Brookline Bancorp Inc.’s shares were down almost 6% Thursday morning after the company said it was delaying the release of its third-quarter earnings report.
The $3 billion-asset, Massachusetts company, which made the announcement after the markets closed Wednesday, said it was delaying results to give itself time to reexamine "certain booked entries that were made to correct differences between the company’s underlying loan systems and the general ledger.” Brookline was supposed to release its earnings on Wednesday.
The company said it was doing a comprehensive review of its loan and general ledger technologies, its journal entries and its reconciliation processes to ensure accuracy of its loan accounting systems. Its third-quarter earnings will be announced when the review is completed.
Paul A. Perrault, Brookline's president and chief executive, said in a press release that “pending its completion, it is important to note that this review has not identified any information that would undermine the company’s strong asset quality metrics, the reported value of its investment portfolio, or its favorable capital position. The board of directors took these factors into consideration in approving our regularly scheduled quarterly dividend.”
On Wednesday, Brookline announced that the board had approved a regular quarterly dividend of 8.5 cents per share.
The delay appears to be unrelated to Brookline's announcement two weeks ago that completion of its
