News Releases

Publications

Media Center

For Immediate Release
February 17, 2005

AUSTIN, Texas - The Austin-based Farm Credit Bank of Texas (FCBT), a wholesale lender to rural financing organizations, posted strong financial results for 2004, highlighted by record asset growth.

Net income totaled $47.0 million in 2004. This compares with $64.8 million in net income the previous year. Absent $30.5 million in revenue from a one-time mineral rights sale reported in 2003 and ordinary mineral income of $5.0 million recorded in the same year, the Farm Credit Bank of Texas would have reflected a $17.7 million, or 60.4 percent, increase in net income for 2004 over 2003.

The cooperatively owned bank reported $66.7 million in net interest income for 2004, a 33.8 percent increase over the $49.8 million in net interest income reported for 2003.

Interest-earning assets totaled $8.8 billion at the 2004 year-end, an increase of $1.4 billion, or 18.6 percent, from a year earlier. The increase was driven primarily by increased borrowings by the bank's affiliated lending associations, loan participations and investments.

The bank's loan volume was $6.9 billion at Dec. 31, 2004, increasing $1.1 billion, or 18.6 percent, over the previous year. One-third of this growth came from participation loans with other lenders, while nearly two-thirds of the new loan business resulted from increased borrowing by the bank's affiliated lending associations.

The quality of the bank's loan portfolio remained exceptionally high, with acceptable credit quality declining marginally from 99.68 percent at Dec. 31, 2003, to 99.59 percent at year-end 2004.

"Last year was an outstanding year for the Farm Credit Bank of Texas. We exceeded our key business objectives-to build capital and increase profitability-and we accomplished this while maintaining almost-perfect credit quality," said Larry Doyle, FCBT chief executive officer.

Doyle attributed the bank's growth last year primarily to aggressive marketing to the agribusiness sector and increased participation in large loans with other lending institutions.

"As a federated cooperative that is owned by our customers, we are especially proud that we were able to pay our stockholders a patronage dividend equal to 20 basis points on their average borrowings with us in 2004, double the 10 basis points we paid last year," said Doyle.

The Farm Credit Bank of Texas provides funds and services to 21 cooperatively owned rural lending associations in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas, plus four Other Financing Institutions. Those organizations, in turn, provide financing to farmers, ranchers, agribusiness firms, country homeowners and other rural landowners.

The bank is part of the Farm Credit System, a $125 billion network of rural financing cooperatives established by Congress in 1916.