Camden National Corporation

Good day and welcome to the Camden National Corporation's first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. My name is Jason and I'll be the operator for today's call. All participants will be on listen mode only during today's presentation. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If you require operational assistance at any time during the call, please press star and then zero. Please note that this presentation contains forward-looking statements which involve significant risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to vary materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additionally, information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements are described in the company's earnings press release. The company's 2021 annual report on Form 10-K and other filings with the SEC. The company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events that occur after the forward-looking statements are made. Any references in today's presentation to non-GAAP financial measures are intended to provide meaningful insights and are reconciled with GAAP in the press release. Today's presenters are David Dufour President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mike Archer, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please note that this event is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Greg Dufour. Please go ahead, sir.

Great. Thank you, Jason. Good afternoon, and welcome to Canada National's first quarter 2022 earnings call. Earlier today, we reported first quarter 2022 earnings $16.8 million, or $1.13 on a diluted share basis. This is up 2% from the fourth quarter of 21 and 15% lower on a net income basis when compared to the first quarter of 2021. Mike will provide more detail in a few moments, but I want to comment that we believe this is a solid start to the year in light of several factors and conditions. First, as we all know, the economy and interest rate environment are dramatically different than they were just a few months ago and certainly a year ago. Second, like most banks, we've seen a decline in residential mortgage activity and related income, as well as declines in PPP-related revenues as those loans are being forgiven. Finally, and reflective of our strong asset quality, we continue to see benefits from provision releases as a number of loans that were modified during COVID have come out of the occurring period. As Mike will provide further details, there is some potential for additional provision releases in the coming quarters as we expect more loans previously modified to meet the internal metrics we've established for ourselves, at which time we release those reserves as needed. From a market perspective, I would summarize by saying conditions are what we expected. We have seen a 29 percent decline in residential mortgage activity, tracking near what national numbers are, caused by increased mortgage rates, but also a significant lack of inventory throughout all of our markets. As we have all read, there are bidding wars for homes on the market, and we're seeing more and more instances where cash buyers are winning those bids. We've seen strong commercial lending activity ranging from small business to commercial and commercial real estate. Commercial grew $40 million, 11%, from the end of last year, while credit originations for the quarter were solid, but somewhat muted by one large payoff as the property sold to a large national office. This provides a buffer to the decline in residential mortgage activity, I will point out that the competition for lending is still very hot. We are seeing very competitive situations on both rates as well as deal structure, which results in us opting to pick our spots in those situations. From a long-term perspective, including understanding our strong deposit base, we feel we're in a good position, although we'll see some pressure in the coming weeks and months. It's now my pleasure to turn the discussion over to Mike.

