Financial Sector Ideas

[gfp927z]

>>> Alerus Financial Group


http://money.msn.com/inside-the-ticker/9-stocks-ready-to-ride-an-energy-wave



Headquarters: Grand Forks, N.D.

52-week price range: $33.50-$51.63

Price-earnings ratio: 11 (based on 2013 earnings)

Market capitalization: $226.6 million

Projected earnings growth: NA

Workers are migrating to North Dakota by the tens of thousands to fill fracking jobs. That's creating booming business for the state's banks, many of which are experiencing double-digit-percentage growth in both deposits and loans, says Carr.

Although the banks headquartered in North Dakota tend to be tiny and privately owned, Alerus Financial Group (ALRS) is an exception. Its stock trades infrequently on the over-the-counter bulletin board. The bank, with $1.4 billion in assets, says refinancing activity dried up in the last half of 2013 due to rising interest rates.

But Alerus still managed to earn record profits of $20.3 million, or $4.42 per share, up 13.4 percent from 2012. The stock sells for about 1.8 times tangible book value — nearly the same as the average price-to-tangible-book-value ratio for the typical small bank. But few banks are generating double-digit-percentage earnings growth like Alerus.

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