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04/25/09
Community banks find little aid in accounting changes
Filed under: General, Business
Posted by: Lillian Wong @ 3:30 pm

The mark-to-market accounting changes being championed on Wall Street are receiving less enthusiasm in Phoenix financial circles — especially among community banks, which expect to see little impact to their bottom lines

The Financial Accounting Standards Board ruled earlier this month that banks can use internal equations rather than market prices to value assets such as mortgage securities, credit-card debt or student-loan investments.

Investors heralded the move, and it helped push the Dow Jones Industrial Average past the 8,000 mark for the first time in more than two months.

In essence, the change eliminates the need for banks to write down assets they intend to hold to maturity, which theoretically should stabilize capital reserves.

Local bank leaders view the change as a positive step, but don’t think it will have a significant impact on their balance sheets, largely because impairments, or write-offs, already have been taken.

“We feel the FASB revisions are appropriate, albeit long overdue,” said Ed Zito, an executive vice president for Alliance Bank of Arizona. “There hasn’t been a market for these securities for quite some time.”

Zito was referring to illiquid assets that might have long-term value, but can’t be sold today because there are no buyers.

“It’s like a stock with a bad name,” said Doug Hile, president and CEO of Meridian Bank.

FASB’s new guidelines allow banks and their auditors to use “significant judgment” when valuing illiquid assets.

Alliance Bank parent Western Alliance Bancorp. charged off $75.3 million in the fourth quarter, writing off its collateralized debt obligations. That spurred a net loss of $148.3 million for the quarter and $236.5 million for the year.

“We can’t go back and write them back up,” Zito said.

Now most of the Nevada-based holding company’s CDOs are composed of trusts and preferred stock of other large financial institutions, which stand to benefit more by the FASB change because they hold these toxic assets.

A CDO is an investment-grade security backed by a pool of bonds, loans and other assets. CDOs do not specialize in one type of debt, but often are nonmortgage loans or bonds.

Dennis Jones, Arizona chairman and president of M&I Bank, doesn’t expect the accounting shift to impact his bank.

“We have always taken a conservative approach to managing our investment portfolio and, consequently, carry a low level of the hard-to-value securities that are most impacted by this change,” he said.

Hile wonders how auditors will apply the “judgment” criteria.

“Then we’ll find out if this will be effectual or not,” he said. “We’re looking for some more clarification.”

Because most community banks do not buy or sell securities, they have little reason to cheer the rule change. Many community bank executives want bank regulators to take up their concerns — mainly readjusting real estate valuations.

If community banks could incorporate the same mark-to-market changes to loan portfolios and real estate loans, it would stabilize depressing capital levels, said Union Bank President and CEO Dan Dunlap.

But community banks are viewed as individual entities. They rarely hold lawmakers’ ears and have little lobbying power in their own states, let alone in Washington.

“They just don’t have the voice,” Dunlap said.

Union Bank reported a $4 million loss in 2008, compared with a $1.5 million profit the year before. Last year’s struggles were tied largely to the bank’s high percentage of nonperforming loans.

Get Connected

Meridian Bank: www.meridianbank.com

Alliance Bank of Arizona: www.alliancebankofarizona.com

Financial Accounting Standards Board: www.fasb.org

Mark-to-Market

The accounting act of recording the price or value of a security, portfolio or account to reflect its current market value rather than its book value.

Phoenix Business Journal - by Chris Casacchia - Friday, April 17, 2009



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