BancorpSouth Inc. said its first-quarter earnings slipped 12% from a year earlier, to $33.6 million, as a result of a large swing in its loan-loss provision.
The $13 billion-asset Tupelo, Miss., company said late Monday that it took a $1.4 million loan-loss provision in the first quarter, after recording a negative provision of $3.9 million for the first quarter of last year. It took the negative provision after overestimating Hurricane Katrina-related credit losses.
BancorpSouth reported strong loan and deposit growth, which it attributed to its March 1 acquisition of the $847 million-asset Signature Bank of Springfield, Mo. Deposits grow 8.9%, to $10.7 billion, and loans and leases increased 18.2%, to $8.7 billion.
Aubrey Patterson, BancorpSouth's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a press release that the Signature purchase accounted for about 70% of his company's deposit growth and roughly 58% of its loan growth.
