Bank reports record earnings

PORTLAND – Banknorth Group Inc. on Monday reported record quarterly earnings that were up 25 percent over the same quarter a year ago.

Banknorth reported net earnings of $75 million, or 50 cents per diluted share, for the three months ending June 30, up from $59.9 million, or 43 cents a share, in the second quarter of 2001.

The earnings were in line with consensus estimates from analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call.

William Ryan, Banknorth’s chairman, president and chief executive officer, said the company’s loans at the end of the quarter were 20 percent higher than a year earlier. Deposits stood at $14.4 billion, up 16 percent.

“Loans and deposits, the core of basic banking, have shown strong growth from the midpoint of 2001 to the end of the first half of 2002,” Ryan said.

Jim Ackor, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets in Portland, said it has become “old hat” for Banknorth to report solid earnings numbers.

“Despite the economic downturn and the volatile environment we’re living in, the conservative approach to community banking has allowed Banknorth to consistently post solid and clean earnings growth,” Ackor said.

For the first six months of the year, Banknorth reported net income of $148.4 million, a 25 percent surge over the first half of 2001.

The bank reported that its residential, commercial and consumer mortgages and loans averaged $12.9 billion during the second quarter, up 18 percent. Much of that growth comes from the bank’s acquisitions late last year of Andover Bancorp. Inc. and MetroWest Bank in Massachusetts.

Banknorth last week completed its acquisition of Ipswich Savings Bank north of Boston.

Ackor said he would expect Banknorth to continue buying more regional and local banks, particularly in the Boston metropolitan area.

Banknorth is the parent company of Peoples Heritage Bank in Maine, Bank of New Hampshire, Banknorth Vermont, Banknorth Connecticut and Evergreen Bank in upstate New York.