Buoyed by strong loan and deposit growth, Enterprise Financial Services Corp. in St. Louis reported Tuesday that its fourth-quarter profits rose 12% from a year earlier, to $4.9 million.
Diluted earnings per share rose 5.4%, to 40 cents, beating the average Wall Street estimate by 3 cents.
For the year, the $2 billion-asset Enterprise said that full-year earnings rose 14%, to $17.6 million, and that diluted earnings per share rose 2.9%, to $1.40 a share.
Enterprise's net loans rose 25% from a year earlier, to $1.6 billion at yearend.
At yearend Enterprise had $12.7 million of nonperforming loans, 85% of which were related to the softening of the real estate markets in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas, where residential developers are struggling to repay loans.
"We expect our nonperforming assets to increase modestly through the third quarter of 2008 as we work through this exposure, and our chargeoffs to increase proportionately, but for both to remain at very manageable levels for the year as a whole," Peter Benoist, the chairman and chief executive of Enterprise's banking business, said in a press release.
The nonperforming loan rate rose 22 basis points, to 0.77% of loans at Dec. 31.
Deposits increased 9.6% from a quarter earlier and 20.5% from a year earlier, to nearly $1.6 billion at yearend. The company attributed the deposit gains to organic growth and its acquisition of Clayco Bancshares in February.
Enterprise's shares fell 0.74% Tuesday, to $21.32.
