City National, other regionals, beat analyst estimates

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City National Corp. reported strong second-quarter earnings of $47.5 million, up 15% from $41.3 million in the same quarter of 2010.

It was the ‘best quarter in more than three years with improvements across the board in loans, deposits and credit quality,’ said City National Chief Executive Russell Goldsmith.

He said the bank’s outlook was positive despite a ‘challenging and slow-growing economy.’

The per-share earnings rose from 78 cents to 88 cents, the L.A.-based parent of City National Bank said in its report Thursday.

That easily beat Wall Street’s consensus expectation of 77 cents a share, making City National the latest in a series of regional banks in California to do better than expected.

If the banks are doing better, maybe it says something about the economy stabilizing a bit?

A day earlier, East West Bancorp of Pasadena had reported per-share earnings of 39 cents, beating Wall Street expectations of 37 cents.

And on Monday, California Bank & Trust parent Zions Bancorp of Utah said it turned a profit of 16 cents a share (analysts had expected a loss of 2 cents) and L.A.’s PacWest Bancorp, parent of Pacific Western Bank, reported 35 cents a share versus expectations of 27 cents.

Meanwhile, a bit farther north, Silicon Valley Bank parent SVB Financial Group on Thursday reported it had earned $1.50 a share -- more than twice analysts’ expectations of 70 cents per share. You have to wonder if the bank is just suddenly hitting on all cylinders, if the tech economy is really in high gear -- or if it’s just that the analysts were missing something.

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-- E. Scott Reckard