Additional Capital Needs to be Used Carefully

SHREVEPORT, La. – Chris Clark, CEO of the $84 million Aneca FCU explained that the CU’s previous board had set out deliberately to build a strong capital base, but that the CU had decided to change its course a bit after NCUA questioned some of the ways it was using the capital. According to NCUA’s record, the $84 million CU was a $104 million credit union in March of 2004, a reduction in size that Clark attributed both to an active program of liquidating some of the CU’s investments and the CU going without either a CEO or CFO for about two years. “I can’t speak to all the details of the decision making because I have only been here two months,” Clark said. “But I know the NCUA came in and said that we needed to make more loans and not to make quite so many investments. I also know that the credit union suffered without having full-time staff leadership for a good while,” he added. NCUA’s records show that the CU has some work to do to turn the situation around. Even though NCUA’s records show the CU has 21.77% capital, it has posted a series of loan losses and the ratio of delinquent loans and charged off loans, while shrinking, remained significantly higher than its peers. Clark is optimistic that the CU will be able to use some of its capital to help bring itself back in line to better serve its just over 5,000 members. Should it choose to do so, one option might be to expand its field of membership. Ten employees of the Arkansas Louisiana Gas Company and the Arkansas Fuel Oil company formed the CU in 1939 and that has remained its field of membership ever since.