SANTA ROSA -- Exchange Bank declared an increased quarterly cash dividend of 45 cents a share on common stock outstanding to shareholders of record at the close of business on Nov. 28. The dividend is payable Dec. 12.
[caption id="attachment_102369" align="alignright" width="300"] Gary Hartwick, Exchange Bank CEO and president[/caption]
The cash dividend rose 5 cents per share from the last quarterly cash dividend, up 12 percent. The annual dividend was $1.80 a share.
Gary Hartwick, Exchange Bank’s president and CEO, said in a statement that the dividend increase “reflected the board’s confidence in the sustainability of the bank’s earnings and improving economic environment.”
More than half – 51 percent – of the bank’s cash dividend goes to the Doyle Trust, which funds Doyle scholarships at Santa Rosa Junior College. The Frank P. Doyle and Polly O’Meara Doyle Trust owns 50.39 percent of Exchange Bank, and funds the Doyle Scholarship at Santa Rosa Junior College.
Total assets at the bank are about $1.8 billion.
Exchange Bank loans and deposits showed steady growth over the past year. Total gross loans increased 8 percent over 12 months to $1.171 billion by the end of September. Deposits totaled $1.592 billion, up 4 percent from a year before.
For the first nine months of this year, net interest income totaled $47.7 million, up 7 percent from $44.4 million a year prior. The bank attributed that to an increase in its loan portfolio.
