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ROTTERDAM
Worry expressed at TrustCo annual meeting
BY JAMES SCHLETT Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter James Schlett at 395-3040 or jschlett@dailygazette.net

    TrustCo Bank Corp executives entered their annual meeting Monday bracing for shareholder anger over slumping stock values, but they instead encountered worries over the extent of the financial damage the bank holding company will sustain.
    Setting the tone for Monday’s meeting at Mallozzi’s Restaurant and Banquet House, bank Chairman Robert A. McCormick opened the event dryly joking: “We don’t care how angry you are. Save that for when you get home. We actually thought about moving this meeting to Dubai.”
    The Glenville company’s stock Monday closed down 12 cents at $8.38 per share, down almost 12 percent from a year earlier. Adding to shareholders’ ire was TrustCo directors’ February decision to slash the bank’s cash dividend by 5 cents to a nine-year low of 11 cents.
    Despite those financial developments, shareholders focused on how much further weakening conditions in the U.S. economy would drag down the company’s stock. TrustCo this year expects to complete the bulk of its retail branch expansion campaign, which started six years ago in Florida and later included downstate New York, northern New Jersey and western Massachusetts.
    During the next 18 months, the bank plans to open 22 branches. Last year, it opened 16 offices, bringing its total to 111.
    With the expansion campaign peaking, McCormick’s son, Trust-Co President and Chief Executive Officer Robert J. McCormick, said, “It has been a rough three years,” but there is “a light at the end of the tunnel.”
    TrustCo executives believe the bank’s balance sheets will improve as many of the new branches mature and become profitable, reducing expenses. At a time when interest margins are slim, the larger network should enable TrustCo to pull from its branches a larger net income. The bank ended 2007 with a net income of $39.5 million, down 12.9 percent from the previous year.
    Shareholders were nervous about the wave of foreclosures overtaking the nation this year and how it would affect TrustCo, especially in hard-hit Florida. But the junior McCormick stressed that TrustCo had issued no subprime loans and most of its residential borrowers are owner-occupiers.
    “We won’t be immune to the difficulties, but on a scale we hope our difficulties will be significantly less,” Robert J. McCormick said.
    Shareholders Monday also reelected Dr. Anthony Marinello and William Powers to three-year terms on TrustCo’s board of directors.

Dont tell me our fearless elected officials locally and otherwise didn't know this to be coming......not much different from a Ssunami......