First Busey Corporation Announces Earnings
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Douglas C. Mills, announced today that First Busey Corporation's earnings for the first quarter of 2001 were $4,098,000, a 13.6% increase over earnings of $3,607,000 in the first quarter of 2000. Diluted earnings per share increased 15.4% to $.30 as compared to $.26 in 2000. Cash basis diluted earnings reached $.32 for the first quarter as compared to $.29 on March 31, 2001. Return on average equity (ROE) ended the quarter at 17.66%.
Total assets at March 31, 2001 were $1,331,401,000 an 8.5% increase over total assets of $1,227,487,000 on March 31, 2000. Total loans increased 8.1% to $972,533,000 as compared to $899,245,000 for the first quarter of 2000. First Busey saw a 12.1% increase in deposits ending the first quarter of 2001 at $1,131,789,000 as compared to $1,009,426,000 on March 31, 2000.
First Busey Corporation is a Financial Holding Company headquartered in Urbana, Illinois. It has two banking subsidiaries, Busey Bank and Busey Bank, fsb. Busey Bank is headquartered in Urbana, Illinois and serves Champaign and Ford Counties in Illinois with fourteen banking centers as sell as one banking center in Indianapolis, Indiana. Busey Bank has loan production offices in Ft. Myers and Naples, Florida, and also owns Busey Travel in Champaign. Busey Bank, fsb serves McLean County with five banking centers and in October of 2000 opened a banking center in Ft. Myers, Florida. Busey also provides electronic delivery of financial services through Busey ebank (www.busey.com). Busey Investment Group is a wholly-owned subsidiary of First Busey Corporation and owns three separate service corporations. First Busey Trust & Investment Co. is a service corporation specializing in asset management and trust services. It has over $1 billion in assets under care. Another service corporation is First Busey Securities, Inc., a full-service broker/dealer subsidiary which has more than $500 million in assets under care and is a member of NASD/SIPC. The third service corporation is Busey Insurance Services, Inc. which specialized in long-term healthcare insurance as well as providing additional insurance products.