Bad energy loan drives up charge-offs at BOK

BOK Financial in Tulsa, Okla. — one of several lenders still shaking off the after-effects of the last energy crisis — reported one of its highest loan-charge-off totals in more than a year.

Its second-quarter net charge-offs reached $10.5 million, up from $1.7 million in the second quarter of 2017 and shy of its fourth-quarter total of $11.7 million. The latest figure would have been higher were it not for $4.6 million in recoveries, up considerably from $1.2 million in the year-earlier period.

More than half of the second-quarter chargeoffs came from a single energy loan that had previously been identified as impaired and “appropriately” reserved for, the company said in a press release Wednesday.

Net charge-offs totaled $28.6 million in the last five quarters.

Nevertheless, the $34 billion-asset company’s second-quarter profits rose almost 30% year over year to $114.4 million thanks to loan growth, wider net interest margins and other factors. Its earnings per share of $1.75 beat by 6 cents the mean estimate of analyst tracked by FactSet Research Systems.

BOK was upbeat in its outlook. On the credit quality front, it said a drop in nonperforming assets and nonaccruing loans made it confident that no provision for loan losses was needed in the second quarter. And it said its recent agreement to purchase the $3.8 billion-asset CoBiz Financial in Denver held great promise.

Pretax, pre-provision income was “the highest … in our company’s history,” CEO Steven G. Bradshaw said in the release. “We look forward to closing our acquisition of CoBiz Financial later this year, which we believe will further enhance our growth profile,” including Colorado and Arizona.

Net total loans rose nearly 4% to $17.5 billion. That included a 5.5% gain in commercial loans to $11.2 billion (excluding commercial real estate credits) and a 7.8% increase in personal loans to $986 million.

Meanwhile, the net interest margin rose to 3.17% from 2.89% year over year.

Net interest revenue rose more than 16% to $238.6 million, driven by loan and margin growth, a longer average hold time of trading securities and other factors.

Total fees and commissions decreased by 5.6% to $157.9 million from a year earlier.

Total operating expenses rose 2.4% to $246.5 million.

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