Berkshire Hills Bancorp (NYSE:BHLB) — the parent company of Berkshire Bank, which has a major presence in the Mohawk Valley — reported first-quarter net income of $27.6 million, or 63 cents a share, up nearly 37 percent from $20.2 million, or 42 cents, in the year-ago quarter. While the results matched those forecast by Zacks […]
Berkshire Hills Bancorp (NYSE:BHLB) — the parent company of Berkshire Bank, which has a major presence in the Mohawk Valley — reported first-quarter net income of $27.6 million, or 63 cents a share, up nearly 37 percent from $20.2 million, or 42 cents, in the year-ago quarter.
While the results matched those forecast by Zacks Equity Research, Berkshire’s net revenue, at $114.14 million, fell 2.15 percent short of Zacks’ expectations. However, that figure is still up substantially from revenue of $89.74 million for the same quarter last year.
“Overall, we made steady progress despite the headwinds and turmoil in March, and remain on solid footing overall,” Berkshire CEO Nitin Mhatre said during an April 20 investor call. He was referencing the financial turbulence in global banking markets in March when three banks failed and raised concerns about a recession or a banking crisis.
Mhatre says he is optimistic about what he sees happening in Central New York.
“In markets like Syracuse, we’re excited about the investments being made through local government and private companies like Micron that are investing over $100 billion in creating one of the largest microchip plants in the nation,” he said on the call.
Berkshire Hills Bancorp remains focused on its Berkshire’s Exciting Strategic Transformation (BEST) plan to improve customer experience, deliver profitable growth, enhance stakeholder value, and strengthen the company’s community impact, Mhatre said. “We continued to make steady progress on our BEST plan while responding prudently to recent market turbulence in the quarter,” he noted. “Our teams continued to provide exceptional service to our clients, generating diversified loan growth and managing shifting deposit demand.”
Berkshire already reached its targeted loan growth for the year, but has no plans to revise that target, he said. Mhatre anticipates that deposits will trend lower, offsetting some of the loan gains.
During the quarter, Berkshire welcomed several new executives including David Rosato as chief financial officer, James Brown as head of commercial banking, and Philip Jurgeleit as chief credit officer.
“We are pleased with our financial performance in the first quarter,” Rosato said.
Berkshire Hills Bancorp’s net interest income for the quarter totaled $97.5 million, up from $69.1 million in the first quarter of 2022. Non-interest income was $16.6 million, down from $20.7 million a year ago.
Average loan balances were $8.7 million, up from $7.3 million a year ago, while deposits decreased slightly in that time period from $10.7 million to $10.1 million.
While Berkshire Hills Bancorp did not provide earnings guidance for the coming quarters, Zacks forecasts that Berkshire will produce earnings per share of 63 cents on $117 million in revenue for the second quarter with full-year earnings of $2.44 per share on $466.05 million in revenue.
Headquartered in Boston, Berkshire Hills Bancorp has about $12.3 billion in total assets and a community-based footprint of 100 financial centers in Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Locally, Berkshire has branches in DeWitt, Rome, Whitesboro, New Hartford, North Utica, Ilion, and West Winfield.