Brian Vance
Analyst · D.A. Davidson
Thanks, Jeff. I'll first start with loan quality. Nonaccrual originated loans decreased $2.8 million from the prior quarter. The decrease in nonaccrual originated loans was primarily due to a $2.4 million loan restored to accrual status, and $1.5 million of net principal reductions and $225,000 in transfers to other real estate owned, partially offset by an addition of $1.4 million on loans to the nonaccrual originated loans.
OREO increased $430,000 during Q4 to $4.6 million. The increase was due primarily to the addition of 5 properties totaling $1.2 million, partially offset by the disposition of 5 properties totaling $456,000 and valuation adjustments of $348,000.
The ratio of allowance for loan losses to nonperforming originated loans increased to 329% from 222% at the prior quarter end. Even though our overall allowance to originated loans has been decreasing, we still maintain a very healthy allowance of 1.76% to originated loans. As credit quality continues to improve, our ratio of the allowance for loan losses on originated loans to total originated loans is likely to continue to decrease.
A few comments on capital management. We have continued our $0.08 cash dividend. As a result of the announced Washington Banking Company strategic merger, it is not likely we will engage in any special dividends or stock buybacks until we can reassess our capital strategies sometime after merger closing.
As a reminder, when we announced the proposed merger, we indicated our pro forma tangible common equity was estimated to be above 9% following closing. I would further refine that TCE estimate to the mid-9% range.
2014 outlook. I'll first comment on the -- just some general comments on the economic outlook for our region. We expect, from an economic point of view, 2014 will be much like 2013 with a continued slow and steady improvement in the overall economy. And depending on the development of the most recent global economic market shivers, it is quite possible the Pacific Northwest could experience stronger growth in 2014 than experienced in 2013.
We expect both single-family residential and commercial real estate will continue to show modest valuation improvements, with the strongest valuation improvement to continue in the Seattle area. Multifamily continues to be one of the strongest growth areas throughout the Pacific Northwest footprint.
The well-documented Boeing machinists contract renegotiation was settled with the apparent outcome of Boeing keeping the 777 production in the Puget Sound region, which is a very important economic development for the entire region. Amazon continues to hire and develop an extensive commercial real estate and its total employed presence in the downtown Seattle area.
The Tacoma Port recently announced its total containerized shipping exceeded that of the Seattle Port for 2013. The port handled 1.9 million containers in 2013, and was just short of their 2.1 million peak before the recession. Also handled through the port, log shipments were up 14% over 2012, as well as auto shipments were up 8% and total vessel calls were up 16% over '13. Washington continues as one of the top 10 states in the nation with inward migration growth.
As discussed earlier, we experienced quite strong loan growth for 2013. 2013's loan growth was fueled in part by a desire and the balance sheet ability to put some 7- and 10-year fixed CRE to the portfolio, which was successful. We are not likely to repeat that activity this year, so we're forecasting loan growth to be in the 5% to 7% growth area.
As you also are aware, we continue to focus on efficiency improvements. As we have shared with you, we've had a lot of activity this past year: 2 acquisitions; collapsed the Central Valley Bank charter; converted both acquired banks to our system; completed a total systems conversion at Heritage; consolidated 4 of Valley's 8 branches; closed 3 Heritage branches; and announced the Washington Banking Company merger.
All of these activities during 2013 will result in substantial efficiency gains going forward. And this is an important point, so I'd like to reiterate this point and state it in several different ways. We ended 2012 with FTE of 363 and we ended 2013 with FTE of 373, an increase of only 10 FTE even after 2 acquisitions. Our assets per employee improved from $3.7 million at the end of '12 to $4.4 million at the end of this -- end of this past year, a 19% improvement. Additionally, we increased average deposits per branch year-over-year from $34 million to $40 million, an 18% improvement. During the year, we increased total assets by $313.5 million through acquisitions and strong organic growth. If we would have added FTE at the same assets per employee run rate at the end of 2012, we would have added a total of 85 FTE. However, we added only 10 FTE year-over-year.
Another way to state this efficiency improvement is, we increased assets year-over-year by $313 million and added 10 FTE, which is equivalent of an asset per employee of $31 million. And even one more to state this is, we increased year-over-year assets by 23% and increased FTE by only 2.75%.
And finally, we realized we still have efficiency gains yet to make. We believe there are further efficiency gains in the Legacy Heritage. But also as we merge Heritage Financial and Washington Banking Company together, we believe we can gain additional efficiencies through scale and process.
I'd like to share with you briefly as to some 2014 initiatives. We intend to focus on increasing our SBA loan originations. We intend to continue to build out our wealth management strategies. We recently hired a Trust Officer for the Olympia [ph] Tacoma area, and we'll focus on strategically increasing our presence with both trust and investment activities. We will continue to focus on improving our overall efficiencies, as I stated earlier, across the entire organization. The primary measurement metrics will continue to be assets per employee and deposits per branch.
I'd like to give you an update on our announced strategic merger with Washington Banking Company. It is progressing as we originally expected it would. As of the date of our most recent filed proxy statement prospectus, all of the required applications have been filed, and Heritage has received approval for the bank merger from the FDIC and Washington DFI in late December and early January. Heritage has not yet received a waiver from the Federal Reserve Board of its application requirement that would apply to this merger, but neither Heritage nor Washington Banking know of any reason why such waiver would not be obtained in a timely manner.
There can be no assurance as to whether all regulatory approvals will be obtained or as to the date of the approvals. There are also can be no assurance that the regulatory approvals received will not contain a condition or requirement that results in a failure to satisfy the conditions to the closing set forth in the merger agreement. We are still anticipating the merger closing in early Q2. Ongoing integration discussions are also progressing quite well.
This completes our prepared remarks this morning, and I'd welcome any questions you may have and would once again refer you to our forward-looking statements in our press release and answer -- and as I answer any of these questions dealing with a forward-looking comments. John, would you please open the call to any questions that we may have?