I emailed William Dunkleberg, who is chairman of Liberty Bell Bank, in Cherry Hill NJ. It has 4 branches, runs the bank conservatively, (i.e., only makes loans to people who will pay them back). The FDIC bill more than doubled to $400k range, basically wiping out profits for this year.
Bill writes:
“They ask us to build capital, lend more, but steal all the “material” we would use to do exactly that! And who wants to buy our shares when we keep reporting virtually no earnings even tho we grow 30%!! and have no unusual loan problems! Last year, FDIC also made us (and thousands of others I am sure) add a few hundred thousand to loan loss reserves. We wont lose the money, so eventually get it back, but this clobbers earnings. Then, adding insult to injury, Ben Bernake takes 500bps off of prime, with a third of our loans tied to prime. I have to write letters to our savers saying “because mega banks need cheap money, I have to cut the rate we pay you on your savings”.
More screwing of the little ones in the economy, little banks, little savers! Why do we have to pay for the big bad banks who finance their assets with 25 cents of domestic deposits on the $1 while we have to use $1 of domestic deposits and pay insurance on that? I guess if we could issue debt like the biggies, we’d get a guarantee but of course small banks can’t economically do that. We can’t permanently keep a block of free federal funds on the balance sheet. So, we don’t have that “cheap money” to boost our profits. Gave a talk to Haverford Trust people yesterday and several in attendance were investors in and/or attended little bank board meetings and report the same hits on profits. bummer!
ritholtz.com
Situation FUBAR |
