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spk02: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Stella Bancorp, Inc. Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, to Courtney Theriault, EVP and Chief Accounting Officer of Stellar Bank. Please go ahead.
spk01: Thank you, Operator, and thank you to all who have joined our call today. Good morning. I'm Courtney Terrio, the Chief Accounting Officer of Stellar Bank, and our team would like to welcome you to the Stellar Bank Corp, Inc. Earnings Call for the third quarter of 2022. This morning's earnings call will be led by Bob Franklin, CEO of the company. Also in attendance will be Steve Retzlaff, Executive Chairman of the company, Ray Vitulli, President of the company, and CEO of Stellar Bank, Paul Egge, Senior Executive Vice President and CFO of the company and Stellar Bank, and Joe West, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Credit Officer of Stellar Bank. Before we begin, I need to remind everyone that some of the remarks made today constitute forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities litigation reform act of 1995. We intend all such statements to be covered by the state's harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in the Act. Also note that if we give guidance about future results, that guidance is only a reflection of management's belief at the time the statement is made, and such beliefs are subject to change. We disclaim any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, except it may be required by law. please see the last page of the text in this morning's earnings release, which is available on our website at ir.stellerbankcorpinc.com for additional information about the risk factors associated with forward-looking statements. At the conclusion of our remarks, we will open the line and allow time for questions. I now turn the call over to our CEO, Bob Franklin.
spk05: Thank you, Courtney, and good morning to everyone. First and foremost, I'd like to welcome the entire ABTX and CBTX teams to the Steller family. It took a little longer than we initially planned, but we are so pleased to have completed our merger so that we can finally be one organization. I'd like to personally thank Steve Retzlaff and Ray Vitulli for their constant support and partnership as we work together to unite these two great organizations to support our vision. I also want to thank the great teams of both organizations that have performed admirably as we have awaited this transition. We are beginning our journey as Stellar Bancorp, but until we complete our core system integration in the first quarter of 2023, we will continue to conduct business as Allegiance Bank and Community Bank of Texas, a division of Allegiance Bank. That said, we cannot wait to open our doors as Stellar Bank. We will release our brand to the market over the next few months as we get closer to conversion to allow our customer base to begin to become familiar with our brand. Our first priority is making sure that all of our stakeholders are comfortable with the merger. We are mindful of maintaining our great team, our incredible customer base, and assuring our community partners that we that we will be there to provide the same great support that both banks are known for in the market. We believe there is great power in the combined franchise. Stellar Bank is well positioned as we take our place in the top tier of banks in our market. We will also be uniquely positioned as the largest locally headquartered bank in our market. We are and will remain a true community bank taking local deposits and lending those deposits back into our local communities. Today, we are reporting our last quarter as standalone CBTX and ABTX. Our goal is to give you some context around the two banks' third quarters before merger close and to begin to show the great earning power gained by combining these two organizations together. I will focus my remaining commentary on the current operating environment and our strategic priorities. It has been repeated many times, don't fight the Fed. The Federal Reserve is making very clear their intentions to curb inflation by any means necessary, creating a unique and unprecedented market backdrop. So while we appreciate the benefits of higher rates, we must also be sensitive to the impacts on our customers, and our markets in general. We will focus on capital and liquidity and stay disciplined on credit given the uncertainty of the economy in 2023. We have an experienced lending staff and a strong credit culture. We have a uniquely relationship-driven deposit base and a staff that stays close to those customers. We reside in one of the best markets in the United States to do business, and the long-term future for our franchise is great. We will continue our determination to make sure that we have a successful combination of these two franchises. I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Paul Egge.
