The $700 million Arrowhead Credit Union continues to make turnaround progress, posting a quarterly profit of $3.9 million, its first showing in the black in a year, officials from the NCUA and the California credit union said this week.
The conserved San Bernardino institution has shed assets, employees and branches and cut loan losses. “It shows how we’ve tightened our belts and made sacrifices,” said Elsa Montes, marketing director. The CU remains, however, at 3.91% net worth, up from 3.44% in December.
Since the June 2010 conservatorship, the NCUA has brought in new management led by Steve Becker, interim CEO and retired head of a suburban Phoenix CU, Credit Union West of Glendale, Ariz.
Becker was recruited in February and took over from Kay Woods, who just two weeks ago was named by the NCUA as interim head of the conserved $1.6 billion Texans CU of Richardson. Woods has been labeled by industry sources as NCUA’s “turnaround queen.”
As for Arrowhead, the CU attributed its improvement to “the improving quality of its loans” as it maintains “appropriate loan loss reserves to adequately cover the current risk” in its loan portfolio.
The economy has not fully recovered and the Inland Empire is still reporting over 14% unemployment, said Arrowhead.
“We anticipate continued above-normal loan losses over the coming months. We are reserving for those losses, while taking strategic measures to enable the credit union to continue to regain its financial strength,” said Becker.
Since its collapse and the shuttering and sale of branches, including five to Alaska USA FCU, the 130,000-member Arrowhead said it has reduced its staff, from a peak of 449 to 228 now.
