Eastern Bankshares, Inc.

Hello and welcome to the Eastern Bank Shares Inc. Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Today's call will include forward-looking statements, including statements about Eastern's future financial and operating results, outlook, business strategies and plans, as well as other opportunities and potential risks that management foresees. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current estimates or beliefs and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, or the timing of events to differ materially from the views expressed today. More information about such risks and uncertainties is set forth under the caption forward-looking statements in the earnings press release as well as in the risk factor section and other disclosures in the company's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward-looking statements made during this call represent management's views and estimates as of today and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. During the call, the company will also discuss both GAAP and certain non-GAAP financial measures. For a reconciliation of GAAP to the non-GAAP financial measures, please refer to the company's earnings press release, which can be found at investor.easternbank.com. Please note this event is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Bob Rivers, Chair and CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Joanna. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our second quarter earnings call. As always, I'm joined today by Jim Fitzgerald, our Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Although the operating environment for banks remains challenging in some respects, we feel very good about our results this quarter. In particular, we demonstrated that our securities repositioning in the first quarter strengthened our balance sheet and improved our earnings outlook, improvements that were immediately impactful and can be seen in our second quarter results. Our net interest margin improved 14 basis points during the quarter and is in line with our guidance from last quarter. In total, our operating revenues were higher than the first quarter as well. In addition, we were able to reduce our wholesale funding by $1 billion during the quarter, which allowed us to shrink our asset base and create a stronger balance sheet and earnings profile. While we expect the challenging environment to continue and potentially become more so over the next few quarters, we have taken steps to ensure that we are well prepared. Although both our leading credit indicators and traditional asset quality metrics improved in the quarter, we increased our allowance for loan losses and moved our provision higher in the quarter to be consistent with that outlook. We also believe the Fed will keep rates higher for longer and that the heightened competition for deposits will continue for some time. Although we were able to contain our overall cost of funds in the quarter, that was primarily due to the reduction of wholesale funds through the securities sale last quarter. We continue to see a migration from lower-cost deposits to higher-cost deposits and expect that trend to continue. We will look for opportunities to further improve our overall funding position as we move forward. Our primary focus and strategy for the next few quarters is to position ourselves so we can gain market share and improve our competitive position in this environment. The failure of both Silicon Valley and First Republic has created significant turmoil in our market. Although we operate differently than they did, there is market opportunity that is very clear to us. Our commercial loan growth was strong in the quarter, and we think it demonstrates that we have been very open for business and is consistent with our long-term desire to meet our customers' needs throughout all phases of the business cycle. That said, we expect slower growth for the rest of the year, as you will hear Jim describe further. For the upcoming quarters, we will continue to focus on opportunities to improve our balance sheet and earnings outlook. As the environment becomes more challenging, those strengths will potentially provide opportunities to further gain market share and help us strengthen our position as the leading community bank in Greater Boston. Once again, we are pleased with our results this quarter and feel very confident regarding Eastern's future growth and performance. As always, most of the credit for this goes to my 2,100 colleagues who continue to ensure that Eastern remains the strong and reliable financial and community partner we have been for the past 205 years, as well as to our customers and community partners through their continued business and support. And now I'll turn it over to Jim.

