Cathay General Bancorp (CATY) 2016 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Cathay General Bancorp's first-quarter 2016 earnings conference call. My name is Latif, and I will be your conference coordinator for today.

(Operator Instructions)

Today's call is being recorded and will be available for replay at www.cathaygeneralbancorp.com.

Now I would like to turn the call over to Monica Chen, Investor Relations for Cathay General Bancorp.

Thank you, Latif, and good afternoon.

Here to discuss the financial results today Mr. Dunson Cheng, our Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Heng Chen, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin we wish to remind you that the speakers of this call may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the applicable provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 concerning future results and events, and that these statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.

These risks and uncertainties are further described in the Company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, and item 1-A in particular, and in other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. As such, we caution you to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements which speak only as of the date of this presentation. We undertake no obligation to offer any forward-looking statements or publicly announce any revisions of any forward-looking statement to reflect future developments or events, except as required by law.

This afternoon Cathay General Bancorp issued an earnings release outlining its first-quarter 2016 results. To obtain a copy, please visit our website at www.cathaygeneralbancorp.com. After comments by management today, we will open up this call for questions. I will now turn the call over to our Chairman of the Board and CEO, Mr. Dunson Cheng.

Thank you, Monica, and good afternoon. Welcome to our 2016 first-quarter earnings conference call.

This afternoon we reported net income of $46.2 million for the first quarter of 2016, a 28.3% increase when compared to a net income of $36 million for the first quarter of 2015. Diluted earnings per share increased 26.7% to $0.57 per share for the first quarter of 2016 compared to $0.45 per share for the same quarter a year ago.

In the first quarter 2016, our total loans grew $200 million to $10.4 billion, for an increase of 8% on an annualized basis. The increases in loans for the first quarter of 2016 resulted primarily from commercial and residential mortgages loans, which grew by $144 million or 12% annualized and $111 million, or 24% annualized respectively.

Construction loans grew by $12 million, or 12% annualized. Commercial loans decreased by $66 million, or 12% annualized, due in part to the pay off of a $40 million loan to a Chinese bank. The decline was also due to the reduction of three financed loans as customers' collections were used to pay down outstanding. We expect those loans to be in the 7% to 8% range for the full year of 2016.

For the first quarter 2016, our total deposits decreased $185 million, or 1.8% to $10.3 billion due to the run off of $188 million of broker deposits. On the other hand, our coal deposits grew $140 million, or 5.7% annualized. In the first quarter, we continued to repurchase our shares and repurchased 2 million shares at an average price of $27.03.

In February 2016, we completed the repurchase of the remaining 633,250 shares under our August 2015 buyback authorization. In February 2016, we adopted a new stock repurchase program to repurchase up to 45 million of common stock. We have 7.5 million remaining under our February 2015 buyback authorization. We expect to buy back from a stock from time to time in the public markets based on our capital levels and our stock price.

With that, I will turn the call over to our Executive Vice President and CFO, Mr. Heng Chen to discuss the first quarter 2016 financials in much more detail.

Think you, Dunson, and good afternoon everyone. For the first quarter, we announced net income of $46.2 million, or $0.57 per share. Our net interest margin was 3.42% in the first quarter of 2016, as compared to 3.41% in the first quarter 2015, and 3.3% for the fourth quarter of 2015.

In the first quarter of 2016, interest recoveries from prepayment penalties added nine basis points to the net interest margin compared to five basis points for the fourth quarter of 2015 and four basis points for the first quarter of 2015. The net interest margin for the first quarter of 2016 also increased by four basis points because of lower interest bearing deposits at the Federal Reserve Bank, and as a result of a decrease in broker deposits as mentioned before.

Non-interest income during the first quarter of 2016 was $7.5 million. Non-interest expense increased by $7.5 million, or 16.9% to $51.6 million in the first quarter of 2016, as compared to $44.1 million in the same quarter a year ago. The increase was mainly due to a $2.4 million adjustment for the actual awards for 2015 performance, $310,000 in signing bonuses and $500,000 in additional bonus accruals for 2016, reflecting the stronger than planned results for the first quarter, a $1 million increase in professional service expenses and a $1.2 million addition for the reserve for off balance sheet commitments, which resulted from a refinement of a reserving methodology.

