Empire Bancorp reports 49 percent net income increase

Islandia-based Empire Bancorp’s loan business helped drive second-quarter net income 31 percent higher to $1.1 million, the company said Monday.

The company also said total assets were $836.9 million at the end of June, an 8 percent year-over-year increase.

Empire reported loans outstanding of $495 million, up 7 percent in the last year.

“We’ve had fairly good loan activity, although we’ve also had some payoffs, because of our criteria, which is a little more conservative than the average bank,” Douglas C. Manditch, chairman and chief executive at Empire Bancorp, said in an interview.

Manditch added that an increase in deposits also helped the bank. Deposits totaled $748.8 million as of June 30, up 16 percent from the same period in 2016.

Separately, Empire plans to enter the residential mortgage business later this year. Manditch said the bank will offer primarily jumbo mortgages of at least $425,000 on Long Island.

“We are putting that department in place now,” Manditch said. “We haven’t done residential mortgages before this. We’ve had some home equity loans, but that’s it.”

Empire has five branches: Three in Suffolk County, one in Nassau and one in Manhattan.

Empire shares fell 10 cents to close at $14 Monday in over-the-counter trading. The company’s shares are up more than 53 percent in the past year.

CORRECTION: Empire Bancorp earned $1.1 million in its second quarter, up nearly 24 percent from a year earlier. An earlier online version of this story mistakenly characterized the six-month net income as the second-quarter net income.