Cathay General Bancorp

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Cathay General Bancorp's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. My name is Rocco, and I will be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following the prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to participate in this portion of the call, please press star followed by one at any time during the conference. If assistance is needed at any time during the call, please press star followed by zero, and the coordinator will be happy to assist you.

Today's call is being recorded and will be available for replay at www.cafegeneralbankcorp.com. I would now like to turn the call over to Georgia Lowe. It's Mr. Lee, CEO of Cafe General Bank Corp. Please go ahead. Thank you, Rocco, and good afternoon. Here to discuss the financial results today are Mr. Chang Liu, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Hang Chen, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, we wish to remind you that the speaker on this call may make four looking statements with the meaning of the applicable provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 concerning future results and events. and that these statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results that differ materially. These risks and uncertainties are further to describe in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2024 at item 1A in particular. And in other reports and filings with securities and exchange conditions from time to time. As such, we caution you not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of which it is made. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or review any forward-looking statements to reflect future circumstances, developments, or events, or the This afternoon, Texas General Bank Corp. issued an earnings release outlining its first quarter 21.5 results. To obtain a copy of our earnings release as well as our earnings presentation, please visit our website at www.cafegeneralbankcorp.com. After comments by management today, we will open this call out for questions. I will now turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Chang Liu. Thank you, Georgia, and good afternoon. Before we discuss our 2025 first quarter earnings, I want to address the current tariffs between the U.S. and China. Based on our survey, customers have moved their sourcing away from China since 2018 to other countries, including some to Mexico. Our borrowers have told us that for the most part, they can move their sourcing to other countries or pause importing from China until the tariffs are more reasonable. We estimate that about 1.4% of total loans could be adversely impacted by the post tariffs.

We are closely monitoring the impact of the evolving tariff situation on our borrowers and our loan portfolio. This afternoon, we reported net income of 69.5 million for Q1 2025, a 13.3% decrease as compared to 80.2 million for Q4 2024. Earnings per share decreased 12.5% to 98 cents for Q1 2025 as compared to $1.12 in Q4 2024. During Q1 2025, we repurchased 876,906 shares of our common stock at an average cost of $46.83 per share for $41.1 million, completing our May 2024 $125 million stock repurchase program. In Q1 2025, total gross loans decreased $23 million or 0.5% annualized, primarily driven by decreases of $100 million in commercial loans and $65 million in residential loans, offset by increases of $127 million in CRE loans and $13 million in construction loans. Given the uncertainties in the economy, we have widened our 2025 loan growth guidance to 1% to 4% from the previous guidance of 3% to 4%. Slide 6 shows the percentage of loans in each major loan portfolio that are either at a fixed rate or hybrid loans

in the fixed rate period. Our loan portfolio consists of 62% fixed rate and hybrid loans excluding fixed to flow interest rate swaps of 4.1% of total loans. Fixed rate loans comprise 30% of total loans. And hybrid and fixed rate period comprise 32% of total loans. We expect these fixed rate loans to support our loan yields as market rates are expected to decline. We continue to monitor our commercial real estate loans. Turning to slide eight of our earnings presentation, as of March 31st, 2025, the average loan-to-value of our CRE loans remained at 49%. As of March 31, 2025, our retail property loan portfolio, as shown on slide 9, comprises 25% of our total CRE loan portfolio, with 13% of our total loan portfolio. 90% of the $2.5 billion in retail property loans are secured by retail store, building, mixed-use or strip centers, and only 9% is secured by shopping centers. By 10, office property loans represent 15% of our total CRE loan portfolio, or 8% of our total loan portfolio. Only 35% of the $1.5 billion in office property loans are collateralized by pure office buildings, and only 3.4% are in CCBDs. 38% of office property loans are collateralized by office retail stores, office mixed-use, and medical offices. The remainder, 27%, are collateralized by office condos. For Q1 2025, we reported net charge-off of $2 million as compared to $16.3 million in Q4 2024. Our non-accrual loans were 0.8% of total loans as of March 31, 2025, which decreased 14%. $11.5 million to $154.6 million as compared to Q4 2024, primarily due to the transfer of a loan to Loan Health for Sale and pay down in Q1 2025.

By 12, as of March 31st, 2025, classified loans remain at $380 million, the same as in Q4 2024. And our special mention loans increased slightly to $300 million from $293 million in Q4 2024. We recorded provision for credit loss of $15.5 million in Q1 2025, as compared to $14.5 million for Q4 2024. most of the provisions were to cover possible losses from one commercial client. The reserve to loan ratio increased from 0.83% for Q4 2024 to 0.91% for Q1 2025. However, excluding our residential mortgage portfolio, the total reserve to loan ratio would be 1.17%. Total deposits increased by 131 million, or 2.7% annualized during Q1 2025, primarily due to a net increase of 67 million core deposits and an increase of 64 million in time deposits. Total core deposits increased 67 million due to seasonal factors and marketing activities. Total time deposits, excluding broker deposits, increased 41 million during Q1 2025 due to promotional campaign in the first month of the year. As of March 31st, 2025, total uninsured deposits were 8.5 billion net of $0.8 billion in collateralized deposits, or 42.7% of total deposits.