A gain of $1.6 million was recorded in the first quarter 2016 as a result of the sale of a low income housing property. The amortization of alternative energy investments was only $1.2 million during the first quarter of 2016.

In March 2016, we made a new investment of $35 million in an alternative energies fund. For the full year of 2016, we expect amortization of alternative energy funds of approximately $25 million, of which approximately $15 million will be recorded in the second quarter of 2016, approximately $6 million in the third quarter, and then approximately $3 million in the fourth quarter. We also expect amortization of low income housing investments of approximately $3 million a quarter during the remainder of 2016.

The effective tax rate for the first quarter of 2016 was 33%, which included a $3.3 million tax charge for the write-off of deferred tax assets related to stock option awards, which expired unexercised during the first quarter of 2016. We expect that the effective tax rate for the remaining three quarters of 2016 will be approximately 20%.

At March 31, 2016, our tier 1 leverage capital ratio decreased to 11.73%. Our tier 1 risk-based capital ratio decreased to 13.67%, and our total risk-based capital ratio decreased to 14.90%, as compared to December 31, 2015. All ratios significantly exceeded well-capitalized minimum ratios under all the regulatory guidelines. At March 31, 2016, our common equity tier 1 capital ratio was 12.6%.

Net recoveries for the first quarter of 2016 were $6.1 million, or 0.06% of average loans, due mainly to the recovery that resulted from the sale of a property in Northern California that secured a construction loan. Net charge-offs were $332,000 in the first quarter 2015 and $8.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2015. Our gross loan loss recoveries during the first quarter of 2016 was $8.4 million, and our gross charge-offs were $2.3 million.

Our loan loss reversal was $10.5 million for the first quarter of 2016, compared to $5 million for the first quarter of 2015, and $3 million for the fourth quarter of 2015. Our nonaccrual loans decreased by 14.4%, or $7.5 million during the first quarter to $44.6 million, or 0.43% of period-end loans as compared to the fourth quarter of 2015.

Thank you, Heng. We will now proceed to a Q and A portion of the call.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are ready to open the lines up for your questions.

(Operator Instructions)

Aaron Deer, Sandler O'Neill.

Good afternoon, guys.

Hello, Aaron.

A question on the, I guess, the credit. Obviously the recovery of the trends this past quarter were terrific. If you kind of look at the pipeline of potential additional recoveries, do you see much out there still that might come back to you this year? And what would you expect at this point in the cycle? What would you kind of expect from normal credit losses in a quarter?

Well, I think we have better visibility on gross recoveries, Aaron. Over the years, I mentioned we had two large potential recoveries so this is one of the two. We have another one which is likely to happen, hopefully next year in 2017.

And then meanwhile, we probably, this was just a guess, we probably would see a gross recoveries of a couple million a quarter for the next couple quarters. And then on normalized credit losses, we're trying to be cautious and limit our exposure to certain categories so that if the economy slows, we would not have large excessive charge-offs. So we don't, other than that, we really don't have a crystal ball as to what the right number is. Right now, this is as good as it gets.

Sure. And then a question, you give some good guidance with respect to what you guys have been doing on the energy tax credits and such. I am curious, do you expect the alternative energy credits to be available again in 2017 at this point? Is there anything that would cause that to disappear?

Yes. You know, the federal tax code was changed so that the 30% credit doesn't start to step down until, I believe, 2020. Then it steps down over two or three years. So we are, we want to avoid excessive concentration in any particular developers, so we are searching for other developers for next year.

But we think it's going to be constant and then as to the pattern of the amortization, there's thousands of individual consumer systems and we don't control the rollout. This is the forecast that we've got from the developer from last week as to the second quarter installation.

Sure. Okay. That's great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you.

Joe Morford, RBC Capital Markets

Good afternoon, guys.

Hello, Joe.

I was curious how much did the Fed rake hike in December benefit your margin, if at all? And what you're current thoughts, Heng, would be on the outlook of the margin, particularly given the loan deposit ratio now upwards of around 100%.

