Bank of the Cascades reported first quarter results today and it looks like their loan problems are officially snowballing.
Non-performing assets, or NPAs (essentially defaults), grew 68% in the first quarter alone to nearly $100 million. This is an increase of over 10-fold from last year’s first quarter when NPAs were only $7.6 million.
Delinquencies at the bank are growing at an exponential rate and this snowball is starting to turn into an avalanche.
What really troubles me is NPAs in Central Oregon are still only $5.5 million of the $700 million portfolio. And as much as I hate to say it, as the region catches up to the rest of the nation I expect this to be the biggest future risk to the company’s financial well-being.
LIV