Marquette National Corporation (OTCQX: MNAT) wrapped up the first half of 2025 with net income of $6.6 million, which is about half of what the company earned in the same period a year ago. That difference is also showing up straight away in earnings per share, coming in at $1.52 versus $3.02 for the first six months of 2024, a comparison that makes the drop impossible to ignore.
The numbers paint a picture that isn’t all about earnings, though. Marquette’s total assets inched up to $2.23 billion at the end of June, which is a modest $22 million more than what they were at the close of 2024. This growth is paired with a $32 million increase in total loans, which reached $1.44 billion, and a $20 million rise in deposits, now at $1.76 billion. While none of these figures scream “blockbuster growth,” they do point to steady underlying activity at the community bank’s core.
Paul M. McCarthy, who serves as both Chairman and CEO, put the stark profit change down to a decrease in unrealized gains from Marquette’s equity portfolio so far this year. In simpler terms, the investments the company holds didn’t show as much “paper” gain in value as they did last year. However, that drop in unrealized gains was “partially offset by an increase in realized gains on the company’s equity portfolio”, so some of those investments were sold for actual profits rather than just showing gains on paper, and by an increase in net interest income, which is the traditional bread and butter for banks. That’s the kind of operational clarity that is often missing when the focus is solely on a profit headline but here, it helps explain why Marquette’s results aren’t a straightforward story about performance sliding backwards.
There is another side to the results as well. The company reported positive other comprehensive income for the half-year, a catch-all accounting category that frequently includes movements in asset values that don’t go directly into current income. This helped bump up tangible book value per share, how much the business is theoretically worth per share, excluding the fuzziness that comes from intangible assets, by $2.69 so far this year. That isn’t a consolation prize, exactly, but in a market where tangible book value can anchor investor confidence, it’s a notable bright spot.
Marquette National Corporation, through its main subsidiary Marquette Bank, has built its franchise on serving neighborhoods and businesses in and around Chicago. Branches dot the region, with locations in Chicago itself and in nearby suburbs like Bolingbrook, Bridgeview, Evergreen Park, Hickory Hills, Lemont, New Lenox, Oak Forest, Oak Lawn, Orland Park, Summit, and Tinley Park, Illinois. The company’s focus on community banking, familiar faces at the local branch, finance that’s attuned to local needs, remains intact even as the year-over-year numbers are less flattering than shareholders would like.
Looking at these latest results, it is clear that Marquette is feeling some of the same market volatility that’s pushed and pulled nearly every bank’s investment portfolio over the past year. The lower level of unrealized gains is a reminder that mark-to-market accounting and swings in market value can have a real impact on financials, even if the underlying loans, deposits, and community relationships are largely steady. It’s a different headline than investors saw a year ago, but that doesn’t mean the underlying business model or philosophy has changed.
What matters for Marquette, going forward, is whether the measured growth in core loans and deposits, combined with positive other comprehensive income, is enough to give investors patience and confidence that the profit decline is a temporary artifact of capital market swings. As always, community banks have a way of outlasting headlines, and Marquette National Corporation seems determined to let its numbers, and its local reputation, speak for themselves.
