Jamie Moses
Analyst · Sandler O'Neill. Please go ahead
Thanks Mike, and good morning everyone. This was a solid quarter. A strong finish to the year and we feel good about the future. We continue to be focused on disciplined growth, improving profitability, tight expense management and driving improved shareholder returns. Core EPS was $0.56 for the fourth quarter and $2.20 for the year. GAAP EPS came in at $0.32 for the fourth quarter and $1.88 for the year. Our GAAP EPS reflects the impact of non-core charges associated with the recent acquisitions and restructuring. Average earning assets grew 4% this quarter, including the impact of the First Choice acquisition. Our net interest margin ended the year at 3.19% and the margin ex-accretion was 3.09%. This reflects the impact of First Choice and commercial prepays. Looking ahead, we expect a small pick-up in the margin ex-accretion with the benefit from the December rate hike outweighing the additional pressure from a full quarter of First Choice balances. Purchase loan accretion for the fourth quarter came in lower at $1.9 million. With the impact of First Choice, we expect total purchase loan accretion including recoveries to be slightly higher in the first quarter. The provision came in at 4.1 million in the fourth quarter exceeding net charge-offs, we expect the provision to grow in the first quarter in line with our grown growth expectations. Moving on to expenses, we're demonstrating good discipline here with our organic operations. The increase in core non-interest expense quarter-over-quarter was primarily tied to one month of First Choice impact. This will have a temporary effect on the efficiency ratio. We're targeting to achieve the full cost saves on First Choice by the end of the second quarter and so we'd expect to see improvement in the efficiency ratio back down towards 60% in the second half of the year. Our core tax rate for the fourth quarter was 21% including the benefit of some additional tax credit investments. Our GAAP tax rate was 3% reflecting the impact of acquisition-related non-core charges. We continue to anticipate that 2017 full-year core tax rate will be in the 25% to 30% range. For the first quarter, we’re anticipating a rate near 30%, including tax credit investments which will have a corresponding charge of approximately $1.5 million. Looking at the big picture, we continue to expect to deliver 5% to 7% of EPS growth in 2017. Taking into account the integration of First Choice and seasonality factors, we expect the first quarter EPS to be a $0.01 or $0.02 lower from the fourth quarter. By the end of the second quarter, we expect to realize the full benefits of the First Choice integration, which will drive EPS growth higher. We're not factoring in any rate hikes, tax cuts or potential regulatory changes at this point and so any of those things would obviously be helpful. Our GAAP earnings will continue to be affected by the First Choice acquisition in the first quarter, where we anticipate most of the remaining $8 million in deal charges to show up. That would bring our total deal charges to around $20 million pre-tax in line with our original estimate. At quarter end, our tangible equity was 7.7% of tangible assets. Tangible book value grew to $18.81 per share and book value per shred grew 2% to $30.65. The total dilution from the First Choice deal is expected to be around $0.20 which we still expect to be earned back in less than two years. We issued 150 million in common stock with this acquisition bringing our shares outstanding to 35.7 million. Credit remained strong and we intend to remain selective taking advantage of our specialty lending platforms and diverse footprint, emphasizing relationships, margin and profitability. We don't expect any significant changes to overall credit or charge-off levels in the first quarter and right now don't anticipate much change as we go throughout the year. Now I'd like to take a minute to talk broadly about our balance sheet. We're pleased with the pick-up in liquidity and capital that we got from the First Choice combination. We're still sorting out how we plan to manage some aspects of their investment security and funding. Meanwhile we moved 200 million of our own muni and mortgage-backed securities to help the maturity during the fourth quarter. Additionally, we had a sizable improvement in our portfolio of equity securities due to the market run up following the election. We had a $17 million unrealized equities gain at the end of the year. So we're also reviewing aspects of our overall securities management and overall funding. We believe it's prudent to realize some of those equity gains at this time and expect that we will realize further gains as we move forward based on market conditions. We’re also reviewing our interest rate risk profile and our existing $300 million of hedged borrowings and may reposition some of our cash flow hedges during this quarter. Our current swaps had a $7 million unrealized loss at year end and we may realize some of this loss in the quarter. The equity gains give us a present period opportunity to potentially offset all of the remaining charges associated with First Choice and any balance sheet restructuring we undertake with no effect on current period earnings. Due to all the moving pieces, we're not giving GAAP earnings per share guidance at the time. We anticipate maintaining a neutral to slightly asset sensitive profile to any potential balance sheet adjustments and expect to benefit if the current forward curve plays out. I'd also like to take a minute to comment on the mortgage banking operations acquired with First Choice. This premier operation generated loan volume of 2.6 billion in 2016 and are originating 60% of loans for purchase. In the fourth quarter, they originated 640 million with stable gain on sale margins. As is typical for the end of the year, most of that volume was done in October and November which is why their impact to our income statement was minimal. Under their structure they generate higher gain on sale margins and record higher average expenses than our traditional model and generally run with production profitability around 30 bps. As we bring our complimentary models together, we’re encouraged that we will deliver consistent results. Overall, we're pleased with our performance this quarter as well as our prospects for delivering solid results in 2017. Our financial condition is good and we expect to make further progress towards our fee income and profitability goals. With that I'd like to turn it back over to Mike.