NOTE 3: VARIABLE INTEREST ENTITIES

Generally, a variable interest entity (“VIE”) is a corporation, partnership, trust or other legal structure that does not have equity investors with substantive or proportional voting rights or has equity investors that do not provide sufficient financial resources for the entity to support its activities.

At December 31, 2016, the Company did not have any consolidated VIEs to disclose but did have one nonconsolidated VIE, discussed below.

Trust Preferred Securities

The Company owns the common stock of a subsidiary business trust, Auburn National Bancorporation Capital Trust I (the “Trust”), which issued mandatorily redeemable preferred capital securities (“trust preferred securities”) in 2003 in the aggregate of approximately $7.0 million at the time of issuance. The Trust meets the definition of a VIE of which the Company is not the primary beneficiary; the Trust’s only assets are junior subordinated debentures issued by the Company, which were acquired by the Trust using the proceeds from the issuance of the trust preferred securities and common stock.

In October 2016, the Company purchased $4.0 million par amount of outstanding trust preferred securities issued by the Trust. These securities were sold by the FDIC, as receiver of a failed bank that had held the trust preferred securities. The Company used dividends from the Bank to purchase these trust preferred securities and has deemed an equivalent amount of the related junior subordinated debentures issued by the Company as no longer outstanding. The Company realized a pre-tax gain of $0.8 million on the early extinguishment of debt in this transaction. The remaining junior subordinated debentures of approximately $3.2 million are included in long-term debt and the Company’s equity interest of $0.2 million in the Trust is included in other assets. Interest expense on the junior subordinated debentures is included in interest expense on long-term debt.

The following table summarizes VIEs that are not consolidated by the Company as of December 31, 2016.