John Rogers
Analyst · Piper Sandler. Please go ahead
Thanks, Chuck. Our net interest income declined 1% compared to the linked-quarter, which was partially impacted by one less day in the first quarter. Also compared to the linked quarter, our net interest margin declined 5 basis points. Our loan yields declined mostly due to the current interest rate environment. Our investment yields have continued to be impacted by higher prepayment speeds which are associated with securities backed by underlying mortgage loans, which has increased our premium amortization. As we had planned, we actively managed our funding cost by lowering interest rates on deposit accounts, which declined by 11 basis points. Accretion income, which is net of amortization expense, added $1.1 million to net interest income or 11 basis points to net interest margin during the quarter compared to $1.8 million or 18 basis points to margin in the linked-quarter. Compared to the prior year, our net interest income grew by 2%, this was partially due to the First Prestonsburg acquisition. Our higher interest income amounts coupled with our close management of funding cost more than offset the decline in investment securities income. The net -- the decreased investment securities income was mostly related to higher premium amortization associated with faster prepayments speeds. Our net interest margin decreased by 29 basis points and was largely driven by lower investment security yields coupled with decreased loan yields. Accretion income added $722,000 to net interest income or 8 basis points to net interest margin in the prior-year quarter. The most recent changes in interest rate environment are a challenge that we are actively managing. We continue to look for ways to lower our funding costs and we'll continue to do so in future periods. Promotional deposit products that were offered in the prior year will be repricing as the year progresses, and will contribute to reducing our deposit costs. While we anticipate some decline in our loan portfolio yields, this will be partially driven by the path that LIBOR takes as a large portion of our commercial loan portfolio is tied to LIBOR. We are fortunate to have a diversified revenue stream which is not solely dependent on our traditional banking results. We were able to support our income statement with our fee income businesses which has proven time and again to be an important part of our business model. Our total non-interest income, excluding gains and losses continues to provide support in these uncertain economic times. For the first quarter it comprised 31% of total revenue, which was consistent with the prior year, but was down from 33% for the linked-quarter. Total non-interest income, excluding net gains and losses, declined 10% compared to the linked-quarter. During the first quarter, insurance income benefited from the annual performance-based insurance commissions that are primarily received in the first quarter each year and represent a core component of our insurance income. These annual commissions totaled $1.3 million in the first quarter of 2020. However, this growth was more than offset by the decline in electronic banking income which is typically seasonally higher in the fourth quarter. We also saw a decline in mortgage banking income, which was partially due to a write-down of our mortgage servicing rights of $182,000 coupled with seasonality as consumer activity is traditionally lower during the fourth quarter and declining consumer activity as COVID-19 arose. Swap fees were lower compared to the linked-quarter all-time record level, reflecting a typical slower quarter and the impact of COVID-19 which slowed business activity late in the quarter as businesses delayed investments in response to the economic uncertainty created by the pandemic. In addition, bank-owned life insurance income decreased as a result of $482,000 of death benefits that had been recorded in the fourth quarter compared to $109,000 in the first quarter of 2020. Trust and investment income was lower compared to the linked-quarter due to the recent decline in the stock market. Compared to the prior year, total non-interest income excluding net gains and losses increased slightly. During the quarter, deposit account service charges provided significant growth as a result of the First Prestonsburg acquired accounts, coupled with the fully implemented new deposit account fee schedules which were put in place in March of 2019. Also contributing to the increase compared to the prior year was higher electronic banking income, which was driven by consumer activity. And trust and investment income grew due to the higher market values of the managed assets, coupled with new accounts. These increases were largely offset by two main items; lower insurance income, and the additional income recorded during the first quarter of 2019 of $787,000 related to the sale of restricted Class B Visa stock. For the prior-year quarter, annual performance-based insurance commissions totaled $1.4 million. Our total non-interest expense increased 2% compared to the linked-quarter. This growth was largely due to higher salaries and employee benefits costs which were primarily the result of annual merit increases which were effective at the beginning of the year, including the movement to a $15 minimum wage throughout the company. An additional $813,000 related to annual stock grants and $427,000 of annual health savings contributions that Chuck mentioned earlier; as well as pension settlement charges of $368,000 recognized during the quarter. These increases were partially offset by lower professional fees, amortization of other intangible assets and marketing expense. Compared to the prior year, our total non-interest expense was up 8%. This increase was driven by higher salaries and employee benefit costs, which were due to several factors including the additional employees from the First Prestonsburg acquisition, annual merit increases and continued movement to a higher corporate minimum wage, and the pension settlement charges recognized during the first quarter of 2020 for which there were no charges in the first quarter of 2019. We also had higher professional fees, foreclosed real estate and other loan expenses and electronic banking expenses. These increases were partially offset by lower FDIC insurance expense, which was related to the level of deposit insurance fund that continued to be above the target threshold for smaller banks to recognize credits while there were no similar reductions to expense in the first quarter of 