Thank you, Nan. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining First BanCorp.'s conference call and webcast to discuss the company's financial results for the first quarter of 2016. Joining me today are Aurelio Aleman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Orlando Berges, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
Before we begin today's call, it is my responsibility to inform you that this call may involve certain forward-looking statements such as projections of revenue, earnings and capital structure as well as statements on the plans and objectives of the company's business. The company's actual results could differ materially from the forward-looking statements made due to the important factors described in the company's latest Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. If anyone does not already have a copy of the webcast presentation and press release issued by First BanCorp., you can access them under the IR section of the company's website at firstbankpr.com.
At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Aurelio Aleman. Aurelio?
Aurelio Alemán-Bermúdez: Thank you, John. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us again to discuss our first quarter results. On the call with me today, as usual, is Orlando Berges, our CFO. Orlando will cover a lot of the details for the financial results of the quarter.
Let's begin with some of the highlights of the quarter. Please turn to Slide 5 of the deck. We have to say that we had a strong quarter, generating $23 million of net income. We're really very pleased about that. On an adjusted basis, it was $26 million, which Orlando will cover in detail. This compares to $15 million in the fourth quarter.
I want to highlight not necessarily financial but 2 events that are -- that we believe are very important for -- and positive for the quarter. We were quite pleased that we were able to execute on a small capital action with the repurchase of a portion of the TruPS, $10 million for 70%, resulting in a $4.2 million pretax gain. And I will have to say we were able to accomplish this with the Fed rate agreement still in place.
Secondly, and very important also, during the first quarter, we opened our new branch on Brickell Avenue, Miami that will provide access to what we consider a very nice segment and growing market for our Florida franchise.
We saw improvement in almost all of our core metrics, with the exception of increasing NPA, which was driven by our commercial loans guarantee by the Tourism Development Fund. We have been discussing this relationship during the second half of 2015, a couple of quarters we covered this. We made the decision to move this loan to non-accrual status even though they're still current.
Obviously, given the recently enacted moratorium law and executive order and the overall uncertainty on the fiscal matters and the GDB [indiscernible] situation. Had we not done so, actually, asset quality would have slightly improved, with NPA decreasing $1.2 million. On the other hand, our net charge-offs continued stable this quarter at 1.03% and early-stage delinquencies improved by $26 million or 10% compared to the fourth quarter. So there's a mix of asset quality metrics here that we have to consider.
We're definitely pleased to show that we continued to improve core metrics while continue to operate in this challenged environment. Pre-provision earnings increased $2 million to $52.6 million, showing the core earnings power of the franchise. And definitely, we continued to enhance our strong capital base. Now our tangible book is $7.66 per share.
Let's move to the next slide to cover some additional details. On the loan portfolio, we saw an $88 million decline in the commercial book, primarily 2 large commercial relationships that paid off this quarter totaling $99 million. I have to say, though, there's also some seasonality here. In traditional in the first quarter, we have lower originations and renewals than prior quarters.
We also experienced a reduction of $40 million in the consumer portfolio, primarily in the auto segment. We continue our cautious lending practices, which, on the other side, are reflecting lower delinquencies and charge-off across the consumer segment. And it's important to highlight that.
On the other hand, Florida operations contributed nicely to our loan portfolio, with a $54 million increase or 5% growth in the loan book. Origination volume was basically down in Puerto Rico in most categories. And again, some of it is seasonal, but also we continue with tight credit standards in the face of the uncertainty, which also contributed to some of this low originations and approval rates. And again, Florida market contributed to over $100 million, $105 million in origination volume this quarter, up again from the prior quarter.
Regardless, we will continue to work hard to sustain our loan portfolio at current levels. Obviously, sustaining Puerto Rico is harder and obviously, we are counting the Florida and the VI will bring also some additional growth.
Please let's move to the next slide. The deposit mix, as we discussed before, this is a very important strategy for us. We had a nice growth in our core deposit base. Net of government, non-brokered deposit increased $137 million, savings DDAs in both Puerto Rico and the VI, not in Florida. We -- and we further reduced the reliance on the brokered CD book by $91 million this quarter. Noninterest-bearing deposits increased to 15%, slightly [indiscernible] when compared to the prior quarter.
