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Cascade Bancorp of Bend, Ore., posted a surprising first-quarter loss Friday and said it is still working to add capital.
May 4 -
Clarification: David F. Bolger owns 12.3% of Cascade Bancorp. The figure counted only his personal holdings. Including shares held by companies he controls, the stake is 28.8%, and it would rise to 50% as a result of the proposed investment.
April 15 -
The severe credit issues that have beset so many California lenders have spread to the Pacific Northwest.
July 28
Cascade Bancorp Inc. in Bend, Ore., needs to raise about $100 million by one estimate, and the task just took on more urgency.
Now in a capital hole, the $2.4 billion-asset company is no longer holding out hope for any government help. It also got slapped with a regulatory order imposing elevated capital requirements and a January deadline for achieving them.
Cascade has been in talks since April with David F. Bolger, its largest shareholder, to inject $25 million into the company. However, Bolger has said that he will proceed only if Cascade can get additional capital from other investors or the Treasury Department.
The company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing of its second-quarter results that it had withdrawn its application to participate in the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program. It added that the effort to raise capital "from a variety of sources" would continue.
Matthew Clark, an analyst at KBW Inc.'s Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc., said in a research note that Cascade has been working for months on the issues detailed in its regulatory order but has been set back by continued loan deterioration.
In the second quarter its nonperforming assets rose 60% from a year earlier, to $204.1 million, or 8.5% of total assets.
Nonperformers fell 6% from the first quarter, but this resulted from $35.3 million of chargeoffs.
Clark did not speculate on the likelihood of Cascade's finding the $100 million of capital that he estimated it needs but said overall conditions for capital raises are improving and Bolger's commitment could help.
"We are encouraged by the recent easing in the capital markets," he wrote.
Most of Cascade's trouble is with land development loans. They make up about 10% of the company's portfolio, but 80% of its problem loans.
Cascade disclosed Monday that its Bank of the Cascades unit entered into a cease-and-desist order with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities on Aug. 27.
The order gives the bank 150 days to boost its leverage ratio to at least 10%, which is double the typical level needed to be considered well capitalized. At June 30 the bank had a leverage ratio of 6.5%.
The order also requires the bank to return to the standard total risk-based capital ratio of 10%. At June 30 this ratio had dipped to 8.9%, a level considered adequately capitalized.
Cascade did not return a call for comment. But Patricia L. Moss, the company's president and chief executive officer, said in a press release that it has already hired an outside consultant to review its loan portfolio and risk classifications, as the order requires.
