Damian Kozlowski
Analyst · Raymond James. You may begin
Thank you, Andres. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. My name is Damian Kozlowski. I'm the CEO of Bancorp and the President of The Bancorp Bank. I have been in these positions since June of 2016, and I welcome you to our first quarter 2018 earnings call. The first quarter was a great start to a new year. Bancorp earned $0.25 a share on net revenues of $59 million and expenses of $39 million. The commitment of our team to execute on our business plan is having a positive impact on our operating performance and we continue to show momentum in our results. Along with revenue and client progress in each of our business lines, we have continued to strengthen our overall platform with both greater efficiency and productivity, enhanced by a higher level of risk management across our entire enterprise. I would like to highlight three takeaways from the first quarter in more detail. One, we saw positive signs of business momentum. Each of our business showed positive first quarter trend led by a 48% increase in security backed lines of credit, interest income over first quarter of 2017 to 6.5 million as block period and balances grew approximately 100 million or 15% year-over-year and small business administration loans increased approximately 23 million or a 6% over the linked quarter which represents a 22% annualized growth rate. To provide increased information to investors, we have included in our earnings release a quarterly business line summary to detail our progress through revenue and other business metrics. I hope this quarterly summary will be helpful in accessing our business to financial performance, in addition we will be updating our strategic business review on our website. We will be reassessing our financial targets based on our performance and also including a new section that goes more in depth into our payments business. As you know this business drives our fee income and provides most of our deposits. Number two, we continue managing expenses proactively. Non-interest expenses increased 3% in the first quarter of 2018 compared to first quarter of 2017 while revenues increased 20% showing continued expense control. Additional expense opportunity is possible, the Company is currently engaging in reengineering process that results in either lower costs or greater revenue productivity. Our first major reengineering effort was creating of financial clients risk management centre of excellence. This centre incorporates all BSA AML activities in our offices in Wilmington, Delaware with finance tapping and processes. The efforts should help our ability to grow in the future. In addition, we have also provided earnings announcements of increased expense reach on our expanded income statement. I hope this information along with the quarterly business summary will be helpful in accessing our business and financial performance. And number three, we are investing in creating a truly advantaged platform. Most of 2017 was dedicated due to the derisking the institution, creating neutral to remediate and improve risk management and compliance and the reduction of non-productive and redundant expenses. While we continue to face some legacy challenges which remain a key focus of management, increased efforts has been given to unlocking the power of the organization through innovation and building centers of excellence to transform our platforms for reengineering. The first quarter is just the beginning of what we believe will be continuous building process in 2018 to create a better Company and improving financial results. As I have stated in previous calls in our 2017 annual report, we want to achieve extraordinary client and financial success to business and organizational innovation in a safe and sound manner. Now before I turn it over to Paul, I want to address a couple of credit related issues. One in Walnut Street and one in discontinued operations. Walnut Street to give some context, when I arrived at the mid-2016 it had about a 174 million on our balance sheet and today it stands at 70 million. Last year alone, we reduced the exposure 44% with no meaningful adjustments. We do have an adjusted in this quarterly update of 1.1 million, the primary drivers of that was a $400,000 settlement as we continue to work down the portfolio and number two there was a change in the discount rates used in the model due to changes in market rates. This is set by a third-party, reviewed by ourselves and our accounts. Second, I want to talk about discontinued operations, in that portfolio is our hotel property in Fort Lauderdale that was 80% complete. There once it became delinquent there was a lot of interest in the purchase of the note and we received about 10 bids. Last night, we signed a purchase sale agreement for the full principle amount and that transaction should close this quarter. So that’s good news on the credit side. Now, I will turn it over to our CFO Paul Frenkiel.