spk04: Thanks, Bob, and good morning, everybody. We sit in a unique position today, reporting at Stellar Bancorp the third quarter results of our two predecessor companies on a standalone basis since our merger went effective October 1. So we'll spare you a detailed discussion of our third quarter separately and instead provide a high-level discussion of our results, focusing on what it means for our combined company. Then I'll turn the call back to Bob, and he'll open it up for questions. First, the third quarter operating results for Allegiance and CBTX featured different versions of the same theme. First, strong year-to-date loan growth in the current rising interest rate environment drove higher net interest margins and net interest income, making for a very strong revenue profile. Second, both companies recognize a meaningful level of M&A expenses during the quarter, impacting our bottom lines and obscuring the earnings power progress we've made so far this year. After adjusting for M&A expenses though, both Allegiance and CBTX entered the merger at record levels of bottom line and pre-tax pre-provision earnings power. Holding aside the M&A expense noise, both Legacy ABTX and CBTX have done an exceptional job holding the line on noninteresting expenses in an otherwise inflationary environment without hindering growth since announcing the merger. This represents a meaningful pull forward of pro forma operating leverage and call saves. Now, turning our focus to the balance sheet, Both Allegiance and CBTX saw a continuation of strong loan growth combined with incremental decreases in interest-bearing deposit balances, putting us at a blended loan-to-deposit ratio of about 82% at the end of the third quarter, which is a level we are comfortable with. Up to this point, we have stayed relatively disciplined on deposit rates. We did see some outflows from more rate-sensitive deposit categories in the third quarter and year-to-date as a result. In the third quarter, we started to be more responsive to the current rate environment, and we expect to see additional rate impacts on our funding base due to competitive pressures. A very bright spot has been our strong base of non-interest-bearing deposits, which has so far held steady during the quarter on a combined basis and has grown year to date. Last, I'll acknowledge the impact of unrealized losses in our securities and through AOCI its impact on tangible common equity and tangible book value per share. The impact is meaningful for both companies, but it's certainly not an outlier relative to the industry. For the Legacy Elysium portfolio, we view this impact as transitory, since we don't plan on selling the underlying securities. The Legacy CBTX portfolio is a great segue to how we are being proactive to manage Stellar's liquidity profile. After closing the merger, we sold just under two-thirds of the legacy CBTX securities portfolio, or approximately $350 million of securities in aggregate, to bolster liquidity. Since Allegiance is the accounting acquirer in the merger, the CBTX balance sheet, including the securities portfolio, is coming over at fair value. So we are able to reposition the balance sheet with immaterial impact flowing through Stellar's income statement in the fourth quarter. A portion of this cash was used to pay off the FHLB borrowings that were on Allegiant's balance sheet at the end of the third quarter, and the rest is sitting in cash to support a more bolstered liquidity profile. After these transactions, Stellar's wholesale funding usage as a percentage of funding is lower than when we announced this merger, and we feel much better positioned as we look to the future. With merger effectiveness on October 1, The work on fair value marks on the CDTX balance sheet is still underway. While most merger assumptions remain materially correct in the aggregate, we've seen interest rates change significantly since we initially announced our merger, and marks on interest rates of assets will be significantly different. As a result, the previously expected level of excess capital will be lowered due to anticipated interest rate marks, but we are very comfortable with our pro forma capital position. particularly in the context of our strengthened core earnings profile and the rapid capital build it will drive. Note also that our robust core earnings will also benefit from significant accretion income that will result from the purchase accounting marks, much of which will be non-credit related. We feel great about when appropriate, we will seek to update disclosures on our purchase accounting adjustments to give analysts and investors better clarity on these items. We feel great about our combined positioning on earnings, liquidity, capital, and credit, which we feel prepares us for any range of economic scenarios. As a result, we find the financial and strategic rationale behind the merger to create Stellar to be even more meaningful now than when we announced it last year. I will now turn the call back over to Bob.
spk05: Thank you, Paul. In summary, we are set to build a great future for Stellar Bancorp that will benefit our stakeholders. The current operating environment has served us well so far in 2022, but as we look forward, we will continue to monitor the Fed and its effect on the economy. We will bend the curve to match their goals while we continue to build strength in our markets. In 2023, we are dedicated to executing a successful and smooth integration and we will focus on the quality of our business composition as we harness what will be a very strong core earnings profile. We believe that the industry is in a period of transitioning from the liquidity event provided during the pandemic to one of a more normal operating environment. This causes us to be cautious about the next year, but also optimistic about our long-term future. We are excited about the future of StellarBank Corp and StellarBank. With that, I will turn the call over to the operator to open the line for questions.
