Seacoast Banking Corporation of Florida (NASDAQ:SBCF) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Seacoast Banking Corporation of Florida (NASDAQ:SBCF) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript April 26, 2024

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Operator: Welcome to Seacoast Banking Corporation’s First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Marvalue, and I will be your operator. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Before we begin, I have been asked to direct your attention to the statement at the end of the company’s press release regarding forward-looking statements. Seacoast will be discussing issues that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities and Exchange Act and its comments today are intended to be covered within the meaning of the Act. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Chuck Shaffer, Chairman and CEO of Seacoast Bank. Mr. Shaffer, you may begin.

Chuck Shaffer: Okay, thank you and thank you all for joining us this morning. As we provide our comments, we’ll reference the first quarter earnings slide deck, which you can find at seacoastbanking.com. I’m joined today by Tracey Dexter, Chief Financial Officer; Michael Young, Treasurer and Director of Investor Relations; and James Stallings, Chief Credit Officer. We started 2024 on solid footing, one of the strongest quarters on record for customer acquisition. This results from our focused investment over the last 24 months in acquiring the most talented revenue-producing bankers in Florida, strong execution by our retail team, and further investments in marketing and branding across all of our markets. We saw significant new opportunities throughout the state which drove growth in DDA and supported an annualized deposit growth rate of 8%.

Additionally, we had an outstanding quarter in wealth management with fee-based assets under management increasing by $160 million and exited the quarter with a significant wealth pipeline. Both our SBA team and our insurance agency had solid quarterly results and our treasury team continues to win middle market commercial depository accounts. Our loan pipeline reached its highest point in over a year with a large proportion of that in C&I, and we expect a meaningful second quarter for closings. I was incredibly proud of the team’s focus on customer acquisition and we saw deposit growth in nearly every market we operate in. Given all the significant business development activity occurring across the franchise, I’m very excited about our prospects for new client acquisition over the remainder of 2024.

Turning to expense management, as we discussed on last quarter’s call, we fully executed our cost savings initiative earlier this quarter. This initiative was designed to reduce overhead to offset revenue compression associated with the current interest rate environment. At this point, we are done with this exercise and expect adjusted non-interest expense in 2024 to be down significantly from 2023, and do not expect further one-time expenses. Tracey will provide further guidance shortly. Taking a deeper dive into lending and asset quality, we are encouraged by the growth in our pipelines while maintaining a prudent approach in the current economic climate. Loan outstandings were down about 80 million from the prior quarter, primarily due to a handful of closings that pushed into the second quarter, elevated paydowns in our construction portfolio, and 30 million in credits we purposely exited.

Our loan pipeline grew substantially by nearly 50% to 573 million, and new loan add-on rates were approximately 8% during the quarter. Looking forward, we continue to expect low single-digit growth for the remainder of the year, and additionally, it’s important to emphasize that we continue to require a comprehensive banking relationship with Seacoast for all of our lending activities, ensuring a mutually beneficial partnership with our clients. Our asset quality continues to show sustained strength and charge-offs for the quarter were just 15 basis points. Annualized and classified and criticized assets remain nearly flat from the prior quarter. Our ACL stands at 147 million, equating to 1.47% of total loans. This figure places us in a strong position with an allowance ratio among the highest in our peer group.

Additionally, we have another 163 million in purchase discount. Our fortress balance sheet positions us exceptionally well compared to our peers, allowing us to navigate and adapt to any developments this cycle may present. And as we progress through 2024, our steadfast commitment to upholding conservative balance sheet principles remains unwavering. We are resolute in our efforts to prudently manage our expenses while strategically investing to stimulate growth in low-cost deposits, as evidenced by our performance this quarter. This focus will not only help us maintain a diverse and stable funding base, but also fortify our company’s already robust balance sheet. Ultimately, these endeavors are geared towards building the long-term value of our franchise, ensuring resilience and prosperity in the years to come, and establishing an exceptional financial institution in one of the nation’s most economically attractive states.

I’ll now turn the call over to Tracey to walk through our financial results.

