Venture Bank's parent company reports largest quarterly loss

Bulk can be attributed to Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae investment, officials say

By Rolf Boone | The Olympian • Published November 19, 2008

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Venture Financial Group Inc., parent company to Venture Bank, reported its largest quarterly loss in company history Wednesday, losing $27.7 million in the third quarter of the year compared with a profit of $3.2 million in the third quarter of 2007.

Officials with the nearly 30-year-old company said the bulk of the loss could be attributed to an investment in preferred shares of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, two companies that were taken over by the federal government this year that caused those shares to fall in value.

After taxes, the company’s investment loss in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae amounted to $26.1 million. Third-quarter earnings also were affected by boosting its loan-loss provision by $10 million, or $6.5 million after taxes, the company said.

As a result of the quarterly loss, the company has taken steps to cut costs, including the suspension of quarterly cash dividend payments to shareholders, saving Venture Financial about $650,000 a quarter, said Jim Arneson, president and chief executive of Venture Bank.

“We’re still open for business,” Arneson said Wednesday at the company’s headquarters in DuPont. “It (the quarterly loss) doesn’t change who we are or what we do. We’re the same bank we’ve always been and we will return to profitability.”

For more information, see Page A14 in Thursday's Olympian.