Laurentian’s Commercial Financial Services, which handles commercial loans and larger financings as part of banking syndicates and factoring, leasing and other services, reported net income was $6.7 million for the first quarter of 2004 compared to $2.1 million for the last quarter of 2003 and $6.9 million for the first quarter of 2003.
The first quarter results benefited from lower loan losses, which declined from $8.3 million in the last quarter of 2003 to $4.4 million in the first quarter of 2004. The significant efforts made over the last 18 months to improve credit quality are now showing encouraging results as loan losses decrease. Exposures in the corporate loan sector were further reduced during the quarter and there are now only 5 borrowers above $20 million.
