Alerus Financial Corporation

Hello everyone and welcome to the Alibris Financial Corporation earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need any assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please also remember that this call is being recorded. This call may include forward-looking statements and the company's actual results may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements are listed in the earnings released and the company's SEC filings. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Alira's Financial Corporation, President and CEO, Katie Lawrenson. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you, Bruno, and thank you to everyone joining our call today. We appreciate your interest and investment in Alaris. Joining me today is Alaris' CFO, Al Villalon, who will discuss our financial performance and results for the quarter. Also on the call is Karin Taylor, our Chief Risk and Operating Officer, and Jim Collins, our Chief Banking and Revenue Officer. This morning, I will provide some commentary on the continued execution of our strategic initiatives and ongoing momentum in building a highly valued franchise. During the quarter, we continued to feel the impact of the challenging interest rate environment and intense deposit competition. However, the NIM improved during the quarter and overall the deposit balances held steady as our team members' constant focus on clients and our relationship banking model was evident as commercial, consumer, and synergistic deposit categories all grew in the quarter. And new accounts opened again surpassed closed accounts. Notably, non-interest-bearing balances remained steady at 25% of our overall deposit portfolio, and highly selective, disciplined, modest loan growth also continued during the quarter as we added high-quality franchise-building clients to our portfolio. The loan-to-deposit ratio remained manageable at just over 90%, and I'd emphasize again that this is with no broker deposits at this time. Our uniquely diversified revenue mix of 58% fee income helps to stabilize the revenue headwinds caused by the net interest margin compression. As a reminder, within this fee income mix, approximately 90% is highly annuitized recurring and non-cyclical revenue with minimal capital allocation and balance sheet risk. Specifically, Alaris' top 25-ranked National Retirement Services business delivers the majority of this fee income. The business is highly valuable, and we remain committed to extracting this value by growing our scaled and highly profitable product lines of the business. Last year, we exited the payroll offering, and this quarter, we spun off our ESOP trustee business. These strategic investors allow us to direct resources and prioritization on the products and solutions where we continue to have the most opportunity for growth and delivering strong returns. The core business is growing with new plans and participants, which is the driver of most of the fees. As such, core revenues are trending higher despite headwinds due to market conditions on AUA. Several initiatives appear to have early traction, and new revenue and lost revenue are tracking with expectations. Synergies from the business remain highly valuable as a key source of deposits, and we have again surpassed $100 million of annual wealth management rollovers. Moving over to our wealth management business, which is again focused on advisory services and planning for high net worth client segments in our geographies, and mass affluence throughout our footprints and nationally in connection with our retirement business. Over 90% of our wealth management revenues are annuitized recurring revenues with an exceptionally high level of client retention. During the quarter, we lifted out a team of private bankers, and the formal launch and integration with wealth management has come together quickly. Our trend of retaining dollars in the company through our holistic client service model produced key one-oil-eric wins again, driven by company sales and referrals by employees of large commercial banking clients. Our mortgage business produced results consistent with the second quarter, but it remains a very challenging environment. Expense management remained a key priority throughout the company, with year-over-year expenses down nearly 8%, even in the face of inflationary pressures in wages, contracts, and increasing assessments and professional fees. We've remained balanced in our investments in attracting and retaining high-performing revenue-producing talent to support future growth, while prudently building a team aligned with our one hilarious culture of excellence and accountability. Our ongoing emphasis on improving efficiencies is not an arbitrary directive to cut expenses. It is a planful and purposeful effort to improve automation and optimize processes and procedures. We are working with urgency to leverage our operating platforms and the technology we have in place today to develop a faster, more seamless client experience and consequently increase the production capacity of our sales and service teams. This progress is evident with our ability to grow accounts and acquire clients with nearly 10% less headcount than a year ago. From a balance sheet standpoint, the theme of diversification continues throughout our granular loan and deposit portfolios. Loan concentrations and uninsured deposits remain low. Key talent adds during the year include experienced professionals in deposit-rich verticals and segments of C&I banking, government and not-for-profit, medical and professional services, and our treasury management teams. Credit quality remains strong with low levels of past dues and non-performing loans. Alaris experienced another quarter of net recoveries, and our allowance to loan losses remains robust at 1.39% of total loans, in addition to the CECL double count of approximately $5.5 million related to the Metro Phoenix acquisition. We remain highly selective in our lending and committed to franchise building relationships. Capital levels also remain robust with TCE of 7.72% and CET1 of 13.1%. During the quarter, Alaris returned $5 million to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. As we look ahead, the industry will continue to battle headwinds. Alaris, too, has some remaining near-term pressures. However, we are building a stronger-than-ever franchise. We are prudently adding new client relationships and improving profitability through ongoing infrastructure right-sizing and optimizations. We are investing in key business lines while exiting non-core or franchise-accretive products and offerings. Each move is purposeful and strategic in positioning Alaris to bring expertise to our clients in fast, frictionless, highly responsive manner while delivering valued advice and experience, which we believe will directly translate into value creation for our shareholders. And with that, I will turn it over to Al to talk about our quarter and the financial performance.

