Renasant reports improved quarter, year

TUPELO — Renasant Corp., parent of Renasant Bank, showed a substantial income gain in 2010 over the previous year, generating net income of $31,675,000 compared to $18,518,000 for 2009.

In its fourth quarter and year-end earning report, the Tupelo-based regional bank reported 4Q net income of $4.72 million, compared to slightly more than $4 million for the previous quarter.

Basic and diluted earnings per share totaled 19 cents a share for the fourth quarter of 2010 and for the fourth quarter of 2009.

The $4.3-billion Renasant said other highlights for the fourth quarter included:

• Increasing net interest margin to 3.43 percent from 3.22 percent as compared to same period in 2009

• Decreasing non-performing loans, past due loans, charge-offs and non-performing assets on a linked quarter basis markets other than its North Georgia market, where it recently acquired Crescent Bank & Trust of Blairsville. Renasant acquired Cresent with the assistance of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which helps the bank avoid taking on the full brunt of Cresent’s liabilities.

• Increasing core deposits (non-time deposits) on a year over year and a linked quarter basis.

Renasant said it continued to decrease its exposure to residential construction and land development loans during the fourth quarter, a move chairman and CEO E. Robinson McGraw said helped Renasant “to realize improving trends in our credit quality metrics.”

Total deposits grew to $3.47 billion by Dec. 31, up from $3.42 billion on Sept. 30, the bank said.

Total loans declined to $2.52 billion at the end of 2010 from $2.58 billion at the end of the third quarter. Loans totaled $2.35 billion at the end of 2009.