Sky Group announces earnings expectations

BOWLING GREEN -- Sky Financial Group Inc. has announced that it expects earnings for the first quarter to be in the range of $.29 to $.30 per diluted share compared with its previous guidance of $.44 to $.45 per diluted share.
In the first quarter, Sky expects to record a provision for credit losses of $29 million to $31 million.
The increased provision for credit losses is a result of higher than anticipated credit losses, primarily from two large commercial credits and the sale of a group of nonperforming consumer loans, the company said. The commercial credit losses are attributable to a leasing company, which had a concentration of commercial leases to a service provider that declared bankruptcy, and from the closure of a cold storage food business, which lost its primary customer and the pending sale of the business did not occur as expected. The nonperforming consumer loans are primarily second mortgages, which Sky expects to sell by the end of the first quarter.
Including the expected sale of the nonperforming consumer loans, Sky expects to report nonperforming loans at the end of the first quarter 2005 of approximately $123.8 million compared with $143.7 million at the end of last quarter.
Sky Financial Group will report first quarter earning April 20.