Today's credit environment is one of the most challenging industry leaders have seen in decades, and while the headlines focus on the subprime loan crisis and the downward spiraling residential real estate market, complications in small-business lending may emerge as the next major financial threat.

Originally published in American Banker on July 7, 1982.

The $348 million-asset Citizens Bancshares Corp. in Atlanta said Thursday that it lost $164,000 in the second quarter after posting a $1 million provision for losses on commercial real estate loans.

Questionable lending practices have come to light as the collapse of Penn Square Bank NA here continues to reverberate throughout the banking industry.

Originally published in American Banker on July 8, 1982

Originally published in American Banker on July 7, 1982.

Chemical Financial Corp. of Midland, Mich., is taking on quite a challenge: saving Michigan.

Provident Bankshares Corp. in Baltimore revised its second-quarter results to reflect a significantly higher charge on its investment securities.

First Federal Bankshares Inc. of Sioux City, Iowa, swung to a fiscal fourth-quarter net loss of $19.3 million, or $5.94 a share, from earnings of $670,000, or 20 cents a share, a year earlier.

Corus Bankshares Inc.'s first quarterly loss in its history likely will not be its last, but the Chicago company says it has the capital to absorb further losses and that it intends to ride out the downturn in the condominium market by financing more office, hotel, and apartment projects.

MIDWEST

Forced out as chairman and chief executive of Sovereign Bancorp Inc. two years ago, Jay S. Sidhu is back in the banking business with a new title: white knight.

Two weeks after announcing a $55 million rights offering, BankAtlantic Bancorp Inc. pulled the plug on the plan Tuesday.

Vineyard National Bancorp's disclosure late Monday that it could not guarantee its own survival may not affect its efforts to raise capital, mainly because potential investors have been well aware of its problems, company officials and analysts said.

Echoing their House counterparts, leaders of the Senate Banking Committee are urging the Farm Credit Administration to withdraw a proposed rule that they say would give Farm Credit System lenders powers that go beyond their intended mission of serving farmers and ranchers.

Yadkin Valley Financial Corp. in Elkin, N.C., said Monday that its second-quarter net income fell 44% from a year earlier, to $2.1 million, or 19 cents a share.

Many banking companies in need of capital this year have struggled to raise it.

Pacific Mercantile Bancorp in Costa Mesa, Calif., said Monday that it lost $830,000 in the second quarter on an eightfold increase, to $2.7 million, in its provision for losses on residential construction loans.

Losses from bad loans to developers continue to mount for 1st Centennial Bancorp in Redlands, Calif.