Wake Forest Bancshares, Inc. Announces First Quarter Results

WAKE FOREST, N.C., Jan. 18, 2017 (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 $237,800 or $0.21 per share for its quarter ended December 31, 2016.  The Company reported earnings of $211,600 or $0.18 per share for the same quarter a year earlier. 

In announcing the earnings, Robert C. White, President and Chief Executive Officer, stated that the Company was satisfied with the current quarter's results which continue to be positively impacted by declining levels of nonperforming assets and the costs associated with foreclosed assets.  However, the Company's returns 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 and only raised rates for the first time in seven years by a combined 0.50% over the past year.  Interest rates would need to continue to rise 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 $25,000, respectively, during the current quarter and the same quarter in the prior year in loan loss provisions.  The Company had no loan charge-offs during the current quarter and charged off $100,000 associated with a short sale on a commercial real estate loan during the same quarter a year earlier.  The Company's loan loss allowances amounted to approximately 2.74% of total loans outstanding at December 31, 2016.  Foreclosed assets and non-performing loans amounted to $265,500 and $754,828 at December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Total assets of the Company amounted to $106,526,236 at December 31, 2016.  Total loans receivable and deposits outstanding at December 31, 2016 amounted to $54,637,594 and $81,470,215, respectively.  Wake Forest Bancshares Inc.'s tier 1 capital ratio was 22.20% at December 31, 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.