First NBC's former CEO resigns as bank president

First NBC Holding’s founding CEO has resigned.

The $3.6 billion-asset company disclosed in a regulatory filing Friday that Ashton Ryan stepped down as its president a day earlier. Ryan, who will remain in an advisory role, also resigned from the New Orleans company’s board.

First NBC said that it plans to appoint Carl Chaney to succeed Ryan as president. Chaney, a former CEO at Hancock Holding in Gulfport, Miss., recently received regulatory approval to become First NBC’s CEO.

The company also disclosed that it is raising more than $1.7 million by selling preferred stock to members of its board. The preferred stock is structured to eventually convert into common stock.

The capital will be used to fund the most recent interest payment on First NBC’s subordinated debt.

First NBC, which has had issues with its tax-credit business, warned in October that regulators had "deemed it to be in troubled condition." Earlier in the year the company restated several years of financial reports, reducing capital by $99.2 million.

The company disclosed in November that its bank had entered into a consent order requiring it to review its management, loans and problem-loan identification processes, among other things. The bank also had to submit a plan for maintaining a Tier 1 leverage capital ratio of at least 10%, a Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio of at least 13% and a total risk-based capital ratio of 15% or more.

By December, Ryan was removed as CEO.

First NBC in January disclosed in a regulatory filing that it expected to record a “material valuation allowance” tied to its deferred-tax asset at Dec. 31. First NBC's call report indicated that its bank lost $58.6 million in the fourth quarter, largely because of a nearly $86 million loan-loss provision. The filing revealed that nonperforming commercial and industrial loans rose 75% from the third quarter, to $229 million at Dec. 31.

First NBC last month sold nine branches and about $1.3 billion in loans to Hancock in a deal that was expected to boost its regulatory capital ratios by 300 to 400 basis points.

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