Now let's talk about the most interesting topic for everyone, which is our government exposure. I think everybody has said before, uncertainty is still dominating the macro and the resolution of the fiscal matters, there's no timeline, no definite timeline in Puerto Rico, or we have to say, or D.C. I know a lot of people are working very hard on bringing this item to resolution on both sides. But now we come into crunch time, with the May 1 payment and the July 1 payment, so for sure, we're going to see some additional actions in the remainder of the quarter as they relate to these 2 items.
The -- our government exposure declined by $20 million, primarily from the repayment of lines that we had with central government. And as I mentioned before, with the recently enacted moratorium law and executive order, we're concerned that GDB will not arrive at a solution prior to next week. We're only a couple of days away from May 1.
And again, given these recent events, you saw in the numbers, we took an additional OTTI charge on the debt securities and made the unfortunate decision to move the [indiscernible] guaranteed loans to non-accrual status. Again, as I mentioned before, these loans are current.
Our allowance, a question that we get asked when this commercial loan to the Puerto Rico government, excluding municipalities, is approximately 20%. Municipalities, we continue to feel comfortable with our exposure. They are a well-managed entity, as I said before. They have a strong cash flow, consolidated payment from the property taxes.
We have to continue to be vigilant, closely monitor what's going on, work together with the government on this. Again, we're very confident that we have the capital strength and the diversification of the franchise from a geographic perspective, from a line of business perspective, to continue consistent and persistent executing our business plan in these still rough waters.
And again, our team have experience and the focus to continue navigating. So I'm sure we'll go back to this during the QA, but for now, I'm going to hand the call over to Orlando to discuss more details on the quarter.
Orlando Berges-González: Good morning, everyone. As Aurelio mentioned, the results from core operations were very good for the quarter. We posted a net income of $23.3 million or $0.11 a share, which compares to $15 million or $0.07 a share we had last quarter.
Total assets were just slightly higher, $12.7 billion compared to $12.6 billion last quarter, mostly on the liquidity side since there were some reductions in the lending side that Aurelio mentioned. If I summarize, we saw basically a stable net interest income, reduced provision for loan losses and slightly lower expenses, but also, results do include some unusual items that affect comparability.
To mention them, on the positive side, we realized the $4.2 million gain on the repurchase and cancellation of the trust preferred. Aurelio mentioned that on the highlights of the quarter. This gain was realized at the holding company level. Therefore, it has no income tax effect based on available operating expenses at the holding company and NOLs at that high level.
On the other hand, going back and forth, and you're going to hear this a few times, as you know, the government of Puerto Rico enacted a moratorium law, which has, at this point, mostly targeted to GDB obligation. The inflation adds an additional level of uncertainty to the valuation of the Puerto Rico government bond that we have in our investment portfolio, and as a result, we ended up taking an additional $6.3 million other-than-temporary-impairment charge on these securities.
No tax benefit was recognized on these OTTI charges because of the capital treatment of the items and the fact that we still have some -- the valuation allowance. Therefore, there were no tax benefits. Over the last 4 quarters, basically, we have taken $22.2 million in OTTI charges on these securities. As you saw in the prior slide, the par value on the securities is $65 million, and they're on the books at $43 million. Fair value of the securities is lower based on market expectation going through OCI.
The net impact of these items on the quarter was $2.5 million for an adjusted net income of $25.8 million. Prior quarter did have some also unusual items. The net impact of these items was much smaller. We had the $7 million gain associated with the long-term marketing alliance we entered with Evertec in which we sold our merchant contract portfolio. After tax, that has a $1.3 million impact.
We had a 3-point -- a $3 million OTTI charge on the Puerto Rico government securities. Again, like in this quarter, there was no tax benefit related to that charge. And we had $2.2 million in costs related to our voluntary early retirement program that we put together last quarter, which have an after-tax effect of $1.3 million. The net impact of all these items was $100,000 for an adjusted net income of $15.1 million.
