Q1 2024 Peoples Bancorp Inc Earnings Call

Participants

Tyler Wilcox; President, Chief Executive Officer, Director; Peoples Bancorp Inc

Kathryn Bailey; Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President, Treasurer of Peoples and Peoples Bank; Peoples Bancorp Inc

Brendan Nosal; Analyst; Hovde Group

Daniel Tamayo; Analyst; Raymond James

Terry McEvoy; Analyst; Stephens Inc.

Tim Switzer; Analyst; Keefe, Bruyette & Woods North America

Manuel Navas; Analyst; D.A. Davidson & Company

Presentation

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Peoples Bancorp Inc. conference call. My name is Danielle and I will be your conference facilitator. Today's call will cover a discussion of results of operations for the quarter ended March 31st, 2024. (Operator Instructions) This call is being recorded. If you object to this room, the object to the recording please disconnect at this time.
Please be advised that the commentary in this call will contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding Peoples' future financial performance or future events. These statements are based on management's current expectations. Statements in this call, which are not historical fact, are forward-looking statements and involve a number of risks and uncertainties detailed in Peoples' Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Management believes the formulating forward-looking statements made during this call are based on reasonable assumptions within the bounds of their knowledge of Peoples' business and operations. However, it is possible actual results may differ materially from these forward looking statements. Peoples disclaims any responsibility to update these forward looking statements after this call, except as may be required by applicable legal requirements, peoples' First Quarter 2024 earnings release was issued this morning and is available at peoplesbancorp.com under Investor Relations. A reconciliation of the non-generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP financial measures discussed during this call. The most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included at the end of the earnings release. This call will include about 15 to 20 minutes of prepared commentary followed by a question and answer session, which I will facilitate an archived webcast of this call will be available on Peoples Bancorp.com in the Investor Relations section for one year. Participants in today's call will be time a Wilcox, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Katie Bailey, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, and each will be available for questions following opening opening statements. Mr. Wilcox, you may begin your conference.

Tyler Wilcox

Thank you, Danielle, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining our call today. I want to start off by thanking Chuck Sulerzyski for his service over his 13-year tenure with the bank as he retired effective March 31st. Chuck was instrumental in moving us into the future cleaning up our credit quality after the Great Recession, driving shareholder value through improved performance, both organically and through acquisitions, advancing our technology to match that of our largest competitors and probably the most important part of his legacy, leaving behind a culture that promotes the well-being of associates, which creates a better customer experience and focuses on giving back to our communities in a meaningful way.
Thanks, Chuck. For everything you've done.
Moving on to our first quarter performance earlier this morning, we reported earnings of $29.6 million, while our diluted earnings per share were $0.84 compared to $0.96 for the linked quarter. As we noted in our last quarter, billing, we have annual expenses that we recognized during the first quarter of each year, which included employer contributions to health savings accounts and stock-based compensation expense for certain retirement eligible employees. These additional costs totaled 2.6 million and negatively impacted diluted EPS by $0.06 for the first quarter. We had many positives for the quarter and are pleased with our results. Our net interest margin compressed only five basis points compared to the linked quarter. Excluding the impact of accretion income from acquisitions, we had stable fee-based income as annual performance-based insurance commissions offset declines in lease income. Our noninterest expense was down compared to the linked quarter. Excluding the annual first quarter increases for stock-based compensation and employer contributions to health savings accounts, our loan to deposit ratio declined to 84.7% compared to 86.1% at year end. Deposit balances increased 2% compared to year end and were largely driven by retail CD growth. Our tangible book value per share improved $0.23 and was $18.39. At quarter end, we announced an increase to our quarterly dividend for the ninth consecutive year, and we completed another 3 million share repurchase during the quarter.
Moving on to our credit quality, our loan, our allowance for credit losses grew to 1.05% of total loans at quarter end. The increase in our allowance was driven by moderate deterioration in the macro economic conditions in our CECL model, our higher reserves on our individually analyzed loan portfolio and loan growth. Our net charge-off rate for the quarter declined slightly compared to the linked quarter and was 22 basis points annualized for the first quarter. While consumer indirect and leasing net charge-off trends are elevated compared to prior year quarters. They're more consistent with historical pre-pandemic averages, and we remain satisfied with our risk-adjusted returns on these businesses.
Nonperforming assets grew to 50 basis points of total assets at quarter end compared to 43 basis points at year end. Most of the increase was related to higher nonaccrual balances. The portion of our loan portfolio considered current at quarter end improved to 98.7% from 98.6% at year end. Criticized and classified loans both increased during the quarter and were driven by the downgrade of two acquired commercial and industrial loan relationships. We view our credit quality as a strength despite some specific downgrades this quarter, the collateral and guarantor support on the loans in question is strong and these relationships are not indicative of an overall trend in our commercial credit quality. Our portfolio strength is evidenced by the low delinquency rates this quarter as far as loan concentrations, we continue to have no material exposure in commercial office space, hospitality or assisted living. Our multifamily loans remain relatively unchanged from year end as these loans stood at 522 million at quarter end compared to $520 million at year end. As we have noted before, these properties are primarily located within growth markets with strong economic metrics and notable sponsor support. Compared to year end, our total loan portfolio grew $44 million or 3% annualized. Most of the growth was driven by increases in our commercial real estate, premium finance and commercial and industrial loan balances, which were up 112 million in total. This growth was partially offset by declines in construction loans, which were down $49 million. And our consumer direct and consumer indirect loans also combined for a $31 million decrease compared to the linked quarter end. Part of the decline in loan balances was driven by the renewal cycles of acquired limestone loans that were paid off at quarter end. Our commercial real estate loans comprised 36% of total loans, nearly 40% of which were owner-occupied while the remainder were investment real estate. At the same time, our total consumer loans, which include residential real estate and home equity lines of credit were 28% of total loans. Commercial and industrial loans were 21st were 20%. Specialty finance totaled 11% and construction loans were 5% at quarter end, 48% of our total loans were fixed rate with the remaining 52% at a variable rate.
I will now turn the call over to Katie for a discussion of our financial performance.

