First Republic Bank projected a boost in its fourth-quarter earnings by 18 cents per share and 20 cents per share due to a lower tax rate.
Citing the considerable increase in employees' exercising of stock options — 1,593,796 stock options were exercised by employees from Oct. 1 to Nov. 29, compared to the 232,000 stock option exercises per quarter for the first three quarters of 2017 — the San Francisco-based bank expects its effective tax rate for the fourth quarter to be between 4% and 6%. For the full year, the tax rate is expected to be between 13% and 14%.
In comparison, the third-quarter effective tax rate was 17.3%. EPS for that quarter was $1.14.
