Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Eagle Bancorp Fourth Quarter and Year End 2018 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to introduce your host for today's presentation, Mr. Charles Levingston, Chief Financial Officer. Sir, please begin.

Thank you, Howard. Good morning, this is Charles Levingston, Chief Financial Officer of Eagle Bancorp. Before we begin the presentation, I would like to remind everyone that some of the comments made during this call may be considered forward-looking statements. Our Form 10-K for the 2017 fiscal year, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and current reports on Form 8-K identify certain factors that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements made this morning. The company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events or developments. Our periodic reports are available from the company or online on the company's website or the SEC website. I would like to remind you that while we think that our prospects for continued growth and performance are good, it is our policy not to establish with the markets any earnings, margin, or balance sheet guidance. Now, I would like to introduce Ron Paul, the Chairman and CEO of Eagle Bancorp.

Thanks, Charles. Good morning everyone. I would like to welcome you to our earnings call regarding the results for the fourth quarter and full-year of 2018. Thank you for joining in this call this morning. In addition to Charles Levingston, Jan Williams is on the call with us this morning. We will be all available for questions later in the call. I'm extremely pleased to discuss our financial results for the fourth quarter and the full-year of 2018, both of which were highly successful. For both the quarter and the year, we produced record levels of profitability. For the fourth quarter, we earned $40.4 million of net income. Coincidentally, this is our 40th consecutive quarter of record increasing operating earnings dating back to the first quarter of 2009. Comparisons of the results for the most recent quarter and year to performance for both the fourth quarter and the full-year of 2017 have looked distorted because the fourth quarter of 2017 results included the one-time impact of the $14.6 million deferred tax adjustment taken because of the new tax law passed at that time. Therefore in my remarks this morning comparative analysis will be based on operating basis results for the respective 2017 periods which we feel is a more valid measure of the company's performance. Reconciliations to the GAAP measures can be found in our press release. The $40.4 million of net income for the fourth quarter in 2018 was a 34% increase over the net operating income of $30.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2017. The earnings for the fourth quarter of 2018 also represented a 4% increase over the third quarter of 2018 earnings of $38.9 million. The 2018 annual income of $152.3 million is also a record level of earnings for the company and represents a…

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question or comment comes from the line of Casey Whitman from Sandler O'Neill. Your line is open.

Maybe first if we could dig into your comments by your outlook for the margin improving, just starting with the outlook for the asset yields to come up from here. Does that mean you expect the payoff for the construction book going forward to maybe slow down and if that's the case, is your outlook still for high-single-digit loan growth or could we even maybe see that in a low double-digit?

Yes, Casey, I think we do continue to see that's in the construction project. But we -- the yield that we saw in the fourth quarter was also impacted towards mentioning by the acceleration of deferred fees and costs was more impacted in the third quarter than it was in the fourth quarter. I would expect some of that to normalize. However, I think that you'll see relatively consistent level of payoffs, perhaps a little less, so going forward.

Okay. So I guess your outlook kind of holds for high-single-digit loan growth going forward then?

Yes, the high-single-digits is still where we're eyeing in terms of loan growth.

Okay. And can you also give us some idea of where loans were coming in on this quarter versus last quarter?

Casey, loans are coming in from the typical sources that we've always been successful in growing the brokerage community, the relationships that we have directly with the developers, and we continue to see that that demand there. It's on the C&I side, we're seeing additional businesses, larger sized credits and we were just pleased in terms of what we're getting in the new loan side. I mean it's just -- it's an ongoing exercise of increasing our loans just to the community.

And in terms of rates where that was -- its 5.15%, 5.20% it's kind of the coupons that we've seen come on in the fourth quarter, again you tack on the deferred fees and cost of somewhere around 30 basis points to that just to get to the yields.

And Casey, I think some of that new loan rate issue is related to the significant increase that we've had in C&I loans this year. They're considerably more price competitive for quality large lines of credit that often times come with significant deposits.

Got it. Now on the deposit side, you guys saw really nice inflow in a number of categories. So you mentioned at least some of that due to seasonality, so is there a chunk in there that maybe you consider to be more short-term but I guess the bigger question is as you put some of those put into work into loans where do you guys see that 100% loan deposit ratio going to in 2018, how comfortable are you guys with that going up more?

Yes, Casey, I think we normalize a little -- a little higher. Some of that excess liquidity we saw in the fourth quarter which we were still able to earn a healthy rate as I said in excess funds. I think that that some of that was with the market conditions you had a lot of volatility in the equity markets that pushed a lot of liquidity out of the equity markets and into the bank. That was part of it. We did also have some big wins. So there is some stability in there as well in terms of that excess liquidity that we will be able to deploy going forward. And then, as we also mentioned that seasonality is kind of the third leg of that, so we see some of that normalize. But there is a healthy portion of that is here for the near-term that we will be able to work into higher yields assets.

