Corus Bankshares Inc. of Chicago reported third-quarter earnings Tuesday of $51.1 million, up 28% from a year earlier and 8 cents above the average of analysts' estimates. Diluted earnings per share were 88 cents, also up 28%.
For the nine months that ended Sept. 30, the $9.8 billion-asset company reported earnings of $142.3 million, besting the like period of 2005 by 44%.
Corus attributed the earnings gain primarily to expense control and increased commercial real estate lending. As of Sept. 30 it had $4.3 billion of commercial loans outstanding, up 5% from a year earlier.
Its efficiency ratio was 16.8% for the quarter, versus 21.7% for last year's third quarter.
Corus' net interest income for the quarter rose 44%, to $91.1 million. It had no provisions for loan losses in the three months, compared with $3 million for the year-earlier period. Noninterest income fell 75%, to $3.3 million. Lower gains on securities were to blame, Corus said.
Corus warned in its earnings release that it could be hurt by the slowdown in the housing market, because its loan portfolio is almost exclusively loans to condominium developers.
