Heritage Financial second quarter profit rises to $8.7 million

Another quarter of strong loan growth helped the parent company of Olympia’s Heritage Bank more than double its profit in the second quarter, the company announced Thursday.

Heritage Financial Corp. earned net income of $8.7 million, or 29 cents a share, compared to net income of $4.1 million, or 16 cents a share, in the same quarter a year ago.

“The loan growth mirrors what we’re seeing in the economy,” said Brian Vance, president and chief executive of Heritage Financial.

In the past year, total commercial business loans grew to $1.79 billion from $1.64 billion, company data show.

Vance said there’s been economic growth in Snohomish and Pierce counties, but the real growth has been in King County.

That means Heritage Financial is set to open a new office in the heart of downtown Seattle that will be staffed with a team of commercial lenders, as well as those who will lend to larger companies, Vance said.

“That’s a great opportunity for continuing growth,” he said about the Seattle market.

The new office officially opens on Aug. 3, he said.

The company also announced Thursday that it will pay a cash dividend of 11 cents.

Although Heritage reported an $8.7 million profit on Thursday, the stock, which trades under the ticker symbol HFWA, fell 80 cents or 4.3 percent to close at $17.82 a share. However, the stock likely fell as a result of the broader declines in the market on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, for example, fell more than 100 points.

In the past 52 weeks, Heritage’s stock has traded between $17.82 a share and $18.65 a share.

This story was originally published July 23, 2015 at 8:42 AM with the headline "Heritage Financial second quarter profit rises to $8.7 million."