Yes, Joe, we think that 25 basis points probably added only $1 million to our net interest income in the first quarter. That's according to our models. The good news is that, there's a lot of moving parts. We have not increased our deposit rates at all since the Fed increase.

But we continue to see some pricing pressure as our higher rate CRE loans and residential mortgage loans mature. The new loans are maybe 25 basis points less than the ones that are maturing, so in the second quarter, we would expect the margin to drop by four or five basis points if the interest, because the interest recoveries were outsized. And the interest recovering in the first quarter, that is related to that same recovery that I was -- the B note that was charged off as well as interest applied to principle.

So anyway, the second quarter of the margin should be lower. There is the day count issue because February was still a short month. So it's going to be less than 340 but hopefully not by much. And then we are trying to run a more efficient, more compact balance sheet so we will try to keep the loan to deposit ratio, net loan to deposit ratio right at 100%.

Okay.

To help the margin a little bit.

Right. Okay, that's super helpful. Thanks, Heng. I guess the other question was, you cited in your discussion several unusual one time or factors in the expense, expenses in the first quarter. Kind of pulling that all together, any kind of run rate we should be expecting kind of going forward in the second quarter?

Yes. Joe, this is kind of rough but in terms of -- there is a $3.4 million tax hit that was one time, and then we had $200,000 in security losses and the interest recoveries were abnormally high, that's about $1.2 million. And then there is a lot of moving parts on the non-interest expense, but I see them as netting to $2.8 million. So that is a 2.4 million -- anyway.

So by rough math, if you take out all those items, the Q1 adjusted EPS is still close to $0.57. And then the second quarter then will be lower because of the additional solar tax fund amortization. But for the full year, we think we -- we're going to be better than where we were before we closed the first quarter.

Right. Okay. Thanks so much, Heng.

Okay, thank you, Joe.

Matthew Clark, Piper Jaffray

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

I guess it's just drilling down on the comp expense a little more, given all the seasonal factors in there, some signing bonuses, some true-ups. Is it fair to assume we will see some relief there in the second quarter and beyond?

Yes. The second quarter we think the FICA hit, because we paid our bonuses in April, would be about $900,000. So that's not in the first quarter, but the normal bonus accruals would be quite a bit lower than -- they would be lower by at least $2.9 million compared to Q1. And then we have our annual merit increases which are roughly 4% of officer salary. That was effective on April 1.

And then lastly, we did put out, we did hire a new Executive Vice President, Mr. Kelly Wu from Union Bank, to try to bolster our commercial lending. So there is going to be some incremental impact from new hires in the last three quarters of 2016. We view that as investing, so we are happy to spend that money.

Okay. And then just on the overall securities portfolio, and thinking about the growth there. Is it fair to assume that margins stabilize in terms of size and maybe gross somewhat in line with the balance sheet?

No, actually we're thinking -- at these very low interest rates, we plan on [shrinking] that by about $200 million in Q2. And then in the third quarter, toward late August, we have $50 million of structural repos, that is at a rate of 2.69%. That is going to mature and we would just pay that off by reducing our securities portfolio.

And then, I know 2017 is a ways off. It is eight months, but we do have $20 million of borrowings at 5% which mature in the middle of January. And those structure repos, we would use securities to pay that off. And now that we are a little bit closer for 2016, that $200 million running off will improve our margin by 13 basis points. But that is 2017.

Got it. Okay, that's it for me. Everything else has been asked. Thanks.

Thank you.

Lana Chan, BMO Capital Markets

Hello, good afternoon.

Hello.

I had trouble hearing in the beginning with the loan growth guidance now at 7% to 8%. What -- are you seeing a slowdown in originations in a particular area? I think I missed those comments.

As in previous quarters and for the last couple of years, we've seen quite a good growth in our single family mortgages. That part of business may experience some slowdown, and as far as our loans are concerned and it's been stated to us but that's one of the reasons why we went out and seek help and hire Mr. Kelly Wu to come in to expand that area of lending.

