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United Bankshares, Inc. (UBSI)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, Jan 29, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Community Bankers Trust Corporation Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2015 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to turn the conference over to Rex Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Rex Smith

Analyst

Good morning and thank you for joining us today as we review the results of the fourth quarter and the full-year of 2015 for Community Bankers Trust Corporation which is the holding company for Essex Bank. Let me start with our usual reminder that during the course of our remarks today we may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws with respect to our operations, performance, future strategy and goals. I'll remind everyone that our actual results may differ materially from those included in the forward-looking statements due to a number of factors. These factors and additional risks and uncertainties are included in our earnings release, in our most recent Form 10-K and other reports that Community Bankers Trust Corporation files with or furnishes to the Securities and Exchange Commission. You can access all these documents through our website at www.CBtrustCorp.com. On today's call, I will give a quick overview of the past year. Bruce Thomas, our Chief Financial Officer, will cover selected financial highlights and then I will discuss some of our key initiatives and strategy for 2016. We accomplished much in 2015 and even though we finished the year with a negative income number, it was the result of our previously planned termination of the shared loss agreement with the FDIC. The remaining core operating metrics of the bank are stronger than ever as we head into 2016. Highlights for 2015 include new branch offices in both Virginia and Maryland, double-digit loan growth and most importantly a significant reduction in operating expenses going forward now that we do not have the amortization of the indemnification asset associated with the shared loss agreement. Net income for the fourth quarter was just over $2.2 million. This reduced the net loss for the full year to $2.5 million.…

Bruce Thomas

Analyst

Thank you, Rex and good morning to everyone and thank you for joining us on this conference call. Last quarter we reported a net loss to you of $7.7 million in the third quarter which stated that ending the shared loss agreement with the FDIC would result in a very acceptable earn-back period and improve our results beginning in the fourth quarter of 2015. I will now quantify actual results that will show to what degree we're more positively positioned for the future. Net income for the fourth quarter of 2015 was $2.2 million. Annualized, this translates into $8.8 million and a return on average assets of 0.76% and a return on average equity of 8.49%. If we were to average the last eight quarters of net income available to common shareholders excluding the one-time charge to write off the indemnification asset, the resulting average quarterly net income available to common shareholders would be $1.5 million. The increase in the fourth quarter over this average is $709,000 or 47.1%. This is an increase in net income of $2.8 million on an annual basis. This would be a pick-up in ROA of 24 basis points. If you are to exclude the third quarter of 2015 altogether from consideration, you would still find that fourth quarter net income would be $616,000 greater than the average which is an increase of 38.5% and this would be a pickup in ROA of 21 basis points. Earnings per common share were $0.10 in the fourth quarter and $0.40 annualized compared with $0.10 per share in the fourth quarter of 2014 and $0.33 per share for the year ended December 31, 2014. Current quarterly earnings annualized is a $0.07 per share increase or 21.2% over 2014 earnings per share. Other significant income statement items on a…

Rex Smith

Analyst

Thank you, Bruce. In 2015, we had a primary goal of exiting the shared loss agreement knowing that the indemnification asset expense was hurting our true earnings potential and creating a burden on our reporting. We also wanted to continue on a path of solid growth in the core areas of the bank so that we would build franchise value. As I look back at the year, all of this was accomplished and the bank now has a positive operating momentum going into 2016. Management has worked hard to create a healthy balance sheet with strong capital, solid asset quality and liquidity. All of this was done in a competitive environment with tremendous rate uncertainty. The fourth quarter shows the earnings and growth power of the Company now that all the distractions have been removed. We will open our newest branch office in February in Fairfax, Virginia and we will continue to look at other market opportunities where we can gain a quick competitive advantage either by do Novo branching or by acquisition. Management has a strong commitment to enhance franchise value through core growth in the balance sheet and in our earnings per share. The strong growth in the fourth quarter gives us a lot of momentum as we start the New Year and management is excited by the trends we see for 2016. I thank all of you who participated in the call today and for your ongoing support of our Company. With that, we will now open the call for any questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. The first question comes from Catherine Mealor of KBW. Please go ahead.

Catherine Mealor

Analyst

I wanted first to talk a little bit about the growth. The growth this quarter was fantastic. Can you talk a little bit about some color around what drove the growth? I can see most of it - it feels pretty balanced with maybe a little bit more of it coming from the commercial book. So were there any large credits that drove the high growth this quarter? And then can you talk a little bit about your pipeline going into 2016? Thanks.

