BankFirst Capital Corp., which completed its acquisition of Haleyville’s Farmers & Traders Bancshares on July 1, announced a record-setting second quarter net income of $3.2 million — 10 percent higher than last year’s second quarter.
Based in Columbus, Mississippi, BankFirst reported basic and diluted earnings per share of $0.72 this year, compared to $0.65 last year.
In its statement to shareholders, BankFirst was particularly proud of achieving such success in difficult banking times.
“We are all familiar with the challenges and uncertainty brought upon us all by the Covid-19 pandemic, and we are extremely proud of our response and our results during the second quarter of 2020,” said President and CEO Moak Griffin. “In addition to the pandemic, the second quarter also brought several significant challenges to the overall banking industry, starting with the 150-basis-point drop in interest rates, the creation of the PPP and the guidance released by the regulatory agencies allowing banks to work with loan customers to do what was necessary to help those customers through these unprecedented times.
“Each of these challenges required extraordinary effort from our team to implement solutions to help our customers and communities,” Moak added. “As we often see, in times of great uncertainty and difficulty, people rise to the occasion to serve and help others; and the employees of BankFirst did just that.”