Thanks, Katie. I'll start my commentary on page 14 of our investor deck that is posted on the investor relations part of our website. Let's start with our key revenue drivers. On a reported basis, net interest income declined 8.3% on a linked quarter basis. The decline was driven primarily by a continued increase in funding costs. Net interest income represented 41.8% of revenues. Switching to fee income, non-interest income increased 10.2% on a linked quarter basis. primarily driven by the impact of the debenture of our ESOP trustee business within our retirement and benefits services division. Excluding the ESOP trustee business, non-interest income grew 1.6% on a linked quarter basis. I'll go into detail about each of our fee income segments in later slides. Turning to page 15, net interest income was $20.4 million in the third quarter. Net interest margin was 2.27%. a decrease of 25 basis points from the prior quarter, impacting the net interest margin with about three basis points of accretion from the Metro Phoenix deal. During the third quarter, we saw improvement in our net interest margin after our index liabilities repriced in July. On a monthly basis, July was the low point for net interest margin during the quarter. As the quarter progressed, we saw our net interest margin gradually improve. We ended the quarter with a net interest margin of 2.3% for the month of September, which is higher than the 2.27% that we reported for the quarter. Based on the Fed hike last July, we do expect our net interest margin to compress another 7 to 10 basis points from the 2.27% since our index deposits will reprice in October. Should the Fed be done with raising rates? We do anticipate our net interest margin to continue to improve gradually as our earnings assets continue to remix and reprice into higher-yielding loans. Let's turn to page 16 to talk about our loan portfolio. Total loans grew 2.9% from the prior quarter, driven by growth in C&I, commercial real estate, and residential real estate, offset by a decline in consumer-based loans. We continue to see strong growth in relationship-based lending, where we are providing multifaceted solutions to clients via our one-a-layer strategy. For the remainder of 2023, we do continue to expect modest loan growth. Turning to page 17, on a period-ending basis, our deposits increased 0.7% from the prior quarter. Non-interest-bearing deposits still represent 25% of total deposits. Client retention remains very high, and we continue to attract new clients. For the remainder of the year, we expect deposit levels to remain stable. Turning to page 18, you can see a further breakdown of our strong deposit base. Our synergistic deposit, those funds sourced from our wealth and retirement businesses, grew 21% over the prior year and 2.7% over the prior quarter. The strong year-over-year growth in synergistic deposits was driven mainly by strong organic client growth within our retirement and wealth segments. Synergistic deposits sourced from our retirement and wealth business now account for 26.5% of our deposit base. Within synergistic deposits, HSA balances grew to $175.7 million, a $1.3 million increase over the prior quarter. HSA now accounts for over 23% of our synergistic deposits. HSA is a low-cost funding source and grows gradually over time due to its sticky nature. As you can see here, continued growth in our synergistic deposits shows the strength of our unique and differentiated business model. Turning to page 19, you'll see details about our investor portfolio. Currently, almost 68% of our securities are available for sale versus 32% in health and maturity. We did see unrealized losses increase as interest rates rose during the quarter. The duration of our investment portfolio remains slightly over five years. We continue to let the investment portfolio run down and remix the balance sheet towards commercial lending relationships that will add higher yielding loans and treasury management relationships. On page 20, I'll start to talk about our fee income businesses. On this page, I'll provide some highlights on our retirement business, which accounted for approximately 38% of our total revenues. End of quarter assets under management