Huntington records record profit for ’12

Huntington records record profit for ’12

columbus

Huntington National Bank reported a record profit for 2012, grossing $641 million, or 71 cents per share.

Fourth-quarter earnings, however, remained mostly unchanged at $167.3 million, or 19 cents per share. The bank declared a quarterly dividend of 4 cents per share Thursday.

Highlights from 2012 include 23.3 million shares, 2.7 percent of those outstanding, repurchased for an average price of $6.36 and a 1.15 percent return on average assets, which increased by about 1 percent from 2011.

During the fourth quarter, the bank saw a 3 percent annualized growth in average total loans, and mortgage banking increased by $17.1 million.

PNC earns $3 billion

Pittsburgh

The PNC Financial Services group earned $3 billion, or $5.30 per share, in 2012.

Earnings for the fourth quarter totaled $719 million, or $1.24 per share.

Overall, revenue was up in the fourth quarter after strong growth in loans, deposits and customers. Retail banking grew by 714,000 relationships, while residential mortgage banking increased to $15.2 billion in 2012, reflecting a 33 percent growth rate from 2011.

Net interest income of $2.4 billion in the fourth quarter increased modestly compared with the third quarter, as the provision for credit losses ticked up to $318 million from $228 million in the third quarter, mainly as a result of a larger loan portfolio.

Toyota, family settle

LOS ANGELES

Toyota Motor Corp. has settled with family members of two people killed in a sudden-acceleration crash in Utah as part of a lawsuit that was to go to court next month and serve as a test case for a group of hundreds more that are pending.

Toyota reached the agreement in the case brought by the family of Paul Van Alfen and Charlene Jones Lloyd, company spokeswoman Celeste Migliore said Thursday. They were killed when their Camry slammed into a wall near Wendover, Utah, in 2010.

Migliore declined to disclose the financial terms.

Last month, Toyota agreed to a settlement worth more than $1 billion to resolve hundreds of lawsuits claiming economic losses Toyota owners suffered when the Japanese automaker recalled millions of vehicles because of sudden acceleration problems.

But that settlement did not include those suing over wrongful death and injury, and hundreds more of those remain.

TSA to remove some scannners

Those airport scanners with their all-too revealing body images will soon be going away.

The Transportation Security Administration says the scanners that used a low-dose X-ray will be gone by June because the company that makes them can’t fix the privacy issues. The other airport body scanners, which produce a generic outline instead of a naked image, are staying.

Vindicator staff/wire reports