Great. Thanks, Bob, and good morning, everyone. First, provide some high-level comments on the quarter, and then take a closer look at the balance sheet, income statement, and then our outlook for the rest of the year. As Bob mentioned, we're very pleased with our results for this quarter, especially given the challenges faced by our industry. The interest rate environment continues to create headwinds for deposit levels and overall funding costs, and we are carefully reviewing all our loan portfolios as we watch for signs of a weakening economy. In spite of the environment, we produced very good core operating results, while maintaining strong asset quality this quarter. We feel confident we are very well positioned for future growth in our markets. The repositioning of the securities portfolio in the first quarter strengthened our liquidity and improved our earnings path while maintaining very robust capital levels. All of these attributes position us to better withstand today's environment, and we expect we'll improve our prospects for growth and success over time. We experienced a 14 basis point improvement in our net interest margin in the second quarter as our margin expanded from 2.66% to 2.80% on a fully tax equivalent basis. We've reduced our borrowings by $800 million to $350 million at the end of the second quarter, or less than 2% of total assets. We also ended the quarter with very meaningful levels of cash at nearly $900 million, demonstrating the liquidity enhancements from the first quarter repositioning. Net income was $48.7 million in the second quarter and $45.3 million on an operating basis. Earnings were $0.30 per diluted share and $0.28 per diluted share on an operating basis. Asset quality remained very sound in the quarter with essentially no charge-offs, a decline in non-performing loans to just $31 million, or 22 basis points of total loans, and a reserve build of $7 million, bringing reserve coverage of non-performing loans to nearly 500%. As we continue to expand our market presence, loan growth was 8.4% on an annualized basis in the quarter, which was led by commercial and consumer loan growth of approximately 10%, and mortgage loan growth of 2%. Our board approved a dividend of 10 cents per share payable on September 15th to shareholders of record on September 1st, 2023. I'll now turn to a review of the balance sheet. Assets ended the quarter at 21.6 billion, down 1.1 billion from the prior quarter, primarily due to a reduction in cash and borrowings. As we mentioned on last quarter's call, we held our cash balances very high at $2.1 billion at March 31st due to the uncertainty created by the bank failures. And we're happy to reduce those levels as the operating environment stabilized in late April and into May. We ended the second quarter with just under $900 million in cash as we continue to prioritize maintaining strong balance sheet liquidity. The cash level was down $1.3 billion from the end of Q1. Securities ended the quarter at just under $5 billion, down from $5.2 billion in the first quarter primarily due to pay downs. Loans ended the quarter at $14 billion, increasing $287 million from the prior quarter, primarily due to an increase in commercial loans of $239 million, $35 million in consumer loans, and $13 million in residential loans. Total deposits decreased to $361 million in the quarter, and we continue to see mixed shifts towards higher-rate interest-bearing deposits. borrowings decreased by $787 million in the quarter and ended the quarter at $351 million. Shareholders' equity decreased by $54 million due to a decrease in AOCI, partially offset by growth in retained earnings. Moving to the earnings review, GAAP net income was $48.7 million, or $0.30 per diluted share, and operating net income was $45.3 million, or $0.28 per diluted share. Net interest income was $141.6 million, an increase from the $138.3 million in the prior quarter. The net interest margin was 2.80% for the quarter, up from 2.66% in the prior quarter. Interest earning asset yields were up 35 basis points in the quarter, while interest bearing liability costs were up 30 basis points. As you can see on the waterfall chart on slide six, The margin improvements came from loans, investment, and cash income, as well as the reduction in borrowing expense, and were partially offset by an increase in deposit costs. On the funding side, the cost of our interest-bearing liabilities for the month of June was 1.77 percent, which was stable during the quarter, as you can see on the top of slide nine. This was due to the repositioning and the reduction in wholesale funds that took place in the quarter. Deposit costs were 1.22 percent in Q2, up 30 basis points from the 0.92 percent in the prior quarter. The 30 basis point increase was slower than the increase of the prior quarter. Provision for loan losses was 7.5 million in the quarter, up essentially from no provision in Q1. As mentioned, we had loan growth of 287 million in the quarter, And we also increased our overall ACL factors in the quarter by three basis points, primarily due to higher risk in the investor office space. Non-interest income was $53.8 million for the quarter and $50.8 million on an operating basis. Eastern Insurance had another strong quarter with $27.6 million of revenues, up 12% from the same quarter last year. As we've mentioned in the past, there is a seasonal nature to our insurance revenues with the bulk of incentive payments from insurance carriers being received in Q1. All other non-interest income line items showed increases from the prior quarter. Non-interest expense was $121.7 million on a GAAP basis and $120.3 million on an operating basis in the quarter. As we outline on slide eight, the increase in salaries and benefits occupancy and data processing costs totaled $1.1 million in the quarter. The larger increase in all other expenses included an increase of $1.5 million in the provision for credit losses on off-balance sheet commitments, the effects of higher FDIC insurance premium, as well as an increase in marketing costs. Tax expense was based on an effective tax rate of 27 percent in the quarter, which was higher than our guidance last quarter. There are some complexities from the securities repositioning last quarter that have impacted that rate. I'll have some comments on our expectation for the tax rate over the rest of the year during the outlook. Asset quality continues to be very sound. Similar to the prior several quarters, we experienced nominal net charge drops in Q2. Non-performing loans of 30.6 million are at very low levels and our reserve coverage to MPLs is over 480%. We continue to watch for the impact of a weaker economy on the loan portfolios. Through the end of the second quarter, both our traditional credit metrics and our leading indicators were stronger than they were in the prior quarter. As I mentioned, though, we felt it prudent to add to our reserve levels in the second quarter as we expect credit trends to normalize over time. We updated the snapshot of our office portfolio and included it in Appendix B of the presentation. As indicated on the slide, there hasn't been much change during the quarter, although we continue to closely monitor this asset class. As we mentioned on slide 18, we have no non-performing loans in our investor office portfolio, and our overall commercial real estate portfolio is performing very, very well. I wanted to provide a few comments on our outlook, which is included on slide 13. We expect commercial loan growth to slow in the second half of the year to the low single digits, and for mortgage and consumer loans to have little to no growth in the second half of the year. We're increasing our outlook for operating non-interest income for the full year to a range of $175 to $185 million, up from the prior outlook due to the strong first half performance. We expect that some of the items in our other non-interest expense line item will return closer to Q1 levels over the rest of the year. We would expect to be at the higher range of our prior guidance that was between $465 and $475 million for our operating non-interest expense for the year. We expect the tax rate for the second half of the year to be between 22 and 23%, although as we note on the slide, it could be volatile quarter to quarter. We expect our net interest margin to be in the range of 2.7 to 2.8%, and for our full year net interest income to be modestly lower than the level of 2022. Our forecast was based on the forward curve as of early July, which assumed the 25 basis point rate increase from the Fed that we saw this week. In closing, we're very pleased with our results for the quarter and what remains a difficult environment. We continue to look for opportunities to improve our overall balance sheet strength and funding profile, and are optimistic we will be very well positioned to take advantage of any opportunities as the challenging environment continues. Thank you, and Joanna, we're ready to open the line for your questions.

