Parent company of Olympia’s Heritage Bank reports another strong quarter of growth

The parent company of Olympia-based Heritage Bank continues to produce profitable quarters, and the third quarter was no different as the company reported nearly $10 million in net income.

Heritage Financial Corp., by way of an improving economy and the resulting loan growth, earned net income of $9.5 million, or 32 cents a share for the third quarter, compared to net income of $7.1 million, or 23 cents a share, for the third quarter a year ago.

Loan growth for the third quarter on an annualized basis was 9.7 percent.

Commercial and industrial loans, which include lines of credit or loans to purchase equipment, was the biggest part of our loan growth, said Brian Vance, president and chief executive of Heritage Financial.

Most of that loan growth stems from Seattle, he said, “but we’ve had nice growth across the entire bank footprint.”

In addition to loan growth, Heritage Bank also terminated its shared-loss agreements with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in the third quarter, resulting in a pre-tax gain of $1.7 million for the company. The bank had agreed to the shared-loss terms as part of its FDIC-assisted acquisitions of Cowlitz Bank of Cowlitz County, plus City Bank and North County Bank, both of Snohomish County.

All three banks failed during the recession.

Heritage also announced this week that it’s in a giving mood: The company declared a regular cash dividend of 11 cents and a special dividend of 10 cents. Both will be paid to shareholders Nov. 18.

It’s the fifth consecutive year of at least one special dividend being paid by Heritage during the year, Vance said.

“The company is doing well, we have excess capital and it’s a way to give our shareholders more of a yield on their investment,” he said.

On Thursday, the company’s stock, which trades under the ticker symbol HFWA, was approaching a 52-week high. The stock closed up 42 cents at $19.04 a share. In the past 52 weeks, the stock has ranged from $15.44 a share to $19.36 a share.

This story was originally published October 22, 2015 at 4:15 PM with the headline "Parent company of Olympia’s Heritage Bank reports another strong quarter of growth."