Rex Smith

Analyst

Yes, the good news for us is a lot of that growth ended up being booked in December so the quarter doesn't show all of the full quarter of the interest that's coming from those. And it was - Catherine it was split up between Maryland and Virginia between commercial real estate, small business and the C&I group with the bulk in the C&I group. We did have one relationship that we had been working on in that commercial group that's probably about $8 million or $9 million of that growth and more to come. It's a really nice relationship, comes with deposits and we've been working on that one and that one's probably the largest credit in there. But the rest are all fairly diversified. And the pipeline going into 2016 is fairly strong and we experienced that. Usually the fourth quarter, first quarter are fairly strong, second quarter, third quarter gets a little weaker. We're trying to anticipate that this year and overcome it. We had a lot of payoffs last year. I look at it - we had almost $60 million of paydowns and payoffs that hit us in the second and third quarter last year. So we've got our loan officers up on front of that right now making sure that we're staying with our borrowers and making sure we try to keep that from happening this year. So I anticipate a pretty good year.

Catherine Mealor

Analyst

Can you talk about the pricing for new credit and maybe how that plays into your outlook for the margin going forward? Your loan yields held in pretty nicely this quarter. The core loans yields held in nicely but I'm assuming that we've still got some downward pressure on the loan yields moving forward.

Rex Smith

Analyst

Yes, it is competitive out there. The good news is that we're trying to balance off and again I think I've said this before, we're lucky because we have so many different markets and diverse markets we're in and with three very different business lines between small business, C&I and real estate, that we can work on keeping the yields where we want them to be. But we'll see some pressure because we do want to get some more of the small business and C&I and I think those are going to be variable-rate deals so they are going to be a little lower but the trade-off is that they are adjustable. But I don't think we're going to see dramatic pressure on pricing. I think we've built into our budget going forward probably 20 basis points difference in the margin year-over-year and I think that's a very conservative approach to it.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. The next question comes from Austin Nicholas of Stephens Inc. Please go ahead.

Austin Nicholas

Analyst

I was just looking at the expense line and as I look out to 2016 and think about any new hires you guys are looking at or in that Fairfax branch, what sort of numbers would maybe come out of both of those?

Rex Smith

Analyst

All but one person from Fairfax were already in that number for the fourth quarter. We're looking for actually one more FSA in the Fairfax location. So I don't anticipate a whole lot of salary changes. We do have a new call center that's coming on line and we'll have some hires in that probably four or five FSA salary sized folks in that. But that's also going to be a sales and service center. So it's a way to generate leads also. So we're going to work pretty hard to keep that salary line where it needs to be but if we get the opportunity to hire lenders and producers, we stay open to that.

Austin Nicholas

Analyst

And just one question on your securities book. I know it's been declining a little bit. Could you talk about how you look at that out through 2016 and maybe how we should think about that versus your loan growth?

Bruce Thomas

Analyst

Yes, when we compiled our budget, we're going to try to keep the dollars flowing through the income statement fairly consistent on a monthly basis in 2016 regardless of what the balance is but obviously you have to increase the yield if the balance goes down. So I'm going to monitor that very carefully and I'm also monitoring interest rates very carefully and like a day like today, the 10-year is at 194 this morning. Well, there's a selling opportunity on loan growth. So you take your lower performing securities and you flip out of them and of course the treasury management in a bank over $1 billion is kind of like an accordion effect. The coffers fill up with cash and then they empty out either through loans or securities and I'll keep monitoring the pipeline. And if the coffers are full, the treasury is full, then I will go for securities and we've been booking higher-yielding securities. About three years ago and I don't want to go too long, but in anticipation of higher rates, we got the insurance policy of $100 million in SBA floaters paid premiums for them and rates have not gone up. And at this juncture with the economic data I'm looking at, I don't see a big increase in rates coming. So we're flipping out of those and we're going into securities that have more predictable yields.

Austin Nicholas

Analyst

And then just one quick question on the tax rate, I noticed it was a little bit lower than I was expecting at 24%. Is 26% kind of a good number to think about going forward or is that a little high?

Bruce Thomas

Analyst

No I think 26% is fine for 2016. Of course we had the one-time charge that impacted us and lowered taxable income. But for 2016, I think 26% - 26%, 27% was what I was playing around with in the budget so that's a good place to be.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Rex Smith for any closing remarks.

Rex Smith

Analyst

I would just like to thank everybody for listening today and I appreciate your support for the past year. As I said, we're very excited about where the bank is headed for 2016. Bruce and I will be around all day today if anybody has any follow-up questions. You're welcome to give us a call and thank you.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.