The parent company of Monroe Bank & Trust said it preliminarily lost $144,000 during the last quarter of the year compared to a profit in fourth quarter of 2016.

MBT Financial Corp. reported a net loss in the fourth quarter of 2017.

The parent company of Monroe Bank & Trust said it preliminarily lost $144,000 during the last quarter of the year compared to a profit of $3.578 million in the fourth quarter of 2016.

The bank ended the year with a decrease in total profit from the previous year. It ended 2017 with $10.609 million compared with $ 14.501 million in 2016, the bank said in a news release.

MBT recorded federal income tax expenses of $5.559 million in the fourth quarter, which included $4.278 million to adjust the value of its deferred tax assets following the enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

The adjusted operating income for 2017 was $19,509,000, an increase of 18.4 percent from 2016 when adjusting for nonrecurring items such as negative loan loss provisions, gains and losses on securities and other real estate transactions among other areas.

“We continue to see solid loan growth, and the improvement in net interest margin combined with well-controlled non-interest expenses contributed to improved core earnings this year,” said H. Douglas Chaffin, president of Monroe Bank & Trust.

MBT will pay a quarterly dividend of $0.06 per share and a special dividend of $0.60 per common share. The dividends will be paid as a single distribution on Feb. 15 to shareholders of record as of Feb. 8.

MBT also announced its board of directors authorized the repurchase of up to 2 million shares of its common stock, the company said, which represents 8.7 percent of shares currently outstanding.

“Repurchases may be conducted from time to time in the open market or through privately negotiated transactions,” the bank said in a statement.

The authorization begins Feb. 1 and expires Jan. 31, 2020. It replaces a two-year authorization to repurchase up to 2 million shares set to expire today.

During that authorization, 192,080 shares were repurchased.

The bank’s net interested income for the fourth quarter increased $799,000 as the net interest margin improved from 3.14 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016 to 3.43 percent during the fourth quarter of 2017 due to higher interest rates and growth in the loan portfolio.

Total loans increased $42.4 million during 2017 while allowances for loan and lease losses was reduced to $7.7 million.

“Our new business pipeline remains strong and we expect loan growth to continue in 2018, which should lead to further margin improvement.

Notably, we also expect credit quality to remain strong, as we see nothing that might inhibit our strong quality metrics in the near term,” Chaffin said.

Non-interest income for the fourth quarter decreased $148,000 compared with the previous year’s fourth quarter.

MBT’s total assets decreased $ 9.9 million to $1.35 billion.

Capital decreased $ 8.5 million during the year as the payment of special and regular dividends exceeded net income. The ratio of equity to assets decreased from 104 percent to 9.84 percent in 2017.

“Our focus on managing our capital has also allowed us to bring more value to our shareholders, through the regular and special dividends and the repurchase authorization…,” Chaffin said. “We will continue to keep our eyes open for the right opportunities to grow through strategic acquisitions, while remaining disciplined in that regard. We remain confident in our ability to maintain our position as the premier independent provider of financial services in the communities we serve.”