Thank you, Greg, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to report that we got off to a solid start this year with reported net income for the first quarter of $16.8 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.13, each representing an increase of 2% over last quarter. Through favorable earnings and capital management strategies we've deployed in recent periods, including continued opportunistic share repurchase and dividends, our return on average tangible equity for the first quarter was just over 16%. For the first quarter of 2022, net interest income decreased 432,001% compared to the fourth quarter of 2021, driven by a decrease in SBA PPP loan income of 1.7 million as related loan balances continue to run off at an accelerated pace as borrowers take advantage of loan forgiveness offered. As of March 31st, 2022, SBA PPP loan balances stood at 6.3 million and remaining unrecognized origination fees were just over $200,000. Strong loan growth the last two quarters was able to largely offset the impact of lower PPP income and will prove beneficial as we continue throughout the year. Net interest margin for the first quarter of 2022 was 2.87%, an increase of five basis points over the last quarter, and on a non-GAAP adjusted basis, it also increased five basis points over this period. We believe our balance sheet composition positions us to fare well as interest rates rise, and we anticipate to see further NIM expansion as our current book continues to reprice and new loans and investments come on at higher yields, which should drive asset yield growth. We believe the amount of NIM expansion over the course of the year will be predicated on our ability to manage funding costs. With that said, we have a strong core deposit franchise and will prudently manage as we enter into this cycle. Our loan growth for the first quarter was 3% or 4% on non-GAAP basis, adjusting for SBA PPP loans. Loan growth for the quarter was centered within our residential mortgage portfolio, which grew 86 million, or 7%, and our C&I portfolio, which grew 40 million, or 11%. As discussed last quarter, we anticipated that we would hold more of our production in our loan portfolio in the first quarter than we had seen in more recent quarters. This held true, though slightly higher than anticipated, with 77% of our residential mortgage production for the first quarter making its way to portfolio. Within our markets, we are seeing an extremely competitive environment as competitors look to deploy excess liquidity and are doing so through competitively pricing mortgages and holding these within their portfolio. As a result, market rates have been lower than what the secondary market would otherwise call for and pressuring saleable loan volumes. More recently, we have seen market rates shift higher and do foresee more saleable volume going forward as a percentage of production. However, for these reasons, we anticipate the majority of our residential mortgage production will continue to be held within portfolio over the coming quarters. Lastly, on the loan front, as Greg mentioned, we are pleased with our C&I growth during the quarter as it reflects the ramp up and positive momentum of our small business team. On a linked quarter basis, non-interest income was down $2.3 million. Mortgage banking income for the first quarter totaled $1 million, which was half of what was reported last quarter. We sold 23% of our residential mortgage volume in the first quarter compared to 33% last quarter. Also, debit card income was lower, $1.1 million between periods. This was due to timing of recognition of our annual visa bonus in the fourth quarter last year, $741,000 and lower seasonal volume. Our non-GAAP efficiency ratio for the first quarter of 2022 was 56.47%, while our annualized ratio of non-interest expense to average assets was 1.93%, compared to 54.9% and 1.94%, respectively, for the fourth quarter of 2021. Non-interest expense for the first quarter was 26.2 million, a 3% decrease from last quarter. As discussed last quarter, we expect quarterly run rate operating expenses to be closer to $27 million for the remainder of the year as the full impact of annual merit increases take effect. Credit quality across our loan portfolio continues to be favorable, highlighted by non-performing loans totaling 19 basis points of total loans as of the end of the first quarter of 2022, compared to 20 basis points at December 31, 2021, and 31 basis points a year ago. We also continue to have low delinquencies. At March 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021, loans past due 30 to 89 days were only four basis points of total loans. At March 31, 2022, our allowance to total loans ratio was 0.9%, representing a seven basis point decrease from year end and resulted in a negative provision for the first quarter of 2022 of 1.1 million. The decrease in the allowance for credit losses during the first quarter was driven by the release of $1.9 million in reserves that were established during the pandemic on certain COVID-modified hospitality loans, given the elevated credit risk profile. This release more than offset the provisions that were necessary otherwise to cover solid loan growth during the first quarter. Included within our allowance balance of $31.8 million as of March 31, 2022, is another 3.2 million of reserves related to these hospitality loans, subject to release over the coming quarters should these loans meet their pre-established internal requirements. While there is the potential for future reserve releases, as we expect the remaining previously modified loans to cure, this may be offset by other factors such as loan growth or a shift in our economic outlook within our CECL model. While we have seen our allowance alone to total loans ratio steadily come down since the peak of the pandemic, It continues to be above our pre-pandemic level under CECL. As of March 31st, 2022, our allowance was 4.7 times non-performing loans, providing what we believe to be sufficient and appropriate coverage. Like many other financial institutions, we too saw a decrease in the shareholders' equity during the first quarter of 2022 because of the decrease in market value of our AFS bond portfolio due to the sharp increase in the yield curve. At March 31st, 2022, our TCE ratio was 7.25% compared to 8.22% at December 31st, 2021. Contangible book value per share decreased to $26.16 at March 31st compared to $30.15 at the end of last year. While we certainly never like to see shareholders' equity decrease, we understand why it did and are confident that it's temporary and driven by the change in the interest rate environment. Being an asset sensitive bank, rising interest rates are generally a good thing and will likely translate into higher earnings and capital generation from our current balance sheet. Also, our investment portfolio is made primarily up of amortizing bonds and thus will naturally see balances that are currently underwater runoff. Lastly, we have the ability to leverage held to maturity or HTM designation. and may consider to do so on future investments that are longer dated and present greater price volatility risk. The company continues to be well capitalized, supporting strong core equity, which can be seen within our regulatory capital ratios that are all well in excess of our regulatory capital requirements as of quarter ends. This concludes our comments on our first quarter results. We'll now open the call up for questions. Thank you.