Chuck Shaffer
Analyst · Sandler O'Neill
Thank you, Denny, and thank you all for joining us this morning. As I provide my comments, I'll reference second quarter earnings slide deck, which can be found at seacoastbanking.com. And I'll start this morning on Slide 5. We're successfully executing our strategy across all business lines. Adjusted net income grew 44% year-over-year to $18.3 million or $0.38 per diluted common share. We reported a 1.28% adjusted return on tangible assets and a 13.5% adjusted return on tangible common equity. Additionally, we ended the quarter with tangible book value per share of $11.67. We continue to possess a healthy balance sheet and are delivering strong capital generation through our balanced growth strategy. Our robust capital standing positioned us well for additional acquisition and organic growth opportunities. And highlights for the quarter include another production record for consumer and small business originations. Our commercial banking business enters the third quarter with a record pipeline of $195 million, which is a 59% increase from the first quarter. Additionally, as Denny mentioned, we launched our proprietary commercial portal software that allow our bankers to significantly expand customer relationships by providing direct insights into customer - commercial customer behaviors and needs. And lastly, we announced the acquisition of First Green Bancorp, which once closed gives us the opportunity to expand the banking relationships of another 10,000 customers across Central and South Florida. Turning to Slide 6. A few notable items impacted the quarterly results. We experienced $0.5 million slowdown in accretion for discounts on acquired loans quarter-over-quarter, while also facing elevated prepayments on our non-acquired loan portfolio, which impacted loan growth by 3%. Without this increase in prepayments from the prior quarter, loan growth would have been 11% on an annualized basis. Additionally, we recognized $1.7 million in net charge-offs and $0.3 million in losses on other real estate owned during the quarter. In the losses taken on OREO, we're to mitigate future expected expenses. In aggregate, these items impacted the quarter by approximately $0.05 per share, and as we move to the rest of the slides, I'll discuss these items in detail. Turning to Slide 7. We announced late last quarter the acquisition of First Green Bancorp, which we expected to - which we expect to close in the fourth quarter. As Denny described, the acquisition expands our footprint in Orlando, Florida's third largest MSA, we're already at scale in the largest Florida-based bank. We expect 10%-plus EPS accretion in 2019 and 2020, a 25%-plus internal rate of return, and the tangible book value dilution will be earned back in less than 1 year. Now looking a little more deeply at the quarter, let's move to Slide 8. Net interest income was up $0.4 million sequentially, and the net interest margin was down 3 basis points from the prior quarter to 3.77%. As previously mentioned, the slowdown in accretion on purchased loans quarter-over-quarter, impacted the margin by 4 basis points. Additionally, the margin was impacted by higher prepayments, affecting loans outstanding, and constraining an increase in the loan-to-deposit ratio. The increase in the cost of interest-bearing liabilities of 9 basis points was in line with our expectation. And if you remove the effect of the 4 basis point slowdown in the purchase accretion, the margin would have been 3.81%, an increase of 1 basis point from the prior quarter, and in line with prior guidance. We remain disciplined in loan pricing and deposit pricing. Our average add-on rates for new loans increased 21 basis points sequentially to 4.96%, and are up 58 basis points from the second quarter of the prior year. And during the quarter, we implemented new pricing methodology for our consumer and small business products. And then these 2 segments, we saw overall pricing increase 50 basis points from the prior quarter. Total deposit cost increased 6 basis points quarter-on-quarter and are up 22 basis points from prior year. Looking through the third quarter, we expect the net interest margin to be in the low 3.80s and then expand to the high- 3.80s to low 3.90s by year-end. This assumes a 25 basis point rate increase in September and December and the closing of the First Green transaction in October this year. As a reminder, the First Green acquisition will increase our overall purchase discount, increasing recognized purchased loan accretion in the fourth quarter. This also assumes the cost to deposits increases approximately 5 basis points quarter, in line with our repricing beta expectations, and includes approximately 15 to 20 basis points of noncash accretion in the third quarter, and 20 to 25 basis points in noncash accretion in the fourth quarter, which will remain variable as we move forward. We remain asset sensitive, a 25 basis point increase in the federal funds rate results in approximately 3 to 4 basis points improvement in net interest margin, assuming a parallel shift in the yield curve and excludes any impact from purchase loan accretion. Moving 1 slide forward to Slide 9. Adjusted noninterest income increased $0.4 million from the prior quarter, and is up $2.3 million or 22% from the prior year. The sequential and year-over-year increase in noninterest income was primarily the role of strong performance in our SBA program, wealth management, and better performance across a number of fee-related categories. We expect swap-related income, SBA-related income and wealth management to continue to grow in the second half. Our wealth management team has made significant strides growing assets under management $75 million in the last 6 months. Moving to Slide 10. Adjusted noninterest expense was up $0.8 million sequentially, and up $2.7 million from the prior year. The increases was in line with our prior guidance, and is the result of continued investments in talent in technology in the organization. We acquired 2 commercial banking team leaders, 4 commercial bankers and made investments in roles to support scaling the organization. Also impacting noninterest expense, we granted 