After a third quarter to forget for most U.S. banks, PNC Financial Services appears well-positioned for future growth.
Net income for the Pittsburgh-based bank fell to $407 million in the third quarter of 2007 from $1.5 billion in the year-earlier period, but the year-ago results included a $1.3 billion gain when PNC?s BlackRock Inc. money management affiliate purchased a Merrill Lynch affiliate.
Excluding those one-time items, PNC?s profit actually increased to $469 million from $380 million a year ago. On an adjusted basis, revenue was $1.8 billion compared with $1.4 billion last year.
PNC reported the earnings during a week when the nation?s leading banks showed the damage caused by the summer?s credit-market meltdown.
Citigroup, the nation?s largest bank, saw its third-quarter profits fall 57 percent; Bank of America?s dropped 32 percent; Wachovia?s slipped 10 percent.
“We delivered strong earnings in the third quarter, during a time of extreme market volatility,” PNC Chairman and CEO James E. Rohr said Thursday, when PNC announced its third-quarter earnings.
PNC, which acquired Maryland?s Mercantile Bankshares Corp. in March for $6 billion, now totals 198 branches in the state. PNC completed the acquisition in September and assumed more than 500,000 consumer accounts.
The acquisition helped PNC?s retail banking earnings increase to $250 million in the quarter from $206 million last year.
PNC isn?t stopping with Mercantile. The bank has said it will purchase Yardville National Bancorp, with 33 branches in New Jersey, and Sterling Financial, with 68 branches in Pennsylvania, for about $1 billion together.
“PNC is on an acquisition binge,” Jaime Peters, a PNC analyst for Morningstar, a Chicago-based investment research firm, said in a recent report on the company. “If PNC is able to bring its acquired branches up to the company?s average, it will have struck excellent bargains.”
PNC?s share price has decreased by almost 9 percent since the beginning of the year.
PNC is part of The Examiner Top 10, a portfolio of some of the largest publicly traded companies in the Baltimore region.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