Kathryn Bailey

Thanks, Tyler. For the first quarter, our net interest income declined 2%, mostly due to lower accretion income, net of amortization expense from our acquisition improvements in loan and investment income offset higher deposit expense for the quarter. Our net interest margin was 4.27% for the first quarter compared to 4.44% for the linked quarter. The change in net interest margin was driven mostly by the decline in accretion income, which contributed 32 basis points to our margin this quarter compared to 45 basis points last quarter. For the fourth quarter, we had refinements in our fair value marks for limestone that contributed an additional seven basis points to margin. We continue to expect our accretion to normalize in the coming months as some of the initial noise around refinements to fair value and portfolio activity subsides. The small remaining decline in net interest margin compared to the linked quarter was mostly due to excess cash on hand during the quarter, which negatively impacted margin by six basis points for liquidity purposes, we are holding cash on our balance sheet that we have previously were holding off balance sheet. We continued to run CD specials in the first quarter of 2024 we will evaluate our position and look for opportunities to lower our rates while keeping the duration of term on our retail CDs on the shorter end to retain flexibility.
Moving onto our fee-based income, we were down 1% compared to the linked quarter, which was driven by declines in our lease and electronic banking income and partially offset by higher insurance income we typically recognize higher insurance income in the first quarter of each year due to annual performance-based insurance commissions, which totaled 2.2 million compared to 1.5 million for the prior year quarter.
As it relates to our noninterest expenses, they were up slightly compared to the linked quarter. However, when excluding the additional costs of $2.6 million related to employer contributions to health savings accounts and stock-based compensation expense for certain retirement eligible employees.
Our noninterest expenses were down compared to the linked quarter compared to the prior year quarter. Noninterest expense grew 21% and was heavily impacted by the larger footprint and ongoing operating costs of the additional offices from limestone. For the first quarter, our reported efficiency ratio was 58% compared to 56% for the linked quarter. When adjusted for non-core expenses, our efficiency ratio was 58.1% compared to 54.9% for the linked quarter. The increase was related to higher noninterest expense, mostly due to our additional annual first quarter expenses, coupled with lower net interest income due to declined accretion income.
Moving on to our balance sheet, our investment securities portfolio to total assets was relatively stable compared to year end one and was at 20.1% at March 31st. At the same time, our loan-to-deposit ratio declined to 84.7% from 86.1% at year end. We continue to have a healthy level of liquidity and have been holding more cash on our balance sheet in recent months. We mentioned last quarter that we utilize the Federal Reserve Bank term funding program. And while additional funding has been restricted. We currently have 163 million outstanding that we anticipate holding until maturity in January of 2025. As long as rates continue to make this advantageous from a deposit perspective, we grew our balances 2% from year end. We were able to increase our retail CDs by 16%, governmental deposits by 14% and money markets by 11%. We implemented a deposit strategy pricing strategy last year utilizing short term higher rate CD offerings for customers, which continued to bolster our CD balances into the first quarter. While we want to retain the deposits we have generated, we also want to control our deposit costs long term. The increase in governmental deposits during the quarter was related to seasonal influxes of cash. Our demand deposits declined to 35% of total deposits at quarter end compared to 38% at year end and has been impacted by our retail CD growth in recent quarters. At quarter end, our deposit composition was 76% in retail deposit balances, which included small businesses and 24% and commercial deposit balances. Our average retail customer deposit relationship was $24,000 at quarter end, while our median was $2,800.
