Ira Robbins
Analyst · KBW. Your line is now open
Thank you, Travis, and welcome to those of you on the call. I have a few comments to make this morning and then we ask Tom to provide insight on the exceptional growth results that were achieved on both sides of the balance sheet this quarter. Mike will then discuss the financial results in more detail. In the second quarter of 2022, Valley reported net income of $96 million, earnings per share of $0.18 and an annualized ROA of 0.72%. Exclusive of non-core charges, including the provision expense, mainly associated with Bank in these non-PCD loans. Adjusted net income, EPS and ROA were $166 million, $0.32 and 1.25% respectively. These exceptional results reflect significant organic loan and deposit growth and our ability to manage deposit betas in the generally supportive constraint environment. With the Bank Leumi transaction behind us and integration efforts well underway, I want to take a moment to put Valley's recent transformation into context. Beginning on Slide 4 of our deck, we compare this quarter's key financial metrics against the fourth quarter of 2019. This comparison highlights the tangible progress that has been made in the last 2.5 years as we execute on our strategic and tactical initiatives. From a big picture perspective, we have driven sustainable balance sheet growth, diversified and enhanced our funding base, established new non-interest revenue channels and benefited from disciplined and strategic M&A. We have grown organic loans and deposits at just below 10% on an annualized basis over the last 2.5 years. While COVID weighing on 2020 results, these growth rates have accelerated more recently. We've achieved this growth by providing exceptional service and advice to our existing clients and proactively identifying growth opportunities in specific markets and business segments. Once these opportunities have been identified, we've dedicated the appropriate resources from a talent, product and technology perspective to ensure that we capture the available growth. As growth has accelerated, we have been careful to preserve the stringent underwriting standards that have supported our longstanding track record of the low peer credit losses. While we have materially altered our underwriting standards, our allowance for credit losses as a percentage of loans remains well above the Day 1 reserve that was established on the adoption of CECL. Meanwhile, neither our earnings nor capital have benefited from the reserve release that have recently been common across the industry. Still, we have preserved our tangible common equity to tangible asset ratio at 7.5% without the dilutive capital raise last supporting the strong growth. Turning to Slide 5, you can see that our growth has also been extremely profitable. Quarterly adjusted net income has increased approximately $75 million between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2022. We are a much more profitable organization today, as a result of strong growth in those spread-based and non-interest income. Our adjusted ROA during the quarter of 1.25% represents a nearly 25 basis point increase since the fourth quarter of 2019. We recognize that our future operating performance would drive the trajectory of our valuation. That said, we provide the snapshot as proof of our ability to execute in challenging times. Over the last 2.5 years, our tangible common equity and annualized earnings power have increased approximately $1.2 billion and $300 million respectively. On a per share basis, tangible book value and adjusted earnings per share have increased 15% and 33%. We are proud of this performance and confident that our ability to execute would drive success in the next phase of our evolution. Finally, while our preference is not to revisit our stated guidance on a quarterly basis. We have attempted to be transparent as possible, given the backdrop of an extremely volatile economic and industry environment. With a full quarter of post-Leumi results, we thought it would be most helpful to provide combined guidance for the remainder of the year. Using the second quarter's loan balance as a starting point, we now anticipate between 8% and 10% annualized loan growth for the second half of 2022. We anticipate preserving our loan-to-deposit ratio around 100% give or take. Based on these dynamics and the June 30 forward rate curve, we would anticipate generating aggregate net interest income of around $900 million in the second half of the year. Finally, we expect to achieve an efficiency ratio of below 50% in the second half of 2022 as well. With that, I will turn the call over to Tom and Mike to discuss the quarter's growth and financial results.