First Community Bancshares Inc. in Bluefield, Va., said its first-quarter earnings rose 43% from a year earlier, to $6 million, largely because of an acquisition and its exit from the wholesale mortgage banking business.
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Net interest income increased by nearly 12%, and noninterest income climbed nearly 15%. First Community attributed the gains largely to the March 31, 2004, purchase of People's Community Bank in Johnson City, Tenn., which added $128 million to the loan book.
First Community sold its mortgage banking subsidiary in the third quarter and said it lost $80,000 from discontinued operations in the first quarter. In the same quarter a year earlier, however, the unit had lost $1.4 million.