Thank you. At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. First question comes from the line of Damon Del Monte at KBW. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everybody. Hope everybody's doing well today. So just wanted to start off with a question on the margin outlook, Jim. So if you kind of look at the first two quarters worth of margin, you know, that kind of puts you in like 273 range or so. So do you kind of expect the margin to hold, you know, steady at this 280 level, or do you think it's going to kind of drift down over the next couple quarters? And what are some of the puts and takes that go into that?

Yeah, no, I think, Damon, as we say on the slide and in my remarks, we expect the margin to be between 270 and 280. So somewhat along with what you said. The rate outlook today is higher than it was a quarter ago. If you go back and look at the forward curve at that time, it was different. So rates are up a little bit since then, which is why we're seeing a little bit of a modest reduction in our outlook there. But the margin, as we said, we expect to be between 270 and 280. Okay.

And what are your thoughts on the $900 million of cash that you have? Are you planning on holding that for a little while longer, or do you expect to try to reduce borrowings and or brokered CDs in the coming quarters?

Yeah, no, I would expect that to come down a little bit, although we are prioritizing balance sheet liquidity. I think coming through the bank failures, that was obvious that it's important. So we were expected to come down a little bit, but we would still hold higher levels of cash than we did, say, a year ago.

Got it. Okay. And then I guess just, you know, with loan growth kind of moderating and, you know, commercial and low single digits and not much other growth in the other areas of the portfolio, you know, you did a little bit of reserve build this quarter. Do you feel like you've, you know, you've adequately...

uh gotten to the level that you you want to be at or should we kind of expect a higher level uh provision similar to this quarter right so uh no it's a good question damon i would uh answer that uh two parts right so if you look at our uh provision this quarter and and prior quarters a considerable amount that's driven by loan growth so we had you know call it 300 million dollars worth of loan growth this quarter and that attracts a higher allowance and goes through the provision. So that will change as, you know, if loan growth comes down, which is what we guided to and what we anticipate, that component of the provision would come down accordingly. You know, the ACL buildup that we had this past quarter, I would consider a fine-tuning. We had, you know, overall, given the size of the portfolio, as I said, I would consider a fine-tuning. It's hard to give you any more color on what happens in the future. It'll depend on the environment.

