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spk05: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Southside Bank Shares Incorporated Third Quarter 2020 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in the listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star then zero on your touchtone telephone. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host today, Ms. Lindsay Bales. Ma'am, please go ahead.
spk00: Thank you, Mel. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Southside Bank Shares' third quarter 2020 earnings call. A transcript of today's call will be posted on southside.com under investor relations. During today's call and other disclosures and presentations, I will remind you that any forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainties. Factors that could materially change our current forward-looking assumptions are described in our earnings release in our Form 10-K. Joining me today are Lee Gibson, President and CEO, and Julie Schamburger, CFO. First, Lee will share his comments on the quarter. Then, Julie will give an overview of our financial results. I will now turn the call over to Lee.
spk03: Good morning, and welcome to Southside Bank Shares' third quarter earnings call. I'm going to provide an overview of the quarterly results, current loan demand, and how we're managing the bank in this economic environment. During the quarter, we reported an annualized return on third quarter average tangible equity of 17.73%, as earnings per share increased 41.4% to 82 cents, and net income increased 36.8%, to 27.1 million compared to the same period in 2019. These increases were largely driven by a decrease in provision for credit losses and an increase in net interest income that were partially offset by the increase in non-interest expense. We recorded a partial reversal of the provision for credit losses of $4.7 million during the third quarter largely driven by an improvement in the economic forecast and the decrease in commercial real estate loans. Approximately $650,000 of the increase in non-interest expense was related to branch closings and branch pricing. Our asset quality metrics further improved during the quarter, as non-performing assets to total assets decreased to 0.23%, while COVID-19 modified loans decreased 76% to 76.5 million and represent 2.2% of total loans net of PPP loans. As the pandemic intensified, we knew this would be a true test of the strength of our consistent loan underwriting standards. We continue our earnest focus on asset quality through ongoing monitoring of the loan portfolio and the most at-risk categories. In addition to our normal procedures, we are reviewing more detailed reports by industry within the loan portfolio and, when appropriate, on an individual loan basis. Overall, we are encouraged by what we have learned and observed relative to asset quality and our underwriting standards. Our net interest margin linked quarter was unchanged at 3.02%. and the net interest spread increased two basis points to 2.84%. The balance sheet moves we made during the first quarter, purchasing approximately $500 million of highly rated, largely Texas municipal securities, along with certain funding decisions, continue to perform as expected during the third quarter. While potential loan growth during the fourth quarter remains uncertain due to anticipated loan payoffs, We are encouraged by our gradually increasing pipeline and the potential for loan growth in 2021. We are carefully considering loan growth projections for 2021. Despite the impact of COVID-19, the Texas markets we serve appear to be experiencing gradual increasing economic activity. When the impact caused by COVID-19 subsides, we anticipate our markets will resume pre-pandemic strength. As a result, utilizing the strength of our balance sheet, liquidity, and capital position, we believe we are well positioned to successfully navigate these challenging times and resume growing our Texas franchise. As we continue operating the bank during this pandemic, We remain keenly focused on the safety of our team members and our customers. Again, I want to thank all of the Southside team members for their outstanding contributions and continued dedication to Southside and our customers. I will now turn the call over to Julie.
spk04: Thank you, Lee. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our call this morning. We were very pleased to report net income of 27.1 million for the third quarter, an increase of 5.5 million or 25.6% on a linked quarter basis, and an increase of 7.3 million or 36.8% compared to the same period in 2019. For the quarter ended September 30th, 2020, our diluted earnings per share were 82 cents, an increase of 17 cents, or 26.2% on a linked quarter basis, and an increase of 24 cents, or 41.4%, compared to the same period in 2019. Linked quarter, our loan portfolio decreased 62.6 million, or 1.6%. The decrease occurred primarily in our 1-4 residential and commercial real estate loan portfolios, partially offset by an increase in construction loans. For the nine-month period in September 30th, we reported an increase in loans of $221.8 million, or 6.2%, inclusive of approximately $302.8 million of PPP loans, net of deferred fees. Excluding PPP loans, total loans have decreased 81 million, or 2.3%, year-to-date. Although our pipeline is beginning to increase, we do not anticipate loan growth during the fourth quarter. Our credit quality remains strong with a slight decrease in non-performing assets as a percentage of total assets to 0.23% at September 30th compared to 0.24% at June 30th. With the decrease in non-performing assets of $778,000 or 4.4%, down to 16.8 million at the end of September. Our allowance for loan loss decreased 4.8 million or 8% to 55.1 million at September 30th, largely driven by a partial reversal of provision of 4.4 million for the three months into September 30th, 2020. The partial reversal of provision was a result of an improvement in the economic forecast and a decrease in our commercial real