Casey, also if I could just add to that, the big wins that we've received in the fourth quarter are core relationships. So we believe that we have an opportunity to continue to build those relationships and while it takes time to put it out in loans at least it's has a nice impact on our EPS.

Got it. And I'll just ask one more and let someone else jump on, so the market at the end of the year seems to be pricing in a recession. So I'll just ask anything you're seeing in your markets that makes you nervous or anything you're staying away from?

It's a great question. In the second and third quarter I think we were a little bit more apprehensive on the growth but we continue to see the strong employment growth people coming into the community. This Amazon does have an impact in certain areas. The multifamily residential housing, it continues just to skyrocket, vacancies are coming down and we're seeing just a strong market. So it certainly fights the comment of where we are in our credit cycle but we do believe that the Washington market has some very unique characteristics.

Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Austin Nicholas from Stephens. Your line is open.

Most of my questions were answered on the asset side of the margin but maybe just digging into the liability side, your deposit costs kind of increased at a, kind of a consistent level till last quarter. Any commentary on what you're seeing in the deposit market and then any expectations for 2019 for any alleviation there that you could see if the Fed raises maybe one-time, or call it, less than 2018?

Yes, Austin, we did continued our efforts in the CD gathering process and as great move up again in the fourth quarter, we saw similar movement there. A lot of that is kind of falling out of vogue in terms of CD gathering as you're not getting much given the flatness of the curve at this point as a deposit or so, I would expect some of that to taper. Similarly provided that the outlook remains and holds with respect to no further rate moves in 2019, I would think that we would be able to stabilize funding costs to some degree, so you wouldn't see the kind of moves that you've seen in prior quarters. We've seen other, other banks in the market pull down some of their rate specials and folks getting a little less aggressive with how they're marketing for deposits. So the expectation is perhaps that that helps us out going forward.

Understand that's helpful. And then maybe just on the fee income side of the business, any outlook on the FHA business or the SBA side of things as you look to 2019 and then any impact you're seeing on either of those business lines on the government shutdown would be helpful?

As far as the FHA side, we're still optimistic on 2019. We have a good pipeline. Unfortunately it's sitting on somebody's desk right now where nobody's there to process them. But we do have the confidence that we've talked about in the past although disappointing in 2018 feel that the pipeline for 2019 is good.

Got it. And then maybe just one last one, tax rate ticked down a little bit, is that a good run rate to think about as we think about 19%, kind of 20%, 25%?

Yes. We got involved in a low income housing tax credit in the fourth quarter and I would put the benefit of that which reduced the tax rate, I see the tax rate in the 25% to 25.5% range going forward. Also, yes, we can -- speaking of taxes, we can think of the margin and the tax-affected impact on that. We'll -- and looking at that, when we normalize for taxes it's about two basis points higher just as a note, something new we've looked at this quarter.

So you're -- the margin you're saying that the tax credit investment impacted the margin --?

No, no.

This quarter?

You respond to the thought that when we're -- as we're talking about taxes here, there is an impact on the margin, sorry to confuse you.

Got it. No, understood. Okay, great, well I will hop off for somebody else. Thanks guys.

Thanks, Austin.

Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of David Bishop from FIG Partners. Your line is open.

I think Ron you alluded to the -- you've been through this before in terms of the government shutdown. In terms of last time, did that show up anywhere in terms of, I know it didn't drag on as long as this, but did some of your government contractors did they start tapping lines of credit or chewing through deposit but I guess where would you expect to see the signs of stress as it did emerge and these things drags on longer than expected and any sense of exposure you can give us in terms of the government contract exposure there I guess some of the Federal workers looks like they'll get some back pay but I guess there's a lot of angst about the government contracting sector that's still bottles the DC area?

Sure. We have about $100 million in government outstanding to government contractors. So we do believe that if this continues much longer, we will see them tapping into the lines of credit. But as a commercial bank, it's going to be across the board where some of these companies will be looking to tap on their line.

I think we’ve been proactive in reaching out to our GovCon customers and making sure that they have an adequate level of protection. It's really the smaller less sophisticated, sure government contractors that we're working with the most to ensure that they have the availability. If they should drag on we haven't had to make any adjustments thus far but difficult to figure out how long it's going to last.

Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Catherine Mealor from KBW. Your line is open.

Hi, just a one follow-up on just for loan yields, just want to circle back after Casey's question there. So we think -- we take a step back, so Ron you believe that the margin should move higher moving forward more just from as your excess liquidity is put to work and that comes down. So just a remixing but as we think about just loan yields alone, I mean do you see like this quarter's decline was -- or are we kind of now step back and that should increase at a more moderate pace or do you see further pressure on loan yields so that really stays more flat this year? Kind of -- and I know what the Fed does is a big play on that. I'm just -- I get how there's upside to the margin just from the remix but just trying to think about just the loan yield piece as a standalone, and what direction or magnitude we could see that move over time? Thanks.

