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Fitch Affirms UMB Financial, Subsidiary Ratings

The Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — Fitch Ratings on Friday affirmed all of the ratings for UMB Financial Corp. and its principal banking subsidiary.

Fitch kept the long-term issuer default rating, or IDR, at "A'' and the short-term IDR at "F1+."

The ratings are considered investment grade. The outlook remains Stable.

The affirmation reflects Kansas City, Mo.-based bank's good financial flexibility and earnings performance. "UMBF has executed on strategies to improve earnings performance while maintaining the company's strong capital and liquidity and sound credit quality," Fitch said, using the company's Nasdaq stock market ticker. "Profitability has shown resilience in a difficult operating environment, as UMBF's credit costs have remained low."

The company has shown good expense management, good fee income generation and measured loan growth, Fitch said. "UMBF has a solid market position in the health care savings account space and select servicing businesses."

UMB's asset management businesses have been affected by lower market valuations, but continue to perform well given market conditions, the ratings agency said.

The company has exited indirect auto lending and grown its lending in the home equity and credit card sectors, which Fitch said does raise some concern. "While UMBF has not loosened its underwriting standards to achieve growth, Fitch believes performance of these unseasoned loan books during the current credit cycle bears close monitoring." The agency said the bank may have to increase the amount of money UMB must set aside to cover souring loans, but expects overall credit losses to remain manageable.

In afternoon trading, shares of UMB slipped 7 cents to $39.18. The stock has traded between $33.65 and $69.60 in the past 52 weeks, and is down about 20 percent since the start of the year.