George Makris
Analyst · Stephens. Your line is now open
Thanks Burt, and welcome to our fourth quarter earnings conference call. In our press release issued yesterday we reported net income of $27 million for the fourth quarter of 2016, an increase of $3.2 million or 13.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Diluted earnings per share were $0.85, an increase of $0.07 or 9%. Included in the fourth quarter earnings were $1.8 million in net after-tax merger-related and branch right-sizing costs. Excluding the impact of these items, the company’s core earnings were $28.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2016, an increase of $2.8 million or 11% compared to the same period last year. Diluted core earnings per share were $0.91, an increase of [ph] the nickel (04:23) or 5.8%. We continue to be very pleased with our operating performance. For the quarter our efficiency ratio was 55.5%, return on assets 1.29%, return on equity 9.3% and return on tangible common equity 14.7%. Year-to-date, we reported net income of $96.8 or $3.13 diluted earnings per share. This included $4.6 million of net after-tax merger-related and branch right-sizing costs. Excluding the impact of these items, the company’s core earnings were $101.4 million or $3.28 diluted core earnings per share. Our loan balance at the end of the fourth quarter was $5.6 billion. Total loans increased by $231 million during the quarter, including a reduction in agricultural production loans of $53 million. The legacy portfolio grew by $384 million, of which approximately $61 million migrated from acquired legacy and $91 million acquired loans paid off during the quarter. Total loans increased $714 million during 2016. We remained optimistic about future loan growth as our pipeline which we define is loan approved and ready to close has increased from $374 million as reported at the end of the third quarter to $426 million at the end of the fourth quarter. The pipeline includes several construction loans with funding periods longer than 90 days. We expect to fund approximately two-thirds of the pipeline loans in the next 90 days. All regions in the company are experiencing good loan growth. The company’s net interest income for the fourth quarter of 2016 was $74.3 million, a 9.2% increase from the third quarter. Accretion income from acquired loans during the quarter was $6.6 million, a decrease of $4.5 million from the same quarter last year. Based on our cash flow projections, we expect total accretion for 2017 to be approximately $14 million, compared to $24.3 million in 2016. Our net interest margin for the quarter was 4.12%, which was down from 4.53% in the same period last year. The decline in net interest margin was significantly impacted by the decrease in accretion income. The company's core net interest margin which excludes the accretion was 3.76% for the fourth quarter of 2016, compared to 3.87% in the same quarter of 2015. Because of the comparative rate environment and our loan mix, we expect our margin to remain in the 3.70% to 3.80% range. Our non-interest income for the quarter was $36.3 million. We had nice increases in mortgage lending, trust income, and debit and credit card income. Non-interest expense for the quarter was $66.9 million. Our core non-interest expense for the quarter was $63.9 million. At December 31, 2016, the allowance for loan losses to legacy loans $36.3 million with an additional $1 million allowance for acquired loans. The company's allowance for loan losses on legacy loans was 0.84% of total loans. The total loan discount credit mark is $35.5 million for a total of $72.7 million of coverage. This equates to total coverage ratio of 1.28% of gross loans. During the fourth quarter our annualized net charge offs including credit card charge offs to total loans were 20 basis points. Excluding credit card charge offs our annualized net charge offs total loans were 14 basis points. Our asset quality continues to be very good and we continue to make good progress managing the problem assets remaining from the FDIC and Metropolitan portfolio. During the quarter consolidated non-performing loans to total loans decreased from 0.95% to 0.91%. Non-performing assets, total assets decreased from 0.83% to 0.79%. During the first quarter of 2017 we’ll explore options to further reduce problem loans. Our capital position remains very strong. At quarter end common stockholders’ equity was $1.2 billion. Our book value per share was $36.80, an increase of 6.5% from the same period last year. Our tangible book value per share was $23.97, an increase of 9.1% from the same period last year. On October 21st we completed the merger of Citizen Bank into Simmons Bank. The period from the execution of the definitive agreement until total systems conversion was less than five months. We are very proud of the ability of our team to execute on the integration of our acquisitions. On November 17th we announced the acquisition of Hardeman County Investment Company, Inc. headquartered in Jackson, Tennessee. We expect it to complete the merger during the first quarter of 2017. On December 14th we announced the acquisition of Southwest Bancorp, Inc. of Stillwater, Oklahoma and we anticipated completing the merger during the third quarter of 2017. Together these acquisitions will increase our total assets by approximately $3 billion and allows us to move into the attractive Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado markets, while expanding our market share in Tennessee and Kansas. However, on the final day of the comment period related to our Federal Reserve Merger Application Department we received the comment from the same individual who provide the comments on our applications related to the acquisition of First State and Liberty banks. Our application for the Hardeman acquisition is being removed from the St. Louis Federal Reserve district and now will be process in Washington. We have submitted response to the comment. We have no indication of the timeline for consideration from the Fed. Although, the final orders from the Federal Reserve in Washington related to the earlier comments determine the comments to be without merit, the orders will not deliver until six months after the comments was filed. We do know, however, that the delay in the merger process interjects substantial transaction risk and the primary party at risk is the institution to be acquired. We expect with the cooperation of the management of the both parties we will again successful manage this additional risks. We are hopeful for quick resolution of the comment that will get us back on track. Now we expect closing of the Hardeman acquisition earlier than the second quarter and it’s too early to determine the effect on other applications which today have not been filed. On January 17, 2017, we merged our Finance Company into Simmons Bank. We have ceased making new loans in that group. Our loan balance when we merged was approximately $50 million. The customer base we served is in need of services we provided as their alternatives are for example, pay day lenders and less regulated markets. However, the regulatory scrutiny and risk to our company associated with this portfolio was disproportionate to draw too fast. We hope to incorporate some of the lending programs previously in the Finance Company into our consumer lending product portfolio. This concludes our prepared comments. We will now open the phone line for questions from our research analysts and institutional investors. At this time, I will ask operator to come back on the line and once again explain how to queue in for questions.