Medford-based Century Bancorp finished out a strong year with increases of just more than 5 percent in both its yearly and quarterly net income.
Net income totaled a little more than $20 million for the year ended Dec. 31, up 5.3 percent from $19 million the previous year. For the quarter, the company saw its net income increase 5.2 percent to just over $5 million, up from $4.8 million during the same period last year. Total assets increased 11.2 percent to $3.4 billion, from $3.1 billion at the year’s end in 2012.
That makes 2013 the fourth consecutive year of record earnings for Century Bancorp, the parent company for Century Bank.
The company did see a 1.6 percent decline in net interest income for the year ended, to $61 million from $62 million in 2012. That was due primarily to $3.3 million of prepayment penalties collected during 2012, compared with $491,000 last year. A decrease in asset yields also led to a decline in net interest margin, from 2.51 percent in 2012 to 2.21 percent last year.
Interest expenses decreased because of a continued decline in market rates, and the company saw a 13.6 percent increase in the average balances of earning assets, along with a similar increase in average deposits.
A lower level of charge-off activity and changes in portfolio composition led the company to decrease its provision for loan losses to $2.7 million from the $4.2 million it allotted in 2012. Century Bancorp also realized $3 million in net gains on the sale of investments, compared with $1.8 million in the previous year.
The company’s allowance for loan losses totaled $20.9 million or 1.66 percent of loans outstanding at Dec. 31, 2013, compared with $19.2 million or 1.73 percent of loans outstanding at year’s end in 2012. The increase in the allowance for loan losses was due to the increase in the size and composition of the loan portfolio as well as qualitative factors. Non-performing assets totaled $2.5 million at Dec.31, compared with $4.5 million the previous year.
The company’s board of directors voted a regular quarterly dividend of 12 cents per share on its Class A common stock, and 6 cents per share on its Class B common stock. Those dividends were declared payable Feb. 18, to stockholders of record on Feb. 3.