spk02: Thank you, sir. As a reminder, to ask a question, you need to press star 11 on your telephone. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. And our first question comes from the line of David Feaster from Raymond James. Please go ahead.
spk08: Hey, good morning, everybody. Congrats on the deal. Excited to see what the future holds for Stellar. But maybe just starting on the growth outlook. Just kind of reading between the lines, Bob, a bit on your commentary. Sounds like you might be taking a bit more of a cautious approach, just given the backdrop, which I think is prudent. But just curious how you think about the – net growth of the pro forma company. Obviously, both companies got really strong growth prospects, and the economic backdrop in your footprint is one of the best in the country. But just curious your appetite for growth here and the pro forma trajectory. And if you plan to decelerate growth, how would you do that? Is it through tightening standards, higher pricing, or just curious what you're seeing?
spk05: Well, David, I think you did a good job of kind of laying that out for us. It's sort of all of the above. I think we've had some robust growth, especially for our franchise and Allegiance also over the last year. I think what we're trying to signal to folks is that to continue to grow at those types of levels is probably not going to be available to us in 23. However, we can still grow the franchise. Our markets are still pretty good here and we're going to continue to take advantage of the things that we have available to us. We get to start with a pretty clean balance sheet. We've got an 82% loan to deposit ratio. We're going to work hard on maintaining our liquidity position and also give us the ability to go out and make loans when maybe some others are going to struggle with that. We think the market's going to give us some opportunities to continue to grow the franchise. The only signal there is that we're going to concentrate on quality, and it may not be quite as robust as what we've seen in 2022. Okay.
spk08: That makes sense. And I know the deal's taking longer than we all wanted to close, but just curious whether there were any ways that the longer time to close has been beneficial for you all. And maybe whether it makes the integration smoother or as you think about synergy forecasts, have you been able to potentially find additional revenue synergies or have you already started to realize some of those? And just any other, as you've gotten under the hood, any other potential benefits of the deal that you see today that maybe you didn't anticipate at the beginning?
spk03: Hey, David, it's Ray. So, yeah, I think we were – We were really trying to get the deal closed earlier, but the delay did, as you said, give us a little breather and more time to do. Kind of like if you think about two kind of milestones in a deal is your legal close and what has to happen day one, and then where you have to be for system conversion. So it did give us a little bit extra time to get all that in place, and we're really pleased with that day one, how we opened after legal close to have everything that was needed for day one, we were there, and we're on track for the system conversion in the first quarter. As far as synergies, that's in that spirit of day one. We had our mortgage operation between the two banks ready to go day one. So as we talked about before, Allegiance, while we had a portfolio product, we really did not have a robust mortgage offering, and community does. So That's been in place, and there's a pipeline for that, and we're really excited about how that's coming through early as a combined bank.
spk04: I'd say nobody likes to be waiting so long for a deal to close, but you've got to credit the teams of both companies to be able to keep their eye on the ball with respect to delivering such great growth year-to-date. It really is special. I will say, hitting on the cost front, We're extremely proud of what we've been able to pull through and how we've been able to manage in an inflationary environment. We've kept things quite tight, knowing that there's reinforcements when we put these two companies together and ultimately share duties and operate as one organization. So you never want to have too much time, but I would say that it hasn't hurt being that we've been able, we did not skip a beat on loan growth. If anything, we did great. And then separately, we were able to manage through this inflationary environment, holding the line on cost extremely well.
spk03: It would have been nice to close in June when the marks would have probably been a little less on the rate marks. But other than that, everything's good.
spk08: That's great. And then just last one for me, maybe touching on the capital priorities. I mean, we've got the buyback in place. Obviously, it's pretty attractive from a valuation perspective when we think about the combined earnings power of this. Just curious how you think about the buyback and capital priorities from here.