From the production perspective, our loan yields have been pretty consistent over the past couple of quarters. Obviously, it's just difficult to determine based on payoffs because we had one fairly large condominium project that had $53 million worth of payoffs in one quarter which we were not expecting and that was again at a higher yielding asset yield. So as far as the loan production side, we've been pretty flat in terms of where we believe we can generate the yields to.

And you have the average production -- the average rate of new production?

Yes, the weighted average rate of new production, again I would call in that 5.15% to 5.20% range. And then again 30-ish basis points or so just so on for deferred fees and cost to get to yields. Again I would point out that those deferred fees and costs were more impactful in the third quarter than they were in the fourth quarter. The loans that paid off had further to go relative to their maturity in the third quarter, So the acceleration of fees that you saw in the third quarter had had some positive impact to the yields that we didn't necessarily see in the fourth quarter as those payoffs were much closer to maturity. So that that does have an impact and I think that was a little anomalous. So you may see some positive impact from that perspective going forward.

Got it. Okay. So roughly new loan production is coming on right around this 5.60% level give or take. So really the margin expansion is aside from another rate increase, all else equal the margin expansion is really from remix more so than that 5.60% really moving significantly higher from here; is that a fair statement?

I think that's fair.

Okay, all right. Great, thanks for the clarity.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question or comment comes from the line of Steven Comery from G. Research. Your line is open.

Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions.

Sure. Thanks, Steven.

So just want to step off the margin for a second, salaries look like they took pretty meaningful step down in the quarter, press release talks about stock accruals, maybe if you can you give us some indication as kind of how big the delta is there, like how big of a piece that is of salaries when they're fully in there?

Yes, I think that looking at the second and third quarter is probably a better on average is probably a better run rate going forward with. What you saw in 2018 was accruals based on expectation the performance obviously as you get further down the line towards the end of the year that that performance comes into focus. I will cite some example. The FHA Group did not quite perform as we expected to nor did the SBA Group. So that we were able to true up those what we have accrued for those groups. We also have some performance based shares which are measured relative to an index and again as you get closer to that cliff vesting which will take place here next month then you get a better sense of what would those payoffs are going to be. So that's indicative of some of that that true-up. But I think looking at the second and third quarter on average is probably a better indication for 2019 of what we can expect in terms of the run rate at this point.

Okay, that's helpful. And then I don't want to belabor this is too much but coming back to the margin for a second, so the December rate hike I mean how do you guys think that will play out through kind of through all the puts and takes on the margin. Will you expect that yields to increase and how do you expect deposit pricing to play out? I know you guys said you look at yourselves as asset neutral. But kind of just into Q1 how do you think about that?

Yes, to your point, Steven, it's a push and pull right because you've got new loan volumes coming on at slightly lower rates than those that are being paid off. At the same time we've got 61% of our portfolio that's adjustable and variable rate that will reprice and have repriced. So I think -- I think the net is going to be slightly positive for us and I think that's where -- where it lands.

Okay. Fair enough. I think that's really I had all the other questions are answered. Thanks guys.

Thanks, Steven.

Thank you.

Thank you. We have a follow-up question from the line of David Bishop from FIG Partners. Your line is open.

Great, thank you, apologies for cutting off there. Just a follow-up maybe to the operating expense question, I think this year total operating expenses up were close to 6% or so, you've made some investments in risk management. As you pass off 2019 maybe some outlook and you think that mid-single-digit, high-single-digit is probably the right rate of growth to use?

Yes, I think that's right. We're going to continue to focus on expense control to the extent that the -- that we need to given that revenue materializes, the expenses will follow, we're going to be -- will vary again as Ron mentioned, feel our prospects are very good for the non-interest income business. It's going to be pivotal for us in the coming year and we’re going to be watching our expenses relative to what that that group brings in to make sure that we remain the profitable company that we are and maintain our operating leverage. So I think to your point those mid-to-high-single-digits is a good outlook for expenses.

Got it. And then in the preamble, Ron, I think you mentioned the level of paydowns this quarter versus last, just curious what that was and didn't know if you had the actual weighted average yields on the loans that did payoff this quarter?

Yes, I believe we can -- Charles, you have that?

Yes, the weighted average rate and unfortunately not the yield but the weighted average rate was 5.52% on the loans that paid off in the fourth quarter for $356 million.

Do you have the number of mass quarter in terms of payoffs?

Yes, that was a 5.38% and at $345 million.

That's great, thank you.

Thank you. I'm showing no additional questions in the queue at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Ron Paul for any closing remarks.

I'd like to thank everybody again for taking in the call and we're available at any time should anybody have any further comments or questions. So thank you very much for attending.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a wonderful day.