decreased 1.4%, mainly due to lower equity and bond markets. Participants within retirement have grown over 3% year to date. Revenues increased over 17% on a linked quarter basis, mainly due to the vestiture of our ESOP trustee business. On the bottom right of this slide, excluding the impact of the ESOP trustee business in both quarters, core retirement and benefits revenues were up over 3% on a linked quarter basis. On a go-forward basis, $15.3 million is the right launch point for our retirement and benefits services division. For the fourth quarter, excluding any impact, we do expect the income from our retirement businesses to go slightly from the $15.3 million. Turning to page 21, you can see highlights from our wealth management business. On a linked quarter basis, revenues decreased 3.3%, while end-of-quarter assets under management decreased 3.5% due to challenged equity and bond markets. Like retirement, wealth provides a strong source of funding for the bank as it accounts for over 29% of our synergistic deposits. For the third quarter, excluding any market impact, we do expect the income for our wealth business to be up slightly as well. Turning to page 22, I'll talk about a mortgage business. Mortgage revenues decreased 13.6% from the prior quarter as originations were stable, but fair value hedges impacted results. Mortgage originations were stable from prior quarter, which is slightly better than the MBA purchase index, which saw a 4% decrease. For the fourth quarter, we do expect mortgage originations to decrease over 30% as we enter a seasonally weaker quarter for our mortgage business. Page 23 provides an overview of our non-interest expense. During the quarter, non-interest expense increased 2.4%. Compensation remains stable while professional fees increase due to high legal fees related to the divestiture of our ESOP trustee business. Despite inflationary pressures, we continue to expect expenses to be down low to mid-single digits for 2023 on a year-over-year basis. We continue to be focused on improving our profitability by reducing expenses and increasing capacity throughout our organization, releasing the continued progress and right-sizing our expense infrastructure through numerous initiatives. Some of these expenses will be reinvested into efficiency improvement and revenue production initiatives. Turning to page 24, credit continues to remain very strong. We had net recoveries of nine basis points in the quarter. Our non-performing assets percentage was 23 basis points compared to seven basis points in the prior quarter. And our allowance for credit losses on loans and total loans remains stable at 1.39%. I'll discuss our capital liquidity on page 25. During the quarter, we repurchased $1.2 million of outstanding stock at an average price of $17.98. Our capital remains well above the regulatory minimums even after share repurchase is done during the quarter. Our common equity tier one capital to risk-weighted assets is over 13%, which is over 300 basis points above the 9.9% stress minimum required by the largest financial institution subjected to the Dodd-Frank stress test. On the bottom right, you'll see the breakdown in the sources of $2 billion in potential liquidity. Overall, we continue to remain well-positioned from both a liquidity and capital standpoint to weather any economic uncertainty. To summarize on page 26, we are focused on making fundamental improvement and improving returns for our stakeholders. Our capital remains strong, and we remain committed to returning capital prudently. A diversified business continues to provide stability in a challenging macro environment as almost Over 50% of revenues come from fee income. Should the Fed remain on pause, we do expect our net interest margin to fully improve as asset repricing and remixing should improve as earning asset yields improve. With that, I'll open up for Q&A.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. That's star 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. And please do also remember to unmute your microphone when it's your turn to speak. We do have our first question. It comes from Jeff, released from DA Davidson. Jeff, your line is now open. Please proceed.

Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, Jeff. Just a quick question. on the margins. I just want to make sure I got this right. You talked about kind of another leg down, 7, 10 basis points given kind of the index deposit. So I'm trying to meet that with kind of the commentary about if the Fed pauses. Is that kind of more of an idea well into 24? If you could just guide me through Q4 and and 24 expectations on the margin.

Yes. Thanks, Jeff. So for Q4, we do expect about 7 to 10 basis points of margin compression. But we do expect our exit rate to improve from basically from October to December. So as we go into 2024, we do expect net interest margin improvement throughout 2024, even if there's another Fed hike in there.

Okay. And the Fed hike is dissipating right now. Go ahead. Sorry. Okay. Sorry. If we do not have a hike, that's net better for the margin?

Correct. Correct. And what I was going to clarify is that we are anticipating, based on the FedDOT plot, another 25 basis points of Fed hike.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. On the credit side, I just wanted to kind of get where the type of loans, the non-accruals, where those came from, kind of how the legacy relationship is, just a little more detail on what was added.

Sure. Jeff, this is Karin. Yeah, that's a commercial credit. And it's in our Arizona market. It's, you know, I would say it's part of what we expect in terms of just credit normalization. The issues this credit is experiencing are unique to the credit. It's not indicative of a broader issue.

And so it was really centered on in one credit then was the increase?

Yes. The entire increase is in one credit.

Okay. Got it. I guess just one last one, just the buyback appetite that seems like a little pickup this quarter, but as we look out and balancing sort of capital and the environment, where do you stand on that as we head into Q4?

So, Jeff, we have the buyback is in place, but, you know, we are watching prices because we want to make sure that the payback is within our, you know, within three years is what we typically look at.

Okay. I'll step back. Thank you.

Thank you, Jeff.

Our next question comes from David Hester from Raymond James. David, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everybody. Good morning. Hey, David. Hey, maybe just... Starting out on the funding dynamics from your perspective and just some of the trends you're seeing, obviously it's incredibly competitive. I'm just curious, some of the deposit initiatives that you're putting in place to drive core deposit growth, and then how are core deposits and deposit costs trending across your footprint? Appreciate that balances are expected to be stable, but just I'm curious how – you know, the core deposit side is trending. And, you know, whether you're able to see that mix improve, or are CDs going to be the stopgap near term, and just how you think about cost?

Sure, I'll start. This is Katie. From an initiative standpoint, it is all about the talent that we're attracting into the organization. And so, as I mentioned earlier, mid-market C&I bankers, bankers focused in the deposit-rich verticals, as well as continuing to invest and build on our treasury management team. And so that has been key to the wins as well as the retention. From a mix standpoint, we certainly are seeing an increase in the CD book. I will say the majority of that business is multiple relationships. and so continue to be core client business. We also are able to retain dollars. We're seeing increases in our wealth management money market fund, but the dollars are staying with the company, which we believe is a key positive. Does that answer your question, or Al, do you have anything?

Yes. David? Just in terms of pricing, the way I would like to think about it is that Our index deposits typically reprice in the first month of a new quarter if there's any hikes in the prior quarter, so you'll see a little bit of repricing in October from those, and those will hit our money market specifically, but we only have about 14% of our deposits are indexed. We're not seeing much more pressure in terms of broad-based lift. That was kind of all front-end loaded at the beginning of the year, so we've seen our deposit beta stabilize at this point. So I think at this point, it would just be a little bit on the margin here and there outside of this index liabilities. But again, too, something we were focused on, too, from a strategy standpoint is constantly looking at where we can get new relationships slash low-cost funding for us. And that's why we highlighted in the prepared comments HSAs because those are really a great source for us, especially when they carry a cost of only about 10 to 20 basis points.

Yep, that makes a ton of sense. And then maybe kind of just following up on, maybe touching on the other side of the coin, right? I mean, you know, you guys have done a great job growing loans. Obviously, new loan yields are much improved. I'm just curious, how do you think about, you know, the pace of remix in the earning asset and the repricing schedule there? And ultimately, kind of how does that play into the pace of margin expansions? appreciate the guidance on the next quarter. And then we're going to be expanding throughout 2024. I'm just curious, how do you think about the pace of expansion? Because you guys are doing a great job defending deposit costs and repricing higher. Just curious how you think about that.

