NOTE 1 – SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES

Principles of Consolidation: The accompanying consolidated financial statements include the accounts of Macatawa Bank Corporation ("the Company", "our", "we") and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Macatawa Bank ("the Bank"). All significant intercompany accounts and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation.

Macatawa Bank is a Michigan chartered bank with depository accounts insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The Bank operates 26 full service branch offices providing a full range of commercial and consumer banking and trust services in Kent County, Ottawa County, and northern Allegan County, Michigan.

The Company owns all of the common stock of Macatawa Statutory Trust I and Macatawa Statutory Trust II. These are grantor trusts that issued trust preferred securities and are not consolidated with the Company under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

Basis of Presentation: The accompanying unaudited consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America for interim financial information and with the instructions to Form 10-Q and Article 10 of Regulation S-X. Accordingly, they do not include all of the information and footnotes required by accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America for complete financial statements. In the opinion of management, all adjustments (consisting only of normal recurring accruals) believed necessary for a fair presentation have been included.

Operating results for the three month period ended March 31, 2018 are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for the year ending December 31, 2018. For further information, refer to the consolidated financial statements and related notes included in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017.

Use of Estimates:  To prepare financial statements in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America, management makes estimates and assumptions based on available information.  These estimates and assumptions affect the amounts reported in the financial statements and the disclosures provided, and future results could differ.  The allowance for loan losses, valuation of deferred tax assets, loss contingencies, fair value of other real estate owned and fair values of financial instruments are particularly subject to change.

Allowance for Loan Losses: The allowance for loan losses (allowance) is a valuation allowance for probable incurred credit losses inherent in our loan portfolio, increased by the provision for loan losses and recoveries, and decreased by charge-offs of loans. Management believes the allowance for loan losses balance to be adequate based on known and inherent risks in the portfolio, past loan loss experience, information about specific borrower situations and estimated collateral values, economic conditions and other relevant factors. Allocations of the allowance may be made for specific loans, but the entire allowance is available for any loan that, in management's judgment, should be charged-off. Loan losses are charged against the allowance when management believes the uncollectibility of a loan balance is confirmed. Management continues its collection efforts on previously charged-off balances and applies recoveries as additions to the allowance for loan losses.

The allowance consists of specific and general components. The specific component relates to loans that are individually classified as impaired. The general component covers non-classified loans and is based on historical loss experience adjusted for current qualitative factors. The Company maintains a loss migration analysis that tracks loan losses and recoveries based on loan class and the loan risk grade assignment for commercial loans. At March 31, 2018, an 18 month annualized historical loss experience was used for commercial loans and a 12 month historical loss experience period was applied to residential mortgage loans and consumer loans. These historical loss percentages are adjusted (both upwards and downwards) for certain qualitative factors, including economic trends, credit quality trends, valuation trends, concentration risk, quality of loan review, changes in personnel, external factors and other considerations.

A loan is impaired when, based on current information and events, it is believed to be probable that the Company will be unable to collect all amounts due according to the contractual terms of the loan agreement. Loans for which the terms have been modified and a concession has been made, and for which the borrower is experiencing financial difficulties, are considered troubled debt restructurings and classified as impaired.

 

Commercial and commercial real estate loans with relationship balances exceeding $500,000 and an internal risk grading of 6 or worse are evaluated for impairment. If a loan is impaired, a portion of the allowance is allocated and the loan is reported at the present value of estimated future cash flows using the loan's existing interest rate or at the fair value of collateral, less estimated costs to sell, if repayment is expected solely from the collateral. Large groups of smaller balance homogeneous loans, such as consumer and residential real estate loans, are collectively evaluated for impairment and they are not separately identified for impairment disclosures.

Troubled debt restructurings are also considered impaired with impairment generally measured at the present value of estimated future cash flows using the loan's effective rate at inception or using the fair value of collateral, less estimated costs to sell, if repayment is expected solely from the collateral.

Foreclosed Assets: Assets acquired through or instead of loan foreclosure, primarily other real estate owned, are initially recorded at fair value less estimated costs to sell when acquired, establishing a new cost basis. If fair value declines, a valuation allowance is recorded through expense. Costs after acquisition are expensed unless they add value to the property.

Income Taxes: Income tax expense is the sum of the current year income tax due or refundable and the change in deferred tax assets and liabilities. Deferred tax assets and liabilities are the expected future tax consequences of temporary differences between the carrying amounts and tax bases of assets and liabilities, computed using enacted tax rates. A valuation allowance, if needed, reduces deferred tax assets to the amount expected to be realized.

The Company recognizes a tax position as a benefit only if it is "more likely than not" that the tax position would be sustained in a tax examination, with a tax examination being presumed to occur. The amount recognized is the largest amount of tax benefit that is greater than 50% likely of being realized on examination. For tax positions not meeting the "more likely than not" test, no tax benefit is recorded. The Company recognizes interest and penalties related to income tax matters in income tax expense.

