IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mir/mirbus/v5y2015i8p18-33.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Acquired Credit Unions: Drivers of Takeover

Author

Listed:
  • R. Raymond Sant

    (Associate Professor, Department of Finance, St. Edward's University, Austin TX.)

  • Stephen B. Carter

    (Austin, TX.)

Abstract

In this paper we study acquired credit unions and analyze their financial performance up to six years prior to merger, on a quarterly basis. The primary focus is on balance sheet (asset liability management) and profitability variables (return on assets). We find that acquired credit unions during the period 2008 (third quarter) to 2014 (first quarter) experienced negative return on assets for several quarters prior to their takeover. This was the result of a declining loan portfolio and increasing charge offs. In spite of decreasing lending activity, such credit unions continued to increase their deposits, i.e., adding to their cost base. Due to declining loans, their net interest margin as a proportion of deposits was also in decline. We argue that this is an indicator of poor management ability. Furthermore, our analysis finds that operating expenses were increasing over time, something that has been documented in previous literature also for smaller credit unions and is attributable to lack of economies of scale. The average asset size of the acquired credit unions in our sample is about $22 million just before acquisition. We attribute our findings to poor business strategy followed by such credit unions. We also conclude that signs of trouble are evident up to two years before merger on average and regulatory policy may have to become more proactive to manage the consolidation challenge faced by the credit union industry in general.

