Nearly 150 U.S. banks, including  Princeton National Bancorp, failed to pay a Feb. 15 dividend on bailout money borrowed from the U.S. Treasury. That’s  up from the 123 that skipped their payouts in November.

The study by SNL Financial, tracker of banking industry data, showed that 142 U.S. lenders deferred the dividend payment due under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

TARP’s Capital Purchase Program, introduced in late 2008 at the height of the financial crisis, injected cash into U.S. banks in exchange for preferred stock in the banks.

The number of banks deferring is also up from 115 last August and 91 last May, suggesting that some banks are still struggling. Banks are allowed to defer their TARP payments, and Princeton National did so for the first time.

The 142 institutions that deferred the latest dividend payment received $3.7 billion, less than 2 percent of the $205 billion received by the 707 institutions under the program, SNL said.

One Chicago-area lender, Midwest Banc Holdings Inc.,  failed before it could repay the government.

Local lenders that have skipped at least two payments  include $2 billion-asset Bridgeview Bancorp Inc., $2.1 billion-asset Old Second Bancorp and $2.8 billion Metropolitan Bank Group.

Publicly traded Princeton, which has assets of almost $1.1 billion, recently notified the Treasury that it will defer regularly scheduled dividend payments on its  $25.1 million in  preferred stock. The bank based in Princeton, about two hours from Chicago, said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it  expects to save $1.7 million in annual cash payments.

byerak@tribune.com