Moving on to our capital position, we are confident in the value of our stock and repurchased another 3 million of shares or shares during the first quarter. Additionally, we remain confident in our performance and raised our quarterly dividend by a penny this morning making this the ninth consecutive year of a dividend increase. Our $0.4 dividend represents a yield of 5.6% per share at quarter end, our capital ratios remained strong. Our common equity Tier one capital ratio was 11.7%. Our total risk-based capital ratio was 13.4%, and our leverage ratio was 9.4%. Our tangible equity to tangible assets ratio improved to 7.4% compared to 7.3% at year end due to increased retained earnings. This calculation has been negatively impacted in recent quarters by the excess cash we have been holding on our balance sheet for several quarters. Our accumulated other comprehensive losses have reduced this ratio, which stood at 109 million at quarter end. Our tangible book value per share grew to $18.39 at quarter end compared to $18.16 at year end.
Finally, I will turn the call over to Tyler for his closing comments.

Tyler Wilcox

Thank you, Katie. As we move forward into 2024, our main goal is to continue making progress on our strategic initiatives. We intend to invest in our infrastructure and technology to be unwavering in our high quality credit standards. Take care of our clients and communities focused on our associates and being a great employer, drive shareholder value by consistently providing solid performance and total return on our stock and continuing to be acquisitive when it is beneficial in the future.
As it relates to our financial performance for 2024, we anticipate net interest income to benefit from the full year impact of the limestone merger, we expect our quarterly net interest margin to be between 4.1% and 4.3%, assuming that there are no significant short-term interest rate changes in 2024, we believe our fee based income growth will be between 6% and 8% compared to 2023. We expect quarterly total noninterest expenses to be between 67,000,069 million for the second, third and fourth quarters of 2024. We believe our loan growth for 2024 will be between 6% and 8% compared to 2023. As we noted last quarter, we anticipate an increase in our provision for credit losses with the anticipated loan growth and return of some of our net charge-offs to pre-pandemic levels. As we move through the year, we are anticipating a full year net charge-off rate of around 20 basis points. Our first quarter earnings continued to beat expectations and our diluted EPS of $0.84 exceeded the consensus analyst estimate of $0.8 for the quarter. I could not be more proud of what our associates and teams have done in recent quarters in terms of preparing for expected growth, implementing new technology, integrating our most recent merger and driving organic growth while taking care of each other and our clients. We will continue to build upon our successes into 2024 and beyond, all with the goal of making peoples the best community bank in America.
This concludes our commentary, and we will open the call for questions. Once again, this is Tyler Wilcox, and joining me for the Q&A session is Katie Bailey, our Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call back into the hands of our call facilitator. Thank you.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Brendan Nosal, Hovde Group.