We have an unused bargaining capacity from the Federal Homeowner Bank of $7 billion and the Federal Reserve Bank of $343 million. and on-place securities of $1.5 billion as of March 31, 2025. These sources of available liquidity more than cover 100% of uninsured and uncollateralized deposits as of March 31, 2025. I will now turn the floor over to our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Hank Chang, to discuss quarterly financial results in more detail. Thank you, Chair, and good afternoon, everyone. For Q1 2025, net income decreased $10.7 million, from 13.3% to $69.5 million. to an increase of $10.7 million in provision for income taxes. the effective tax rate resulting from no investment in solo tax credit funds in 2025. The interest margin increased 3.25% for Q1 2025. from 3.07% from T4 to 2024. In T1 2025, interest recovery and prepayment penalties added six basis points to the net interest margin as compared to adding four basis points in net interest margin for Q4 2024. Based on the first quarter net interest margin, we have increased at 2025. from the previous 3.10% to 3.2%.

Non-interest income for Q1 decreased 4.3 million to $11.2 million when compared to $15.5 million in Q4 2024. The decrease was primarily due to a $2.9 million mark-to-market unrealized loss on equity securities and a $1.5 million decrease in other operating income due to lower foreign exchange income loan and derivative fees and an interest swap, interest rate swap loss. Non-interest expense increased by 0.5 million or 0.6% to 85.7 million in Q1 2025 when compared to 85.2 million in Q4 2024. The increase was primarily due to

2.2 million higher FDIC assessment this quarter compared to Q4 2024, which was lower because of the reversal of an overrule of FDI assessment. increase in computer equipment expense, offset by $1.7 million in lower solar tax credit fund amortization, and $1.3 million in lower professional expense. effective tax rate for Q1 2025 was 19.82% as compared to 7.57% for Q4 2024. The increase in the effective tax rate was due to a decrease in solar tax credit fund investment because of limitations on tax credits as of March 31, 2025. A Tier 1 leverage capital ratio increased to 11.06% as compared to 10.97%. As of December 31, 2024, a Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio increased to 13.57% from 13.55% as of December 31, 2024, in a total risk-based capital ratio. from 15.09% as of December 31, 2024. Thank you, Hank. We will now proceed to the question and answer portion of the call. Press the star then 1 key on your touch-tone telephone. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question.

You may then rejoin the queue. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press star then 2. To prevent any background noise, we ask that you please place yourself on mute once your question has been stated. Today's first question comes from Chris McGrady at KBW. Please go ahead.

Hey, this is Andrew Leischner on for Chris McGrady. How's it going? Good. So just looking at the margin, can you provide what the sensitivity would be to the margin guide and maybe NII levels if we were to get more than the one interest rate cut in July?

Well, on a full year basis, it'd be about four basis points. for every rate cut. So if it happens in July, it's only two.

Okay, great. Thank you. And then... Yeah, go ahead.

Go ahead.

Oh, no, sorry. I was going to switch gears there. All right. Can you just provide the spot deposit costs at the end of the quarter and also if you have the average margin for the month of March?

Yeah. The average margin for the month of March was 3.39%. it had the bulk of the interest recoveries for the first quarter. So excluding the interest recoveries margin was 3.21. And then, do you like the rates on deposits? Yes. Yes, please. Okay. So the spot rate for total interest-bearing deposits at March 31, 2025, was 3.36. Our next question today comes from Gary Tanner, ADA, Davidson. Please go ahead. Thanks. Good afternoon. I appreciate the change you made to your loan growth guide for the year, lowering it from 3% to 4% to 1% to 4%. Can you talk about kind of what you're seeing in your pipelines and customer behavior today compared to, you know, 30, 60 days ago that kind of drove that decline? Sure, Gary. I think for us, the pipeline and the commercial role is still relatively strong compared to the last two years at the same time. from a relative perspective. And then I think the guidance is really just to, given the current uncertainty and what we're seeing on the terror side, particularly on the C&I clients, that we're concerned about the growth

prospect in that particular side of the business and even the residential mortgage while we've seen some slight uptick recently. I think there was a recent article in Wall Street about how it's now not the seller's market and it's shifting a little bit. We're seeing a little bit of pickup there. That's the reason for the revision to the guidance.

Just as a follow-up to that, are you Seeing projects being delayed, are CNI customers talking about just not investing or undertaking any investment in their companies? What are you hearing, I guess, more specifically on the CNI side?

