Randall Chesler
Analyst · Sandler O'Neill. Your line is open. Please go ahead
All right. Thank you, Mitchell. Well good morning and thank you for joining us today. With me here in Kalispell this morning is Ron Copher, our Chief Financial Officer; Don Chery, our Chief Administrative Officer; Barry Johnston, our Chief Credit Administrator; and Angela Dose, our Principal Accounting Officer. Yesterday, we released our third quarter 2018 results. This was a very strong and well balanced quarter, and continuous an excellent year-to-date performance for the company. Earnings were $49.3 million, an increase of $12.8 million, or 35% over the third quarter a year ago. Pre-tax income was $60.1 million for the quarter, an increase of $12 million, or 25 over the prior year third quarter. Pre-tax income of $161 million for the first nine months of the year increased $26.2 million, or 19% over the first nine months of 2017. We had loan growth of $175 million, or 9% annualized in the third quarter versus growth of $164 million, or 10% in the third quarter a year ago. We grew our core deposits $199 million, or 9% annualized in the third quarter. Diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $0.58, an increase of 12% from the prior quarter and an increase of $0.11, or 23% over the year third quarter. Our annualized return on average assets at the end of the quarter was very strong 1.66%, up from 1.53% in the prior quarter. Annualized return on average equity was 13.1% and our return on tangible equity was 17.4%. We declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.26 per share, which is a 24% increase over the third quarter regular dividend a year ago. This was our 134th consecutive quarterly dividend paid by the company. And in September, we also successfully completed the conversion of Collegiate Peaks Bank in Buena Vista and Denver, Colorado on to our core processing platform. Loan production for the third quarter was $887 million, which was once again generally well distributed among all our divisions. Loan pay downs were $712 million, which is consistent with past seasonality. The loan portfolio ended the quarter at $8.1 billion. Organically, the loan portfolio increased $632 million, or 10% since September 2017 and was primarily was driven by growth in commercial real estate loans, which increased $406 million, or 12% over the same period. Investment securities up $2.695 billion decreased $103 million, or 4% during the current quarter and increased $153 million, or 6% from the prior year third quarter. Investment securities represented 23% of total assets at the end of the quarter, compared to 26% at the end of the third quarter a year ago. On to credit, our key credit quality ratios improved in all categories across board. Early-stage delinquencies as a percentage of loans at the end of the quarter were 30 basis points, that's a decrease of 19 basis points from the second quarter, and an decrease of 14 basis point from the prior year third quarter. Net charge-offs for the quarter were $2.2 million and were $5.7 million for the first nine months of 2018. Charge-offs for the first nine months of 2018 was 7 basis points of total loans, down 5 basis points from the same period a year ago. Non-performing assets as a percentage of subsidiary assets at the end of the third quarter were 61 basis points, which is 10 basis points lower than the prior quarter and 6 basis points than the prior year third quarter. At the end of the quarter, NPAs totaled $72.1 million, a decrease of $12.4 million, or 15% from the prior quarter. We are very pleased to see the reduction in the level of NPAs, as we've been working towards this for some time and hope to see this trend continue. The allowance for loan and lease losses as a percentage of total loans outstanding at the end of this quarter was 1.63%, which is down 3 basis points from the prior year quarter and down 36 basis points for the end of the third quarter a year ago. This reflects our positive outlook on our portfolio and markets. Our low-cost, high quality stable funding platform across our Western multi-state footprint continued to perform really well for the company. Core deposits at the end of the quarter were $9.45 billion. Total core deposits were up versus the prior quarter by $199 million, or 2% as we continue with our focus on growing relationship-based accounts. The bulk of the deposit growth this quarter was all in non-interest bearing deposits, which increased $188 million, or 6% from the prior quarter and organically $276 million, or 12% from the year third quarter. We ended the third quarter with the loan to deposit ratio of 85% essentially unchanged from the prior quarter. And we were very pleased to see the total cost to funding for the current quarter unchanged from the prior