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From The The Charleston
Gazette
Clay County Bank chief retires after
15 years
By Scott Finn
STAFF WRITER
Tuesday May 21, 2002
J.D. Morris, the president of the Clay County Bank for 15
years,
retired late last month because "he just got tired of
working,"
according to the new interim president.
The retirement came in the same month that the FDIC
released a
report saying the bank lost $264,000 in the last quarter of
2001.
That's the fifth-biggest loss of any bank in the state.
The loss had nothing to do with Morris' retirement, said
Scott
Legg, the bank's interim president. Morris, 67, had been
planning
to retire for some time, he said. He wanted to spend more
time
with his ailing mother and enjoy his newly constructed
home.
"He wanted to enjoy sitting on porch, drinking coffee and
watching the sun come up of the morning," Legg said.
Morris also serves on the state Board of Education and the
School
Building Authority. He plans to stay on both boards,
according to
a May 1 article in the Clay County Free Press. Morris could
not
be reached for comment Monday.
State officials also examined the bank last month, Legg said.
He
called the examination routine.
Bank officials set aside more than $1 million last year in the
bank's "loan loss allowance" to cover potential bad loans.
That's
almost twice as much as they set aside the year before, and
it hurt
the bank's profits.
The bank had more than twice as many "charge offs" as it
had the
year before â a total of 589. Those are loans that may never
get
paid.
Legg said the charge-off figures are not unusual for a bank of
Clay
County's size, with assets of $64 million.
"We set that money aside as a contingency," he said. "It is
not
money lost; it is money that could potentially be lost."
At the same time, the bank increased what it paid for
salaries and
benefits for its 24 employees by 7 percent, from $980,000 to
more than $1,050,000. That's higher than nine of 10 state
banks
with similar assets.
Two bank analysts said that Clay County Bank is in sound
financial condition, but that customers may want to keep an
eye
on the bank in the next few months.
Weiss Ratings Inc. of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., downgraded
the
bank from B- to C last month, said analyst David Proko.
Proko said that for a small bank, Clay County Bank has set
aside
good capital to absorb these losses.
"Still, small banks are by their nature are more prone to
sudden
downfalls," he said. "A few bad loans could really hurt their
business."
The Massachusetts company Veribanc downgraded the bank
from
green with three stars to yellow with two stars last month,
according to bank analyst Mike Heller.
That's a "cautionary rating," he said. The yellow color refers
to
the loss last quarter, but the two stars indicate a relatively
positive
long-term forecast, he said.
Legg said that customers and bank investors can expect
profits in
the first quarter of this year and for the entire year. For all of
last
year, the bank lost $87,000.
"All businesses have better years than others sometimes,"
he said.
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