Unizan Financial Corp. of Canton, Ohio, said Friday that it earned $5.7 million in the third quarter, up 14% from the second quarter and 98% from a year earlier.
The $2.5 billion-asset company attributed the strong gains to better credit quality. Its $1.7 million provision for loan losses in the quarter was less than half that of the year-earlier quarter. It was up only slightly from the second quarter, mainly because of a $590,000 aircraft loan that Unizan charged off.
Through the first nine months of 2005, Unizan earned $15.2 million, 81% more than it reported for the first three quarters of 2004. Earnings per share for the nine months rose 82%, to 69 cents.
In the coming months Unizan is expected to announce a revised merger agreement with the $32.8 billion-asset Huntington Bancshares Inc. of Columbus, Ohio. Huntington said in early 2004 that it had agreed to buy Unizan for about $587 million, but the deal was delayed after regulators ordered Huntington to improve its financial reporting, accounting, and corporate government practices.
Huntington said earlier this month that its enforcement agreement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had been lifted and that it was moving ahead with plans to buy Unizan. Huntington is still under an enforcement agreement with the Federal Reserve.