Yeah. David, this is Al. I can take that one. In terms of our expansion, the way I think about it, there's two parts of the manage this margin. The first part of it is that You know, we do have a securities book with about a five-year duration, okay? So if you think about that. Now, granted, there were some investments of that came in later in 2021, in early 2022. But that should roll off and provide us a source of liquidity. And that investor portfolio right now is yielding somewhere in the, you know, like the 2.5% mid-2s range. So that's going to mature. We're remixing that into, you know, funding loans on a go-forward basis. Now, also, too, when you look at our commercial book, and I'm quoting ex-residential loans, our commercial book has about a five-year also life in there as well. So as those loans, kind of some of those loans that were done pre-pandemic that were done at lower yields kind of come off, they'll be remixing as well into higher-yielding products, loans for us as well. So those are the two components. But then the third component to also be aware of is that about 40% of our loans are floating as well or adjustable.

Okay. Okay. Perfect.

Um, and then just last one for me, you guys have done a great job managing expenses. You talked about that in the prepared marks, I guess. First, I was hoping you could maybe elaborate on the decision to sell the ESOP business and maybe the plan to redirect that capital and those resources. Just how you think about additional investments going forward. Is now the right time to be maybe a bit more opportunistic with hiring and, you know, maybe segment or geographic expansion while others are starting to pull back? Just curious how you think about that.

Yes, this is Katie. Absolutely, now is the time. In regards specifically to the ESOP business, a very small piece of the overall business. And again, it was the ESOP trustee business, so we retained the record keeping and administration of that ESOP business. But the trustee business, a very small portion and so better suited served for the leaders that took that over and their ability to grow it so that we are redirecting our resources all to those core product lines where The opportunity to scale and continue to grow in the business is very significant, especially with Secure Act 2.0 that we've talked about on previous calls. And our investments in that business line, we invested in a consultant to come in. We are continuing to invest in talent. We are investing our internal resources in terms of project prioritization. into that business line, again, to streamline, to improve processes, and at the end of the day, of course, make for a better client experience. In addition, we are investing in an executive 100% focused on the business. The last time that Alaris had an executive whose primary and total responsibility was on the retirement business was when we experienced tremendous growth from $2 million to $1 60 million in revenue. So that would be the other facet of the investments in this business line.

Terrific. That's great. Thank you.

As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. That's star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question is from Nathan Rice from Piper Sandler. Nathan, your line's not open. Please proceed.

Great.

Thank you.

Hope everyone's doing well. Question maybe for Al. Sounds like, you know, with the margin guidance, NI is going to come down a little further here in the fourth quarter. And just curious to kind of get your thoughts on how you think about, you know, high growth next year in a higher for longer interest rate environment. It looks like, you know, NII is tracking down, you know, 12%, 13% for this year. But I was just curious how you think about the growth potential of NII under that environment.

Yeah. Thanks, Nate. I mean, so for NII growth, I mean, we are looking at for either to be stable up some next year. But, you know, a lot of we're just looking right now, you know, what is the loan outlook to drive that. But from a NIM basis, you know, we do think that we are closer to a drop on our NIMS margin, too. So, you know, those are kind of things we're kind of thinking about as we head into 2024.

Gotcha. And in terms of funding future loan growth, it sounds like you have some cash flow coming out of the securities book that can help that. And, you know, hopefully there will be some deposit growth starting next year after some stability this year. So do you see an opportunity to kind of reduce some funding levels to hopefully support, you know, greater NI growth next year? Or how are you kind of just thinking about Yeah, the level of wholesale funding that you could potentially unwind as hopefully deposit growth increases in 2024.

Yeah, we definitely would love to see more deposits coming to the door. Deposits is king, you know, and we'd love to, you know, deposits is what, you know, it's music to my ears these days. So as we look into our 2024 planning, you know, we are very focused on bringing in deposits and deposit relationships. you know, the question right now is given, you know, how much liquidity is coming onto the system, you know, what is out of our control is trying to figure that out as well. But, you know, we've brought in a tremendous amount of talent, especially in the treasury management side to help us with those deposit gathering activities.