Brendan Nosal

Good morning. Folks have been doing well, including Good morning Brendan, maybe just to start off here on on an update for the internal prep for 10 billion in assets. Just kind of curious what inning you're in, how much more run rate costs do you need to bake in? And then maybe some early thoughts on the Durbin impact as well?

Tyler Wilcox

Yes, Brendan, thanks for the question. I would say from a from an inning perspective, I'd say we are in the in terms of preparation, we're in the ninth inning and we're ready to go. If the correct opportunity came by, we feel confident in the investments that we've made in the preparation that we made, both in people, systems and preparation for the regulatory environment. So from that perspective, it's just a matter of finding the right opportunity in order to cross. And I believe the second part of your question was related to the expenses.

Kathryn Bailey

And I think the expense base for the first quarter includes all of the expenses we would anticipate there are some minor enhancements we'll make as it relates to risk management and so forth, but nothing from a material perspective yet to be added and the expense base.

Brendan Nosal

Okay.
Fantastic.
And that's helpful. And maybe to pivot over to the deposit side of things. I'm just kind of curious for your latest thoughts on where non-interest bearing balances might might be. I mean, I know it's tough to pinpoint, but any color there would be helpful.
Yes.

Kathryn Bailey

I mean, as you saw, we had some decline in the first quarter. What I can say is we expect to experience a little more continued runoff as we proceed through 24. Nothing and significant. And the good news to date for the month of April, we're actually showing some stability in that category. So I hope would like to see that trend continue. But from a forecast perspective, I think we still expect some migration out of non-interest bearing deposits as we proceed through 24.

Brendan Nosal

Perfect. Thanks for taking the questions.
And thank you.

Operator

Daniel Tamayo, Raymond James.

Daniel Tamayo

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. And I'm hitting first on on the ENI and the new guidance. Maybe Katie, if you could give us an idea of that, what's baked in to that 4.1% to 4.3% new guidance, what may push you towards the lower end versus the higher end? And then if you have any more and thoughts or detail on how much pressure you're expecting on accretion that be great as well?

Kathryn Bailey

Yes, I think the big variable in the NIM. is deposits and the migration and the cost that it takes to retain those. So that would drive us to the lower end, I think from our rate forecast, I think as we noted in here, we're relatively neutral from our balance sheet position and therefore a 25 basis point a couple of those, I think we can manage pretty effectively to maintain that range and so I think that's kind of the main drivers from an accretion perspective. We printed a 33 basis point impact of accretion this quarter. I think I said last quarter, I guided to 30 to 35. I think we'll be in that range 30 to 35 for the second quarter. We might go below that in the back half of this year as those loans continue to reprice or kind of we knew either in our portfolio or out of our portfolio.

Daniel Tamayo

Okay. But fair to say you're still expecting, I guess, some some core NIM pressure in your in your baseline assumptions?

Kathryn Bailey

I think there's a few basis points of pressure compression that we might experience next quarter. Nothing to the tune of what we experienced this quarter and to if we didn't have kind of a true up in accretion this quarter, like we did in the fourth quarter. So I think we'll still be from accretion perspective will still be in that 30 to 35 basis points. I think it will be the deposit cost. We might continue to see a few more basis points of compression, but nothing significant from my perspective.

Daniel Tamayo

Got it. Okay. Thank you, Tom. And then in terms of the excess cash on the balance sheet, what's the plan for how long that that sticks around?

Kathryn Bailey

Yes, some of that will migrate off as we have public funds balances roll-off, as we've noted before, seasonally in the first quarter on public funds are at a high watermark and those are collateralized through investment securities being pledged to them. So as those migrate off, we'll be able to reduce the pledge securities and therefore, maintain some of that liquidity off balance sheet through unpledged investments. So that will be one of the strategy. So you'll see some of that come off in the second quarter and we have some other activities which are deploying that we expect to see benefit as we proceed through the third quarter.

Daniel Tamayo

Okay. But that's all kind of contemplated in the high level net interest margin path you're talking about?