spk04: Sure thing, David. We were purposefully high level, but the one detail that we did not hit on was the fact that in the third quarter, both companies were relatively active in their share repurchase programs, altogether repurchasing about $25 million in the aggregate of shares during the quarter. We're really pleased of the progress we were able to make ahead of the deal. But being that the purchase accounting adjustments is going to eat into our excess capital position more than we expected, we're going to take a little bit of a wait-and-see approach, particularly going into this current environment. But we feel extremely well positioned, and we think being mindful about capital, particularly right now, is going to open up a lot of doors down the line.
spk08: Perfect. Thanks, everybody.
spk04: Thanks.
spk08: Appreciate it.
spk02: Thank you. And I show we have our next question from the line of Matt Alney from Stevens, Inc. Please go ahead.
spk09: Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. I'd like to also congratulate you guys for closing the transaction. It's an exciting time now.
spk03: Thanks, Matt.
spk09: Thanks, Matt. On expenses, I think I heard you say the core conversion in the first quarter. Any more details behind that? And I guess what quarter do you expect to get the full quarter of fully loaded cost savings? And I guess just more broadly, I think you talked about original cost savings from the deal around $35.5 million. I think you also made the comment that some of those costs may have been pulled forward a little bit over the last few months with the delays. Any commentary about how much of these cost savings have been realized through the third quarter and how much is still on the come?
spk04: Thanks. Going back to this long waiting period we had to consummate this merger, it has brought the opportunity to pull some cost savings forward, but with our core conversion being pushed into 2023, it's also had the effect of effectively stretching some of those cost saves out. So we're kind of seeing longer tails, I guess you could say, as it relates to the realization of cost savings. So there may be some dangling chads into the back half of 2023, but we are going to be 80% or 90% of the way there, I believe, around halfway through 2023. There is certain costs that will roll off the balance sheet at the end of 2000, roll off the income statement. I should say that's scheduled to roll off in the end of 2023, but that's very much on the tail end of things. The bulk is going to be coming through once we get past that conversion and we'll be entering the back half of 2023 appreciably there with a little bit of drag. But we feel great about what we're delivering from the standpoint of cost savings. And yes, you know, when you look at our respective cost basis, stripping out M&A expenses, you'll see that we've held the line extremely well. Actually, combined headcount is down about 70 individuals from announcement quarter or the third quarter of 2021. to the third quarter of 2022, which is part of that pull forward. It's why we're extremely excited to be together because we had been running things tight. So it's meaningful, the amount that has pulled through, especially when you think about a world that's facing nearly 10% inflation.
spk09: Okay. Thanks for that, Paul. And I guess I'm trying not to overstate the remaining cost savings in my forecast in any I mean, the 70 lower FTEs since announcement is helpful, but any other numbers I can think about as far as what portion has been recognized so far?
spk04: I would direct you to just do some math around our combined expense base in the third quarter of 2021 and or year to date, taking out things like OCC-related expenses and any merger-related expenses. roll forward a comparison of those core expenses year to date and in particular for the third quarter of 2022. And then, you know, put an inflation factor on there and compare the numbers. You'll see that that would impute a very nice story with respect to what we've been able to accomplish up to this point.
spk09: Okay. That's helpful, Paul. And then... Also on deposits, I think deposit balances were down at both banks in the third quarter, and we're obviously seeing this at most, if not all, your Texas peers. Any more color on what you guys are seeing with respect to deposit balances in Houston? And then looking at the fourth quarter, I think it's typically a stronger quarter for deposit balances, especially at the end of period. They can even outstrip loan growth. What are the thoughts about deposit growth more near term? Thanks.
