Financial Institutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: FISI) the parent company of Five Star Bank, announced financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2009. Net income for the Company was $3.4M or $0.23 per diluted share for the third quarter of 2009, compared with a net loss of $28.4M or $2.66 per diluted share for the third quarter of 2008. For the first nine months of 2009, net income was $9.0M or $0.57 per diluted share, compared with a net loss of $23.0M or $2.21 per diluted share for the same period last year.
After almost a year of initiating the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to rescue the nation’s financial industry, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday that it would auction off stock warrants it acquired from three big banks that received a significant portion of taxpayers’ money and have fully repaid the same. The government is taking this step to free the lenders from the federal bailout program.[More...]
In the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday morning, Charles Calomiris, a leading banking expert, published an op ed entitled “In the World of Banks, Bigger can be Better.” It begins,[More...]
Marshall Auerback sent me a link to a recent Simon Johnson missive about Goldman Sachs. I had already seen and liked this article, but his e-mail prompted me to write this post. My question is: Why is Goldman a bank holding company?[More...]
I wrote the following this morning for Finacorp clients:
“One of the keys to understanding the current environment is that there is a lot of financial liquidity, which obscures a lack of demand for products that are not staples. With unemployment so high, and perhaps worsening, it is difficult to invest in new plant and equipment, but easy to build up excess liquid assets as protection against further decay. It is also then easier to refinance debts, or buy high yielding debt, and clip a spread, hoping things don’t blow up again.”[More...]
Regulators shut down 2 more banks in Kentucky and Indiana; tally hits 94 this year
U.S. regulators on Friday shuttered two more banks in Kentucky and Indiana as the recession continues to weigh heavily on banks. Both of the failed banks were run by Columbus, Indiana-based Irwin Financial Corporation. This takes the total number of failed federally insured banks this year to 94, compared to 25 in 2008 and 3 in 2007.[More...]
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