Business
AMERISERV FINANCIAL REPORTS RECORD FIRST QUARTER 2022 EARNINGS AND ANNOUNCES A 20% INCREASE IN THE QUARTERLY COMMON STOCK CASH DIVIDEND
JOHNSTOWN, Pa., April 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- AmeriServ Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASRV) reported first quarter 2022 net income of $2,418,000, or $0.14 per
About this update from Ameriserv Financial Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"JOHNSTOWN, Pa., April 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- AmeriServ Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASRV) reported first quarter 2022 net income of $2,418,000, or $0.14 per diluted common share. This earnings performance represented a $337,000, or 16.2%, increase from the first quarter of 2021 when net income totaled $2,081,000, or $0.12 per diluted common share. The following table highlights the Company's financial performance for the quarters ended March 31, 2022 and 2021:\n \nFirst Quarter 2022\nFirst Quarter 2021\n$ Change\n% Change\nNet income\n$\n2,418,000\n$\n2,081,000\n$\n337,000\n16.2\n%\nDiluted earnings per share\n$\n0.14\n$\n0.12\n$\n0.02\n16.7\n%\n \nJeffrey A. Stopko, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented on the first quarter 2022 financial results: \"The improved earnings performance in the first quarter of 2022 reflects the full benefit of several important strategic actions that our company executed in 2021 along with the successful management of our asset quality throughout the pandemic. AmeriServ Financial continues to benefit from strong levels of loans, deposits, and fee income from our wealth management business. As a result of this improvement in the earnings power of the Company, the Board of Directors increased the quarterly common stock cash dividend by 20% in order to allow our shareholders to directly benefit from these higher earnings.\"\nThe Company's net interest income in the first quarter of 2022 increased by $75,000, or 0.8%, from the prior year's first quarter while the net interest margin of 3.14% was nine basis points lower than the net interest margin of 3.23% for the first quarter of 2021. The U.S. economy continued its recovery and performed satisfactorily during the first quarter with very little impact from the Omnicron variant as labor markets continued to strengthen and productivity growth remained high. However, uncertainty and volatility remain due to supply chain issues, anticipated interest rate changes, consumer confidence, and high inflation. The size of the Company's balance sheet remains high by historical standards due to the growth experienced in both total loans and total deposits due to business development efforts and the government's stimulus programs from the previous two years. However, with government stimulus ending in 2021, both total loans and total deposits have demonstr...