SmartFinancial in Knoxville, Tenn., repositioned its securities portfolio during the third quarter.
The $4.8 billion-asset company said in a press release that it sold $159.6 million of available-for-sale securities at a $6.8 million pretax loss. It reinvested the proceeds into higher-yielding assets.
“We strategically took advantage of a balance sheet optimization opportunity,” Billy Carroll, SmartFinancial’s president and CEO, said in the release. “We felt it prudent to capitalize on the current rate environment and better position our balance sheet as we look toward 2024.”
Third-quarter profit fell by 81% from a year earlier, to $2.1 million.
The restructure “combined with securities maturities and loan repricing should provide [a] tailwind to yield in future quarters,” Freddie Strickland, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott, wrote in a client note.