Thursday. “Our investments in expansion, in our employees, and in other strategic areas of the business continue to position us well to provide our customers with outstanding experiences over the long term.to top $109 in early morning trading.
Frost registered solid loan growth, propelling revenue in the first quarter. It ended the period with almost $17.5 billion in loans on its books, a 5.7 percent increase from a year ago when it had $16. 5 billion. The company, however, reported a 5 percent drop in deposits in the latest quarter. It had $42.2 billion in loans, down from $44.4 billion a year ago. It attributed some of the decline to customers moving money out of non-interest bearing accounts, a trend that began in the fourth quarter last year.
The bank’s net-interest margin — a measure of the difference between what it earns in interest on loans and what it pays in interest on deposits — continues to climb at a good clip. The margin was 3.47 percent at the end of the quarter, up from 2.33 a year ago and 3.31 at the end of last year. Cullen/Frost turned a significantly higher profit even though non-interest expenses rose 19 percent from a year ago, primarily on higher wages, salaries and benefits. It reported $285.1 million in non-interest expense in the recent quarter, compared with $238.7 million a year ago.