Levy Bancorp Profits Plunge 39% in Quarter

Levy Bancorp, the Ventura-based holding company of Bank of A. Levy, said its second-quarter profit tumbled 39% from a year earlier because of rising loan losses and lower interest rates.

In the quarter ended June 30, Levy’s net income fell to $1.17 million from $1.93 million a year earlier, and its profit for the first six months of 1991 dropped 30%, to $2.64 million from $3.77 million a year earlier.

The bank’s earlier earnings “could not be continued in the face of a recession and declining interest rates,” President Marshall C. Milligan said in a statement. The bank noted that its non-performing loans jumped $6.1 million in the second quarter alone, to $14.9 million as of June 30.

Levy’s assets as of June 30 totaled $642.4 million, up 4% from $617.9 million a year earlier.