Commerce earnings dip 5% but beat expectations

Commerce Bancshares Inc. posted a 5 percent drop in first quarter earnings despite business and automobile loan growth and a new mortgage banking initiative.

The Kansas City-based banking company on Monday said it earned $61.06 million, or 61 cents a share, in January, February and March. A year earlier, it had earned $64.31 million, or 64 cents a share, in those three months.

Bloomberg News said the earnings topped analysts’ concensus estimates, which had been 58 cents a share.

Loans grew in the quarter to $11.72 billion at the end of March compared with $11.19 billion a year earlier. Assets totaled $24.05 billion. The quarterly profit equaled a 1.05 percent rate of return on assets, down from a 1.16 percent return a year ago.

This story was originally published April 13, 2015 at 9:42 AM with the headline "Commerce earnings dip 5% but beat expectations."