On CRE and construction loans, we have been doing quite well and we see a steady request in those two areas. But we are getting a little bit more selective because to us, the economy looking down to the, down six months is a little bit blurry to us, so we want to be more selective and a little bit more prudent in growing that piece of business. But all in all, we feel good that we can achieve a 7% to 8% loan growth for the rest of the year and maybe a little bit better, and our pipeline is still solid.

But because of the more defensive outlook we have, we just want to make sure that if economy is not doing quite well in the next few months, the bank will not be hurt in any large extent. I think that is our outlook. That 8% is something that we feel is achievable.

Okay, got it thank you. Just one follow-up in terms of the capital and capital return, you've obviously been very aggressive with returning capital to shareholders. Heng, how much capital do you, excess capital do you feel like you've got left now?

Well, I used to say it was $200 million and over the last six months, we bought back 4 million shares. So it's less than that. We're in the midst of our defast effort for 2016 and we'll have a better idea once we see the defast results as to how aggressive we will deploy capital.

Lana, actually remember that we always say that the first choice of our capital is for growth, and so we feel we invest opportunity out there to grow the business so we will be using our capital for that purpose.

Okay. Thank you.

Julianna Balicka, KBW

Good afternoon.

Hello, Juliana.

I have a couple of follow-ups of some topics that have already been raised. One, you started just talking about the corporate banking group that you are adding with Mr. Wu. One, in terms of Kelly and his team, have all those folks already come on board? And therefore, will that be in your Q2 expense run rate? Or is that we to be a longer term hiring process?

I think it's going to be, I would say, I wouldn't say longer, but I would say in a steady and planned basis. What Mr. Wu is looking for obviously is to help with the commercial lending area and then there are several lines of business that we are contemplating, but want to make sure that we want to do it a public due diligence before we engage to it. But at this point in time, we are pretty optimistic that Mr. Wu would be able to help us in many areas.

Okay. And then in terms of the plans for the commercial group, have you identified specialized expertise verticals that you want to focus on? Have you set up targets for dollars of loans that you think once he and his group are ramped up, or I mean, how should we think about the impact to your loan portfolio from this incremental direction?

We have identified two areas that we want to participate. And we are in the process of planning. It takes a little bit time, but nowadays what you want to do in new areas is that you want to prepare the policy statement and then go through the risk committee, I guess filtering, and then go through the process.

It's going to take a little bit of time, obviously. We probably will see the impact in the late second and third quarter.

Okay. That makes sense. And in the interim, as the organic originations kind of get worked through in that process that you just described, should we be expecting you to participate in participations and syndications in the meantime so we might see a quicker impact to loan balances? Or are you not going to be participating in syndications?

Again, depending on how soon we get everybody on board, but there are areas in syndications that we will take a close look at, but Kelly is a commercial and ABO lender and we have existing groups in commercial lending and in CBO lending that he will be able to make an immediate impact.

Got it. And the final question on that topic. Is Kelly's participation going to also impact deposit gathering and moving into more middle market business deposit gathering, anything like that?

Yes. That's part of our plan.

Okay. And one more housekeeping question and I'll step back, in terms of follow-up on last question on excess capital, you still had said something like $7 million left in your existing authorization, once you run out of that, do you plan to renew that or are you going to have to wait until after defast before you renew any new buyback authorization?

This is Heng Chen, we probably would do something again in August which is when we started our, which is when we resumed our buyback. I think based on the work so far in defense, we don't think that defast results are going to be much different than the prior year, in our public disclosures. So, we also look at our stock price too, so we would rather be patient than to get ahead of ourselves.

Got it. Okay. Thank you very much.

Well, congratulations or good luck in your retirement. We will miss your questions.

You always have a lot to say.

Well, thank you very much. I am looking forward to sailing off into the sunset. It has been my pleasure.

Please stay in touch.

Most certainly.

At this time there are no questions in the queue. (Operator Instructions)

Thank you for your participation. I will now turn the call back over to Cathay General Bancorp's management for closing remarks.

Thank you for joining us for this call and we look forward to talking with you again at our next quarter's earnings release.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Good day.