The First Bancorp, Inc. (the “Company”) was incorporated under the laws of the State of Maine on January 15, 1985, for the purpose of becoming the parent holding company of The First National Bank of Damariscotta, which was chartered as a national bank under the laws of the United States on May 30, 1864. At the Company’s Annual Meeting of Shareholders on April 30, 2008, the Company’s name was changed from First National Lincoln Corporation to The First Bancorp, Inc. On January 14, 2005, the acquisition of FNB Bankshares (“FNB”) of Bar Harbor, Maine, was completed, adding seven banking offices and one investment management office in Hancock and Washington counties of Maine. FNB’s subsidiary, The First National Bank of Bar Harbor, was merged into The First National Bank of Damariscotta at closing, and since January 31, 2005, the combined banks have operated under a new name: The First, N.A. (the “Bank”).
As of December 31, 2010, the Company’s securities consisted of one class of common stock, one class of preferred stock, and warrants to purchase common stock. At that date, there were 9,773,025 shares of common stock outstanding. In addition, there were 25,000 shares of cumulative perpetual preferred stock outstanding with a preference value of $1,000 per share, all of which were issued to the U.S. Treasury under its Capital Purchase Program (the “CPP Shares”). Incident to the issuance of the CPP Shares, the Company issued to the U.S. Treasury warrants to purchase up to 225,904 shares of the Company’s common stock at a price per share of $16.60 (the “Warrants”). The CPP Shares and the Warrants (and any shares of common stock issuable pursuant to the Warrants) are freely transferable by the U.S. Treasury to third parties and the Company has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow for possible resale of such securities.
The common stock and preferred stock of the Bank are the principal assets of the Company, which has no other subsidiaries. The Bank’s capital stock consists of one class of common stock of which 120,000 shares, par value $2.50 per share, are authorized and outstanding, and one class of non-cumulative perpetual preferred stock, $1,000 preference value, of which 25,000 shares are authorized and outstanding. All of the Bank’s common stock and preferred stock is owned by the Company.
The Bank emphasizes personal service, and customers are primarily small businesses and individuals for whom the Bank offers a wide variety of services, including deposit accounts, consumer and commercial and mortgage loans. The Bank has not made any material changes in its mode of conducting business during the past five years. The banking business in the Bank’s market area is seasonal with lower deposits in the winter and spring and higher deposits in the summer and fall. This swing is predictable and has not had a materially adverse effect on the Bank.
In addition to traditional banking services, the Company provides investment management and private banking services through First Advisors, which is an operating division of the Bank. First Advisors is focused on taking advantage of opportunities created as the larger banks have altered their personal service commitment to clients not meeting established account criteria. First Advisors is able to offer a comprehensive array of private banking, financial planning, investment management and trust services to individuals, businesses, non-profit organizations and municipalities of varying asset size, and to provide the highest level of personal service. The staff includes investment and trust professionals with extensive experience.
The financial services landscape has changed considerably over the past five years in the Bank’s primary market area. Two large out-of-state banks have continued to experience local change as a result of mergers and acquisitions at the regional and national level. Credit unions have continued to expand their membership and the scope of banking services offered. Non-banking entities such as brokerage houses, mortgage companies and insurance companies are offering very competitive products. Many of these entities and institutions have resources substantially greater than those available to the Bank and are not subject to the same regulatory restrictions as the Company and the Bank.
The Company believes that there will continue to be a need for a bank in the Bank’s primary market area with local management having decision-making power and emphasizing loans to small and medium-sized businesses and to individuals. The Bank has concentrated on extending business loans to such customers in the Bank’s primary market area and to extending investment and trust services to clients with accounts of all sizes. The Bank’s Management also makes decisions based upon, among other things, the knowledge of the Bank’s employees regarding the communities and customers in the Bank’s primary market area. The individuals employed by the Bank, to a large extent, reside near
the branch offices and thus are generally familiar with their communities and customers. This is important in local decision-making and allows the Bank to respond to customer questions and concerns on a timely basis and fosters quality customer service.
The Bank has worked and will continue to work to position itself to be competitive in its market area. The Bank’s ability to make decisions close to the marketplace, Management’s commitment to providing quality banking products, the caliber of the professional staff, and the community involvement of the Bank’s employees are all factors affecting the Bank’s ability to be competitive.
