Park National to Revise Financial Statements

Park National Corp. in Newark, Ohio, said in a regulatory filing Monday that that it will revise its 2010 financial statement, reducing its net income by $12.4 million.

The change is related to a previously disclosed accounting issue regarding guarantor-support loans at unit Vision Bank. Park increased its loan-loss provision by $19 million for 2010. The company said the reduction would actually be reflected as an increase to its 2011 net income since it had collected, obtained additional collateral, or written off all of the $19 million in guarantor support by Dec. 31, 2011.

The $7 billion-asset company said in Monday's filing that it is working with an accounting firm and that it is working to determine if it should characterize the revisions as a change in accounting principle or a correction of an error in Park's application of generally accepted accounting principles.

Park also said it would take a $6.1 million state tax expense for 2011 to write off the previously recorded state operating loss carryforward asset at Vision Bank. The structure of the pending sale of Vision Bank will not allow Park to benefit from this asset to offset future taxable income.

Park said it would release its 2011 results on Feb. 7, but said in the regulatory filing that after the change in its loan-loss provision, its 2011 net income totaled almost $81 million, up almost 31% from its revised 2010 income.

The company said it expects income for 2012 to be between $95 million and $97.5 million.