Wally Wallace
Analyst · Raymond James. Michael, your line is open
Thanks, Jim and good morning everyone. Turning to the financial highlights. In Q3, we reported diluted earnings per share of $0.79. On an adjusted basis, Q3 EPS were $0.71 after excluding a $10.1 million write-up on an equity investment and a $7.2 million loss on securities sold during the quarter. Starting with deposits, total deposits declined 1.4% during the quarter. We continue to see a shift of non-interest-bearing deposits into interest bearing accounts. Non-interest-bearing deposits declined 5.4% this quarter and the mix fell to 24% of total deposits in Q3 from 25% in Q2 and 28% in Q1. Importantly, the pace of the decline in Q3 was a slight deceleration from the pace we saw in the first half of the year and was better than our expectations. So we do continue to forecast some additional mixed pressure over the next couple of quarters to our non-interest-bearing deposit mix. Ultimately, combined with continued need to price up interest-bearing deposits, our total deposit beta increased again, though at a slowing rate, from 35% in Q1 to 42% in Q2 and 47% in Q3. We continue to expect our deposit beta will increase in the fourth quarter. Importantly, loan pricing discipline and a positive shift in the earning asset mix helped offset funding cost pressures and drove stabilization in our net interest margin, which contracted just 2 basis points during the quarter to 3.14%. Excluding net purchase accounting accretion of $530,000 in Q2 and purchase accounting amortization of 38,000 in Q3, our adjusted NIM was flat at 3.14% for both quarters, better than our expectations. As Drake mentioned earlier, at the end of the quarter we decided to execute a strategic trade in our securities portfolio. We sold securities with the book value of $182 million at a realized loss of $7.2 million and we paid down FHLB advances with the proceeds. This strategy serves the dual-purpose of one, boosting forward margin and EPS results in a financially attractive manner. And two, providing ample balance sheet room to manage our assets below the important $10 billion threshold through year-end. With the net interest income benefit we received from the trade, we estimate a standalone NIM benefit of 11 basis points and a 1.7-year earn back period on the realized loss. While our continued expectation of deposit mix and pricing pressures will eat away at some of the 11 basis point NIM benefit provided by the trade, our current expectations are that 3Q NIM of 3.14% may represent the trough. Shifting to fee income, we reported $18.1 million in Q3. Excluding the previously mentioned $10.1 million write-up on an equity investment and $7.2 million loss on securities sold our adjusted fee income was $15.2 million in Q3, flat from $15.2 million in Q2, which excluded the $471,000 gain on the retirement of sub debt. Our non-interest expense also remained relatively stable at $58.7 million in Q3 down slightly from $58.9 million in Q2. We remain focused on operating expense management and continue to expect relatively stable expense levels in the fourth quarter. Turning to capital, we note that our TCE ratio remained above 8% for the fourth consecutive quarter ending at 8.7% as slight growth in tangible common equity coupled with a decline in tangible assets due to the securities trade at the end of the quarter. Furthermore, as shown on Slide 22 of our investor presentation, all of our regulatory capital levels at both the bank and holding company levels remain above levels considered well capitalized even if we were to include our AOCI loss in the calculations. As such, we remain confident that we have the capital flexibility to take advantage of any potential future capital deployment opportunities to drive value for our shareholders. With that, I'll now turn it back to Drake.