Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE: BHLB), holding company for Berkshire Bank, said it expects to report core earnings of 48 cents a share in the second quarter, up from 47 cents in the year-ago quarter. The guidance is lower than the company’s previous forecasts and below the consensus analyst estimate of 55 cents a share, according to S&P Capital IQ.
The banking company is based in Massachusetts but is building a growing presence in Central New York
Berkshire announced the lowered forecast before the open of trading yesterday. Its stock price fell 6.2 percent Monday, but was up 1.1 percent in Tuesday’s trading as of midday. And, the banking company’s share price is still up nearly 15 percent year to date.
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Berkshire said in a news release that the decreased earnings guidance was “related to the spike in long term interest rates in the second half of the quarter.” The banking company also noted that tightening mortgage-loan volumes and margins, challenged commercial loan and interest-rate swap revenues, as well as higher expenses related to merger integration and efficiency projects played a role.
“Our expected second quarter core results are an increase over the second quarter of 2012, but lower than our guidance. We are initiating course corrections to adjust to current conditions. We continue to achieve our targets for double digit annualized commercial business loan growth while we pursue the long-term benefits of our strategic positioning. We will further address our plans during our upcoming scheduled conference call,” Berkshire’s CEO Michael Daly said in the news release.
Berkshire will release its full financial results for the second quarter on Wednesday after the market closes, followed by a conference call Thursday morning.
Pittsfield, Mass.–based Berkshire Hills Bancorp has assets of $5.2 billion and 74 branches in Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. The company first entered the Central New York market in 2011 with its acquisition of Rome Savings Bank and acquired DeWitt–based Beacon Federal last October.
Contact Rombel at arombel@cnybj.com
