations of such terms. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include: changes in general, economic and market conditions, both in the bank's market area and nationally, legislative and regulatory conditions, or the development of an interest rate environment which adversely affects our interest rate margin or other income anticipated from operations and investments, changes in monetary policy, the continued viability of our customers and a variety of other matters, most, if not at all of which, are beyond our control. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which only reflect management's analysis as of the date of this release. We undertake no obligation to update forward-looking statements or to make any public announcement when we consider forward-looking statements in this release to no longer be accurate, whether as a result of new information or future events.

Contact:  
Steven C. Ackmann
President
(609) 454-0335
[email protected]

SOURCE The Bank of Princeton