Crescent State Bank narrows loss

The corporate parent of Crescent State Bank narrowed its loss in the third quarter.

Raleigh-based Crescent Financial Bancshares reported a loss of $321,000, or 1 cent per share, versus a loss of $3.4 million a year ago.

Crescent would have been profitable if not for $367,000 in dividends it paid to the U.S. Treasury for funds that the bank received in 2008 from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, when the bank was under different ownership.

Crescent benefitted from improved net interest margins, a lower provision for loan losses, increased income from mortgages and a gain on the sale of securities in the quarter.

The company reported $56.3 million in new commercial and consumer loans in the third quarter, up from $48 million in the second quarter and $15 million in the first quarter.

Crescent, which has 11 branches in the Triangle and 15 overall, is a subsidiary of Piedmont Community Bank Holdings of Raleigh, which last year acquired an 88 percent ownership stake in Piedmont.

Crescent also has two acquisitions in the works that would give it an additional 30 branches.

The first is a merger with Burlington-based VantageSouth Bank, which also is owned by Piedmont Community and has five branches. The merger is expected to close before the end of the year, and the combined bank will assume the VantageSouth name.

Also, Crescent agreed last month to acquire the corporate parent of East Carolina Bank, which has 25 branches scattered across the eastern half of the state. That deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2013.

Those deals will "generate new revenues and create operating efficiencies" and open up new markets, CEO Scott Custer said in a prepared statement.