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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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Columbia Bank stock has been enjoying a nice ride on the upside since the company’s annual meeting last Wednesday. The stock closed today at $27.01, up nearly 23 percent from where it was a week ago.
The stock was up 3.3 percent today.
And it’s doing quite nicely as measured against its commercial banking peers in the West. Bloomberg News reports that it is down 9.03 percent over the past year – which may not seem strong until the number is compared to what nearby banks are showing.
Bloomberg shows Oregon’s Umpqua down 41.6 percent; Sterling Financial of Spokane down 31.69 percent; Banner Corp. down 43 percent; Cascade Bancorp down 59.11 percent; Heritage Financial down 24.86 percent; and Frontier Financial Corp. down 36.48 percent.
So what’s going on?
Part of the answer is credit quality. Columbia conservative approach, and diversity of loans, has been showing results. And Gary Schminkey, Columbia executive vice president and CFO, said this afternoon, “I think investors are looking at banks that don’t have problems waiting in their wings.” He also mentioned a report by the analyst firm Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, which this week rates Columbia as “outperform,” thus giving a strong buy signal.
KBW’s target price for Columbia stock, trading as COLB, is $28 per share. The firm offers that Columbia’s latest operating results “were among the strongest in the Northwest.”
The chart above is from Bloomberg and shows Columbia stock over the past 12 months.