spk05: Yeah, Matt, there's a lot of pressure in the marketplace, and you know well some of the players that are in our market that are being a little more aggressive around deposit interest rates. We're playing a little bit of defense in that regard, but we've got a strong relationship-driven deposit base, and those folks have been really good to us, and we're going to continue to be fair to them. And we have been as we raised our interest rate to them as we go through these interest rate increases. But we've let some of the higher-priced deposits roll off in trying to manage the expense base, and then it leaves us plenty of room to do what we need to do to kind of protect the good, strong deposit base that we have, especially those demand deposits, money markets that we enjoy. So we'll play at the fringe on the higher interest rate piece of this, but we're going to maintain and continue to protect the good deposit base that both banks have.
spk09: Okay. Thanks, guys.
spk02: Thanks, Matt. Thank you. And I show we have our next question from the line of Will Jones from KBW. Please go ahead.
spk06: Yeah. Hey, guys. This is Will Jones, KBW. How are you guys? Good. Good morning. Hey, good morning. So I just want to echo everybody's sentiment on the deal. You know, I know you guys are thrilled to be doing this call jointly today. Paul, I just wanted to go back to your comments. If I heard you correctly, you guys have sold two-thirds of CVTX's bond book, you know, as a deal closed. Does that mean that you guys had to realize maybe some of those losses on that book that may have occurred just with the rapid rise in rates?
spk04: It all comes in at fair value. So, the purchase accounting dynamics effectively realize it. And that effectively gives us the ability to sell those without a meaningful impact on the income statement. It actually doesn't go through the income statement. So immaterial impact from an income statement perspective, but it does effectively from a capital standpoint recognize that in the fair value mark, which is you know, just what happens in purchase accounting.
spk06: Gotcha, gotcha. That's very helpful. And then, you know, I know it's still maybe too early to tell. You guys laid out, you know, an EPS number in the mid-260s. I had a deal announcement back in November, and that included some forward rate assumptions then, and you guys were obviously right about that and then some. But I don't know if you guys were ready to lay out maybe a new EPS target today or just Maybe point us in the right direction as to where you think the earnings power of this company could go in the next year or so.
spk04: The earnings power of this company is great. And it's amazing to reflect on how nearly a year ago we were announcing this merger and we had expectations for pro forma earnings that seemed like a stretch back then, but we were The interest rate environment kind of outkicked the coverage of those estimates, and with loan growth, both companies have really knocked the cover off the ball from an earnings power standpoint. So we sit in a really good spot, and actually one of the reasons we showed a dynamic around the core earnings power on the front page of our earnings release, which is a little bit of a unique presentation is to kind of give a feel for just that. So I direct you there.
spk06: Gotcha. Okay, super helpful. And then maybe lastly for me, just thinking about the margin of a combined company, you know, if we're thinking about deposit betas through this cycle, I think that maybe ABTX ran a little bit hotter than CBTX did last cycle. Could you just point us towards maybe a good blended you know, beta that you guys are trying to manage to over the course of this cycle?
spk04: You know, we're going to do what it takes to navigate the current market, but we are extremely proud of our core net interest margin profile. You put these two companies together and we will solidly have a four handle on our net interest margin, and we're going to work our best to protect that. Separate from the core net interest margin, of course, will be the incremental gains from the interest rate mark dynamics with respect to purchase accounting accretion. So it will be even higher on a stated basis, but we will do our best to really separate that out for your benefit to see where that core margin is. We sit in a really nice place, and it's our duty to protect that margin profile going forward.
spk06: Awesome. Super helpful, Paul. Thanks for that. And that's it for me, guys. Congrats again on the deal closed.
spk02: Thanks. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. And I show our next question comes from the line of Brad Millsaps from Piper Sandler.
spk00: Hi, Brad. Hi. If you have your phone on mute, please unmute your line. We're not hearing you, Brad, if you're talking. Once again, if you have a question at this time, please press star 11 on your telephone. I'm sure no further questions in the queue at this time.
spk02: Okay, I do show we have a question from Mr. Millsaps, from Piper Sandler. Brad Millsaps, your line is open.
spk07: Hey, Bob, am I coming through now? Yeah.
spk02: We can hear you.
