UPDATE: BMO Capital Markets Downgrades BBCN Bancorp to Market Perform, Lowers PT

In a report published Wednesday, BMO Capital Markets downgraded its rating on BBCN Bancorp

from Outperform to Market Perform, and lowered its price target from $15.00 to $13.00. BMO Capital Markets noted, “Looking ahead, we see flattening EPS comparisons for BBCN as purchase accounting accretion runs off, and the benefits from healthy loan growth are offset with troughing funding costs and declining yields on both loans and securities. While we forecast low-double-digit loan growth for BBCN, we expect to see more compression in the net interest margin. On the positive side, BBCN is beginning to deploy excess capital through organic growth, reinstating the common stock dividend (to $0.05 per share beginning in 4Q12) and making acquisitions. Concurrent with 3Q earnings results, it announced a small acquisition of Seattle-based Pacific International Bancorp for $8.2 million in stock. We continue to believe that BBCN should have the opportunity to further consolidate the Korean-American bank niche given its dominance in the space and strong capital levels, which could lead us to reevaluate our position on the stock.” BBCN Bancorp closed on Tuesday at $12.10.