Northwest Bancshares reports Q2 EPS 26c, consensus 26c

Reports Q2 Tangible book value per share $8.84 vs. $8.67 last year. Louis J. Torchio, President and CEO, added, “We are very pleased with the positioning and strength of our balance sheet during the past twelve months as we have been able to grow loans by almost $840.0M, or approximately 8.0%, over that time period by reallocating cash and investments to higher yielding earning assets. Specifically, as a result of the new commercial lending verticals we have recently implemented, commercial loans have grown $416.9M, or 42.2%, over the past year. As part of this balance sheet shift towards commercial banking, we sold the mortgage servicing rights on approximately $1.3B of one- to four family mortgage loans for an $8.3M gain, which enabled us to sell approximately $110.0M of investment securities for an equivalent loss, resulting in no impact to tangible capital. We were then able to reallocate these funds from investments yielding approximately 2.0% into commercial loan originations yielding over 7.0%. In addition, our overall deposit balances remained stable during the most recent quarter, although we continue to see customers shift into higher yielding deposit products. Tangible common equity remains strong at over 8.0% and asset quality continues to perform well.”