A fresh shot of capital has moved Mercantile Bancorp Inc.'s Florida unit back into regulators' good graces.
The Quincy, Ill., company announced Thursday that it has received the expected $11 million that it needed to recapitalize its Royal Palm Bank of Florida unit in Naples, which has been rocked by losses on construction loans. The infusion is enough to move the $149 million-asset bank's capital ratios into compliance with a cease-and-desist order that regulators issued in May.
Under the order, its leverage ratio had to be at least 8% and its total risk-based capital ratio had to be at least 12%. At the end of the third quarter, the leverage ratio was 1.51% and the total risk-based capital ratio was 3.6%.
Ted T. Awerkamp, the president and chief executive of the $1.7 billion-asset Mercantile, said in a press release that the infusion boosts the Florida bank's leverage ratio to 9.75% and its total risk-based capital ratio to 15.05%.
The $11 million came as a short-term loan from R. Dean Phillips, owner of Great River Bancshares, also in Quincy. Phillips agreed last week to forgo $28 million of debt owed to him in exchange for taking ownership of the $1.7 billion-asset Mercantile's HNB National Bank unit in Hannibal, Mo.
His loan is to be repaid when the HNB National deal closes.
