Valley National Income Increase

Valley National Bancorp is pleased to announce that they are showing a significant increase in their net income for the first quarter of 2007. Valley had elected fair value measurement option for many pre-existing financial assets and liabilities which totaled $1.6 billion and $246.2 million.

With this move, they reduced stockholder equity. They then did some interest rate derivative transactions – and both of these things helped them increase their net income. Their CEO and President, Gerald Lipkin, said that they had seen a larger increase in their first quarter earnings than before, and that he was pleased with their overall performance and credit quality.

Lipkin said that they were going to try and maintain where they were, and increase their net income if possible. He said they were diligent about their operations, and their management of long term returns. They also feel that “targeted repurchases” of their common shares were a very good use of shareholder capital.

Their auto loans increased for them – 13.8% on an annualized basis. They have been working very hard to expand their geographic presence of the indirect auto loan franchise, and to grow their auto loan portfolio. They found that first quarter this year their auto loans were seasonally low, but they expect that they would be increasing as the year went on.

Back to May Index