Scott Goodman
Analyst · Janney
Thank you, Jim. And good morning, everybody. As you heard from Jim, and as shown on slide 6, we posted solid loan growth of $122 million for the third quarter, resulting in a trailing 12-month growth rate of 8% net of PPP changes. Despite Q3 typically being a somewhat seasonally soft period for a number of our specialty business lines, in general, we're very pleased with the overall growth in this portfolio, being successful conversion of our regional C&I and CRE pipelines, and continuing steady execution of new opportunities within the specialty businesses. Loan details by segment are outlined on slide 7 and 8. And year-over-year growth has been contributed by nearly all segments of the business. Reduction in the residential real estate portfolio mainly reflects the addition of these loan types through the First Choice acquisition and our subsequent intentional shift away from short-term bridge or fix and flip lending in the California market. Most of this reduction occurred in prior quarters. For the third quarter, the largest contributors to growth were within our regional and commercial banking units in general C&I and commercial real estate categories. We have been able to successfully win a number of new larger C&I relationships during Q3 across most of our geographic markets, reflecting a steady and consistent sales process. Overall, C&I originations increased nearly 14% from the prior quarter, and are up nearly 65% from the same quarter last year. We also continue to see good activity in our real estate pipeline, particularly with our existing investor clients, and within the Western geographies. New development loans have slowed somewhat as developers consider elevated project costs and some shifting economic factors, but our existing construction portfolio continues to and perform well. A number of these projects are moving to a stabilized status and remaining within our portfolio which is partially contributing to the reduction that you see in construction development category and the increase in CRE investor-owned balances. The change in tax credit balances also reflect some shift in categorization this quarter as projects that have aged past their qualification periods move into a more permanent category. Moving to slide 9, please note that we have consolidated our metro markets into geographic regions, as outlined in the footnote. The specialized lending units continue to perform well and have shown some level of immunity to the shifting economic conditions growing in Q3 by $46 million. Life Insurance Premium Finance grew by $30 million in a seasonally softer time of the year, due mainly to elevated activity from newer referral partners. The California market has presented an opportunity to more fully introduce our expertise in this niche two COIs within this targeted segment. And we are getting introductions to new COIs from our existing insurance partners as well. Practice finance, which is a new team for us in 2022 has hit the ground running and continues to perform well, contributing $25 million to growth this quarter, and $73 million for the year. Sponsor finance which was essentially flat for the quarter, which is not uncommon for this time of year, deal flow and pipeline has begun to regenerate following a mid-year pause and look solid heading into Q4, which tends to be a more active quarter leading up to year end closings. In the SBA business, we did experience some decline in originations for new 7 (a) loans this quarter, due to lower demand, as well as competition from conventional bank lenders. We were able to offset much of this impact on the portfolio through efforts to proactively retain and extend existing SBA loans with payoffs and pay downs, diminishing to roughly 65% of levels experienced in the prior quarter. We have also recently bolstered our traditional owner-occupied floating rate product with fixed options, as well as extending our SBA capabilities to target other business purposes in an effort to elevate production. Within the Midwestern region, St. Louis and Kansas City both had good growth quarters resulting from landing a balanced mix of new middle market C&I relationships, and commercial real estate opportunities. In the Southwest, growth was modest this quarter, we did onboard a number of new C&I relationships in Arizona, Las Vegas and New Mexico, as well as some momentum of fundings from CRE and construction commitments, flows throughout the year. Net growth was lowered somewhat due to pay offs related to the sale of a large Arizona C&I business to private equity, and the sale of investor-owned properties in Arizona and New Mexico. In the West region, the portfolio declined slightly by $10 million, due to mainly to lower advances on existing lines of credit. On a positive note, we're seeing good activity from new talent brought into this market over the last year, and our California pipeline is building heading into Q4, payoffs there continuing to moderate relating to our decision to move away from the aforementioned residential fix and flip business, with total payoffs roughly half the level experienced last quarter. Moving to deposits, covered on slides 10 and 11. As the market has placed more emphasis recently on deposits, and competition increases, our focus continues to be on retaining our existing low cost and relationship-based funding, while leveraging specialty channels and new commercial relationships to attract additional balances. Year-over-year deposit balances have risen $230 million or roughly 2%, primarily driven by an increase in new noninterest-bearing accounts from the specialty deposit lines and new commercial relationships. For the quarter, overall balances were relatively steady compared to the prior quarter, down just $35 million. Areas of decline were primarily in interest sensitive consumer and time deposits, while commercial, business banking and specialty deposit channels remained strong. Average DDA balances per account continue to move down as businesses spend through stimulus dollars and excess liquidity. We've been able to offset the end factor this trend though, through sourcing new relationships, and expanding existing ones, with the current annualized growth rate of deposit accounts just under 9% in the quarter. On a regional level, which is displayed on slide 12, we saw growth in all areas with the exception of the Midwest. This was primarily due to the movement of balances from one large commercial client in Kansas City, which was acquired in the quarter. Specialty deposits profiled on slide 13 grew by $19 million in the quarter, with the largest contributions coming from the Community Association and Property Management segments. These continue to be an efficient and low-cost source of funding now representing 22% of total deposits. Across our markets, we had positive net new accounts in the quarter with higher average balances than in our closed accounts and at attractive rates as our average open interest rate for the quarter was well below our peer average. In general, we're pleased with our ability to hold relationship balances, to originate new accounts, and to maintain an attractive blended deposit costs. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Keene Turner for his comments on the quarter. Keene?