Wake Forest Bancshares, Inc. Announces Year End Results

WAKE FOREST, N.C., Dec. 28, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wake Forest Bancshares, Inc., WAKE parent company of Wake Forest Federal Savings and Loan Association, announced today that the Company reported earnings of $982,500 or $0.86 per share for its fiscal year ended September 30, 2016.  This year's results compared favorably to last year when the Company reported earnings of $879,800 or $0.76 per share. Earnings for the current quarter were reported at $326,150 or $0.29 per share versus $195,100 or $0.17 per share for the quarter ended September 30, 2015. 

In announcing the earnings, Robert C. White, President and Chief Executive Officer, stated that the Company was very pleased with the current year's results which continue to be positively impacted by declining levels of nonperforming loans and the costs associated with foreclosed assets. However, the Company's returns, while notable, also continue to be negatively impacted by compressed interest rate margins and lack of loan demand.  The Company invests excess liquidity in short term liquid assets and its loan portfolio primarily has shorter maturities or variable rates in order to guard against interest rate risk exposure.  The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates at historic lows since December of 2008 but raised rates by 0.25% on December 17, 2015 and again on December 14, 2016, the only times in seven years.  Interest rates would need to continue to rise over a prolonged period in the future to have a meaningful impact on the Company's performance.

Economic conditions and residential home sales in our local markets continue to show signs of improvement. Our residential real estate markets have benefited because sales activity and home prices have increased while excess inventories of available homes, once common during the recession, have come down as the market continues to absorb existing product. As a historically high growth area, relocation sales have typically represented a sizable portion of our local real estate market but are somewhat less important today because high salaried job growth, while positive, has been inconsistent. Although our local area's unemployment rate has held steady or continued to decline slightly, with further employment gains our markets and our performance should benefit.

The Company provided $-0- and $162,500, respectively, during the current year and prior year in loan loss provisions.  The Company had net loan charge-offs during the current year of $44,000 as compared to loan charge-offs of $251,000 in the prior year. The Company's loan loss allowances amounted to approximately 2.69% of total loans outstanding at September 30, 2016. Foreclosed assets and non-performing loans amounted to $383,000 and $698,815 at September 30, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Total assets of the Company amounted to $106,021,400 at September 30, 2016.  Total loans receivable and deposits outstanding at September 30, 2016 amounted to $55,383,350 and $81,219,600, respectively.  Wake Forest Bancshares Inc.'s tier 1 capital leverage ratio was 22.15% at September 30, 2016.

Wake Forest Bancshares, Inc. has 1,146,196 shares of common stock outstanding.  Based in Wake Forest, North Carolina since 1922, the Company conducts business as Wake Forest Federal from its office in Wake Forest, (Wake County), North Carolina.