Valley National Bancorp (NASDAQ:VLY) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Matthew Breese: Okay. On page 11 of the presentation, you showed a multifamily portfolio in pretty good detail. What struck me was that a number of these geographies have weighted average debt service coverage ratios sub 1.4 times. Which to me feels a little bit risky given the repricing dynamics. So one, I’m curious, those debt service coverage ratios, are those out of origination or are they updated? And then two, do you happen to know what the existing loan yield is on this book versus updated?

Michael Hagedorn: Yes, the weighted average debt service coverage are current. They’re based on recent rent rolls. We update that and the loan to values on a regular basis. I don’t have the loan yield in front of me, but I will tell you again, when we look at that repricing, we’ve not had to modify any of the terms on our repricing and our forward look where we assess each loan that reprices over the next 12 months, we expect the same results. But we will have to look that up. I don’t know if you have it, Travis.

Travis Lan: Listen, I don’t have the full portfolio in front of me, but I’ll try and give you some color that may be helpful. So as we show on that page, Matt, we have $420 million of fully rent controlled loans. Those would be the lowest yielding segment. And that’s 4.6% yield. We have another, call it, $1.8 billion, I’d say, of exposure to properties that have some amount of rent control in them. And that portfolio yields $545 million. So I think when you look broadly at multifamily, you’re going to be closer in total to that $545 million yield, give or take.

Matthew Breese: And those buckets, the $420 million of pure rent regulated and the $1.8 billion of some rent regulated, those pass the stress testing you went through as well?

Travis Lan: Yes. And the $420 million is pure rent regulated, and it’s $1.4 billion, which is partial, 20% or less rent regulated.

Matthew Breese: Okay. I know I’m being long-winded, but this is my last one. Ira, you had mentioned some, you know, frustration with overall profitability levels. Can you better define for us at which levels you’d be satisfied profitability-wise, maybe just measured by ROA or ROTC? And as we think about the forward model here, when do you think we can get back to, let’s call it a 1% ROA for the bank?

Ira Robbins: I don’t want to go against the guidance that Travis provided, right? But I’m pretty optimistic about where I think we’re going to be in 2024. We were generating 60% of return on tangible common at the end of last year. And I think that’s an appropriate level that we should begin to target, and we should get back there.

Matthew Breese: Okay. I’ll leave it there. Thanks for taking all my questions.

Ira Robbins: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. I’m showing no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to Ira Robbins for any closing remarks.

Ira Robbins: I just want to say thank you for dialing in today, and we look forward to talking to you next quarter.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today’s conference. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.

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