Cullen/Frost posts $3 million second-quarter loss.

Cullen/Frost Posts $3 Million Second-Quarter Loss

DALLAS - Cullen/Frost Bankers Inc. reported a $3 million loss for the second quarter stemming from a lawsuit settlement, but the company reported progress in shedding problem assets.

Cullen/Frost, the only major Texas banking company that survived the state's economic downturn unassisted, said it paid $5.4 million to settle a 1982 lawsuit after losing a recent appeals court decision. The $3 million loss, equal to 33 cents a common share, compared with income of $622,000, or 7 cents a share, in the 1990 second quarter.

Excluding the settlement and $2 million of nonrecurring securities gains, the company's results would have approximated its first-quarter 1991 profit of $550,000, or 6 cents a share.

For the first six months of 1991, the bank reported a $2.4 million loss, against a $1.1 million profit a year earlier.

T.C. |Tom' Frost, the company's chairman and chief executive, said the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency completed a regular annual examination of Cullen/Frost's national bank subsidiary during the second quarter, and no findings had any significant effect on the period's results.

Cullen/Frost finished the second quarter with problem assets of $123 million, down from $127 million at March 31, and $137 million at June 30, 1990. The soured credits still comprised a daunting 10% of gross loans, however.

Loss reserves at June 30 stood at $42.5 million, or 109% of problem loans. The company's second-quarter loss provision of $7.9 million was down slightly from $8.4 million the prior year.

Total assets, at $3.1 billion on June 30, have been virtually flat for the last year.

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