Bank of Marin Bancorp (NASDAQ:BMRC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Jeff Rulis: Okay. Pretty granular from there. That’s helpful. Tani, if I could circle back to the margin. I just wanted to make sure I’ve got pretty good detail, but I wanted to make sure I have it correct. If we’re at, call it, $253 million, I’m looking at the benefits to the margin. I think you said residual on average kind of full-year impact of 23 basis points. So in a vacuum, does that take margins to $275 million, then other additions would be a little tail of the balance sheet restructuring could be a benefit, not to mention if we see some rate cuts, if you mean a liability sensitive and upswing? And then it would be any carving back would be further repricing or pressure on the funding side. Is that — are those the bigger pieces that we’re talking about in magnitude, is that generally in line?

Tani Girton: Yes. Yes. That sounds right.

Jeff Rulis: Okay. Got it. And then I guess one last one, just on the non-interest expense. In terms of management of that, that’s been a contained number. I don’t know if you typically don’t like to throw out outlooks. But in terms of expense growth, what kind of year is that in terms of investments? Or are you really mindful of that line. I just want to — I don’t know what the outlook for expenses ahead is what the messaging is it camp down? Or is it hey, we’re seeing — Tim, I think you mentioned, obviously, you’re seeing some talent here and there. Just want investment versus kind of mining expenses with that in the wash?

Tim Myers: If you adjust out about the roughly $600,000 accrual adjustment, that expense level is a good indicator in the quarter of our run rate. We are looking to make hires, but we horse trade around staffing levels and where we can free up some money. We have made some cost save initiatives in a couple of areas to free up some funds for further investment and technology to streamline our lending operations in particular. So there are expenses coming, but we will continue to do our best to offset those elsewhere. So again, if you back out that $600,000 accrual adjustment, that Q4 expense level seems a good indicator to us right now.

Jeff Rulis: $600,000 million is a positive, meaning the benefit in the fourth quarter?

Tani Girton: Yes, you would want to take that out because those were accrual adjustments, yes. And then just a reminder that in the fourth — in the first quarter, our 401(k) contribution matching tends to spike up, because everybody is resetting for the year. And then merit increases typically will go into effect in the second quarter.

Jeff Rulis: Got it. And Tani, just a quick last one. The tax rate is for ’24, what’s a good number to use?

Tani Girton: I think you can continue to use the 25%, 26%.

Jeff Rulis: Okay. That’s it from me. Thank you.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Next question will come from Andrew Terrell from Stephens. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Andrew Terrell: Hey, good morning.

Tani Girton: Good morning.

Tim Myers: Good morning, Andrew.

Andrew Terrell: Just a couple of quick ones for me. One, can we go back to the margin for just a moment. And Tani, do you have the spot securities yield at 12/31?

Tani Girton: Yes, I do. Just let me grab that, hang on one second. You can go ahead. And I’ll come back to that, yes.

Andrew Terrell: Okay, perfect. Yes, yes. If I look at shifting gears, looking at slide 15 on the investor CRE maturities or the repricing in 2024 and 2025. This is a really helpful slide. But when I look at the 2024 bucket for loans repricing, the $26.3 million outstanding, you’ve got the new weighted average debt service assumption at 120 or 1.2 times. I guess when I look back at the December presentation, the 2024 loan repricings were estimated to carry a 2.01 times debt service after reprice. So I guess the question is, what change in the disclosed debt service? Is it just a function of the mix of loans that are in that bucket, because it does look like the mix changed a little bit? Or were there any kind of model changes that you made within these assumptions?

Tim Myers: I think we had one property in there that in between those quarters where the tenant chose not to renew their lease, so we adjusted that to more market-based assumptions. So that skewed it was, I think, the biggest impact.

Andrew Terrell: Okay, understood. But no change like the model assumptions or anything in there?

Tim Myers: No.

Tani Girton: No, no.

Andrew Terrell: Okay.

Tani Girton: Andrew, back to your net interest margin question, sorry. The average portfolio yield in December was 2.32%. And then that’s broken down in the presentation between AFS and Health to Maturity.

Andrew Terrell: Okay, perfect 2.32%, got it. Okay, and then, Tani, I wanted to go back to some of the commentary you gave earlier around the kind of residual loan repricing. And I guess I’m trying to understand a little bit better when I look at — I think it’s page 18, the disclosure around the asset repricing going forward on both the loan and the security side. When I look on the loans in that kind of three to 12-month bucket, it looks like, call it, $100 million or so of loans repricing in 2024. So I’m — I guess I’m trying to figure out how we get to the point-to-point disclosure of 46 basis points kind of throughout the year in terms of loan repricing, if there’s just $97 million in that bucket, if that question makes sense?

Tani Girton: Let’s see. So you’ve got — well, you’ve got the three to 12 months at 97%, but you’ve also got the $240 million in the three months or less. So obviously, some of that $240 million, if you have flat rates won’t reprice, but some of it is coming — rolling down the curve and is ready to reprice. Does that make sense?

Andrew Terrell: Yes, it does. My assumption was just that the three months or less was predominantly floating and had already repriced just given it’s the rate was [7.75%] (ph) here. So I was thinking about the impact is more of like the $97 million, maybe you add an extra quarter in there coming from $584 million up to $774 million. It just seemed — it was tough to get to the type of point-to-point loan yield expansion just based off the slide.

Tani Girton: Yes. Okay, Andrew, I’ll look at that offline and see if I can explain it a little better.

Andrew Terrell: Okay. Got it. I appreciate it. And then last question, just on the margin. It looks like if I look at the interest-bearing deposit cost progression throughout the quarter, the December month saw kind of the greatest increase. I’m not sure if that was more of just a function of mix. I know there’s some volatility towards quarter end, it sounds like. But just given maybe an elevated amount of pressure in December versus the prior quarter. Would you expect that we could see, I guess, a relatively stable margin in the first quarter before some of these benefits start to kind of kick in as we roll throughout the year.