BSPA enters the back half of April as a materially different institution. The completion of its merger-of-equals with NBC Bancorp on April 1 is the defining event of this period — and it changes how investors should read almost every metric on the tape.
The structural story here is consolidation, not short-selling pressure. The stock closed at $73.99 on April 27, a gain of roughly 4.2% over both the past week and the past month — the move almost certainly reflects post-merger optimism rather than any meaningful shift in trading activity. The deal, in which the National Bank of Coxsackie formally merged with BSNB on April 6, was advised by Brean Capital and counselled by Luse Gorman on the legal side. Alongside the transaction, Ballston Spa raised $26 million in subordinated debt — giving the enlarged institution additional Tier 2 capital to support its expanded balance sheet.
The most recent earnings data adds important texture to the pre-merger picture. For the full year ended December 31, 2025, the bank reported net interest income of $26.01 million — up from $23.74 million the prior year. Net income, however, fell to $4.54 million from $5.13 million, with basic EPS slipping to $6.11 from $6.91. The compression in bottom-line profitability, even as the top line grew, reflects the cost pressures and integration expenses that often precede community bank consolidation. The next formal results — covering the first half of 2026 and the first full period as a combined entity — are not expected until August 21.
Short interest is essentially a non-story here. The last available short data is stale, dating to September 2025, and showed just three shares short — a figure close to zero in any meaningful context. The borrow market reflects a cost to borrow running near 7-14% in historical readings, which is elevated for a community bank but speaks more to the stock's illiquidity and thin float than to any organised short thesis. With a market cap around $81 million and trading on the OTC Pink market, BSPA is not a name where institutional short-sellers play.
The ownership picture reflects that illiquidity clearly. The six known holders are dominated by insiders: Michael Dunn holds roughly 10.6% of shares, with Stephen Obermayer and other names rounding out a list that reads more like a cap table than an institutional register. Siena Capital Partners, the only institutional firm on the list, holds 2.4% as of December 2025, unchanged from prior periods. The stock has no analyst coverage in the data and no options market of consequence.
The dividend record is worth noting for income-focused holders, though the data is now several years stale — the last recorded cash dividend was $0.33 per share in mid-2022. Whether the combined bank has maintained or resumed regular distributions post-merger is a question the August earnings release will likely clarify. The ORTEX dividend factor score of 67 suggests the market still attributes some income value to the name, though investors should treat that signal with caution given the gap in the dividend history.
What to watch next: the August 21 results are the first real test of whether the NBC Bancorp merger is delivering the cost and revenue synergies the deal implied — and whether EPS can recover from the 2025 compression.
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