Charter Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: CHFN) has been quietly progressing during these past couple of years, dark days for many other community banks. It has remained profitable while integrating two FDIC-assisted acquisitions in the past two years. Neighborhood Community Bank was purchased in June 2009 and McIntosh Commercial Bank in March 2010. It also sold an additional $34.2 million worth of shares, approximately one-third of its common stock, to the public that was previously owned by its mutual holding company and again listed on NASDAQ. Partly, it is also getting a boost in its home marketing area from the opening and operation of a large new Kia Motors plant in West Point, Georgia. CHFN did not take any TARP funds.

Charter Financial Corporation is a savings and loan holding company and the parent company of CharterBank, a growing full-service community bank. Charter Financial Corporation and subsidiary, CharterBank, are in the mutual holding company structure. CharterBank is headquartered in West Point, Georgia, and operates branches in West Central Georgia and East Central Alabama. CharterBank’s deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

’s website, www.charterbank.net.



MidWestOne Financial Group, Inc. (MOFG) based in Iowa City is a holding company for the $1.58 billion asset MidWestOne Bank with 26 offices in 19 Iowa cities throughout central and east-central Iowa and MidWestOne Insurance Services, Inc. that provides personal and business insurance services in three Iowa cities. The common stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol MOFG and is part of the Russell 3000 Index.

The bank's deposits at December 31, 2010, totaled $1.22 billion and it had loans outstanding totaling $938 million, excluding loan pool participations and loans held for sale. Year net income available to common stock shareholders equaled $9.3 million, or $1.07 per diluted share, tangible common equity amounted to $15.27 a share. The company's recent stock price gave it a total market value of about $120 million based on 8.65 million common shares outstanding. The company has paid a quarterly cash dividend of five cents a share.

OPERATING STRATEGY
The company's strategy is based upon a sophisticated community banking model delivering a complete line of financial products and services while following three guiding principles: hire excellent employees; take care of customers; and conduct business with the utmost integrity. Management believes the personal and professional service offered to customers provides an appealing alternative to the "megabanks" that have resulted from out-of-state national banks acquiring Iowa-based community banks yet management believes its size, combined with its complete line of financial products and services, is sufficient to effectively compete in its markets. To remain price competitive, management believes the company must manage expenses and remain disciplined in its asset/liability management practices.

The company's has announced it is phasing out its participation in loan pools.



NewBridge Bancorp (NBBC) is the three-year-old holding company for $1.9 billion deposit NewBridge Bank that provides financial services to individual and corporate customers in North Carolina and Virginia. The company’s primary deposit products include noninterest-bearing checking accounts, interest-bearing checking accounts, money market accounts, certificates of deposit, and individual retirement accounts. Its principal lending products consist of commercial, real estate, and consumer loans. It also offers overdraft protection, mortgages, personal and corporate trust, safe deposit boxes, online banking, corporate cash management, brokerage, and financial planning and asset management services, as well as secured and unsecured loans. As of September 30, 2010, the bank operated 31 branches in the Piedmont Triad region and coastal region of North Carolina; and in the Shenandoah Valley Region of Virginia. The company was founded in 1949 and is headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina. New management has made significant improvements in recent operating results.

IRC Responds to Tough Times

Because of the tough times for many companies, IRC has been getting increasingly more requests for our services on a one-off basis instead of under an ongoing annual contractual relationship.

More companies are tentative about the economic outlook and, therefore, hesitant to sign even a six-month contract. We have decided to do something we have almost never done before (but did for instance in 1982-3, 1987-8) and that is to unbundle our services and thereby open them up to those wanting periodic IR representation instead of regular monthly servicing. We have begun to help companies with a news release, annual report shareholder message, annual meeting presentation, and investor meetings, for instance. Some of these are community banks and some are other types of companies.

We hesitate to put the names of these companies on our web site, which we would not do without permission anyway. In some cases, these companies have other IR representation and that could cause confusion. In other cases, the relationship might be quite fleeting, and hardly worth the effort.

However, by way of example, for much of 2010 we have been assisting New Bridge Bancorp, Greensboro, North Carolina (NBBC) with its financial news releases and PowerPoint presentations. The company has now permitted us to identify them as a client since the relationship has been on-going even though still on a project basis. You will now find information about them on this site with a link to theirs.

Please remember, therefore, our client list will continue to appear shorter than it really is.