Heritage Land Bank reports record earnings

TYLER -- Heritage Land Bank, ACA, reported record earnings for year-end 2007 in the amount of $9.5 million, resulting in a return on average stockholder's equity of 16.1%.

Due to this financial performance, the Board of Directors approved a patronage distribution to its stockholders totaling $3 million.

Heritage is a cooperatively owned Farm Credit Association whose customers are its stockholders, and share in the rewards of the association's earnings by receiving a cash patronage paid directly to them.

This year's cash patronage payment lowers the effective interest rate paid by most stockholders by about 75 basis points and will be distributed to stockholders in April 2008.

Heritage Land Bank is proud to have distributed more than $11 million of its earnings back to its stockholders since 1994.

"Thanks to our strongly motivated and experienced staff, Heritage Land Bank continues to strengthen its financial position and provide better returns to its stockholders," said Stephen R. Ogletree, Chief Executive Officer.

The financial report for year ending Dec. 31, 2007, reported loan volume of $414 million; up from $364.7 million at year-end 2006.

This increase of $49.3 million, or 14 percent in loan volume, was attributed to new business with the closing of over 689 new loans for $132 million.

In addition to the growth in the loan portfolio, credit quality remained historically high with 96.6 percent acceptable loan volume reported at the end of December 2007.

"This high level of credit quality is due to the timely repayments by the association's borrowers, and the efforts of our staff to book high quality loans," said Robert Echols, Chief Credit Officer.

In addition, "The Association's capital position remained strong with a permanent capital ratio of 13.3 percent at the end of 2007, which more than exceeds the 7 percent minimum set by the regulator, Farm Credit Administration," said Jenny Sloan, Chief Financial Officer.

Heritage Land Bank's corporate office is located in Tyler with lending offices located in Athens, Greenville, McKinney, Nacogdoches, Palestine, and Tyler.