Suggested Citation

  • R. Raymond Sant & Stephen B. Carter, 2015. "Acquired Credit Unions: Drivers of Takeover," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 5(8), pages 18-33, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:mir:mirbus:v:5:y:2015:i:8:p:18-33
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://thejournalofbusiness.org/index.php/site/article/view/822/545
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David C. Wheelock & Paul W. Wilson, 2011. "Are Credit Unions Too Small?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1343-1359, November.
    2. Wheelock, David C & Wilson, Paul W, 1995. "Explaining Bank Failures: Deposit Insurance, Regulation, and Efficiency," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(4), pages 689-700, November.
    3. Wheelock, David C. & Wilson, Paul W., 2009. "Robust Nonparametric Quantile Estimation of Efficiency and Productivity Change in U.S. Commercial Banking, 1985–2004," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27(3), pages 354-368.
    4. Goddard, John & McKillop, Donal & Wilson, John O.S., 2008. "The diversification and financial performance of US credit unions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1836-1849, September.
    5. Mitchell, Karlyn & Onvural, Nur M, 1996. "Economies of Scale and Scope at Large Commercial Banks: Evidence from the Fourier Flexible Functional Form," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(2), pages 178-199, May.
    6. Fried, Harold O. & Knox Lovell, C. A. & Eeckaut, Philippe Vanden, 1993. "Evaluating the performance of US credit unions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2-3), pages 251-265, April.
    7. Bauer, Keldon J. & Miles, Linda L. & Nishikawa, Takeshi, 2009. "The effect of mergers on credit union performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(12), pages 2267-2274, December.
    8. Berger, Allen N, 2003. "The Economic Effects of Technological Progress: Evidence from the Banking Industry," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 35(2), pages 141-176, April.
    9. R. Raymond Sant & Regina W. Schroeder, 2012. "Credit Unions and Capital Adequacy: Managing Growth and Risk," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 2(6), pages 241-255, November.
    10. Leggett, Keith J. & Strand, Robert W., 2002. "Membership growth, multiple membership groups and agency control at credit unions," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 37-46.
    11. W. Frame & Tim Coelli, 2001. "U.S. Financial Services Consolidation: The Case of Corporate Credit Unions," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 18(2), pages 229-241, March.
    12. Fried, Harold O. & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Yaisawarng, Suthathip, 1999. "The impact of mergers on credit union service provision," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(2-4), pages 367-386, February.
    13. William R. Emmons & Frank A. Schmid, 1999. "Credit unions and the common bond," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 81(Sep), pages 41-64.
    14. Smith, Donald J, 1984. "A Theoretic Framework for the Analysis of Credit Union Decision Making," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1155-1168, September.
    15. W Scott Frame & Gordon V Karels & Christine A McClatchey, 2003. "Do credit unions use their tax advantage to benefit members? Evidence from a cost function," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(1), pages 35-47.
    16. R. Raymond Sant & Regina W. Schroeder, 2012. "Credit Unions and Capital Adequacy: Managing Growth and Risk," International Journal of Business and Social Research, LAR Center Press, vol. 2(6), pages 241-255, November.
    17. David C. Wheelock & Paul W. Wilson, 2000. "Why do Banks Disappear? The Determinants of U.S. Bank Failures and Acquisitions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(1), pages 127-138, February.
    18. McAllister, Patrick H. & McManus, Douglas, 1993. "Resolving the scale efficiency puzzle in banking," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2-3), pages 389-405, April.
    19. Goddard, John A. & McKillop, Donal G. & Wilson, John O. S., 2002. "The growth of US credit unions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(12), pages 2327-2356.
    20. Wheelock, David C. & Wilson, Paul W., 2013. "The evolution of cost-productivity and efficiency among US credit unions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 75-88.
    21. Bauer, Keldon, 2008. "Detecting abnormal credit union performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 573-586, April.
    22. John R. Walter, 2006. "Not your father's credit union," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 92(Fall), pages 353-377.
    23. Alexander Sibbald & Lynn McAlevey, 2003. "Examination of economies of scale in credit unions: a New Zealand study," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(11), pages 1255-1264.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. R. Raymond Sant & Stephen B. Carter, 2015. "Acquired Credit Unions: Drivers of Takeover," International Journal of Business and Social Research, LAR Center Press, vol. 5(8), pages 18-33, August.
    2. Wheelock, David C. & Wilson, Paul W., 2013. "The evolution of cost-productivity and efficiency among US credit unions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 75-88.
    3. Emir Malikov & Diego A. Restrepo-Tobón & Subal C. Kumbhakar, 2018. "Heterogeneous credit union production technologies with endogenous switching and correlated effects," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(10), pages 1095-1119, November.
    4. David C. Wheelock & Paul W. Wilson, 2009. "Robust, dynamic nonparametric benchmarking: the evolution of cost-productivity and efficiency among U.S. credit unions," Working Papers 2009-008, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    5. David C. Wheelock & Paul W. Wilson, 2011. "Are Credit Unions Too Small?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1343-1359, November.
    6. McKillop, Donal & French, Declan & Quinn, Barry & Sobiech, Anna L. & Wilson, John O.S., 2020. "Cooperative financial institutions: A review of the literature," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    7. Malikov, Emir & Kumbhakar, Subal C. & Sun, Yiguo, 2016. "Varying coefficient panel data model in the presence of endogenous selectivity and fixed effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(2), pages 233-251.
    8. Javier Gómez‐Biscarri & Germán López‐Espinosa & Andrés Mesa‐Toro, 2022. "Drivers of depositor discipline in credit unions," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 93(4), pages 849-885, December.
    9. Abdelaati Daouia & Léopold Simar & Paul W. Wilson, 2017. "Measuring firm performance using nonparametric quantile-type distances," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1-3), pages 156-181, March.
    10. Gregory McKee & Albert Kagan, 2016. "Determinants of recent structural change for small asset U.S. credit unions," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 775-795, October.
    11. Geoffrey Rubin & George Overstreet & Peter Beling & Kanshukan Rajaratnam, 2013. "A dynamic theory of the credit union," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 205(1), pages 29-53, May.
    12. Saulo Cardoso Maia & Gideon Carvalho Benedicto & José Willer Prado & David Alastair Robb & Oscar Neto Almeida Bispo & Mozar José Brito, 2019. "Mapping the literature on credit unions: a bibliometric investigation grounded in Scopus and Web of Science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(3), pages 929-960, September.
    13. Yamori, Nobuyoshi & Harimaya, Kozo & Tomimura, Kei, 2017. "The efficiency of Japanese financial cooperatives: An application of parametric distance functions," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 43-53.
    14. Bauer, Keldon J. & Miles, Linda L. & Nishikawa, Takeshi, 2009. "The effect of mergers on credit union performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(12), pages 2267-2274, December.
    15. Kozo Harimaya & Kei Tomimura & Nobuyoshi Yamori, 2015. "Efficiencies of Small Financial Cooperatives in Japan: Comparison of Estimation Methods," Discussion Paper Series DP2015-04, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    16. Bauer, Keldon, 2008. "Detecting abnormal credit union performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 573-586, April.
    17. Goddard, John & McKillop, Donal G. & Wilson, John O.S., 2023. "Who consumes the credit union subsidies?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    18. Jordan van Rijn & Shuwei Zeng & Paul Hellman, 2021. "Financial institution objectives and auto loan pricing: Evidence from the survey of consumer finances," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(3), pages 995-1039, September.
    19. Gomez-Biscarri, Javier & López-Espinosa, Germán & Mesa-Toro, Andrés, 2021. "The risk implications of the business loan activity in credit unions," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    20. Christian Ewerhart & Robertas Zubrickas, 2019. "Social preference and group identity in the financial cooperative," ECON - Working Papers 332, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mir:mirbus:v:5:y:2015:i:8:p:18-33. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: M Kabir (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csmirus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.