191,000 restricted shares, along with performance awards for up to an additional 356,000 shares, upon meeting certain performance criteria. This investment was granted deep into the organization with the goal of providing meaningful value and ownership mentality to our associates for achieving our performance objectives. We'll maintain our discipline focused on efficiency and expense management. And looking to the third quarter, we expect adjusted noninterest expense to be approximately $37.5 million, excluding the amortization of intangible assets, which is approximately $1 million per quarter, and any onetime merger-related charges associated with the First Green acquisition. We'll continue to recruit commercial bankers in the second half with a focus on adding personnel to accelerate organic growth in our expansion markets of Tampa and South Florida. Moving to Slide 11. Our adjusted efficiency ratio improved nearly 4 percentage points from the prior year, but increased sequentially to 57.3% for the quarter. The quarter-over-quarter increase was a direct result of the notable items we discussed on Slide 6 impacting revenue while making the investments we have discussed over the first half of the year. We remain confident and we're on track to achieve a below 50% efficiency ratio as we laid out in our Vision 2020 plan. Turning to Slide 12. Loan outstandings increased $77 million during the quarter or 8% on an annualized basis. Excluding the loans added by last year's bank acquisitions, organic loans grew 7% from the prior year. Looking forward, our growing and healthy pipelines, led by the commercial segment, coupled with investments in commercial bankers and new technologies, have laid a foundation for continued loan growth. We're actively investing in teams of bankers in Florida's most attractive markets. Given our increased pipeline at the end of Q2, we expect loan origination to be robust in the third quarter. In quarter-to-quarter, we may see variations in the gross amount of loan prepayments. But taking a longer view, our target is double-digit loan growth. Turning to Slide 13. Deposit outstandings declined $23 million quarter-over-quarter or up $700 million from the prior year. The seasonal decline was expected and reflects the summer season in our Florida markets. Excluding the impact of acquired deposits, total deposits increased 5% year-over-year. Rates paid on deposits increased 6 basis points to 39 basis points quarter-over-quarter, approximately 2 basis points above of our prior guidance. The 2 basis point increase reflects purposeful action taken to utilize brokered time deposits and reduced Federal Home Loan Bank advances due to more attractive rate and term. The overall cost of interest-bearing liabilities increased 9 basis points, which was in line with our expectation. And looking ahead, we expect year-over-year deposit growth for approximately 6%, and we do expect deposit competition to remain aggressive. We believe we're well positioned to manage funding cost with a lower loan-deposit ratio, and a value proposition that resonates with customers. Turning to Slide 14. Our deposit betas continues to perform very well, reflecting the transactional nature of our deposit book. Looking back at the last 4 quarters, the federal funds rate increased 75 basis point, and our deposit book reprised 22 basis points. Noninterest-bearing demand deposits represents 31% of the franchise. And on the business side, our strategy of focusing on developing core C&I relationships, which bring funding and fee-based products, when compared to traditional CRE lending, and we operate a very competitive retail consumer model, which continues to outpace the industry in growing customers. Given our franchise and innovative analytics tool set, we expect our deposit portfolio to continue to outperform when compared to like-size community banks. Turning to Slide 15. Credit continues to benefit from a rigorous credit selection that emphasizes through the cycle orientation, builds on customer relationships and well understood in known markets and sectors and as well as maintaining a diversity of loan mix and granularity. Our overall allowance to total loans was up - 1 basis point to 73 basis points at quarter end. And in the non-acquired loan portfolio, the ALLL ended the quarter at 88 basis points of loan outstandings, down 2 basis points from the prior quarter. Nonperforming loans increased $6.9 million quarter-over-quarter, the result of a single credit transferred to nonaccrual. This credit was originated prior to 2008. Net charge-offs for the quarter was $1.7 million. And looking back over the last 4 quarters, our annualized net charge-off rate was 9 basis points, in line with our prior guidance of 5 to 10 basis points. This line item will behave in an episodic manner as we're coming off a period of near 0 net charge-off rate and does not reflect the change in current credit commission - conditions. Looking forward to 2019, we expect the annualized net charge-offs of approximately 15 basis points as the economic cycle matures. The provision for loan losses will continue to be influenced by loan growth and net charge-offs. Turning to Slide 16. Our capital position remained strong. The common equity Tier 1 capital ratio was 14.5%. The total risk-based capital ratio was 15.2%. And the tangible common equity to tangible asset ratio was 9.6% at quarter end, providing capital for additional growth in 2018. And to wrap up, on Slide 17, our fundamentals remained strong and set us up well for the balance of 2018. Although this quarter's performance was impacted by a few selected regular items, our balance sheet position, strategy and momentum remain unchanged. We're making smart investments in technology and talent. We're operating in outstanding markets, and we're confident we remain on track to meet our Vision 2020 targets we laid out in early 2017. Tax reform and the First Green acquisition further bolster our ability to achieve these targets. And as a reminder, our targets are returned on tangible assets of 130-plus, return on tangible common equity of 16%-plus and efficiency ratio of below 50%. We look forward to your questions. I'll turn the call back over to Denny.