Yeah, that's probably the bulk of it. If there were some growth plans or expansion plans or anything like that, I think there's some pause to that. I think they're more focused on managing their balance sheet and P&L, both sort of the top line side because the demand is going to slow down and as well as sort of the cost side, right? So their inventory side prices is unpredictable somewhat in the near future. So they're trying to manage the P&L side and the balance sheet rather than thinking about growth.

Yeah, let me add, we also, the reason we widened it is if there's, if a terrorist situation doesn't improve, We expect some loan pay downs as some importers just stop importing and sell out.

Very few of the importers import primarily from China. And they would just pause their imports whatever, nine months or whatever conditions to improve. So that's another factor in why we can't. And I'll add one more. Some of our CNI customers have already told us that they've built some excess inventory anywhere between three to nine months. So the line usage on what they need is going to be flat. Great color. Thank you. Thank you. And our next question comes from Andrew Terrell with Stevens. Please go ahead. Hey, good afternoon. If I could just go back to the question a minute ago around the margin. and the impact of rate cuts specifically on the forward guide. I appreciate the four basis points annualized for every cut. Just to clarify, if we go down 25 on rates, is that four basis points positive on a four-year basis or negative? positive, positive. So you can see in the first quarter our loans only decreased by two basis points and our deposits went down by 29. So this year I think we're going to be helped by the fact that about 60% of our loans are fixed or hybrids in a fixed period. So they're not going to go down that much. 100%. Yeah, I get it. I just wanted to clarify that. Shifting over to the... Just ACL, I think you called out that the provision this quarter, the allowance billed was one specific C&I credit.

I'm curious if that one specific commercial credit, was that a borrower that fell in that 1.4% of loans that you guys highlighted as could be impacted by tariffs? And then just more broadly, as you did the work to kind of ring fence The borrowers and exposure could be more impacted by tariffs. Have you taken any incremental provisions or built allowances on those specific relationships?

Yeah, that reserve, which was the majority of the Q1 reserve, was for a domestic company. So they're not trade finance related at all. And then we did the rest of the buildup in the reserve was tariff related. We're hopeful that that covers most of the exposure. As I mentioned before, you know, I think Our importers, they should be able to pass on the cost of tariffs if they're reasonable. If not, they'll stop importing that particular line of imports.

Yep. Do you have... allowances on that aggregate at 1.4% of loans? It's probably 2%. Got it. Okay. If I could ask just one more on the buyback. It looks like you, I mean, it's good to see you guys completed the authorization in the quarter. It looks like the price fallback was around, I think it was 46, 47. Yeah, I didn't see, I might have missed it, but I didn't see a new authorization in place. You know, I would assume you, given you've still got pretty strong capital, it seems like the growth could maybe be a little bit slower balance sheet-wise. You know... Would expectations be that we get another buyback at some point in the future and just remind us of your interest in repurchase and going forward? Yeah. We're waiting for regular approval. How do you apply that program? Very good. Thank you for taking the questions. Thank you. And as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press the R1. All right, next question today comes from Adam Butler. Please go ahead. Good afternoon, everybody. This is Adam from Matthew Clark. My first question is on non-interested expense. I know that your guys' outlook is consistent quarter over quarter for 4.5% to 5.5% growth year over year. But I just noticed there were some puts and takes in some of the expense lines. So I was just curious if you could walk through some of the major expense lines and just kind of talk about how you expect them to grow or decline throughout the year.

Thanks.

Yeah, let me cover that. So... Yeah, just on some of the major categories, on the salaries and benefits, we picked up a... about two and a half million from excess bonus accruals in 2024. So that offset the annual FICA hit. And we think our consulting expense should be lower in the second half of the year. I think that's pretty much it, looking at the income statement.

Okay, that's helpful. And then just one other one for me.

Most of my questions have been asked and answered, but just on the deposit growth during the quarter, it was robust.

And I was just curious what – To what degree is there seasonality involved in the deposit flows this quarter? And are you seeing from the growth standpoint? Yeah, I think the only seasonality is that our Lunar New Year promotion is in January and February, so we can probably get about $200 million And then we've had some broker CVs run off given our increase in relationship deposits. Okay. And if I could just follow up on the Lunar New Year deposit thresholds. What was the rate offered this year, and how does it compare to last year's special? Yeah, it was for the six months. It was about $4,000. or 50 or so for the July renewals. And then one year, we actually did 13 months this year. That was also 410, right? So that was 410 as well. And that's coming off of... Okay. That's all the questions that I have. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. I will now turn the call back over to Cathay General Wealth and Corp Management for closing remarks. I want to thank everyone for joining us on our call, and we look forward to speaking to you next quarterly earnings release call.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Good day.