C&F in Va. sells insurance agency stake, purges low-yielding securities

C&F Financial in Toano, Va., used the sale of its interest in an insurance agency to sell underperforming securities.

The company said in a press release that it will record an $8.3 million pretax gain from selling its stake in Bearing Insurance Group.

C&F then sold $72.6 million in securities at a $7.1 million pretax loss. Proceeds were used to buy $67.8 million of higher-yielding securities. It should take about three years to earn back the securities loss.

“We elected to use this opportunity offered by the sale of our membership interest in Bearing to proactively reposition our securities portfolio, which we anticipate will provide meaningful earnings improvement and enhanced net interest margin moving forward,” Tom Cherry, C&F’s president and CEO, said in the release.