Nicole Stokes
Analyst · Stephens
Thank you, Palmer. As you mentioned, we're reporting adjusted earnings of $66.6 million or $0.96 per share for the fourth quarter compared to $45.9 million or $0.96 for the fourth quarter of last year. These adjusted results primarily exclude the merger charges, the lawsuit on the sale of branch building, a partial reversal of the gain on BOLI, MSR impairment and expenses related to the government investigations that we announced in the fourth quarter. Including these items, we're reporting GAAP earnings of $51.2 million or $0.88 per share. The $66 million of adjusted net income represents the 45% increase over the fourth quarter of last year and the $0.96 per share EPS is consistent with what we reported last year. Our adjusted return on assets in the fourth quarter was 1.47, which was a slight decrease from the 1.57 reported last quarter, and the 1.61 reported in the fourth quarter of last year. Our return on asset was negatively impacted during this quarter by elevated loans held for sale balances as we integrated our mortgage delivery team and we had record production levels. For the full year 2019, our adjusted ROA was 1.52 compared to 1.50 last year. Our adjusted return on tangible common equity was 18.45 in the fourth quarter of '19 compared to 18.95 last quarter and 20.95 in the fourth quarter of last year. For the full year, our 2019 adjusted return on tangible common equity is 18.74 compared 19.18 last year. As Palmer mentioned, we remain focused on tangible book value. For the quarter, we saw an increase in tangible of $0.52 to end the quarter at $20.81. Ironically, this is the exact tangible book value per share that we had at June 30, 2019, the day before the Fidelity acquisition. For the full year of 2019, we had over 10% increase in tangible book value, up $1.98 per share from the 18.83 at the end of last year to 20.81 at the end of this year. We're pleased with this increase in tangible book value, considering it absorbed Fidelity, as well as the repurchase of about $18.5 million of stock during the year. During the fourth quarter, our net interest margin increased by 2 basis points from 3.84 to 3.86. This increase in mostly due to additional accretion income during the quarter related to the work out of a problem that had a large discount attached to it, and also early payoff from acquisitions. I don't think the future accretion income will be as high as the fourth quarter, and I think it will normalize in 2020 to about an average of $3 million per quarter. Also in the fourth quarter, the elevated mortgage loans held for sale negatively impacted our margin by $0.08 basis points. I know I said in the last quarter that we expected to shrink that during the fourth quarter. But based on production, it actually increased. Basically, our mortgage group refilled the bucket faster they were selling. I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but we are monitoring that level daily and we have failed currently tending bring that balance down by the middle of the first quarter. I believe the ongoing balance going more to be closer to the $900 million range. I had previously guided that in the $500 million to $600 million range. But I think with the two mortgages companies coming together and our elevated level of production, we'll stay in that $900 million range going forward. During the fourth quarter, our yield on earning assets declined by 4 basis points, while interest bearing deposits and total funding costs both decreased by 10 basis points. And for the year-to-date, our margin declined 4 basis points from 3.92% to 3.88% even with three fed cuts throughout the year. And during the year, our yield on earning assets increased by 17 basis points, while our funding cost increased by 34 basis points. Non-interest income grew over 80% from the fourth quarter of '18 to the fourth quarter of '19. The increase in service charge income due to additional deposit account for Fidelity was partially offset by the Durbin impact. And our mortgages revenue grew over 179% this quarter compared to fourth quarter last year. Mortgage production was strong in the fourth quarter at $1.6 billion compared to $414 million fourth quarter last year. We saw a slight decline in the gain on sale percentage, and we anticipate that will return to higher levels in 2020 as we continue to manage product mix and pricing model between Fidelity and Ameris. Our adjusted efficiency ratio improved to 65.6 in the quarter from 57.25 last quarter. And for the full year 2019, our adjusted efficiency ratio improved from 56.19 to 65.67. We completed, as Palmer said, the core system converts in November, and we anticipate the realization of all cost saves by the end of the first quarter 2020 as we still had some administrative costs overhanging in the fourth quarter numbers. However, some of these costs in the first quarter will be offset by typical first quarter cyclicality, such as the increased payroll taxes that we will see in first quarter. Total noninterest expenses were $122.6 million for the quarter. However, when you remove the management adjusted, such as the merger conversion charges that were already mentioned, our adjusted noninterest expenses totaled $118.3 million, down $8.5 million from the third quarter. Approximately half of that decrease was in the core bank administrative functions, while the other half was in the mortgages line of business, notably in salaries and commissions. On the balance sheet side, we ended the year with total assets of $18.2 billion compared to $17.8 billion last quarter and $11.4 billion last year. We were pleased with our organic growth, both on the loan and deposit front. Excluding the Fidelity acquisition, organic loan growth was $751 million or 9.16% for the year. Organic loan growth this quarter slowed mostly due to seasonality and the continued repositioning of various portfolios. Total loan production in the bank was actually $1.1 billion, up over 81% from the fourth quarter last year. Yields were down on new production, which was expected in recent fed cuts. On the deposit side, we continued the momentum on noninterest bearing deposits and improved our mix so that noninterest bearing deposits now represent 29.94% of total deposits compared to 26.12% a year ago. And for the full year of 2019, our noninterest bearing deposit growth was just over 15% as our bankers continue to be focused on core deposit growth to fund overall bank growth. At the end of 2019, our loan to deposit ratio was 91% compared to 94% at the end of the third quarter and 88% at the end of last year. And credit quality remained strong. As you'll recall from our last call, we saw a slight dump in NPA due to the Fidelity acquisitions during the third quarter. Our team was able to liquidate a significant portion of G&A that caused that bump. So we are pleased to report that our nonperforming assets as a percentage of total assets decreased 17 basis points, down to 56 basis points at the end of the year. This compares to 73 basis points last quarter and 55 basis points this time last year. For the quarter, our annualized net charge-off ratio was 9 basis points to total loans, 17 basis points to non purchase loans. For the full year of 2019, our annualized net charge-off ratio was 10 basis points of total loans and 15 basis points of non-purchase loans compared to 18 basis points of total loans last year and 27 basis points of non-purchase loans. With that -- that was a lot of numbers. With that, I will turn the call back over to Palmer.