estate loan portfolio. At September 30th, 2020, we reported our allowance as a percentage of total loans at 1.45%, and when excluding PPP loans, 1.58%. As of October 20th, our COVID-19 deferrals had decreased to 76.5 million, a decrease of approximately 76.5%. since we reported 326 million on our second quarter earnings call. The largest categories of remaining deferrals include hotels at 41.5 million, mortgages at 22.7 million, a self-storage CRE property of 7 million, retail CRE 2.1 million, and food services and restaurants at 1.6 million. At September 30th, our loans with oil and gas industry exposure were 116.4 million or 3.1% of total loans. As of October 20th, there were no COVID-19 modifications with oil and gas industry exposure. Our securities portfolio decreased 51.3 million or 1.8% for the quarter ended September 30th compared to June 30th. We recognized approximately $78,000 in net security gains on the sale of AFS securities during the quarter. At September 30, 2020, we had a net unrealized gain in the securities portfolio of $139.8 million, and the duration of the portfolio was 4.6 years, an increase from 4.4 years at the end of 2019. Our mix of loans and securities remain consistent on a linked quarter basis with 56% loans, excluding PPP loans, and 44% securities. Our net interest margin remained consistent at 302 on a linked quarter basis, and net interest spread increased to 284 as a result of lower deposit and funding costs. For the three months into September 30th, net interest income decreased by $685,000. driven primarily by decreases in interest income on mortgage-related securities and loans, partially offset by decreases in interest expense on deposits and FHLB borrowings due to continued lower-cost funding and, to a lesser extent, a decrease in average interest-bearing liabilities for the quarter. We recorded $602,000 in purchase loan accretion this quarter, an increase of $251,000 or 71.2% from the prior quarter. Additionally, we recorded approximately $1.27 million in net fees related to the PPP program included in interest income this quarter. Not including the potential for accelerated PPP fee income related to loan forgiveness, We expect to recognize an additional $1.3 million for the remainder of 2020. For the three months into September 30th, non-interest income, excluding net gain on sale of AFS securities, increased $1.5 million or 16.1% for the linked quarter due to the increase in deposit services, gain on sale of loans, and other non-interest income. Other non-interest income increased due to an increase in swap fee income, an increase in the fair value of written loan commitments, and a decrease in the fair value write-down on mortgage servicing rights. Our non-interest expense increased 1.8 million or 5.9% for the linked quarter due to an increase in salary and employee benefits, FDIC insurance, and other non-interest expense. The decrease in salaries and employee benefits occur primarily as a result of an increase in retirement expense and payroll tax expense. Other non-interest expense increased due to losses recorded on the disposition of assets associated with the branch closure and rightsizing. For the fourth quarter of 2020, we are estimating non-interest expense of approximately $31 million. Our efficiency ratio increased to 50.07 compared to 48.29 on a linked quarter basis, primarily due to the increase in non-interest expense. Income tax expense increased $1 million, or 34.7%, compared to the three months into June 30th driven by the increase in pre-tax income. Our effective tax rate increased to 12.3% for the third quarter, from 11.5% in the previous quarter. At this time, we estimate an effective tax rate of 12% for the remainder of the year. Thank you for joining us today. This concludes our comments and we will open the line for questions.
spk05: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press the star and then the number one on your telephone touchstone keypad. If your question has been answered, or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. First question comes on the line of Michael Young from Trust Securities. Your line is now open. You may ask your question.
spk02: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Good morning, Mike. Morning, Lee. I wanted to ask about just the construction pipeline. How large of a pipeline do you have remaining at this point? Do you think that might grow or do you think that'll continue to fund up and kind of shrink from here? And then, you know, have you seen any impacts in terms of construction timelines, you know, since the pandemic's maybe alleviated a bit?
spk03: You know, some of the lending opportunities we have that are extremely good are probably are going to be in the construction space. So I'm not sure that we're going to see a decrease in construction. But, you know, to the, let's see. So the last part of your question was about, Michael?
spk02: Sorry, so the last part was just kind of what you're seeing in the market in terms of construction timelines and appetizers for new projects.
spk03: You know, what we're seeing in the market is a, um, you know, an increase in, uh, building costs, uh, lumber prices, uh, you know, framing a framing package on homes has doubled in the last, I think six months. Um, construction seems to be going extremely well right now, especially in the, uh, the, um, You know, the single-family home space, the multifamily space, and then mainly the warehouse-type space on the construction side. So, you know, and we're really not seeing, you know, weather delays or anything like that. It's more labor shortages and material costs, you know, moving up.
spk02: I got you. And then separately, sort of another topic, but just on the tax rate, if we do have a change in political leadership here and there's a move towards a higher tax rate, moving it up to 28% or so, do you have an expectation of what that would do to your effective tax rate or anything we should be thinking about as we kind of roll that into our models at some point potentially?