Gotcha. Makes sense. And then just kind of a bigger picture question on some of the income lines, you know, obviously challenging equity markets was a, uh, a headwind to wealth management and retirement revenue in the third quarter. But if we get kind of more stable market valuations going forward and with all the initiatives that you guys have put in place to increase the capture rate from the retirement platform into wealth, how are you guys kind of thinking about the opportunity to grow those two lines in the next year, particularly as you allocate more resources to the retirement unit in light of the ESOP trustee sale?

Sure, I'll start and then Al.

Go ahead, Katie.

Okay, sorry. So in regards to just, you know, top-line revenue growth, certainly stable improving markets will help both of those divisions. From a momentum standpoint in both business lines, we continue to add new clients, core client business, really within our sweet spot and within our target markets. The initiatives I speak to are really about improving efficiencies and margins in the business as well as opening up additional capacity to continue to bring on that new business. So we have some initiatives where we're seeing early success. I think it's still a little bit too early to call, but definitely putting the right processes in place to really grow this and are seeing some early indications of success. With that, I think I'll turn it over to you, Al, in terms of guidance.

Yep. So just as we think about next year, I mean, you know, the $15.3 million for at least retirement is the launch point, which we talked about. We'll see probably gradual improvement in there because only about 35% of our revenues there are market sensitive. So the rest of it's really dependent on growth and plans of participants, which means we continue to see growth in that area. So, you know, we're pretty optimistic on that side. And then, Jim, is there anything you wanted to add on there?

Nate, I was just going to add and reiterate really what Katie said, is our expectation of core new client growth from our existing staff due to the oncoming of the private banking team and the synergies that those teams are building, I think is really important that we will see that growth. In addition, we've instituted a much more aggressive recruiting plan for for those lower entry-level advisors that can help harvest out of the 401k rollovers. So I think that's what we'll see additional growth next year.

Got it. Very helpful. And just maybe one last one for Katie. Curious if you're kind of more or less optimistic today on, you know, potential acquisitions on the retirement side of things in light of, you know, what you're seeing from a pricing perspective in your discussions with potential partners and what you're seeing from a competitive perspective relative to other entities that are also maybe looking to expand in that space.

I think we sit very well positioned from a competitive standpoint in all of our business lines. I think our company's got a really unique story to tell and a very strong reputation. And that, in and of itself, is having more volume of calls coming our direction in terms of interest in looking to potentially partner with us. So we'll continue to be very prudent and disciplined as we look at those opportunities, but I would say the momentum is trending in the right direction. for future talent liftoffs, strategic opportunistic acquisitions.

Got it. That's great to hear. I appreciate all that, Carla, and you guys taking the questions.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Damon Del Monte from KBW. Damon, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Matt Rank from KBW filling in for Damon Del Monte. Hope everybody's doing well. Most of my questions have been asked and answered, but just as a follow-up, just as a follow-up, the IRA roller is a hundred million. Just to put some context around that number, where do you think you could grow that to in 2024 with the new initiative?

Sure. You know, just to, for context, that's about an 8% cash flow rate today. and has been mostly on the reactive side. The initiatives are really around proactive, reach out to these individuals in a very timely way and high-touch way. Then, as Jim referenced, continuing to build our talent pool with the opportunities. We have a differentiator in attracting that talent to our company because of this opportunity. we anticipate continuing to see that capture rate of 8% increasing.

Okay. So do you think it could potentially reach like 10% to 15% or is it more gradual than that?

I would say it takes time, so it'll be a little more gradual than that.

Okay. Got it. That's all from me. I'll step back. Thank you.

Thanks, Matt.

We currently have no further questions, so I would like to hand back to Katie Lawrenson for closing remarks. Over to you.

Perfect. Thank you, and thank you, everyone, for the questions. I will end with just a comment about the company and our unique strength of our diversified business model, which, again, continues to differentiate our ability to attract and retain clients as well as talented professionals. We remain laser-focused on our strong and diversified balance sheet, talent investments, fee income, and investments in our key business lines, while again optimizing our infrastructure to return our company to our long history of delivering strong profitability, tangible book value growth, and top-tier returns to our shareholders. Thank you to our investors, our analysts, and to everyone joining the call today. Have a great day.