Park National Corp. in Newark, Ohio, said Tuesday that it had found a material weakness in its internal control over financial reporting, tied to its use of a third-party contractor.
The $7.3 billion-asset company said in an amended annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the outside party to calculate the fair value of collateral for certain impaired loans and other real estate owned. Park National also disclosed that some of the internal estimates used to value collateral were more than a year old when they were applied.
"Economic conditions had changed in certain instances and the internal estimates of value were not updated," the filing said. Park National, however, concluded after a review of its processes that it did not need to make any changes to its consolidated financial statements.
The company noted that a material weakness "is a deficiency in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement would not be prevented or detected in a timely manner."
