$3.6M donation puts Newport Fed $1.7M in red

NEWPORT – Newport Bancorp Inc. (Nasdaq: NFSB), the holding company for Newport Federal Savings Bank, has posted a 2006 net loss of $1.656 million, compared with 2005 net income of $674,000.

The company cited a one-time charge of $3.614 million, for the money it set aside to establish the NewportFed Charitable Foundation. The new foundation – called for by the terms of the company’s initial public offering last July – is to make grants in markets where Newport Fed has offices.

Total assets grew 10.7 percent to $290.4 million. Net loans increased 10.5 percent to $256.8 million.

Deposits grew by 2 percent to $193 million.

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Net interest income grew 12.7 percent to $9.9 million. Non-interest income was $1.45 million, a 15.9-percent decline from 2005’s.

“This past year was both a memorable and challenging one for NewportFed, Kevin McCarthy, the company’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “The highly successful mutual-to-stock conversion occurred in mid-2006 and followed the merger of the former Westerly Savings Bank into NewportFed in the fourth quarter of 2005. This combination of events served to expand our geographic reach and to augment our financial resources.”

For the quarter ended Dec. 31, the company posted a profit of $428,000, or 10 cents per share, compared with $258,000 in the fourth quarter of 2005. Because the company was converted from a mutual bank to a shareholder-owned institution on July 6, earnings per share are not available for periods before the third quarter of 2006.

Interest income was $2.7 million, a 22.7-percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2005. Non-interest income grew $66,000, an increase of 14.2 percent

The full report is available at BusinessWire.com. Additional information is available at www.newportfederal.com.

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