Tracey Dexter: Thank you, Chuck. Good morning, everyone. Directing your attention to first quarter results, beginning with Slide 4. Seacoast reported net income of $0.31 per share in the first quarter, and on an adjusted basis, net income was $0.37 per share. On an adjusted basis, return on tangible assets was 1.04%, ROTCE was 11.15%, and the efficiency ratio was 61.1%. Deposit growth was strong at 8% annualized, with solid results in growing new customers across the entire franchise. Our wealth management team continues to deliver strong results, with assets under management increasing 9% during the quarter. Highlighting our continued focus on expense discipline, we’re seeing the benefit of recent actions we’ve taken to streamline expenses, with adjusted non-interest expense down 3.1 million from the prior quarter.

Our loan pipelines have grown meaningfully, and we continue to see stable credit trends. Tangible book value per share increased to $15.26, overcoming the negative impact of the rate environment on unrealized losses on securities in AOCI. Our capital position continues to be very strong, and we’re committed to maintaining our fortress balance sheet. Seacoast tier one capital ratio is 14.6%, and the ratio of tangible common equity to tangible assets is 9.3%. Also notable, if all held to maturity securities were presented at fair value, the TCE to TA ratio would still be a strong 8.6%. Our first quarter results include a $4.1 million gain on the liquidation of our Visa B shareholdings. The gain offset a 3.8 million loss on the sale of approximately 87 million in securities.

The opportunistic repositioning has an expected earnback of approximately 1.9 years. Before we continue, I’d like to draw your attention to a change in our presentation. Beginning in the first quarter of 2024, our presentation format no longer excludes amortization of intangibles from adjusted expenses, and we’ve updated the presentation of prior periods for comparability. On to Slide 5. Net interest income declined by 5.7 million, or 5% during the quarter, with higher deposit costs and growth in deposit balances partially offset by higher yields on loans and securities. Core net interest margin contracted 11 basis points to 2.91%, outside the range of guidance we provided, due largely to better-than-forecast growth in deposit balances, and in part due to the investment in securities creating leverage on the balance sheet.

In the securities portfolio, yields increased 5 basis points to 3.47%. Loan yields, excluding accretion, increased 8 basis points to 5.48%. Accretion of purchase discounts on acquired loans was lower by 0.7 million compared to the prior quarter. The cost of deposits increased to 2.19%, and we added an overall 239 million in deposit balances, including growth in non-interest-bearing DDA. Looking ahead, we expect net interest income to stabilize in the second quarter and to grow from that point forward. Our assumptions include one 25 basis point rate cut in November and one in December. Moving to Slide 6. Non-interest income excluding securities activity increased 0.5 million in the first quarter to 20.3 million. Service charges increased with continued expansion of our commercial treasury management offerings and new customer acquisition.

Interchange income during the fourth quarter of 2023 included an annual volume-based incentive from the payment network, resulting in a comparative decline in the first quarter. Other income was higher by 0.5 million, with higher saleable production in our marine lending business and higher income from SBIC investments. Looking ahead, we continue to focus on growing non-interest income, and we expect second quarter non-interest income in a range from 20 million to 22 million. Moving to Slide 7. Assets under management increased 9% this quarter to a record 1.9 billion and have increased at a compound annual growth rate of 28% in the last five years. Wealth management revenues during the quarter increased to 3.5 million, up 9% from the prior quarter and 16% from the prior year quarter.

With a significant pipeline at quarter end, we expect continued strong client acquisition in wealth management over the remainder of 2024. On to Slide 8. Non-interest expense for the quarter was 90.4 million and on an adjusted basis was 83.3 million, in line with the guidance we provided last quarter. We saw a typical seasonal increase in employee benefits and payroll taxes, leading to an increase of 1.2 million. In outsourced data processing costs, we incurred 4.1 million in one-time charges associated with consolidation activities and began to see the benefits this quarter with a decline of 0.6 million on an adjusted basis. Legal and professional fees were lower, with the fourth quarter reflecting expenses associated with legal matters which are now complete.

The efficiency ratio moved somewhat higher, affected by higher deposit costs associated with growth and seasonal payroll tax expenses. The successful execution of our recent expense reduction initiatives have begun to positively impact results and lower ongoing costs and will maintain this discipline around expenses. We expect second quarter non-interest expense to be in a similar range to the first quarter, between 83.5 million and 84.5 million. Turning to Slide 9. Loan outstandings declined by 84.9 million during the quarter, partially attributed to elevated payoffs and paydowns across our construction portfolio. Average loan yields, excluding accretion on acquired loans, increased 8 basis points to 5.48%, and in the first quarter, we continued to see new loan yields in the 8% range.

