Superior Financial Issues Amended Reports

Superior Financial Corp. of Little Rock released on April 1 delayed year-end earnings figures that include restatements going back to the fourth quarter of 2000.

The company, the parent company of Superior Federal Bank of Fort Smith, reported $12.29 million in net income for the year that ended Dec. 31. That was slightly below the $12.32 million it originally reported for 2000.

But a restatement charging part of a controversial technology conversion to the fourth quarter of 2000 lowered that year’s official earnings to $11.8 million.

“Whether you look at it from an operating or reporting basis, we had a record year,” said C. Stanley Bailey, CEO of the $1.7 billion federal savings bank that operates 59 full-service branch and loan production offices in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

The new earnings also include restatements in the first, second and third quarters related to the same technology conversion, the accounting for which had been the subject of an internal dispute.

• Superior said on March 22 that it will pay a cash dividend of 10 cents per share to stockholders of record as of March 28. The dividend is payable April 24.

The bank’s board of directors approved the dividend, which on an annualized basis equals 40 cents per share of common stock.