| Deteriorating real estate values hit Bank of Florida earnings
Bank of Florida Corp. said it had a net loss of $970,000, or 8 cents a share, in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, compared to net income of $677,000, or 7 cents a share, in the same quarter in 2006. The fourth quarter results pulled down earnings for the full year of 2007, according to a release. For the 12 months ended Dec. 31, Bank of Florida had net income of $2.7 million, compared to $2.3 million in the prior year, but with fewer shares outstanding, earnings per share for 2007 were 23 cents a share, down 18 percent from the 28 cents a share reported a year ago. During the fourth quarter, the bank took a $2.7 million loan loss provision after identifying certain commercial real estate loans that were impacted by current market conditions in southwest Florida, especially in Lee County, where deterioration of real estate values has been among the sharpest in the state, Michael McMullan, president and chief executive, said in the release.
In Search of a Subprime Villain
And turn-of-the-21st century book-cooking had poster boys Jeff Skilling and Bernie Ebbers. Now, the subprime meltdown cries out for its own icon—an easily vilified, Leno-quotable, high-seven-figured household name. If there were Vegas odds for this kind of thing, the money would be on Angelo Mozilo, founder and chief executive of Countrywide Financial (CFC), the largest U.S. mortgage lender and the source of so many of the bad home loans that have gummed up the global financial system. But don't finger Mozilo just yet. The scale, ripple effect, and emotional particulars of this bust make it uniquely hard to pin on one character. Countrywide will become less newsworthy as it is acquired by Bank of America (BAC), an outcome regulators want to hasten. And the more we dissect the subprime episode, the more we'll want to put the whole affair out of our minds altogether.
Banks cashing in on border crossers
The big banks must be loving the recent surge in cross-border shopping.Almost every time you buy something in the United States, your bank makes a few bucks in fees of one sort or another. Expect to pay far more in fees than if you bought something here at home. While the Canadian dollar had a bad day yesterday, it's high enough compared to the U.S. dollar that people are pouring across the border to shop. .
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