So we had a nice pickup in the quarter and the main driver being the provisioning. For the first -- for this first quarter, we had a provision of $21.1 million, which compares to $33.6 million. And as you might recall from last quarter, the main item there is the net impact of 2 components that affected the commercial construction reserve, which went down -- came down, the provision, meaning by $8.2 million.
First of all, we had an increase of $19.2 million last quarter in the general allowance for loan losses related to adjustments to the qualitative factors that stressed the historical loss rates we applied to exposure to government loans, either directly or indirectly. And on the other hand, we did have some relief of -- $8 million relief in construction reserves, given the stabilization of the assets that were behind. So the end result was that $12 million reduction on the reserve -- on the provisioning for the quarter.
Regarding net interest income, GAAP net interest income was $124.6 million. It's $600,000 lower than last quarter. GAAP net interest margin increased 11 basis points to 4.18%. To remind you that a portion of this increase relates to the temporary government deposits we had in the fourth quarter. That lowered the margin of the quarter -- of the fourth quarter by approximately 5 basis points.
Average loans on the first quarter are down $84 million, which impacted interest income by $1.5 million. Aurelio mentioned the 2 prepayments we had in the quarter. The average consumer portfolio was down $35 million, with a $1 million impact in interest income, while the average commercial portfolio was down $36 million, with a $400,000 impact on interest income.
The overall yield on the loan portfolio increased by 8 basis points for a $1.3 million pickup in interest income. Approximately $700,000 of the increase results from the higher LIBOR rate applied to commercial loan repricings on the floating portfolio. But also, we collected also $700,000 on fees on loans paid off during the quarter. This quarter had 1 less day, which represents an impact of about $600,000 in net interest income.
On the funding side, we saw 1 basis point increase in the cost of interest-bearing deposits, mostly time deposits. But our total deposit cost remained flat, as a result increasing the demand deposit accounts in Puerto Rico and the VI. Aurelio made reference to the growth we had in those portfolios.
However, due to the increase on the short-term market rates, we saw increases in the average cost of brokered CDs and other borrowed funds, mostly the repos that we have outstanding on the trust preferreds. Average brokered CD balances for the quarter were $188 million compared to average balance for the fourth quarter. But the average cost increased on brokered fees like 6 basis points based on the market cost for new issuance and increasing in the average term of new CDs that are being issued. To the extent possible, we have been expanding the terms of the brokered CDs for interest rate risk management purpose, which had some impact on the cost of those CDs.
The interest rates on all interest-bearing liabilities was up 4 basis points, but the average balances were down $267 million, for a net impact of only $45,000. So it wasn't a large impact combined. The key is, again, continuing to execute on the strategy of growing non-brokered deposits, mainly demand deposits, and improving the overall funding mix. Aurelio made reference to noninterest-bearing deposits. They have been growing steadily. Now they are 15% of our deposit base, which is a key component.
Noninterest income for the first quarter was $18.5 million versus $23.2 million in the fourth quarter. Adjusted noninterest income for this quarter was $20.9 million. This excludes the $6.7 million in the OTTI charges on Puerto Rico securities and the $4.2 million gain.
For the fourth quarter of last year, adjusted net interest income was $19.2 million, which also excludes the OTTI charges of $3 million and the $7 million gain on the merchant contracts. The pickup -- so the $1.7 million increase was basically $2 million increase in insurance commissions, which is related to contingent commissions that are received seasonally based on prior year's production of insurance policies; a $300,000 increase on service charges on deposits, which basically reflect the full quarter impact of new service and transaction fees that were put in place in November of last year.
On the other hand, we had some reductions in fees, $600,000 reduction in fees from merchant transactions, which is a combination of a full quarter impact of the merchant contract sales and volume seasonality that we see on credit cards comparing fourth quarter and first quarter.
Expenses have continued to behave very well. Noninterest expenses in the quarter were $93 million, which decreased $3 million from the fourth quarter. However, the $96 million last quarter did include the voluntary -- the $2.2 million in voluntary early retirement program expenses. If we exclude those, noninterest expenses decreased $800,000. Main drivers being a decrease in FDIC insurance by $1.4 million, which is a combination of our higher liquidity levels for the period, the average assets had some decreases in the period, the decrease in the brokered CDs that I previously mentioned. So all of those affect the calculation.