During the first quarter of 2018, the Company adopted ASU 2018-02, allowing for the reclassification of the income tax effects of the revaluation the deferred tax impact on accumulated other comprehensive income due to the enactment of tax reform at the end of 2017.  The Company's only component of accumulated other comprehensive income is the fair value adjustment for securities available for sale.  Upon adoption of this ASU, a transfer was made from AOCI to retained earnings in the amount of $278,000.

 

Derivatives:  Certain of the Bank’s commercial loan customers have entered into interest rate swap agreements directly with the Bank.  At the same time the Bank enters into a swap agreement with its customer, the Bank enters into a corresponding interest rate swap agreement with a correspondent bank at terms mirroring the Bank's interest rate swap with its commercial loan customer.   This is known as a back-to-back swap agreement.  Under this arrangement the Bank has five freestanding interest rate swaps, each of which are carried at fair value.  As the terms mirror each other, there is no income statement impact to the Bank.  At March 31, 2018 and December 31, 2017, the total notional amount of such agreements was $53.9 million and $42.3 million and resulted in a derivative asset with a fair value of $60,000 and $197,000, respectively, which were included in other assets and a derivative liability of $60,000 and $197,000, respectively, which were included in other liabilities.

Reclassifications: Some items in the prior period financial statements were reclassified to conform to the current presentation.

 

Adoption of New Accounting Standards:  FASB issued ASU 2016-01, Financial Instruments – Overall (Subtopic 825-10): Recognition and Measurement of Financial Assets and Financial Liabilities.  The new standard requires equity investments (except those accounted for under the equity method of accounting, or those that result in consolidation of the investee) to be measured at fair value with changes in fair value recognized in net income.  The ASU also requires public business entities to use exit price notation when measuring the fair value of financial instruments for disclosure purposes and requires separate presentation of financial assets and financial liabilities by measurement category and form of financial asset.   The new standard was effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2017, including interim periods within those fiscal years. The impact of adoption of this ASU by the Company was not material, but did result in a reclassification of an equity investment from securities available for sale to other assets with its related market value changes reflected in earnings for the three months ended March 31, 2018. In addition, the fair value disclosures for financial instruments in Note 5 are computed using an exit price notion as required by the ASU.

 

Newly Issued Not Yet Effective Standards:  FASB issued ASU 2016-02, Leases. The new standard establishes a right-of-use (ROU) model that requires a lessee to record a ROU asset and a lease liability on the balance sheet for all leases with terms longer than 12 months. Leases will be classified as either finance or operating, with classification affecting the pattern of expense recognition in the income statement.  The new standard is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018, including interim periods within those fiscal years. A modified retrospective transition approach is required for lessees for capital and operating leases existing at, or entered into after, the beginning of the earliest comparative period presented in the financial statements, with certain practical expedients available.  As the Company owns most of its branch locations, this ASU will apply primarily to operating leases and the impact of adoption of this ASU by the Company is not expected to be material.

FASB issued ASU No. 2016-13, Financial Instruments—Credit Losses (Topic 326): Measurement of Credit Losses on Financial Instruments.  This ASU provides financial statement users with more decision-useful information about the expected credit losses on financial instruments and other commitments to extend credit held by a reporting entity at each reporting date by replacing the incurred loss impairment methodology in current GAAP with a methodology that reflects expected credit losses and requires consideration of a broader range of reasonable and supportable information to inform credit loss estimates.  The new guidance eliminates the probable initial recognition threshold and, instead, reflects an entity's current estimate of all expected credit losses. The new guidance broadens the information that an entity must consider in developing its expected credit loss estimate for assets measured either collectively or individually to include forecasted information, as well as past events and current conditions. There is no specified method for measuring expected credit losses, and an entity is allowed to apply methods that reasonably reflect its expectations of the credit loss estimate. Although an entity may still use its current systems and methods for recording the allowance for credit losses, under the new rules, the inputs used to record the allowance for credit losses generally will need to change to appropriately reflect an estimate of all expected credit losses and the use of reasonable and supportable forecasts. Additionally, credit losses on available-for-sale debt securities will now have to be presented as an allowance rather than as a write-down. This ASU is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2019, and for interim periods within those years.  The Company has selected a software vendor for applying this new ASU and has scheduled implementation of the software to begin in the second quarter of 2018 and is currently evaluating the impact of this new ASU on its consolidated financial statements.

FASB issued ASU 2017-12, Targeted Improvements to Accounting for Hedging Activities.  This ASU simplifies and expands the eligible hedging strategies for financial and nonfinancial risks by more closely aligning hedge accounting with a company's risk management activities, and also simplifies the application of Topic 815, Derivatives and Hedging, through targeted improvements in key practice areas.  This includes expanding the list of items eligible to be hedged and amending the methods used to measure the effectiveness of hedging relationships.  In addition, the ASU prescribes how hedging results should be presented and requires incremental disclosures.  These changes are intended to allow preparers more flexibility and to enhance the transparency of how hedging results are presented and disclosed.  Further, the ASU provides partial relief on the timing of certain aspects of hedge documentation and eliminates the requirement to recognize hedge ineffectiveness separately in earnings in the current period.  The ASU is effective for years beginning after December 15, 2018, and interim periods within those years.  The Company does not expect the impact of adoption of this ASU to be material.