Mike Price
Analyst · Piper Sandler. Please go ahead
Thank you, Ryan. We were generally pleased with the second quarter results with net income of $23.9 million, earnings per share of $0.24, a pre-tax pre-provision ROA of 1.61% and the core efficiency ratio of 57.2%. First, provision expense fell to $6.9 million from $31 million in the first quarter, as three non-performing loans were resolved. The second quarter reserve increased from $2 million to $81 million or 1.28% of total loans, excluding PPP loans as we added another $5.5 million in qualitative reserves to reflect the economy and our COVID overlay. We believe that ratio compares favorably to other incurred banks, although our second quarter reserve of $81 million was calculated using the incurred loss model. Adding our previously disclosed day-one CECL increase would put reserves into the mid $90 million range. That would put the reserve coverage in the mid-150s, which we believe would compare favorably with CECL banks our size, even with no further reserve build. That's all because of the strong reserve build we did in the first quarter. Our first quarter loan deferral figure of $1.1 billion or 17.6% of total loans fell all the way $186 million or 2.7% of total loans as of July 24. Most of our deferrals were 90 days and our approach to customers, consumers, and businesses in March and early April shifted from accommodative and customer service oriented to a more credit-oriented approach in May and June. The team is exercising extraordinary oversight with regard to credit. This is warranted particularly if the ongoing reopening of the economy cannot safely continue in the ensuing quarter or two, and as the impact of the initial shorter-term government stimulus dissipates. In the second quarter, our credit and banking teams did a name-by-name commercial loan review and spoke with some 1,600 clients in total. Brian Karrip, our Chief Credit Officer will provide more credit commentary shortly. Second, the team helped roughly 5,000 local businesses, preserve roughly 80,000 jobs at a median loan size of only $32,000 through the Payroll Protection Program. Excluding $571 million of PPP loans, our portfolio grew 2.7% annualized, driven by record mortgage volumes, strong indirect loan originations and corporate banking growth. Our Ohio markets accounted for all of the net new loan growth in the second quarter, further validating our Ohio expansion over the past few years. As an aside, over $20 million in PPP loan fees were wired to First Commonwealth in June from the SBA and will accrete into income in the second half of the year, as we expect that the majority of our PPP loans will be forgiven. Third, the net interest margin of 3.29% fell as expected. But after adjusting for the dilutive effects of the PPP loans at 1% and an excess of low-yielding cash on our balance sheet, the NIM of our company was closer to 3.41%. Jim Reske, our CFO, will provide commentary on margin expenses and other important items. Fourth, non-interest income of $21.8 million in the second quarter increased some $2.5 million as the company set quarterly records in both mortgage originations and debit card interchange income. Regarding the former, some $203 million in mortgage originations, increased gain on sale income from $1.7 million to $4.2 million. On the latter, we added 10% more debit cards with our Santander branch acquisition last year. And in the second quarter, consumer debit card swipes were up as retailers had a strong preference for cards versus cash. This produced $5.9 million in debit card interchange income, $600,000 more than last quarter. Fifth, our capital levels remained strong. We have over $200 million of excess capital and together with our ALLL, this would allow us to absorb losses equal to roughly 5% of the entire loan portfolio at once, and still remain well capitalized. Sixth, despite the $2.5 million uptick in our non-interest expense, the $52.8 million, the underlying expense trend is down as the quarter-over-quarter comparison absorbs $3.4 million -- $3.4 million negative variance in unfunded commitment expense. Jim Reske will elaborate on this as well, but we want to enter 2021 and sustain through the year of $51 million to $52 million quarterly non-interest expense run rate. At the onset of the COVID pandemic and after the first Federal Reserve cuts in March, the Executive team started a broad-based initiative dubbed, Project THRIVE, as we focused on one growth, expense and efficiency, NIM, and capital, with the expressed goal of emerging on the other side of the pandemic stronger than ever. We now have two dozen initiatives, some small, some large in the works. Yesterday, we announced the consolidation of 20% of our branches across our footprint into adjacent offices that will be completed by year-end. This comes at a time that we are setting quarterly company records with online mobile account opening, mobile deposit activity and debit card activity with our new contactless cards. In the ensuing months, we expect to launch our third generation of P2P payments and the fourth generation of an integrated mobile online banking platform after the successful launch of a new treasury management platform for our commercial clients in June. Customer preferences continue to change meaningfully and the COVID crisis has pushed all things digital, well past traditional servicing. Just one example; in the second quarter, we opened 992 deposit accounts via our mobile online platform, some three times our first quarter figure, which by the way was not bad. Our investment in digital leaves us well prepared for the future. Lastly, the First Commonwealth team will remain focused on a handful of items that will simply make us a better bank, namely accentuating opportunities to grow our core business and geographies as we continue to build the first Commonwealth brand. Second, realizing efficiencies at a time when margins are compressed and could remain there for the foreseeable future. Third, executing a handful of key digital initiatives in the ensuing months and continuing to build competitive advantage on that front. And lastly, navigating the COVID environment to deliver good, through the cycle credit and net interest margin outcomes for our shareholders. I'd like to now turn the time over to Jim Reske. Jim?