Daniel Weiss
Analyst · Piper Sandler
Thanks, Jeff, and good morning. For the first quarter, we reported GAAP net income [ available ] common shareholders of $84 million or $0.88 per share. And when excluding restructuring and merger-related expenses, first quarter net income was $87 million or $0.91 per share. To highlight a few of the first quarter's year-over-year accomplishments, we generated strong pretax pre-provision core earnings growth of 44% grew core earnings per share by 38% and improved the net interest margin by 22 basis points and reduced the efficiency ratio by nearly 4 percentage points to 52.5%. Total assets of $27.5 billion include total portfolio loans of $19.1 billion in securities of $4.4 billion, Total portfolio loans increased 2.2% year-over-year, driven by commercial real estate and home equity lending and declined slightly on a sequential quarter basis due to elevated payoffs. We expect CRE payoffs to remain slightly elevated during the second quarter, but at a lower level than the first quarter before returning to a more normal historical level during the back half of the year, totaling $700 million to $900 million for the year. While very small, we ended our indirect auto program, [ as ] it's not core to our organic growth strategy, and at quarter end, it represented about half of the $325 million of consumer loan portfolio and anticipate that, that portfolio will run off over the next 3 to 5 years. Deposits increased 2% year-over-year to $21.7 billion in organic growth. We continue to be successful in remixing higher-cost certificates deposits into interest-bearing demand and [ of our ] remaining $2.7 billion CD portfolio approximately [ 1 billion ] matures in each of the next 2 quarters with an average rate of 3.48% and 3.2%, respectively. Our current 7-month CD rollover rate is 3.25%. Further, we started the year with $100 million in broker deposits, $50 million paid off early in the quarter, while the last of our broker deposits paid off on April 1. Credit quality continues to remain stable as key metrics have remained low from a historical perspective and favorable to all banks with assets between $20 billion and $50 billion over the last 5 quarters. [ Criticized ] and classified loans as a percentage of total portfolio loans decreased $49 million or 24 basis points from the sequential quarter to 2.9%, and while nonperforming loans increased $53 million sequentially, primarily due to 3 CRE loans across different markets and property types, none of which were office. The allowance for credit losses, the total portfolio loans at the end of the first quarter was 1.1% of total loans or $210 million. The decrease from the fourth quarter was primarily due to lower loan balances faster prepayment speeds and macroeconomic factors. The first quarter margin of 3.57% improved 22 basis points year-over-year through a combination of lower funding costs and higher security yields but declined 4 basis points sequentially. This decrease resulted primarily from lower net loan growth as well as modestly higher seasonal deposit contraction in the first 2 months of the quarter, which fully recovered by the end of March. Total deposit funding costs, including noninterest-bearing deposits declined 11 basis points year-over-year and 7 basis points quarter-over-quarter to 177 basis points. The first quarter noninterest income of $41.8 million increased $7.2 million or 21% year-over-year due primarily to the acquisition of Premier combined with organic growth. Service charges on deposit and digital banking fees improved due to increased general spending and higher transaction volumes from our larger customer base as well as organic growth from treasury management, which generated revenue of $2.5 million in the first quarter, representing an 82% increase year-over-year, reflecting record asset levels, which totaled $10.4 billion combined trust fees and net securities brokerage revenue increased due to the addition of Premier Wealth clients market value appreciation and organic growth. Noninterest expense, excluding restructuring and merger-related costs for the first quarter of 2026 was $143 million, a 25% increase year-over-year due to the addition of the Premier expense base which was only in the WesBanco expense base for 1 month in the prior year period. Higher core deposit intangible asset amortization from the acquisition and higher FDIC insurance expense due to our larger asset size. On a similar basis, operating expenses were down slightly from the sequential quarter, reflecting our focus on managing discretionary expenses and some onetime credits approximating $2 million. Please note that the first quarter does not fully reflect our strategic expansion into South Florida as the hiring occurred late in the quarter. If we turn to capital, all of our key ratios improved quarter-over-quarter. Our CET1 ratio, as of March 31, was 10.7%, which increased more than anticipated due to lower risk-weighted assets during the quarter. Based on the strategic investment that we're making in the Southeast Florida and other markets, we anticipate CET1 to [ now ] build 5 to 10 basis points per quarter for the remainder of the year, putting us on pace for 11% and CET1 target by year-end. Turning to the outlook. Our current outlook for 2026 includes our Southeast Florida expansion, which currently totals nearly 20 individuals and is expected to achieve positive operating leverage within 12 to 15 months and be additive to our long-term financial outlook. We've removed our previous rate cuts from our modeling and currently do not anticipate any cuts or increases during the remainder of 2026. We anticipate our second quarter net interest margin to rebound into the low 360s and then continue to improve into the mid- to high 360s during the second half of the year. This assumes, among other things, that the competition for loans and deposits remain stable, loan growth is fully funded by deposits and an upward sloping yield curve. Generally speaking, there are no meaningful changes to our fee income outlook for the last -- from the last quarter. [ Trust fees ] and securities brokerage revenue should benefit modestly from organic growth and be influenced by equity and fixed income markets. And as a reminder, first quarter trust fees are seasonally higher due to tax preparation fees. Mortgage banking should grow modestly over 2025 beginning in the spring, driven by recent hiring initiatives Total treasury management revenue should see increases from 2025 as the compounding effect of our services continue to expand and gross commercial swap fee income, excluding market adjustments, should be in the $8 million to $10 million range. Overall, we currently anticipate our quarterly fee income to grow in the 3% to 5% range year-over-year during the remainder of 2026. While we remain focused on delivering disciplined expense management, we are making strategic investments to drive long-term value for our shareholders. We're closing 10 financial centers during May and anticipate the annual savings of approximately $2 million to begin to be realized midway through the second quarter. Salaries and wages will increase, reflecting the South Florida expansion and the annual midyear merit increases, which take effect midway through the second quarter. Occupancy expense should be flat to slightly down compared to 2025 due to our branch optimization efforts slightly offset by our branch expansion initiatives in our new and existing markets, while equipment and software expenses are expected to increase somewhat as compared to 2025 as we continue to invest in products services and technology to improve the customer experience and drive revenue growth. In support of our organic loan and deposit growth model and our commercial lending expansion efforts, marketing is expected to increase to approximately $4 million per quarter. And based on what we know today, we expect our expense run rate during the second quarter to approach $150 million and then to increase a couple of percentage points in the third quarter from a full quarter of midyear merit increases. The provision for credit losses will depend on changes to the macroeconomic forecast and qualitative factors as well as various credit quality metrics, including potential charge-offs, criticized and classified loan balances, delinquencies, changes in prepayment speeds and future loan growth. And finally, we anticipate our full year effective tax rate to be between 20% and 21%. This concludes my remarks. Operator, we're now [ ready ] to take questions.