Lakeland Financial reports Q2 EPS 57c vs. $1.00 last year

“Core operational profitability during the second quarter of 2023 improved by 10% on a linked quarter basis and 4% on an annual basis. We are particularly pleased that loan growth of $438 million represented 10% annual growth and occurred throughout the Lake City Bank footprint. This organic expansion was driven by strong growth in the Indianapolis market, where we continue to grow our market share and where we opened our sixth office in the market during the second quarter,” stated CEO David Findlay. On June 30, the company discovered that it had been the victim of international wire fraud resulting in an estimated loss of $18.1M. The loss net of tax amounts to $13.6M, or 53c diluted earnings per share for the three- and six-month periods ended June 30, the company noted. “As a result, the company’s core operational profitability, which is a non-GAAP measure that excludes the estimated effect of this one-time loss, was $26.8M for the quarter ended June 30, 2023, compared to $25.7M for the three months ended June 30, 2022 and $24.3M for the linked quarter ended March 31, 2023. The fraudulent wire activity resulted from a highly sophisticated business email compromise directed by a foreign threat actor that targeted a specific general ledger account at the bank. To facilitate the fraud, the threat actor compromised a single employee email account outside the company’s network and used a forged wire transfer form. A third-party forensic investigation determined that no client accounts were threatened by this activity, nor was there any attempt to access any client information or funds. Additionally, the investigation concluded that the company’s network was never penetrated and that the foreign threat actor made no attempt to penetrate the network. On June 30, 2023, the company notified its insurance carriers about the fraudulent wire activity and engaged a forensic technology investigation firm to conduct a thorough investigation. The company also notified the United States Secret Service, the FBI and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN. In addition, the company has communicated actively with its primary regulators,” Lakeland stated.