BancFirst reports higher quarterly, annual earnings from internal loan growth

Loan growth internally, and from a recent acquisition, helped BancFirst Corp. post higher profits in the fourth quarter, the Oklahoma City-based financial services holding company said Thursday.

BancFirst had net income of $18.6 million, or $1.16 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2016. That compared to net income of $15.7 million, or 99 cents per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2015.

Internal loan growth and loans from the company’s October 2015 purchase of CSB Bancshares Inc. pushed up net interest income to $51.55 million in the fourth quarter of 2016. That’s up from net interest income of $50.07 million in the year-earlier quarter.

The company’s provision for loan losses fell to $1.7 million in the fourth quarter, down from a provision of $3.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2015.

By the end of 2016, BancFirst had total assets of $7 billion, an increase of 5 percent compared to the end of 2015.

BancFirst said its asset quality remained solid in the fourth quarter. Nonperforming and restructured assets were 0.56 percent of total assets at the end of 2016. That compared to 0.83 percent at the end of 2015.

For the full year, BancFirst reported net income of $70.67 million, or $4.44 per dilute share. That’s up 7 percent from 2015 net income of $66.17 million, or $4.17 per diluted share.

The company said it had a provision for loan losses for 2016 at $11.5 million, compared to $7.7 million in 2015.

“The increase in the provision was largely due to loan downgrades in the oil and gas service industry during the year,” BancFirst said in a news release. “However, these loans have not yet resulted in write-downs as the company reported lower net charge-offs to average loans of 0.10 percent for 2016 compared to 0.17 percent for 2015.”

Shares of BancFirst fell 15 cents to $94 per share in Thursday trading on the Nasdaq exchange. Shares are up 84 percent from a year ago, when they were trading in the $51 range.

BancFirst, Oklahoma’s largest state-chartered bank, has 100 locations in 53 communities across the state.