The First Bancorp 2010 Form 10-K
The First Bancorp 2010 Form 10-K
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Supervision and Regulation
The Company is a financial holding company within the meaning of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, as amended (the “Act”), and section 225.82 of Regulation Y issued by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the “Federal Reserve Board”), and is required to file with the Federal Reserve Board an annual report and other information required pursuant to the Act. The Company is subject to examination by the Federal Reserve Board.
The Act requires the prior approval of the Federal Reserve Board for a financial holding company to acquire or hold more than a 5% voting interest in any bank, and controls interstate banking activities. The Act restricts The First Bancorp’s non-banking activities to those which are determined by the Federal Reserve Board to be closely related to banking. The Act does not place territorial restrictions on the activities of non-bank subsidiaries of financial holding companies. Virtually all of the Company’s cash revenues are generally derived from dividends paid to the Company by the Bank. These dividends are subject to various legal and regulatory restrictions which are summarized in Note 17 to the accompanying financial statements. The Bank is regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) and is subject to the provisions of the National Bank Act. As a result, it must meet certain liquidity and capital requirements, which are discussed in the following sections.
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (the “Act”) was enacted on July 21, 2010. The Act creates a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with power to promulgate and enforce consumer protection laws. Smaller institutions, those with $10 billion or less in assets, will be subject to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s rule-writing authority, and existing depository institution regulatory agencies will retain examination and enforcement authority for such institutions. The Act also establishes a Financial Stability Oversight Council chaired by the Secretary of the Treasury with authority to identify institutions and practices that might pose a systemic risk and, among other things, includes provisions affecting (1) corporate governance and executive compensation of all companies whose securities are registered with the SEC, (2) FDIC insurance assessments, (3) interchange fees for debit cards, which would be set by the Federal Reserve under a restrictive “reasonable and proportional cost” per transaction standard, (4) minimum capital levels for bank holding companies, subject to a grandfather clause for financial institutions with less than $15 billion in assets, (5) derivative and proprietary trading by financial institutions, and (6) the resolution of large financial institutions. At this time, it is difficult to predict the extent to which the Act or the resulting regulations may adversely impact us. However, compliance with these new laws and regulations may increase our costs, limit our ability to pursue attractive business opportunities, cause us to modify our strategies and business operations and increase our capital requirements and constraints, any of which may have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition, liquidity or results of operations.
Customer Information Security
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”), the OCC and other bank regulatory agencies have published guidelines (the “Guidelines”) establishing standards for safeguarding nonpublic personal information about customers that implement provisions of the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act (the “GLBA”). Among other things, the Guidelines require each financial institution, under the supervision and ongoing oversight of its Board of Directors or an appropriate committee thereof, to develop, implement and maintain a comprehensive written information security program designed to ensure the security and confidentiality of customer information, to protect against any anticipated threats or hazards to the security or integrity of such information, and to protect against unauthorized access to or use of such information that could result in substantial harm or inconvenience to any customer.
Privacy
The FDIC, the OCC and other regulatory agencies have published privacy rules pursuant to provisions of the GLBA (“Privacy Rules”). The Privacy Rules, which govern the treatment of nonpublic personal information about consumers by financial institutions, require a financial institution to provide notice to customers (and other consumers in some circumstances) about its privacy policies and practices, describe the conditions under which a financial institution may disclose nonpublic personal information to nonaffiliated third parties, and provide a method for consumers to prevent a financial institution from disclosing that information to most nonaffiliated third parties by “opting-out” of that disclosure, subject to certain exceptions.
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USA Patriot Act
The USA Patriot Act of 2001, designed to deny terrorists and others the ability to obtain anonymous access to the U.S. financial system, has significant implications for depository institutions, broker-dealers and other businesses involved in the transfer of money. The USA Patriot Act, together with the implementing regulations of various federal regulatory agencies, have caused financial institutions, including the Bank, to adopt and implement additional or amend existing policies and procedures with respect to, among other things, anti-money laundering compliance, suspicious activity and currency transaction reporting, customer identity verification and customer risk analysis. The statute and its underlying regulations also permit information sharing for counter-terrorist purposes between federal law enforcement agencies and financial institutions, as well as among financial institutions, subject to certain conditions, and require the Federal Reserve Board (and other federal banking agencies) to evaluate the effectiveness of an applicant in combating money laundering activities when considering applications filed under Section 3 of the Act or under the Bank Merger Act.