Below is transcript of the CVB Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:CVBF)’s Fourth Quarter and Year End Earnings Conference Call, held on January 22, 2015, at 10:30 a.m. EST. Mckinley Capital Management, Pdt Partners and Visium Asset Management was among CVB Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:CVBF) shareholders at the end of the third quarter.
CVB Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:CVBF) is a bank holding company of Citizens Business Bank (the Bank). The Company’s primary operations are related to banking activities, including the acceptance of deposits and the lending and investing of money through the operations of the Bank. The Bank also provides automobile and equipment leasing to customers through its Citizens Financial Services Group and trust and investment-related services to customers through its CitizensTrust Division.
Company Representatives:
Christina Carrabino – Investor Relations
Chris Myers – President & Chief Executive Officer
Rich Thomas – Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer.
Analysts:
Julianna Balicka – KBW
Aaron Deer – Sandler O’Neill
Matthew Clark – Sterne Agee
Gary Tenner – D.A. Davidson
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fourth Quarter and Year end 2014 CVB Financial Corp. and its subsidiary, Citizens Business Bank, Earnings Conference Call. My name is Mike, and I’m your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later we will conduct a question and answer period. I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today’s call, Christina Carrabino. Ms. Carrabino, you may proceed, ma’am.
Christina Carrabino – Investor Relations
Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to review our financial results for the fourth quarter and year end 2014. Joining me this morning are Chris Myers, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Rich Thomas, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Our comments today will refer to the financial information that was included in the earnings announcement released yesterday. To obtain a copy, please visit our website at www.cbbank.com and click on the investor’s tab.
Before we get started, let me remind you that today’s conference call will include some forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements relate to, among other things, current plans, expectations, events and industry trends that may affect the company’s future operating results and financial position. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties, and future activities and results may differ materially from these expectations.
The speakers on this call claim the protection of the Safe Harbor provisions contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. For a more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements, please see the company’s annual report on form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2013, and in particular, the information set forth in item 1A, risk factors therein. Now I will turn the call over to Chris Myers.
Chris Myers – President & Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Christina. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us again this quarter. Yesterday, we reported earnings of $104 million for the year ended 2014, the first time in history that we have earned over $100 million in a fiscal year. This compares to net earnings of $95.6 million for 2013 and $77.3 million for 2012. Diluted earnings per share were $0.98 for 2014. We earned $25.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2014 compared with $24.3 million for the third quarter of 2014 and $25.3 million for the year ago quarter.
During the fourth quarter of 2014, we grew net loans by $110.8 million or about 2.99%, approximately $85 million of this growth with seasonable as is typical with our dairy and livestock loan portfolio. Most of this seasonal growth in dairy loans was repaid shortly after year end. Earnings per share were $0.24 for the fourth quarter compared with $0.23 for the third quarter and $0.24 for the year ago quarter.
The fourth quarter represented our 151st consecutive quarter of profitability and 101st consecutive quarter of paying a cash dividend to our shareholders. The FDIC indemnification of assets better known as loss sharing resulting from the San Joaquin Bank acquisition in 2009 expired on October 16, 2014. The $126.4 million caring value of these loans was transferred from covered loans to non covered loans as we no longer have loss sharing indemnification from the FDIC.
