Aaron Graft
Analyst · Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead
Good morning. For the third quarter we earned net income to common stockholders of $9 million or $0.34 per diluted share. Adjusted for $4.5 million in after-tax transaction costs related to our acquisition of two bank holding companies during the quarter, net income to common shareholders was $13.5 million or $0.51 per diluted share. There are two material items this quarter worth mentioning. First on September 8, we closed on the acquisitions of two bank holding companies. One of these holding companies owned two banks, so we acquired three banks in all. The footprint of these acquisitions is in Colorado and New Mexico with combined $753 million in total assets, $288 million in loans, and $675 million in attractive deposits. This reduced our loan-to-deposit ratio 16% to 102%. The transactions also increased our branch count to 61 across six states and give us 37 locations in Colorado and entry into the New Mexico market. Second, on September 20, we announced a $4 million charge off on a single asset-based lending relationship for which we carried a $700,000 specific reserve. A substantial portion of the loss resulted from fraudulent conduct believed to be perpetrated by one or more of the employees of the borrower. As a result of that loss, we increased the estimates of the allowance for loan loss reserve recorded against the remaining asset-based lending portfolio by $2.5 million as a result of the higher loss factors being incorporated into our allowance for loan loss reserve methodology. The total provision for loan loss attributed to this single credit decreased earnings per share by $0.16 after-tax. I want to pause here and say emphatically and unequivocally how disappointing this loss was, not only on the part of the borrower who perpetrated it but also for our team. Detecting fraud is part of our business. We have to be better than this and we will do our best to be better in the future. In recent weeks, we have performed a review of 100% the remainder of the ABL portfolio and did not identify any additional issues. We have also made changes in our personnel and risk management processes to improve our risk management within our ABL team. Now let me also say that notwithstanding the real loss due to this fraud, this was our best quarter ever for our core business. If you extract the costs associated with the transactions and the fraud loss discussed above, we were close to hitting our goal of delivering a 1.8% return on average assets. I point this out not to minimize the transaction costs of the loss. Those are real, but to direct your attention to the growing earnings power of our core business. Beyond strong core earnings, our asset trends showed continued improvements. Net charge offs were $4.1 million or 12 basis points of average loans in Q3. Excluding the $4 million fraud related charge-off I just outlined, net charge offs for the quarter were approximately $52,000. Year-to-date net charge offs are 19 basis points of average loans roughly 6 basis points excluding the ABL fraud loss. The goal for us was to reduce our non-performing asset ratio to lower than 1% by year-end. We achieved that goal this quarter as non-performing assets as a percentage of total assets moved lower by 35 basis points to 93 basis points at September 30. Non-performing loans as a percentage of loans were down 30 basis points or 1.13% driven by a $6.2 million decrease in non-performing loans and the addition of $288 million of loans from the aforementioned bank acquisitions. Loan growth for the quarter was $316 million inclusive of $288 million of loans acquired from the three purchased banks. At first glance, organic growth in the quarter appears relatively flat overall at $28 million, but excluding our mortgage warehouse business we grew loans organically by $95 million or 3.3%. The period-end balance of mortgage warehouse was down at quarter end; however, average balances increased $52 million this quarter to $290 million. Asset based lending grew $12 million or 4.5%. Equipment lending grew $34 million or 11.5%, and factored receivables grew $8 million or 1.2%. At Triumph business capital our factoring subsidiary some of our metrics were impacted by the inclusion of ICC for only one month in the prior quarter. Setting that aside the core business remains very strong. Total factoring revenue increased $7.1 million quarter-over-quarter for 34% to $28.4 million. Purchases increased by $340 million or 29% to $1.5 billion during Q3. The number of invoices purchased climbed 180,000 over Q2 to 837,000 invoices, and the average invoice size this quarter increased $25 to $1,796. Average transportation invoices decreased $29 to $1,666 due to normal seasonal patterns. Outstanding transportation invoices comprised approximately 83% of the gross balance of factored receivables at September 30, 2018. Our number of active clients increased by 422 clients to a total of 5,932. This secular growth has been consistent for over six years and it shows no sign of abating. We increased our accrued liability for the contingent consideration payable to the sellers of ICC by 487,000 which is reflected as a reduction of other non-interest income in the statement of earnings. We have now accrued $20.5 million of the maximum $22 million final payment for this business. This accrual is a direct result of the strength of the business. As it relates to TriumphPay, we have 86 clients utilizing the TriumphPay system up from 76 last quarter. During Q3, TriumphPay processed 66,000 invoices paying 16,000 distinct carriers approximately $96 million. For TriumphPay we are also in the integration and on-boarding phase of one of the top 20 brokers in the nation which we expect to complete by the end of the year. We expect additional large brokers to join TriumphPay in 2019. Net interest margin was 6.59% which remains in the top of the industry. Net interest income was up $8.5 million over Q2. Loan yields were 8.33% or 8.18% adjusted for purchase discount accretion which would help this quarter with the full quarter impact of ICC. Similarly, with the acquisition of the three banks in September we'd expect to see loan yields and net interest margin contract slightly in Q4 with the full quarter impact of the acquired banks. Net interest margin adjusted to exclude discount accretion was up 53 basis points to 6.45% for the quarter while the total cost of deposits increased 12 basis points to 85 basis points. Our loan to deposit ratio at September 30 decreased to 102%. This ratio was inflated by approximately 8% due to our use of Federal Home Loan Bank advances to fund our mortgage warehouse lending business. Non-interest income was up $1.1 million from the second quarter to $6.1 million. There are two items we should note that are unique to this quarter first. First, card income includes a bonus payment of 398,000 related to the achievement of certain volume related goals in that relationship in the first year. This is not expected to continue next quarter and year two incentive goals are not as lucrative. Second, other income was also negatively impacted by our updates to the Triumph community bank brand in the Midwest. We've rebranded that region to our standardized TBK Bank brand. This resulted in the write down of signage and other assets in the amount of $324,000 as they were replaced. Net of these items the increase in non-interest income was led by the addition of three banks and strong fee income from Triumph business capital. The increase in non-interest expense this quarter was driven primarily by the transaction related costs associated with the acquisition of the three banks. The full quarter impact of ICC's operating costs and the partial quarter impact of the three acquired banks. Transaction costs were $5.9 million and are reported in the following line items of non interest expense. $1.4 million in severance and compensation. $1.4 million in legal and consulting professional fees. $3 million in IT related expenses, and $52,000 to $100,000 in miscellaneous filing fees appraisals and other expenses. Our non interest expense for the quarter came in very close to the estimate we provided for the quarter on our last call after adjusting for transaction costs and expenses of the three acquired banks. We expect Q4 noninterest expense to be 47 million. This increase is related to a full quarter of the three acquired bank's operations, technological development and investment in our overall infrastructure. We will continue to invest in the future of our business. The acquisition of the three banks resulted in our recording $72.1 million of goodwill and $14.1 million of amortizable and tangible assets which will be amortized on an accelerated method. Including the intangible assets recognized through the bank transactions we expect total amortization expense for all of our intangible assets to be $2.5 million in Q4 and $9.2 million for the 2019 fiscal year. These amounts are contemplated in the Q4 expense guidance I mentioned previously. In closing, I would state the obvious this was a noisy quarter. What encourage me is the core trends in our business. We continue to grow and improve, and we are optimistic about the path forward. With that I'll turn the call back over to the operator for any questions.