Thursday, Fidelity Southern Corp. (LION), the holding company of Fidelity Bank, reported a narrower loss for the third quarter, helped by a significant decline in provision for loan losses and an increase in net interest income and non-interest income. The stock closed the trading session higher by more than 9%.
Fidelity Southern's net loss attributable to common shareholders narrowed to $425 thousand or $0.04 per share from $4.87 million or $0.50 per share a year earlier. Excluding the TARP preferred stock dividends, the bank reported net income of $398 thousand, compared with net loss of $4.87 million for the year-ago period.
On average, four analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report a loss of $0.24 per share. Analysts' estimates typically exclude one-time items.
Net interest income rose to $13.80 million from $11.94 million for the prior year period, mainly due to a decline in interest expense. Net interest margin improved by 15 basis points to 3.10% from 2.95% a year-ago.
Non-interest income rose to $7.22 million from $3.85 million for the year earlier period. Non-interest expense increased to $16.47 million from $12.58 million a year-ago, mainly due to a rise in salaries and employee benefits.
Chairman James Miller said, "During the third quarter, we continued to see favorable trends for our residential loan portfolio which reflects steps we took early on in this cycle. We are guardedly optimistic that the favorable charge-off trends will continue as the Atlanta and Jacksonville real estate markets show signs of stabilization. An improvement in the economy would mean further benefit."
Provision for loan losses dropped to $4.5 million from $11.4 million a year earlier. However, nonperforming assets increased by $14.9 million year-over-year to $106.3 million at the end of the quarter.
Total deposits increased to $1.61 billion at the end of the quarter from $1.47 billion at the end of the prior year period. Total loans dropped modestly to $1.44 billion at the end of the quarter from $1.48 billion at the end of the same period a year earlier.
For the nine months, net loss attributable to common shareholders widened to $8.25 million or $0.83 per share from $4.67 million or $0.48 per share a year earlier. Net interest income rose modestly to $36.27 million from $35.72 million for the year-ago period and total non-interest income surged to $21.79 million from $13.89 million last year.
Thursday, LION closed at $3.90, up 9.86% on Nasdaq.
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June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.