spk07: Got you. I just don't know what the issue was there. Paul, I wanted to follow up on the accretion comments in the 8K that you guys filed a few days ago. I think it notes maybe $37 million of accretion or interest rate adjustments. Is that in totality? I know that's as of 2021. And if that is the right number, over what span would you expect that $37-ish million to kind of accrete through between the bond and the loan book?
spk04: We're not really in a position to comment on what it's going to look like at 930, but obviously the 630 AKA we put out did provide an approximation or an illustration, I should say, for what it could look like based on the 630 marks. But ultimately, the way it works, particularly with the interest rate marks, a three-year portfolio gets marked pick a number by $90 million, you're going to recognize that negative mark back into income over three years. So it's really a timing dynamic. So we lose some net worth now, we gain it back in the future. And really, that's what drives it. So it's whatever the marks end up being, really going down to an asset by asset level, the accretion is recognized over the life of those marked assets. So what was put in the AKA was an illustration based on the 630 numbers, and we're working hard to provide better feedback with respect to getting our work done for the purchase accounting marks at 930, and we look forward to updating the market when appropriate.
spk07: Okay, so you'll get more earnings accretion. Is my back of the envelope, I mean, it looks like tangible book would be down, I don't know, maybe as much as 20%, maybe a little more, a little less. I know you got some final marks, but is that, am I in the right ballpark there based on kind of what you're thinking as of June 30?
spk04: Well, it'd be a little less. I mean, ultimately, what is conservative about that AKA was we recognize the market driven marks that tied approximately to the fair value marks on the loans as well as the ASCI on securities at 630. What was understated in the 8 , which is a function of the fact that the work hadn't been done yet, actually we used the old number for the core deposit intangible. which kind of drives the conservatism that was in the 8K because the core deposit intangible in the current interest rate environment is actually going to be meaningfully higher than it was in our initial estimation. It's just at 630, we had not updated that analysis since the announcement of the merger. That analysis is being done now, and that's going to be a significantly positive mark to counteract what are otherwise negative interest rate marks. But the way I kind of see it is you see the securities AOCI hitting candid book value over the quarters since we announced the transaction. The only thing that is kind of unseen that is interest rate-based into the negatives would be that loan fair value.
spk05: Yeah, Brad, I'd just be cautioned around using specific numbers. I think what we were trying to show directionally what this looks like. And obviously, the 930 marks are going to be different than the 630 marks. And it just depends on the point in time. So just understand. You know, you've got different, unfortunately, because of the way this thing came down, we've got so many different timing pieces to this that it doesn't all necessarily flow exactly together.
spk07: Right, right. No, I understand there's a lot of moving parts. And then maybe just back to Matt's question around expenses, Paul, I wanted to make sure I'm thinking about it correctly. In your mind, the way to think about it would be go back to the third quarter of 21, which would be sort of the quarter prior to the murder's announcement, annualize, add together and annualize expenses for both companies, add an inflation factor for 2022, maybe add an inflation factor for 2023, and then deduct out the cost savings, and that might get you pretty close to where expenses would be in 2023. Obviously, you've got some timing around the conversion, etc. But that is that kind of how you're thinking about it is you try to paint a picture for us.
spk04: I wasn't meaning to provide guidance. What I was trying to provide for y'all was just a kind of a feel for how successful we've been holding the line on expenses and how you can kind of put it in perspective relative to inflation, the inflationary environment environment we have effectively held our expense run rate even on a core basis. Actually, a hair less, which is a Herculean task in what has been a really inflationary environment. Now it's come from the pull through of certain headcount reductions, partially as a byproduct of how long the pendency of this merger was. But that has helped us be more effective than I think most organizations in battling the effects of inflation. We've got less people. We're doing more work. We're still willing and able to invest in our business. There's still more cost savings to come, but conceptually, there has been a pull through, and that's the way I think about it. Okay.
spk07: All right, great. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you.
spk02: Thank you. I send our further questions in the queue. That concludes our Q&A session. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Bob for closing remarks.
spk05: Well, we appreciate being able to have our first call around Stellar Bancorp and appreciate everybody's attendance today. Thank you.
spk02: Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
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