HomeStreet Posts Loss In Q4

(RTTNews) - HomeStreet, Inc. (HMST), the parent company of HomeStreet Bank, Tuesday reported a loss for the fourth quarter, reflecting lower mortgage refinancing volumes.

For the fourth quarter, the company reported loss of $861 thousand or $0.06 per share, compared with a profit of $21.49 million, or $1.46 per share, for the corresponding period last year.

Excluding acquisition-related expenses, the company reported profit of $1.79 million, or $0.12 per share. On average, two analysts polled by Thomson-Reuters estimated the company's loss to be $0.07 for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude one-time items.

Net interest income rose to $21.38 million from $16.59 million a year ago. Net interest margin increased to 3.34 percent from 3.06 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.

Non-interest income fell to $36.07 million from $71.93 million a year ago, hurt by significant reduction in mortgage refinancing volumes. Non-interest expense for the quarter was $58.87 million compared with $55.97 million a year ago.

For the 3-month period, Efficiency ratio increased to 102.46 percent from 63.22 percent a year ago.

Loans held for investment increased to $1.873 billion from $1.309 billion a year ago. Deposits totaled $2.203 billion as of December 31, 2013, compared with $1.977 billion a year earlier.

HomeStreet CEO Mark Mason said, "As we execute our strategy to diversify our earnings by expanding our commercial and consumer banking business, we continue to be frustrated by falling mortgage lending volumes driven by macroeconomic forces, volume changes and continuing low levels of new and resale homes. Our strategy of continuing to grow our mortgage banking market share in new and existing markets while reducing operations staff in response to lower mortgage volume levels have not been able to fully offset these forces,"