quarter at 36 basis points, and up only 1 basis points versus the prior year third quarter. Once again our 14 divisions continue to do an outstanding job, tightly managing deposit cost specific to each of their market. Interest income increased $5.2 million to $123 million, or 4% from the prior quarter and increased $26.4 million, or 27% over the prior year third quarter. Both increases were primarily attributable to the increase in interest income from commercial loans and rising interest rate. Interest income on commercial loans increased $4.8 million, or 6% from the prior quarter and increased $20.7 million, or 34% from the prior year third quarter. Our net interest margin as a percentage of earning assets for the quarter was 4.26%, compared to 4.17% in the prior quarter. The nine basis point increase in the net interest margin was primarily the result of increased yields on the loan portfolio and it also included a two basis point increase in loan discount accretion for total of eight basis points attributed to discount accretion. The current quarter net interest margin increased 15 basis points over the prior year third quarter, net interest margin of 4.11, and would have been an increase almost 30 basis points if the same federal tax rate in effect 2017 were in effect today. The increase in core margin from the prior year third quarter was a result of the remix of earning assets, the higher-yielding loans, improved interest rates on the loan portfolio and our very stable funding cost. Our non-interest income for the quarter totaled $32.4 million, an increase of $588,000, or 2% from the prior quarter and an increase of $1.2 million, or 4% over the same quarter last year, driven by increased accounts from our recent acquisitions. Service charges and other fees of $19.5 million increased $700,000 or 4% from the prior quarter and the increased $2.2 million, or 13% from the prior year third quarter. The increases were primarily due to the increased number of accounts from organic growth and acquisition. Gain on sale of loans decreased $886,000, or 11% from the prior quarter as a result of some housing seasonality and decreased $1.9 million, or 21% from the prior year third quarter as a result of some seasonality and timing of loan origination. Other income increased $1.5 million, or 56% from the quarter and was primarily due to a $2.3 million gain on the sale of a branch building and increased $767,000 or 22% from the prior year third quarter due to the branch sale. Non-interest expense for the quarter was $82.8 million, that increased $1 million or 1% over the prior quarter and increased $14.3 million, or 21% over the prior year third quarter. Comp and employee benefits of $49.9 million increased by $904,000 or 2% from the prior quarter and $8.6 million, or 21% from the prior year third quarter primarily due to the increased number of employees from acquisitions. Occupancy and equipment expense increased $1.4 million or 22% over the prior year third quarter and was also attributable primarily to our acquisitions. OREO expenses increased $2.5 million from the prior quarter and $1.9 million from the prior year third quarter, with the increase driven by a single property which we wrote down $2.2 million in the quarter. Other expenses decreased $1.9 million, or 13% from the prior quarter and was primarily driven by a decrease in acquisition related expenses. Acquisition-related expenses were $1.3 million during the current quarter, compared to $2.9 million in the prior quarter and $245,000 in the prior year third quarter. Tax expense for the third quarter was $10.8 million, which is a decrease of $837,000 or 7% from the prior year third quarter and was attributed to the Tax Act. The effective tax rate in the second quarter of 2018 was 18% compared to 24% in the prior year third quarter. Our efficiency ratio for the quarter was 52.3%; it was 318 basis point decreases from the prior quarter efficiency ratio of 55.4%. The decrease was a result of an increase in interest income and the sale of the branch building combined with the company controlling operating costs and a decrease in our acquisition related expenses. In closing, the third quarter of 2018 represents another excellent quarter for the company. We finalized the integration process plan for Collegiate Peaks at the end of the third quarter and now we've successfully integrated both our First Security and Collegiate Peaks Bank acquisition that we closed at the beginning of the year. Our 14 division presidents and their team across our seven states really rose to the occasion in the third quarter and delivered some very strong results across all aspects of the business. That ends my formal remarks. And I'd like to ask Michelle to please open the line for any questions that you may have.