Kathryn Bailey

That's that's correct.

Daniel Tamayo

Yes.
Okay. All right. Thanks so much for the color there.

Operator

Terry McEvoy, Stephens.

Terry McEvoy

Good morning, Tyler.
Good morning, Katie or Larry, and just kind of big picture, Tyler, in the release, you said demand for C&I loans and leasing remained strong and then later in the release there was some increase in the provision connected to a deterioration in the economic conditions. So Tyler, can you just talk about the health of your markets and where you're seeing the C&I loan growth in particular.

Tyler Wilcox

Sure, Terry. So a couple of thoughts. Just so maybe make some distinction there and the provision release did it did include some macroeconomic considerations where we take into consideration employment nationally, we take into consideration the key factor there of CRE. nationally. I would distinguish that with our view on our book of business. And so we see the growth coming from a broad base segment of our markets. One of the reasons why we are satisfied with our kind of overall loan portfolio and our production is because of the breadth of the breadth of geography that we have and the breadth of different businesses that we have, that portfolio of businesses approach that we've developed.
So notwithstanding some of the small ticket leasing, having a slight uptick in that credit issues. We see demand nationally in the leasing businesses. We saw good growth and we expect to continue to see good growth in the international premium finance business.
And then on the C&I and CRE side, we continue to kind of have the again, that broad-based market of Louisville, Lexington, Washington, D.C. Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and so forth. So the I guess I would say the confidence in that 6% to 8% guidance, it comes from the strength of the pipeline that we're seeing today. And historically, we've seen a little bit slower out of the gate. But if you look at the rock production, we think we have a chance to hit those numbers that's pretty realistic.

Terry McEvoy

Appreciate that, Tyler. And then as a follow-up question on commercial real estate, specifically the occupied, what's the amount that matures over the next year or two years? And how have you stress test that just to prepare the borrower for higher interest rates?

Tyler Wilcox

Yes, we have we have we're pretty satisfied with our processes in terms of how we stress test the book, obviously in the last year, couple of years, particularly, we've had a lot of discipline around that in the next in the next year, there's about $185 million. It's that's coming due in over the next year, and we feel good about kind of the strength of those borrowers and about $130 million in 2025. So very manageable amount. And again, our kind of internal credit disciplines of reviewing the strength of the borrower, looking at debt service coverage ratios and them and all of the rest of the financial disciplines lead us to those conclusions.

Terry McEvoy

Great.
Thanks for taking my questions and appreciate the forward-looking financial guidance provided earlier. Thank you.

Kathryn Bailey

Thanks, Aaron.

Operator

Tim Switzer, KBW.

Tim Switzer

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. On the first one I had is with your new guidance, assuming no meaningful changes to short-term rates. What would be the impact if in late 2024 or early 2025, we start to get a series of rate cuts, say no three to four, 25 basis point cuts. How do you think the NIM. would trend over the next year or is it go down initially on loans reprice lower and then maybe some relief as deposits start to reprice. How are you guys thinking about that?

Kathryn Bailey

Yes, I think that's right. I think as long as they stay in 25 basis point increments and out to how meaningful, but at one meeting, which I think is our expectation on the go forward, I think the impact will be relatively minimal. You know, maybe somewhere around 5%. So not significant today, my basis sorry, five basis points, not significant to the extent if they keep it to, you know, 25 for a couple of meetings. And I think to your point, I think as we proceed through time, I think we'll be able to recover some of that come back through margin. So the point you made on deposits. So our retail CD production is relatively short term. We won't get the immediate benefit of those repricing lower. But in relatively short order, we'd be able to see some benefit and relief on that on the.

Tim Switzer

Okay.
That's helpful. And your expenses this quarter were a bit better than your guidance to be above that 67, $69 million range. Is there an opportunity do you think for the rest of the year for you to be kind of at the low end of that 67 to $69 million range on your guide and what kind of drove the better trends there?

