Stacy Kymes
Analyst · Jon Arfstrom with RBC Capital Markets
Thank you, Heather. We appreciate you joining the call this afternoon. We're pleased to report earnings of $140 million or EPS of $2.19 per diluted share for the second quarter. The word that comes to mind for this quarter is momentum. During the quarter, we saw a reacceleration of loan growth with the anticipated fund up of our CRE book, continued strength in the core C&I portfolio and a tapering of the abnormal payoff activity that has recently impacted outstandings in our specialized businesses. Looking ahead, we will launch our new mortgage finance line of business, which should further support future loan growth. This was made possible by consistently investing in the right talent and systems to enable the future growth of our business. We realize this does increase expenses in the current period, but it enhances our long-term sustainable growth and positive operating leverage for years to come. Fee income was another bright spot for the quarter, with total fees and commissions up 7.2% sequentially. Trading activity normalized this quarter as the macro environment uncertainty abated, and we saw more typical levels of customer engagement. Not only was our trading business up this quarter, we saw broad-based growth across our fee income businesses with several lines producing record quarterly results. Net interest income grew for the fifth consecutive quarter, and we continue to experience margin expansion as well. With a loan-to-deposit ratio of 64%, we are well positioned to continue optimizing the pricing of the deposit book. Even at our current levels of liability betas, we've exceeded our most recent hiking cycle beta and see further opportunities to the upside. Our capital levels remain robust and strengthened once again this quarter with TCE reaching 9.6% and CET1 reaching 13.6%. This growth occurred even though we took several capital actions to create value for our shareholders, including repurchasing over 660,000 shares below $94 per share and redeeming all $131 million of our Tier 2 capital instruments. Credit has long been a strength for us, and we continue to be well reserved with a combined allowance at a healthy 1.36% of outstanding loans. Criticized and classified levels remain well below the pre-pandemic levels. Turning to Slide 6. I wanted to spend a little time highlighting the segments of our loan book. Total outstanding loans grew 2.5% this quarter, which is over 10% on an annualized basis led by growth in commercial real estate, our core C&I portfolio and loans to individuals. Our core C&I loan portfolio, which represents our combined services and general business portfolios grew 1.1%, led by Native American lending and general business loans. Our specialty lending portfolio decreased 1.6%, with contraction in our energy portfolio of 4.4%. This was partially offset by expansion in our healthcare portfolio of 0.5%, which had a strong quarter of new originations. These portfolios have experienced elevated levels of payoff activity over the past couple of quarters. And while that activity is still present, it has abated from abnormally high levels. In fact, when we look specifically at the energy book, most of the payoff activity for the quarter was in April, while the month of May and June were very stable. We are confident in our ability to grow these businesses over time and pipelines remain healthy. Our CRE business increased 6.9% quarter-over-quarter with the majority of the growth coming from multifamily housing, retail and industrial projects. As we mentioned previously, we anticipate a fund up of our CRE portfolio. This portfolio recently came under its internal concentration limits. We have focused on building commitments over the past few quarters, but it takes time for this portfolio, which is largely construction to begin funding up and showing increases in outstanding balances. We expect growth in outstanding balances to continue. Our expansion into the mortgage finance and warehouse lending business is on track. We've approved 4 credit relationships as of this call, and the pipeline is strong. In fact, we expect to fund our first loan in the next couple of weeks as our system implementation is nearly complete. We've hired a talented and experienced team to build this business and the related expense is embedded in the run rate you see today. All of this combined gives us confidence in our ability to achieve the outlook that we've set at the beginning of the year. Transitioning to Slide 7. Credit quality remains excellent across the loan portfolio, so I will keep my commentary brief. NPAs not guaranteed by the U.S. government decreased $4 million to $74 million. The resulting nonperforming assets to period loans and repossessed assets decreased 2 basis points to 31 basis points. Committed criticized assets ticked up slightly this quarter, but remained very low relative to historical standards. We had minimal net charge-offs of $561,000 during the quarter, with net charge-offs averaging 1 basis point over the last 12 months. We expect net charge-offs to remain below historical norms in the future. Our combined allowance for credit losses is $330 million or 1.36% of outstanding loans, which is a healthy reserve level. Our track record speaks for itself as we've demonstrated consistency in the credit space time and time again. And now I'll turn the call over to Scott.