spk03: Well, if the overall tax rate goes up 7%, you know, ours will probably go up five, somewhere in that range, mainly because of the amount of tax-free income we have, not only in the loan portfolio, but also over in the securities portfolio. So it's not going to go up to full impact, but obviously it would go up some.
spk02: Okay, great. That's helpful. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Will Jones from KW. Your line is now open. You may ask your question.
spk01: Hey, thanks. Good morning. Good morning. Hey, so just one quick question. Kind of one more headline item. This quarter was the big provision reversal. It looks like it was mostly prompted by some loan paydowns and maybe a little bit better economic outlook. You know, with the ACL currently sitting at pretty healthy levels, you know, how are you guys viewing forward provisioning? And, you know, are you guys kind of getting comfortable with the levels that the ACL is sitting at?
spk03: Well, the elephant in the room every quarter is what is the CECL model going to say? And the CECL model is dependent on the economic forecast. This quarter... We follow the Moody's economic forecast, and this quarter they put it out a little early in September and put out some notes towards the end of September, but they didn't change their model because they had anticipated a stimulus package being passed by Congress, which obviously hasn't been passed. So we did change our weightings this quarter. And we basically threw out, there were three forecasts that we weighted, baseline, one that's better than baseline, and one that's significantly worse than baseline. So we basically threw out the better, the one that was better than baseline, took 10%, put it to baseline, and took 20% because it was weighted 30%, and put it to the worst. And so basically it was weighted 50% baseline, 50%. the worst economic forecast. You know, it's all going to depend on where the economic forecast, you know, comes in. Based on our credit metrics today and the trends we're seeing, you know, I feel extremely good about our reserve that we have in place.
spk01: Great. No, that's great, Keller. You know, maybe just moving on, thinking about the NIM. You know, it's been, you know, held fairly stable the past few quarters, right around that 3% range. You know, and this is kind of where you guys have been guiding all along this year. You know, as we move into 2021, do you think that 3% range feels more of a permanent bottom? Or do you think it's more opportunity on the funding side? Or, you know, maybe potentially some future loan compression? Just some thoughts around the future NIM.
spk03: If we take out any accelerated accretion on the PPP loans due to payoffs and look at the NIM that way, then I think going forward, the NIM's going to be, for the fourth quarter, going to be relatively stable. It may move a basis point or two, maybe three at the most. But In the future quarters in 2021, if we can achieve some loan growth and that quality loan growth is there, then I think the margin can stay relatively stable. If we can't and the securities market remains like it is, I will tell you there's a little bit of additional lifting to do on the funding side in terms of reducing costs there. But over the next two quarters, you know, we will have probably done everything on the funding side that there is to do absent, you know, a few minor moves, a basis point here or there. So it's really going to be dependent on what type of loan growth we have or if we can, you know, hold loans stable. But, you know, right now we're encouraged by the gradual increase increase in the loan pipeline. And that's what we're kind of studying right now. But I know that's a long answer, but it's really going to be dependent on the asset mix moving forward.
spk01: Yeah, no, no, that totally makes sense. You know, any new loans that you guys are making, where are those coming on the books at?
spk03: Uh, you know, it depends whether they're, uh, they're fixed or floating, but, um, a lot of them are coming on in the, uh, you know, in the three to three 75 type range, depending on, you know, what type of loan it is. Uh, there's a few that come on in the fours, but most of them are coming on pretty close to where, where prime sits. Um, and, uh, You know, some of them a little over that, some of them just a little under that, but, you know, they definitely are coming in on average in that probably three and a quarter to 350, somewhere in that range.
spk01: I got you. I got you. So, yeah, so it kind of feels like the loan yields are stabilizing a bit then. You know, maybe this last one for me, shifting gears. Just to add on to deferrals, great improvement since the last disclosure you guys gave. Are the majority of remaining deferrals on their second deferral, or just what's kind of the content of those remaining deferrals in terms of second versus first?
spk03: Julie mentioned the hotels are right around $41.5 million, and they're either on their second or third deferral. The rest of them, I'd have to go and check because I don't know because $22.3 million is one to four family. I don't know if some of those are on a second deferral or not. They're telling me in the room maybe a handful at most. But the rest of them are, as far as I know, on their first deferral. And, you know, we were looking at it this morning. and what's already happened in the last two days, and what we know is going to happen in probably over the next 30 to 45 days, we're going to see this deferral number drop another $12 to $15 million. Nice.
spk01: Well, that's great to hear. Well, that's it for me, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll talk to you again soon. All right. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you. I am showing no further question at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back to Mr. Lindsey Mills.
spk03: Yeah, this is Lee Ibsen. Southside had an outstanding third quarter highlighted by continued sound asset quality, a 76% reduction in modified loans, a stable net interest margin, and a 41.4% increase in earnings per share. Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to reporting fourth quarter results in January. This concludes this morning's earnings call.
spk05: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for participation and have a wonderful day. You may now disconnect.
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