Kathryn Bailey

Yes, I think there's a chance for a quarter or two. We might be on the lower side, I think we'll be somewhere in the midpoint of that range pretty consistently through the year. I think the some of the main drivers as medical costs for us in the first quarter came in a little softer than we had anticipated, which isn't a bad thing. But I think generally those kind of grow as we proceed through the year which is why I don't think we'll see that benefit we saw in the first quarter each quarter going forward.

Tim Switzer

Okay, Guy. And then the last question for me. Your noninterest income guide of up 6% to 8%, I guess is that excluding net gains and losses?

Kathryn Bailey

Yes.
Yes.

Tim Switzer

Okay.

Kathryn Bailey

Thank you.
So excluding gains and losses on investment securities sales as well as kind of any other assets we would sell.

Tim Switzer

Great.
Thank you. That's all for me.
Thanks.

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Manuel Navas, D.A. Davidson.

Manuel Navas

Hey, good morning. Just a follow up on that fee guidance. It's a little bit lower than before. Can you just talk about the drivers there?
Yes.

Kathryn Bailey

I think the big driver for that is that electronic banking income, I think we've seen and consistent with what we've seen in industry publications, some compression there some reduction in electronic banking income, which is probably the main driver in that category. And it a couple that with a little bit softer mortgage market than what we had anticipated although I think we see some signs that we might get some relief in that in the coming quarters. But those are the two main drivers.

Manuel Navas

Okay, great. I'm you've talked about the criticized and classified increases kind of did I catch that right? It's mainly to acquired loans? And any extra color there would be great.

Tyler Wilcox

I'm sure I'll take that one. So two loans, C&I loans that happened to be acquired loans. We feel really good about the acquired book. I will say see one of them is a part of the acquired portfolio out of the limestone acquisition and well collateralized by property and inventory. So good about our ability to continue with that one. And the second is a senior living facilities. Operator, again, good collateral and guarantor support. We view these as I know, it's a cliché, but we view these as one-offs, particularly because the rest of those books, both in our core and in the acquired books are performing to expectations.

Manuel Navas

Okay.
That that's really helpful. In last quarter you were able to give a switch over to me and I know you gave some nice ranges for a little bit larger moves in Fed funds. Do you have any updates there? Isn't we can I can move on, but just wondering if you have any updates for like a steeper decline in Fed funds?

Kathryn Bailey

Yes, I say back to the previous comment, to the extent we experienced a two or three, 25 basis point decrease over the next few quarters, I think that guidance would still hold and that portend to four 30, again, our asset position and our balance sheet's relatively neutrally positioned. So I don't think we have a huge impact, but up or down to the extent rates move 25, 50, 75 basis points over a few meetings.

Manuel Navas

Okay. So as long as they're the pace doesn't increase you can you can adjust to it.
That makes sense. My last question is you talked about potentially being acquisitive when beneficial. How would you term M&A discussions currently just kind of what you're hearing in the market and what would you look for to be beneficial?

Tyler Wilcox

Yes. Thanks for the question. A couple of thoughts on that. You're beneficial would be the right partnership at the right price, right size and right geography. And I think there's a number of factors that could make it right. And yet our obviously, the ideal scenario that everybody talks about is with one large acquisition to kind of leapfrog over the universe of those banks is smaller than the kind of one to $2 billion universe that so I think we'll be opportunistic. If there were a large banks that was willing to partner with us to if we are to leap over that $10 billion, we'd be interested there. If there were two to three banks in the 1 to 2 billion range that we could do successive acquisitions, we would be interested with that. We've shown the ability in the past to execute on those and to do that well. So we think both paths are absolutely viable. And there's obviously a lot of conversations going on throughout the industry we continue to be active in all times in terms of having those conversations with potential acquisitions. And now we will continue that path. So we're going to be opportunistic when the right move presents itself.

Manuel Navas

I appreciate that.

Kathryn Bailey

Thank you, Brian.
Thank you.

Operator

At this time, there are no further questions. So do you have any closing remarks?

Tyler Wilcox

Yes, I want to thank everyone for joining our call this morning. Please remember that our earnings release and a webcast of this call will be archived at peoplesbancorp.com under the Investor Relations section. Thank you for your time and have a great day.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now this.