First Financial Northwest, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2010 Financial Results

RENTON, Wash., July 23, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- First Financial Northwest, Inc. (the "Company") (Nasdaq:FFNW), the holding company for First Savings Bank Northwest (the "Bank"), today reported a net loss for the second quarter ended June 30, 2010 of $24.9 million, or $1.43 per diluted share, as compared to a net loss of $28.0 million, or $1.49 per diluted share for the quarter ended June 30, 2009. For the six months ended June 30, 2010, the Company reported a net loss of $42.6 million, or $2.45 per diluted share as compared to a net loss of $26.8 million, or $1.41 per diluted share for the comparable period in 2009.

"The Company's pretax, pre-provision core earnings continue to improve as we work through this difficult credit cycle. During the second quarter we continued to focus on reducing our level of nonperforming assets. In that regard, we strengthened our lending division with the addition of Rob Robinson as our Chief Lending Officer. Rob has a great deal of lending experience and loan workout expertise which complements our existing management team. Our special assets group continues to market and sell our other real estate owned which declined by $4.0 million during the second quarter of 2010," stated Victor Karpiak, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of First Financial Northwest, Inc.

During the quarter ended June 30, 2010, the following items contributed to our financial results:

• Provision for loan losses of $26.0 million;
• Loan charge-offs of $32.7 million;
• Nonperforming assets decreased $29.3 million to $137.1 million from the previous quarter;
• Deposits increased $9.5 million from the previous quarter while our cost of funds decreased 16 basis points;
• We reduced the overall risk level of our loan portfolio by decreasing the amount of speculative construction/land development loans to $94.5 million, or 9.24% of total loans from $164.0 million, or 14.7% at December 31, 2009;
• The interest rate spread increased 72 basis points to 2.26% during the second quarter of 2010 as compared to the second quarter of 2009 as our cost of funds declined 83 basis points between periods;
• Pretax, pre-provision core operating earnings, exclusive of net expenses related to other real estate owned ("OREO"), were $2.7 million for the second quarter of 2010 compared to the goodwill adjusted, pretax, pre-provision core earnings of $389,000 for the comparable quarter in 2009 ¹;
• The Company's consolidated ratio of tangible common equity to tangible assets ended the quarter at 15.95% ¹.

"Although the economic recession continues to impact our financial results, loan delinquencies have decreased on a sequential quarter comparison. Our 30-89 day delinquent loans decreased 29% to $8.8 million at June 30, 2010 from $12.4 million at March 31, 2010. Our capital levels remain strong and continue to remain above the well-capitalized regulatory benchmarks," stated Victor Karpiak.

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