Lakeland Bancorp Inc. in Oak Ridge, N.J., said Friday that it is restructuring its balance sheet and writing off a canceled public stock offering. Both moves will require charges to fourth-quarter earnings.
Because of the interest rate environment, the parent company for Lakeland Bank said it sold $97.3 million of securities yielding 3.47%, producing an after-tax loss of $2.1 million, or 10 cents a share, this quarter.
The $2.3 billion-asset company earned $5.1 million, or 23 cents per share, last quarter.
Lakeland said in a press release that it would reinvest an unspecified amount in short-term securities and use the remainder to repay short-term borrowings and to fund loan growth.
The restructuring is expected to improve the yield of its portfolio by 19 basis points. Once it is complete, securities would represent 21% of total assets, down from 30% at the end of 2005.
The company also said expenses of the stock offering canceled in November would reduce earnings per share by about a penny. In October, the company said it planned to raise $50 million in a public offering but called it off a month later, citing market conditions.
