North Valley Bancorp Reports Operating Results (10-K)

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Mar 14, 2011
North Valley Bancorp (NOVB, Financial) filed Annual Report for the period ended 2010-12-31.

North Valley Bancorp has a market cap of $71.74 million; its shares were traded at around $10.5 with and P/S ratio of 1.38.

Highlight of Business Operations:

The Board of Governors and the FDIC have adopted risk-based capital guidelines for evaluating the capital adequacy of bank holding companies and banks. The guidelines are designed to make capital requirements sensitive to differences in risk profiles among banking organizations, to take into account off-balance sheet exposures and to aid in making the definition of bank capital uniform internationally. Under the guidelines, the Company and its banking subsidiaries are required to maintain capital equal to at least 8% of its assets and commitments to extend credit, weighted by risk, of which at least 4% must consist primarily of common equity (including retained earnings) and the remainder may consist of subordinated debt, cumulative preferred stock, or a limited amount of loan loss reserves. The Company and its banking subsidiaries are subject to regulations issued by the Board of Governors and the FDIC, which require maintenance of a certain level of capital. These regulations impose two capital standards: a risk-based capital standard and a leverage capital standard.

Assets, commitments to extend credit and off-balance sheet items are categorized according to risk and certain assets considered to present less risk than others permit maintenance of capital at less than the 8% ratio. For example, most home mortgage loans are placed in a 50% risk category and therefore require maintenance of capital equal to 4% of such loans, while commercial loans are placed in a 100% risk category and therefore require maintenance of capital equal to 8% of such loans.

Under the Board of Governors risk-based capital guidelines, assets reported on an institution s balance sheet and certain off-balance sheet items are assigned to risk categories, each of which has an assigned risk weight. Capital ratios are calculated by dividing the institution s qualifying capital by its period-end risk-weighted assets. The guidelines establish two categories of qualifying capital: Tier 1 capital (defined to include common stockholders equity and noncumulative perpetual preferred stock) and Tier 2 capital which includes, among other items, limited life (and in case of banks, cumulative) preferred stock, mandatory convertible securities, subordinated debt and a limited amount of reserve for loan losses. Tier 2 capital may also include up to 45% of the pretax net unrealized gains on certain available-for-sale equity securities having readily determinable fair values (i.e. the excess, if any, of fair market value over the book value or historical cost of the investment security). The federal regulatory agencies reserve the right to exclude all or a portion of the unrealized gains upon a determination that the equity securities are not prudently valued. Unrealized gains and losses on other types of assets, such as bank premises and available-for-sale debt securities, are not included in Tier 2 capital, but may be taken into account in the evaluation of overall capital adequacy and net unrealized losses on available-for-sale equity securities will continue to be deducted from Tier 1 capital as a cushion against risk. Each institution is required to maintain a risk-based capital ratio (including Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital) of 8%, of which at least half must be Tier 1 capital.

Under the Board of Governors leverage capital standard, an institution is required to maintain a minimum ratio of Tier 1 capital to the sum of its quarterly average total assets and quarterly average reserve for loan losses, less intangibles not included in Tier 1 capital. Period-end assets may be used in place of quarterly average total assets on a case-by-case basis. The Board of Governors and the FDIC have adopted a minimum leverage ratio for bank holding companies as a supplement to the risk-weighted capital guidelines. The leverage ratio establishes a minimum Tier 1 ratio of 3% (Tier 1 capital to total assets) for the highest rated bank holding companies or those that have implemented the risk-based capital market risk measure. All other bank holding companies must maintain a minimum Tier 1 leverage ratio of 4% with higher leverage capital ratios required for bank holding companies that have significant financial and/or operational weakness, a high risk profile, or are undergoing or anticipating rapid growth.

The Board of Governors, the OCC and FDIC have adopted regulations implementing a system of prompt corrective action for insured financial institutions pursuant to Section 38 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act and Section 131 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991 (“FDICIA”). The regulations establish five capital categories with the following characteristics: (1) “Well capitalized” - consisting of institutions with a total risk-based capital ratio of 10% or greater, a Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio of 6% or greater and a leverage ratio of 5% or greater, and the institution is not subject to any written agreement, order, capital directive, or prompt corrective action directive to meet and maintain a specific capital level for any capital measure; (2) “Adequately capitalized” - consisting of institutions with a total risk-based capital ratio of 8% or greater, a Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio of 4% or greater and a leverage ratio of 4% or greater, and the institution does not meet the definition of a “well capitalized” institution; (3) “Undercapitalized” - consisting of institutions with a total risk-based capital ratio less than 8%, a Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio of less than 4%, or a leverage ratio of less than 4%; (4) “Significantly undercapitalized” - consisting of institutions with a total risk-based capital ratio of less than 6%, a Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio of less than 3%, or a leverage ratio of less than 3%; (5) “Critically undercapitalized” - consisting of an institution with a ratio of tangible equity to total assets that is equal to or less than 2%. NVB is considered “well capitalized” under the framework for prompt corrective action.

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