The pipeline is very strong, with a large portion in C&I, and looking forward we expect loan growth in the low single digits Turning to Slide 10. Portfolio diversification in terms of asset mix, industry, and loan type has been a critical element of the company’s lending strategy. Exposure is broadly distributed, and we continue to be vigilant in maintaining our disciplined, conservative credit culture. Non-owner occupied commercial real estate loans represent 34% of all loans and are distributed across industries and collateral types. As we have for many years, we consistently manage our portfolio to keep construction and land development loans and commercial real estate loans well below regulatory guidance. These measures are significantly below the peer group at 36% and 222% of consolidated risk-based capital, respectively.

We’ve managed our loan portfolio with diverse distribution across categories and retaining granularity to manage risk. Moving on to credit topics on Slide 11. The allowance for credit losses totaled 146.7 million, or 1.47% of total loans, compared to 1.48% in the prior quarter. The allowance for credit losses combined with the 163 million remaining unrecognized discount on acquired loans totals 310 million, or 3.1% of total loans that’s available to cover potential losses, providing substantial loss absorption capacity. Moving to Slide 12, looking at quarterly trends in credit metrics. Our credit metrics are strong, and we remain watchful of the ongoing impacts of higher rates on the economy. The annualized charge-off rate during the quarter was 15 basis points.

Non-performing loans represent 0.77% of total loans, and accruing past-due loans remain at 0.3% of total loans. Criticized and classified loans were near flat at 2.4% of total loans. On Slide 13, providing a longer-term view of our stable asset quality trends. Also, recall that the period presented includes eight separate bank acquisitions and a near doubling of asset size. The stability of our credit experience during that period reflects the consistently applied discipline of our credit culture. Moving to Slide 14 and the investment securities portfolio. During the first quarter, we sold all our holdings of Visa Class B shares and recognized a net gain of 4.1 million. We also recognized the opportunity to sell low-yielding bonds with modest losses on a small percentage of the investment portfolio.

The proceeds, approximately 87 million, were reinvested into bonds with an average yield of 5.5%. With an expected earnback of less than two years, this was an opportunity to increase interest income and improve our securities yields. In the overall portfolio, the average yield on securities increased during the quarter by 5 basis points to 3.47%. Changes in the rate environment negatively impacted portfolio values, and as a result, the overall unrealized loss position increased by 14.5 million. Turning to Slide 15 and the deposit portfolio. Seacoast has been keenly focused on deposit growth, and the 8% annualized growth this quarter demonstrates our success in acquiring relationships. Non-interest demand deposits grew 10.4 million, and while growth in money market and other interest-bearing accounts has resulted in higher deposit costs, this relationship-based funding supports our continued progress in deepening market share as we become Florida’s leading regional bank.

The cost of deposits increased this quarter to 2.19%, and we expect in the second quarter a continued increase, albeit at a slower pace. Looking forward, we expect continued growth in deposits and are very encouraged about the activity and focus across the franchise on deposit gathering. On Slide 16, Seacoast continues to benefit from a diverse deposit base. Non-interest-bearing deposits represent 30% of total deposits, which was flat from the prior quarter, and transaction accounts represent 52% of total deposits, which continues to highlight our longstanding relationship-focused approach. Our customers are highly engaged and have a long history with us, and low average balances reflect the granular relationship nature of our franchise. And finally, on Slide 17, our capital position continues to be very strong, and we’re committed to maintaining our fortress balance sheet.

Tangible book value per share increased to $15.26, and the ratio of tangible common equity to tangible assets remains exceptionally strong at 9.3%. Our risk-based and Tier 1 capital ratios are among the highest in the industry. In summary, we remain steadfastly committed to driving shareholder value, and our consistent, disciplined expense management positions us well as we continue to build Florida’s leading regional bank. Chuck, I’ll turn the call back to you.

Chuck Shaffer: Thank you, Tracy. And to our Seacoast bankers on the call, we had an exceptional quarter for customer growth. Proud of everything you guys did. Thanks for all the hard work. And at this point, our operator will take questions.

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Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. And your first question comes from the line of Brandon King with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Brandon King: Hi, good morning.

Chuck Shaffer: Good morning, Brandon.

Brandon King: So, just starting off on the margin, could you kind of give a sense of how you’re thinking about how the margin could trend this year and kind of your updated forward curve assumptions?

