Univest Financial Corporation

Good morning and thank you to all of our listeners for joining us today. Joining me on the call this morning is Mike Keim, our Chief Operating Officer and President of Univest Bank and Trust, and Brian Richardson, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone of the forward-looking statements disclaimer. Please be advised that during the course of this conference call, management may make forward-looking statements that express management's intentions, beliefs, or expectations within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Univest's actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. I will refer you to the forward-looking cautionary statements in our earnings release and in our SEC filings. Hopefully everyone had a chance to review our earnings release from yesterday. If not, it can be found on our website at univest.net under the Investor Relations tab. We reported net income of $21 million during the first quarter, or 71 cents per share. While this past month and a half has been turbulent in the banking industry after the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, our diversified deposit sources and ample access to liquidity has served us well. While we did not see any significant unexpected shifts in our deposits, we are not immune to the accelerated rise in deposit and borrowing costs. As a result, we did experience an 18 basis point decline in our net interest margin during the quarter with continued pressure expected throughout the year. It is more important than ever that we stay disciplined in our loan pricing and expense management during what we anticipate will be an extended period of higher funding costs. Staying disciplined on loan pricing will slow down loan growth during the year. However, we are focused on ensuring we get an appropriate return on these future loan closings given the increased cost of funding. Before I pass it over to Brian for further detail on our financials, I would like to thank the entire Univest family for the great work they do every day. While it has been a volatile period in the industry, they continue to focus on serving our customers, communities, and each other. I'll now turn it over to Brian for further discussion on our results.

Thank you, Jeff. I would also like to thank everyone for joining us today. I would like to start by touching on five items from the earnings release. First, as Jeff mentioned, we experienced increased funding costs during the quarter due to a mixed shift of deposits as well as increased deposit betas and borrowing costs. Reported margin of 3.58% decreased 18 basis points compared to last quarter. Asset yields increased by 31 basis points to 5.01%, and the cost of interest-bearing liabilities increased 71 basis points to 2.21%. Our cycle to date interest-bearing deposit beta was 36% for the quarter. Our cost of funds, including the benefit of non-interest-bearing deposits, was 1.53%, up from 1% in the fourth quarter of 2022. Second, I would like to discuss our liquidity and funding position. During the quarter, deposits decreased by $78.9 million. While we saw certain expected outflows during the quarter, we saw net deposit inflows of $81.1 million during the month of March. Non-interest-bearing deposits decreased $248 million during the quarter, of which $47.3 million occurred during the month of March. As of March 31, non-interest-bearing deposits represented 30.8% of deposits compared to 34.6% at December 31. During the quarter, broker deposits grew by $25 million to $127 million, which represented 2.2% of total deposits as of the end of the quarter. At March 31st, uninsured deposits adjusted to exclude internal accounts and collateralized trust and public fund deposit accounts totaled $1.6 billion and represented 27.2% of total deposits. The corporation and its subsidiaries had committed borrowing capacity of $3.1 billion at March 31st, of which $1.9 billion was available. We also maintained uncommitted funding sources from correspondent banks of $410 million as of the end of the quarter, of which $320 million was unused. Third, during the quarter, we recorded a provision for credit losses of $3.4 million. Our coverage ratio was 1.28% at March 31st compared to 1.29% at December 31st. Net charge-offs for the quarter totaled $2.8 million, of which $2.4 million related to one relationship, which had a $2.1 million specific reserve as of December 31st. During the quarter, we saw stability in non-performing assets and a reduction in delinquencies and criticizing classified loans. Fourth, Non-interest income decreased 790,000, or 3.9%, compared to the first quarter of 2022, as we saw continued pressure on wealth management revenue driven by reduced assets under management and supervision due to market volatility and reduced gain on sale income from our mortgage banking business due to increased interest rates and a corresponding decrease in refinance volumes. Offsetting these decreases was a $917,000 increase in insurance commission and fee income, which was primarily driven by a $651,000 increase in contingent income, which totaled $1.8 million for the current quarter. As a reminder, contingent income is largely recognized in the first quarter of the year. Fifth, non-interest expense increased $4.1 million, or 9.1%, compared to the first quarter of 2022. This includes $1.9 million related to four specific items, including our expansion into Western PA in Maryland, lower capitalized compensation due to reduced loan production, increased retirement plan costs, and increased FDIC expense due to the new assessment rate that went into effect on January 1st. Excluding these items, non-interest expense increased $2.3 million, or 4.9%. I believe the remainder of the earnings release was straightforward, and I would now like to provide an update to our 2023 guidance. First, on last quarter's call, I had guided to loan growth of 12% to 14% for 2023. We expect that loan pricing discipline in contemplation of the rising funding costs will result in slower loan growth. Therefore, we are decreasing our loan growth expectation to 6% to 8%. We expect this to result in net interest income growth of approximately 5% to 8% for the year based on current information. This assumes a 25 basis point increase in May, a cycle to date interest bearing deposit beta of approximately 50% by the end of the year, and maintaining a non-interest bearing deposit mix in the 30% range. Deposit betas and mix are inherently volatile in the current environment and could have a material impact on our actual net interest income. Second, on last quarter's call, I had provided guidance of 18 to 20 million for our provision for credit losses. While the provision will continue to be event-driven, including loan growth, changes in economic-related assumptions, and the credit performance of the portfolio, including specific credits, we expect the provision of 12 to 16 million for 2023 based on our reduced loan growth expectations. Third, our non-interest income growth guidance A 4% to 6% remains unchanged. As a reminder, the 4% to 6% is off the 2022 base of $76.9 million, which excludes $977,000 of BOLI death benefits. Fourth, our non-interest expense growth guidance remains unchanged at 7% to 9%. While we have various expense reduction initiatives underway, the benefit of those initiatives compared to our original guidance is expected to be largely offset by reduced capitalized compensation due to our reduced loan production. Lastly, as it relates to income taxes, we expect our effective tax rate to be approximately 20 to 20.5% based off of current statutory rates. While it is certainly a tumultuous time for the industry, we believe our strong capital position and available liquidity coupled with the characteristics of our deposit base provide us with the foundation and stability to effectively navigate the current environment. That concludes my prepared remarks. We will be happy to answer any questions. Candice, would you please begin the question and answer session?

Thank you. We are now ready to begin the Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. Please also ensure that you can unmute yourself locally. Our next question comes from Frank Chiraldi from ABC. Frank, please go ahead.