Also, OREO expenses came down by $700,000, which is primarily an increase in rental income, which is the result of rental income on an income-producing property we've repossessed at the end of last quarter and higher income on some of the existing OREO inventory that we have. Obviously, part of the strategy is trying to get those properties to be higher income-producing to improve ultimate disposition. On the other hand, compensation and benefit expenses increased $1.5 million if we exclude the $2.2 million, which is basically higher seasonal payroll taxes and bonus accruals that we had in the quarter. The other expenses went up a bit. It's basically additional provision for unfunded loan commitments in some -- in floor plan lines. But it was only a $800,000 impact.
The one negative, as Aurelio mentioned, we had in the quarter was unfortunately the level of nonperforming assets increased this quarter as a result of the inflow of the $128.6 million exposure to commercial loans that are guaranteed by TDF. Again, this decision was driven by the uncertainty surrounding GDB's ability to continue to make payments upon the enactment of the moratorium law, which at the end could impact its subsidiary, which TDF is a subsidiary of GDB.
These loans were current in payment, contractual payment as of March and continue to be current. We have been receiving payments, from the borrowers and TDF as guarantor, sufficient to cover all contractual payments. TDF payments were $600,000 in this first quarter, which compares to $5.3 million that they made during the whole 2015. This quarter, most of the payments came directly from the borrowers. However, this leads to our second decision because of the uncertainty, we have decided to put all principal interest payments in the future against principal. And therefore, it will have some impact on interest income going forward.
Excluding the $128 million TDF exposure, nonperforming assets decreased by $1.2 million in the quarter. Aurelio also made reference to inflows. Inflows of nonperforming were $48.8 million, an increase of $6.8 million as compared to last quarter, which was mostly in the residential mortgage portfolio, where we had $5 million higher in inflows. $3 million of those were in VI and Florida. We had some other smaller increases on the commercial side, which were offset by decreases in the consumer side. But still, the inflows are very much in line with the last few quarters. We haven't seen any major change in there.
Adversely classified loans, commercial and construction loans, increased by $47 million in the quarter and basically driven by 3 commercial loans that added 3% at $48 million. These loans were previously classified as special mention. TDRs went down slightly by $2.5 million in the quarter.
Our net charge-offs for the quarter were $23.6 million, annualized 1.03%, compared to $21.9 million last quarter or 95 basis points. The increase of $1.7 million was mostly on 2.2 -- $2.1 million increase of residential mortgage charge-off related to loans that are individually evaluated for impairment.
Net charge-off ratios have been fairly consistent over the last few quarters. If we take out the bulk sale that we did last year, they're very comparable. The allowance for loan losses was relatively flat at $238 million at the end of the quarter and the ratio of the allowance to total loans was 2.61% compared to 2.60% as of December.
The ratio of the allowance to nonperforming was 41.4%, down from 54.4% in December, which reflects the migration to nonperforming of the $128.6 million of loans guaranteed by TDF. As Aurelio mentioned, these TDF loans, these loans guaranteed by TDF, have been adversely classified since the third quarter, and the general reserve was increased in the fourth quarter, as I previously mentioned.
The migration of the loans to nonperforming status did not result in any significant increases in the allowance since most of the required reserves have already been taken. The total coverage related to commercial loans extended to or guaranteed by the Puerto Rico government was 20% as of March. The portions related to the TDF guaranteed loans is north of that 20%.
On the capital front, ratios remain strong. Tangible common equity stands at 13.1%, Tier 1 at 16.6% and total capital at 20%. Important to mention in the quarter, we did see some impact on the capital ratio reduction, meaning resulting from the full phaseout of the trust preferred securities from Tier 1 capital. In addition, a smaller impact on Tier 1 common was the additional phaseout of a portion of the DTA related NOLs, which did impact the ratios a bit, but obviously offset by the earnings for the quarter.
So with that, I will now open the call for questions.