Michael Young: Yes, sure, Brandon. This is Michael. Just to start, the updated assumptions, take the last part first. As Tracey mentioned in the prepared comments, one cut in November and then one in December. Obviously, that last one doesn’t have a lot of impact. The shift versus our prior forecast was, the delay in cuts being later in the year with some, upward pressure in the cost of funds related to that. So, in general, though, we still expect the margin to bottom in the first half of the year this year and expand from there. But the pace of Fed cuts will be kind of the ultimate driver at the pace of expansion or magnitude of expansion in the back half of the year. So, with the delay in that, we would expect less expansion of the margin in the back half.

Brandon King: Okay. So, it’s fair to say that if, like, if Fed funds are stable, that kind of the margin just kind of stays stable at this at the current range?

Chuck Shaffer: In the near term. In the long run, we expect margin to begin to expand. And importantly, as Tracey said in her comments, we think NII is starting to stabilize and then starts to grow, you know, fairly strongly on the back half of the year and into 2025.

Brandon King: Okay. Got it. And then I want to talk about, the pipelines are much higher quarter-over-quarter. So, just could you put that into context as far as what you’re seeing, where that’s coming from, whether it’s from existing customers or taking market share and talent additions?

Chuck Shaffer: Yes. Thanks, Brandon. That’s super excited about the efforts by our banking team this quarter on business development. We saw deposit growth across nearly every market in the state. We saw growing pipelines across most every market in the state. And we also saw a larger percentage of our pipeline growing in C&I. And so, what we’re seeing just kind of at a broad level is the opportunity to continue to take clients from some of the national and large regional banks. And a lot of that’s coming from heavy investment and talent over the last 24 months. We’re now starting to mature into that investment and we’re starting to see material client aggregation. If you kind of just think about a moderate size operating company, typically they’re going to have about five or six products.

They’re going to have a letter of credit or a line of credit that’s tied to SOFR plus a spread. We’re moving that over. They typically have an operating account. We’re moving that over. They typically have a money market account or a sweep account. We’re moving that over. We’re collecting the TM, the merchant and the treasury. What we’re leaving behind is the 4% equipment loan and the 4% building loan. But the next equipment request that comes up, we’re going to do that equipment request for that client. And so, when you look at the blended add-on rate on the depository side for that, what you’re seeing is maybe a 370 type cost to that money coming into the franchise, which I’m really pumped up about. I’m excited about what I’m seeing in terms of all the wins that were sort of all the way across the franchise.

There’s a lot of incredible business development being done by our team. That team is now maturing into probably into a year’s worth of seasonality here. So, we’re moving past non-solicits and other things that were restrictions we had to work through. So, we’re now seeing, a lot of clients onboarding with the bank. We also have worked really hard to focus our entire company on deposit gathering and client acquisition. A lot of effort inside the company. We’re seeing the impact of that show up. We had a phenomenal quarter for new clients. So, that’s leading to strong wealth pipeline, strong deposit growth in the quarter. We had DDA growth in the quarter and growing pipelines kind of across the board. So, I’m pretty pumped up about what the quarter had and pumped up about what the rest of the year could look like.

Brandon King: Got it. And thank you for that. And lastly, it was encouraging to see kind of the slight uptick in non-issues bearing deposits. Do you think it could grow from this base tier or, you know, anything seasonality to point out that could maybe see some, decline in term?

Chuck Shaffer: Yes, we’re keenly focused on growing that. That’s one of our core objectives for this year. And, you know, we will see some tax payments here in April. That’s naturally going to occur. But, as that kind of happens, we expect, you know, to continue building DDA. And so, you know, that is our focus. And as I said, what we’re trying to really get done here is moving on full relationships that includes DDA. So, I was really pleased with what I saw in the quarter. It came from a lot of new prospect growth and we will continue to focus on growing DDA. I think we’re running right now about 30% DDA to total deposits. I think that’s very solid, very solid in the industry. And we’ll continue to work, keep it as close to that as we can.

Brandon King: Got it. Thanks for taking my questions.

Chuck Shaffer: Awesome. Thanks, Bran. Operator, I think we’re ready for another question.

Operator: Sorry. Your next question comes from the line of David Pfister with Raymond James.

David Pfister: Hi, good morning, everybody.