Got it. Okay, great. Thanks for taking my question.

Thanks, Damon.

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Mark Fitzgibbon at Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Mark, good morning. Jim, on your fee income guidance, the high end of your guide of 185 implies sort of fees of call it $41 million a quarter for the last two quarters of the year. I know you'll have some decline in insurance commissions, but what are some of the other areas where you expect things to soften up?

It primarily is insurance, Mark. So if you look at the prior years and the quarterly trends over the course of the year, it starts out very high and moves down over the course of the year. Some of that's insurance payments, and there are some anomalies in the fourth quarter as well. So that reduction is essentially all in the insurance line.

Okay. Secondly, I was curious if you are contemplating any additional balance sheet restructuring moves?

I think, Mark, we continue to look at all sorts of balance sheet opportunities, but we don't anticipate anything. I wouldn't say, you know, the first quarter actions were pretty significant. Certainly nothing like that. As Bob said and I said, we continue to look for ways around the edges to improve the funding profile and the balance sheet generally, but I would expect those to be very, very modest.

Okay. And do you have a sense for the dollar amount of office loans that either mature or reprice in, you know, say 2023 or 2024?

We can come back on that. It's steady. It's not lumpy. It's steady over time. And we can come back on that as to whether or not we would provide that.

Great. And lastly, given some transactions in the industry recently, I wondered if your thinking on M&A has changed at all. Do you think transactions can kind of get done in this environment in your market?

You know, we're, and Bob can comment as well, I think, you know, we're always students of the acquisition game. Those were interesting transactions and, you know, we'd love to understand them better and we'll take the time to do that. You know, it's facts and circumstances and things align, as you know, so it's really hard to comment, you know, other than say those were certainly the PacWest transaction looked like it had some very clever attributes.

I mean, Mark, we're certainly interested in opportunities and stay in active contact with potential partners. And if we can find a situation that we can make the numbers work and works for us strategically, we'd certainly have an interest.

Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Janet Lee at J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hello. Good morning.

Good morning, Janet.

I want to understand, I mean, I want to make sure that I understand the prior comment. So, for the rest of 2023, the trajectory of NIM should be fairly steady versus the second quarter. And taking your NII sensitivity into your account, should the Fed start cutting rates in 2024? What would that mean for your NII and NIM trajectory?

So we haven't provided any guidance for 2024 yet. Janet, it's too much of a moving target at this point. I think what we put on the slide and, you know, what I articulated in my comments was for the rest of this year. And obviously, the environment's moving very quickly. As I said, we haven't put anything out for 24 yet.

Okay, fair. And I know it's very difficult to guess, but if you have to make your best guess as to where you're non-expiring deposits would bottom as a percentage of total. Like, what would be your guess there? Like, could it dip much below 29% today?

You know, Jen, those are really hard to guess is the right word. And it's not something we watch the trends like you watch the trends, and we'll continue to watch them. It's really hard to make predictions in that space.

Okay, and apologies if this came up already, but any near-term plan for share repurchases given your capital level is still very high versus Pierce?

Sure, no. Similar to what we've said over time on share repurchases, really three criteria. One is market conditions, two is capital, and three is liquidity. and uh those are you know three evolving and interrelated subjects um as we la you know as we didn't as we reported we or we didn't report any share repurchases but it is something we continue to evaluate and uh if you look at our track record over a longer period of some time something we're interested in but it's really those three criteria market conditions capital and liquidity that we need to feel very confident about, and we'll obviously communicate as we make decisions going forward.

Okay. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Bob Rivers for closing remarks.

Great. Well, thank you again for your interest and your questions, and best wishes for a great rest of summer.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.