Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Firstar Reports Income At $324 Million

Those with stock in the Firstar Corporation, the parent company of Mercantile Bancorporation, should be happy with the fourth quarter earnings.

According to a release from Firstar, the 1999 net income, before merger-related charges, reached a record $324,9 million.

This is a 16.3 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 1998.

The diluted earnings for the fourth quarter of 99 were 33 cents a share, again before merger-related charges. This, according to the release, is a 17.9 percent increase from 98.

Jerry A. Grundhofer, president and chief executive officer, lauded the employees for helping make this happen.

"The fourth quarter of 1999," he said, "the first full quarter after our combination with Mercantile, resulted in strong loan and deposit growth, a much improve margin, good revenue growth and well managed expenses.

"In this the first full quarter as a combined company, our Mercantile markets had much improved growth in retail and commercial loans and in the Firstar markets we continue to have exceptional retail and commercial loan growth."

Grundhofer said the credit quality also improved from the third to fourth quarters, with the net interest margin increasing some 13 basis points. This, he said, was due to a better mix of earning assets, effective pricing and the third quarter Mercantile related balance sheet restructuring.

"The Y2K issue was a nonevent for Firstar, its customers and shareholders," he added.

"This was an excellent quarter for Firstar as we continue to deliver quality customer service, develop or sales culture and introduce new products and services across our expanded franchise."

Firstar is a regional bank holding company with about $73 billion in total assets. It has nearly 1,200 full-service banking offices and more than 2,200 ATM machines in Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kansas, Arizona and Florida.