Farmers National Bank Corp. posts decreased earnings

Staff report

canfield

Earnings decreased in the first quarter of 2010 compared with the first quarter last year, Farmers National Bank Corp. reported.

The bank — the holding company of Farmers National Bank of Canfield, Farmers National Insurance LLC, and Farmers Trust Co. — earned $1.067 million in net income for the first quarter, down from $1.68 million a year earlier.

This year’s first-quarter income before taxes and loan-loss provisions increased 42 percent from the first quarter of 2009, however, indicating that the decrease was largely the result of increased provision for loan losses, according to a press release from the company Tuesday.

Loan-loss provisions totaled $2.44 million in the first quarter of 2010, up from $450,000 for the same period in 2009, the bank said in a statement.

Loan-loss provisions decreased from the previous quarter, however, resulting in a 14.7 percent increase in profits from the fourth quarter of 2009.

“Our first-quarter net- income results improved over the fourth quarter of 2009 primarily because of a lower loan-loss provision,” Frank Paden, the bank’s president and chief executive, said in the statement.