Michael Young: How are you?

David Pfister: Great. I am curious, maybe a high-level question. Curious how you’re thinking about managing the balance sheet today. I mean, you’re a bit liability-sensitive at this point. The rate outlook continues to change pretty rapidly. So, I’m just curious, how you think about managing a balance sheet at this point, just given the uncertainty on rates, increased likelihood of a higher for longer environment? I mean, you guys have obviously been active with securities, optimization. I’m just curious if there’s any other initiatives or what else you might be considering?

Michael Young: Yes, sure, David. This is Michael. I think at a high level we have been focused on market share gain and you saw the really strong deposit growth in the first quarter. As we deploy that into loans throughout the rest of the year, I think you’ll see the benefits of that pull through with better support for kind of overall margin at that point in time. And then I would also add, we’re not going to stand still here. There was sort of a propensity to kind of wait until the Fed cut to take action on the deposit book. But I think you’re going to see us lean into that a little more that we haven’t yet this cycle. So, that could be another kind of tailwind. But we’re going to continue to actively manage it and try to drive the best return profile we can for shareholders in the interim.

Chuck Shaffer: And just high level, David. If you think about the way we position the balance sheet, we’ve got very strong allowance. We’ve got the purchase discount. We’ve got a lot of capital. The capital gives us optionality. If the earnback’s there for buybacks, we’ll take it. If the earnback’s there for securities repurchase, we’ll take it. The earnback’s there for a deal, we’ll look at that too. So, we have choices here and then sort of fourth, as Michael mentioned, we’re very keenly focused on essentially taking market share across the state of Florida. And so, I think we have options as we move forward. We’ll continue to manage that and continue to watch for opportunities as they develop.

David Pfister: And maybe on that same topic. I mean, you guys have done a good job it seems like we’re kind of increasingly focused on organic growth and you’ve had a lot of success recruiting high quality talent to the bank. I’m curious how do you think about hires at this point and we’re starting to see that horsepower kind of come to fruition and see what they can do? Are you still interested in hires and are you still having success recruiting?

Chuck Shaffer: Yes, definitely. There’s more to come there. We’re going to obviously manage expenses carefully. Our goal is to keep our expense load in line and so we’ll have to find ways to offset those investments as we find them. But yes, where we find really high quality bankers either in wealth, commercial or otherwise and they can bring a book of business, we’re going to take a look at it. There is still a lot of opportunity in that regard. There’s a lot of talent that still wants to join the franchise and kind of in the investments we’ve made over the last few years, I still think we’re in the early endings of that investment pulling through. If you think about acquiring team back before rates kind of where they were you’d move all those clients with credit as you initiated loans.

It’s difficult when those loan books are sitting at 3.5%, 4%. So we’re moving those clients with deposits which just takes longer. So it’s taken a little while to see that pull through, but now we’re starting to really see it pull through. And importantly, it’s been a while since we had the distraction of a deal and so we’re now I think last time we had a conversion was June of last year. So we’re nine months out from our last conversion, 12 months out from our last act or more than 12 months out from a 15 months out from our last act announced acquisition. So a lot of those distractions have moved away to allow us to focus on organic growth and allow us to focus on taking market share across the state. So like I said earlier, I’m very excited about what I’m seeing just numbers and numbers of wins happening kind of all over the place.

Wealth, commercial, retail, we’re just winning business left and right.

David Pfister: That’s terrific. And maybe switching gears to the fee line, it was great to see the increase in fees. I know it’s been a big focus. It seems like insurance has been especially strong. Wealth has also had some nice AUM wins. You talked about being interested in potentially recruiting some wealth advisors. I’m curious if you could touch on those business lines, what you’re seeing and thoughts on expanding or investing in those and potential cross-sell opportunities?

Chuck Shaffer: Yes. Maybe I’ll start with the insurance agency that integration to Seacoast has gone exceptionally well. It’s an amazing team inside that agency. We’re super excited to have them on board and spend a lot of time with them. I think there’s more to be done there. We haven’t even really got started on building a cross-sell business around that agency. That’s something that’s in the works here on the back half of the year. There’s a lot to be done there. This prior quarter was a record quarter for that agency, best quarter they’ve ever had in their history. So, I’m really pleased with what’s happening there. I like the business. The return on capital is really good and the wealth story continues to be an exceptional story.