Peoples Financial Corp. in Biloxi, Miss., reported a $2.7 million profit in the third quarter, a marked improvement over the year earlier, when Hurricane Katrina wiped out its earnings.
The $991 million-asset company lost $1.8 million in last year's third quarter after waiving fees for customers hard hit by the storm and raising its loan-loss provision.
In a press release Monday, Peoples said deposits had risen 31% since Sept. 30, 2005, to nearly $664 million. Loans increased 16%, to $403 million.
Peoples chairman and chief executive Chevis C. Swetman attributed the gains to the recovery of the region's tourism-based economy.
Still, he said, "the vast scale of the effort to restore the [Gulf Coast] looks more like the work of a decade than a couple of years. While we had all hoped our recovery would take less time, the reality is that the pace of the money flow has slowed down, which directly impacts the pace of the rebuilding."
