City Bank showed a 6.6 percent increase in net profit for 2001, the Lynnwood-based bank reported Tuesday. Net income increased to $19.4 million for the year, up from $18.2 million in 2000, the bank said. Per-share earnings went up 5.9 percent, from $1.87 to $1.98. City Bank finished the year with total assets of $590.9 million, up 8.8 percent over year-end 2000. Loans increased 5.4 percent to $494.9 million. Deposits were $407.9 million, compared with $380.9 million on Dec. 31, 2000. The company’s wholly-owned subsidiary Dilligenz Inc. showed a loss of $420,000 for the year, on revenues of $5.6 million. However, that was an improvement over 2000, when Dilligenz lost $2.3 million on revenues of $2.5 million. Dilligenz allows customers to search its online data base for Uniform Commercial Code filings and documents.
Consumer inflation slowed to 1.6 percent in 2001, just half the increase of the previous year, in one of the few benefits from the recession. The modest advance in the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index, a closely watched inflation gauge, came after consumer prices jumped 3.4 percent in 2000, the largest increase in a decade, the government reported Wednesday. In December, industrial activity dipped only 0.1 percent after a steep 0.4 percent drop the month before.
Shares of Kmart Corp. sank below $2 on Wednesday as credit agencies cut its debt ratings again and the S&P 500 index dropped the stock. Amid the financial turmoil, Kmart officials refused to release any new information regarding the company’s future, further raising the specter of bankruptcy. Eric Beder, a senior vice president and retailing analyst for Ladenburg, Thalmann &Co. Inc., called Kmart’s silence “spooky.” Kmart’s downward spiral began a week ago after officials announced that 2001 results would break even at best because of disappointing holiday sales, and suggested they may seek additional financing.
For the first time since 1993, General Motors Corp.’s hourly workers in the United States will not receive a profit-sharing check from the company, even though the world’s biggest automaker posted a profit of nearly $1.5 billion for 2001. Bonuses to executives and enhanced variable pay for eligible U.S. and Canadian salaried employees were also cut at the company. GM reported Wednesday it earned $255 million, or 60 cents a share, in the last three months of 2001, down 58 percent from a profit of $609 million, or $1.15 a share, a year earlier.
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