Astoria Financial Corp. Reports Operating Results (10-Q)

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Aug 07, 2009
Astoria Financial Corp. (AF, Financial) filed Quarterly Report for the period ended 2009-06-30.

Astoria Financial Corp. is in the operation of its wholly-owned subsidiary Astoria Federal. In addition to directing planning and coordinating the business activities of Astoria Federal the company invests primarily in U.S. Government and federal agency securities mortgage-backed securities and other securities. Astoria Financial Corp. has a market cap of $1.06 billion; its shares were traded at around $10.87 with a P/E ratio of 12.4 and P/S ratio of 0.9. The dividend yield of Astoria Financial Corp. stocks is 4.8%. Astoria Financial Corp. had an annual average earning growth of 3.7% over the past 10 years.

Highlight of Business Operations:

Loan reviews are completed quarterly for all loans individually classified by our Asset Classification Committee. Individual loan reviews are generally completed annually for multi-family, commercial real estate and construction mortgage loans in excess of $2.0 million, commercial business loans in excess of $200,000, one-to-four family mortgage loans in excess of $1.0 million and troubled debt restructurings. In addition, we generally review annually borrowing relationships whose combined outstanding balance exceeds $2.0 million. Approximately fifty percent of the outstanding principal balance of these loans to a single borrowing entity will be reviewed annually.

As a result of our updated charge-off and loss analyses, we modified certain allowance coverage percentages during the first and second quarters of 2009 to reflect our current estimates of the amount of probable losses inherent in our loan portfolio in determining our general valuation allowances. Based on our evaluation of the continued deterioration of the housing and real estate markets and overall economy, in particular, the significant increase in unemployment during the first half of 2009, and the increase in and composition of our delinquencies, non-performing loans and net loan charge-offs, we determined that an allowance for loan losses of $160.3 million was required at June 30, 2009, compared to $119.0 million at December 31, 2008, resulting in a provision for loan losses of $100.0 million for the six months ended June 30, 2009. The balance of our allowance for loan losses represents management s best estimate of the probable inherent losses in our loan portfolio at the reporting dates.

The fair value of our investment portfolio is primarily impacted by changes in interest rates. In general, as interest rates rise, the fair value of fixed rate securities will decrease; as interest rates fall, the fair value of fixed rate securities will increase. We conduct a periodic review and evaluation of the securities portfolio to determine if a decline in the fair value of any security below its cost basis is other-than-temporary. Our evaluation of OTTI considers the duration and severity of the impairment, our assessments of the reason for the decline in value, the likelihood of a near-term recovery and our intent and ability to not sell the securities. We generally view changes in fair value caused by changes in interest rates as temporary, which is consistent with our experience. If such decline is deemed other-than-temporary, the security is written down to a new cost basis and the resulting loss is charged to earnings as a component of non-interest income. At June 30, 2009, we had 60 securities with an estimated fair value totaling $567.0 million which had an unrealized loss totaling $9.5 million. Of the securities in an unrealized loss position at June 30, 2009, $125.7 million, with an unrealized loss of $6.1 million, have been in a continuous unrealized loss position for more than twelve months. At June 30, 2009, the impairments are deemed temporary based on the direct relationship of the decline in fair value to movements in interest rates, the estimated remaining life and high credit quality of the investments and the fact that we do not intend to sell these securities and it is not more likely than not that we will be required to sell these securities before their anticipated recovery of the remaining amortized cost basis and we expect to recover the entire amortized cost basis of the security.

In addition to cash provided by principal and interest payments on loans and securities, our other sources of funds include cash provided by operating activities, deposits and borrowings. Net cash provided by operating activities totaled $87.3 million for the six months ended June 30, 2009 and $164.5 million for the six months ended June 30, 2008. Deposits increased $130.3

Our primary use of funds is for the origination and purchase of mortgage loans. Gross mortgage loans originated and purchased for portfolio during the six months ended June 30, 2009 totaled $1.06 billion, of which $932.4 million were originations and $128.8 million were purchases. This compares to gross mortgage loans originated and purchased for portfolio during the six months ended June 30, 2008 totaling $2.30 billion, of which $2.07 billion were originations and $231.3 million were purchases. The decrease in mortgage loan originations and purchases was primarily due to a decrease in one-to-four family mortgage loan originations and purchases, coupled with a decrease in multi-family and commercial real estate loan originations. One-to-four family mortgage loan origination and purchase volume has been negatively affected by the expanded conforming loan limits resulting in more borrowers opting for thirty-year fixed rate mortgages which we do not retain for portfolio, coupled with continued fallout from our mortgage loan application pipeline due to, among other things, the fact that potential borrowers are not qualifying under our strict underwriting guidelines, particularly with respect to requirements related to maximum loan-to-value ratios. We originated loans held-for-sale totaling $248.0 million during the six months ended June 30, 2009 and $75.5 million during the six months ended June 30, 2008. The increase in originations of loans held-for-sale reflects the impact of the expanded conforming loan limits and rapid decline in interest rates for these fixed rate products. The decrease in multi-family and commercial real estate loan originations reflects that we are currently only offering to originate such loans to select existing customers in New York. During the 2009 second quarter, we purchased securities to utilize a portion of the cash flows from mortgage loan and securities repayments and deposit growth in excess of mortgage loan originations and purchases. Purchases of securities totaled $300.8 million during the six months ended June 30, 2009 and $273.2 million during the six months ended June 30, 2008.

We maintain liquidity levels to meet our operational needs in the normal course of our business. The levels of our liquid assets during any given period are dependent on our operating, investing and financing activities. Cash and due from banks and repurchase agreements, our most liquid assets, increased $335.8 million to $436.1 million at June 30, 2009, from $100.3 million at December 31, 2008, primarily due to cash flows from repayment activity which were not redeployed by the end of the 2009 second quarter, which we expect to deploy into higher yielding assets during the second half of 2009. At June 30, 2009, we had $600.0 million in

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