BankFinancial Corporation Reports Financial Results for 2019 and Will Host Conference Call and Webcast on February 19, 2020 - Seite 2

The Company’s capital position remained strong with a Tier 1 leverage ratio of 11.48% at December 31, 2019. During 2019, the Company maintained its quarterly dividend rate at $0.10 per share. The Company repurchased 1,203,050 common shares during the year ended December 31, 2019, which represented 7.3% of the Company’s common shares that were outstanding on December 31, 2018. The Company’s book value per share increased in 2019 by 0.4% to $11.41 per share at December 31, 2019.

“Our 2019 results reflect the impact of changing market conditions, particularly the decline in medium- and long-term interest rates, and our continuing emphasis on maintaining strong asset quality through decisive action on credit exposures when necessary. The year ended with the Company in very strong financial condition, with excellent asset quality and liquidity. As it became clear that ‘lower-for-longer’ interest rates, moderate-growth economic environment, and hyper-competitive conditions in investment real estate lending would persist for an extended period of time, we took action in the latter part of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 to fundamentally re-align our loan and lease generation capabilities to generate higher volumes of medium-duration assets with an appropriate risk/return profile, and further improve noninterest income. Given the current and expected market conditions, the recent changes to our commercial equipment finance division, and to our commercial real estate division, position us far better to achieve the asset generation required to meet our financial objectives. We expect to take additional steps to improve commercial and industrial loan and core deposit generation during 2020 to further diversify the loan portfolio and enhance the core deposit base. We will incur increased marketing and technology expenses to support the loan and deposit generation functions, but we will otherwise seek to offset these costs within our consistent operating expense discipline. As we progressively deploy our excess liquidity during 2020, we expect that the increases in income will accelerate our progress towards our original financial return goals despite the challenging conditions,” said F. Morgan Gasior, the Chairman and CEO of the Company.