2019. We cannot reasonably anticipate any future recognition of credits as this is determined by the FDIC on a quarterly basis. Our acquisition-related expenses for the first quarter of 2020 were $30,000 compared $253,000 for the first quarter of 2019. We have also incurred $140,000 of one-time expenses related to COVID-19. We recorded an economic tax benefit during the quarter as a result of the pre-tax loss, coupled with our tax exempt income. Moving on to the balance sheet; our investment portfolio increased 4% compared to year-end. Compared to the prior-year quarter-end, our investment portfolio grew 19% and was largely due to the investments acquired from the First Prestonsburg acquisition. Core deposits which include CDs, grew 7% compared to the linked quarter-end; this increase was driven by 8% growth in non-interest-bearing deposits and 36% growth in governmental deposits which are typically higher in the first quarter of each year due to the influx of funding that occurs. Compared to the prior-year quarter-end, core deposits increased by 14% which was largely due to the First Prestonsburg acquisition coupled with organic growth. Our demand deposits as a percentage of total deposits remained at 40% at quarter-end which was consistent with year-end and was up from 38% a year ago. Quarterly average deposits, total deposits, were relatively flat compared to year-end. Compared to the linked-quarter, we had increases in our lower cost deposits, including $23 million of growth in our non-interest-bearing deposits which was offset by declines in higher cost brokered CDs and positively impacted our net interest income. Our quarterly average total deposits were up 9% compared to the prior-year quarter, which included growth related to the First Prestonsburg acquired deposits, which was partially offset by intentional reductions in higher cost brokered CDs. While the current economic environment is unstable, we believe keys to managing through the crisis are capital and liquidity. We have a high level of capital, we continue to maintain a strong capital position. And at March 31st, we had Tier 1 capital ratio of 14.1%, and tangible equity to tangible assets ratio of 9.5%. While we announced an increase to our share buyback plan in late February and repurchased over $10 million of shares during the first quarter, we are actively monitoring our capital levels and stress testing under multiple scenarios. We are assuming our second quarter similar to the first quarter on a pre-tax pre-provision basis with improvement in the second half of the year, the unknown and key stress variables, and the required provision for credit losses. Currently, we show that we have an adequate capital through the remainder of the year, and we anticipate periods after 2020 would include some recovery and improvement in capital metrics. We will continue to perform capital stress testing and will make necessary adjustments as appropriate, which includes share buybacks and dividends. Although many other institutions have stopped their buyback programs, ours was active through the end of the quarter. We will continue to evaluate repurchases under our program as appropriate based on market conditions and other relevant factors. At this time, we have the intention of maintaining our quarterly dividend at the same level for the remainder of the year. However, that is dependent upon our future capital needs and the projected length and depth of any economic recession. We will continue -- we will adjust capital levers to maintain adequate capital during the crisis. As it relates to liquidity, we had a loan-to-deposit ratio of 86% at quarter-end, which enables us to be flexible and grow loans when it is prudent. We have a good liquidity and can leverage our investment securities to gain liquidity through sales or pledging of which we have done some through today. Our loans give us the ability to increase borrowing capacity by pledging loans to provide liquidity to meet our borrowing needs to our customers. We intend to utilize the Federal Reserve's program to take the SBA PPP loans as collateral for our borrowings. We do not expect the loan to deposit ratio, excluding the PPP, to grow substantially during the year as loan pipelines have decreased at the current time. During the quarter, we implemented the new CECL accounting standard. We decided to move forward with our CECL process instead of reverting back to the incurred loss model. We have also adopted the five-year phase-in period for regulatory capital under the CECL transition rules. As of January 1, 2020, we fully implemented the new accounting standard and recorded an increase to our allowance for credit losses for loans of $3.2 million, an unfunded commitment liability of $1.5 million, a one-time cumulative effect adjustment of $3.7 million net of taxes and a gross-up of our loan balances to establish an allowance for credit losses for loans purchased -- for purchased credit deteriorated loans of $2.6 million. These amounts were based upon economic forecast and model projections as of the measurement date. As we move further into the first quarter, the impact of COVID-19 was at the forefront of our processes and we ran and updated several scenarios within our CECL models to gauge the impact of the pandemic. At the end of the March, economic forecast were projecting significant changes in many assumptions that we utilized in our model, which included higher rates of national and state unemployment and declines in Ohio GDP. Our allowance for credit losses for loans as a percentage -- our allowance for credit losses as a percentage of loans as of March 31 was $42.8 million; this is an increase of 57% in our allowance for credit losses from the account -- amount recorded effective January 1, 2020. In addition, our unfunded commitment liability was $2.4 million at March 31, 2020, which increased 63% from the amount on January 1, 2020. The combined impact of these components resulted in an overall increase of 57% compared to the beginning of the year. As of March 31, 2020, our allowance for credit losses was 1.4% of gross loans compared to 75% at December 31, 2019. Based upon the economic factors and projections that existed at the end of the first quarter, we believe the allowance at March 31, 2020, was appropriate under the circumstances. The amount required in future periods will be highly correlated to the changes in economic -- forecasted economic factors in succeeding periods, as well as changes in our key credit quality metrics. I will now turn the call back to Chuck for his final comments.