First BanCorp (FBP) 2026 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the First Bancorp second-quarter 2026 financial results conference call. All participants are in a listen-only mode.

(Operator instructions)

As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the call over to Ramon Rodriguez, First Bancorp's Corporate Strategy and Investor Relations Officer. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Julianne. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining First Bancorp's conference call and webcast to discuss the company's financial results for the second-quarter of 2026.

I'm here with Aurelio Aleman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Said Ortiz, CFO, Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin today's call, it is my responsibility to inform you that this call may involve certain forward-looking statements, such as rejections of revenue, earnings, and capital structure, as well as statements on the plans and objectives of the company's business. The company's actual results could differ materially from the forward-looking statements made due to the important factors described in the company's SEC filings.

The company assumes no obligations to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. If anyone does not already have a copy of the webcast presentation or press release, you can access them at our website at fbbinvestor.com. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Aurelio Aleman.

Thank you, Ramon. Good morning to everyone, and thanks for joining our earnings call again. We concluded the first half of the year with another quarter of strong core performance. Delivering growth across the franchise and generating very attractive returns for our shareholders.

We earned $96 million in net income or $0.62 per share. That is up 24% when compared to same quarter last year. Underlying revenue trends, I have to say, remained very strong during the quarter, with pre-tax pre-provision income reaching an all-time high of $138 million, which is actually up 11% from a year ago. This translates into a 2% return on average assets, and this is our 18 consecutive ROA above 1.5%, continuing the strongest and most consistent period of financial performance in our actual history.

Moving to the balance sheet, very pleased on how long growth accelerated during the quarter, driven primarily by commercial activity in Puerto Rico. Reaching $13.3 billion in total loans, that is up 5% on a linked-quarter annualized basis. Total loan origination for the quarter were very encouraging reaching $1.7 billion during the quarter, reflecting a 21% year-over-year increase.

Given what we see in our pipeline, we do expect this level of activity to continue for the remainder of the year. This actually reinforced our task to achieve our full-year growth objective for 2026. Total deposits grew by $274 million during the quarter, primarily driven by an increase in the government deposit, but also we have a slight increase in the core customer deposit.

Great performance remains sound with lower net charge off and not performing at the remaining near historical lows. That said, early delinquency early stage delinquency came up during the quarter, but essentially when we look at it over the same period last year, it was last to prior year, June, and I was actually below December 2025. So we continue to monitor decisional delinquency trends and broader consumer market conditions.

Regarding capital deployment, consistent with private quarters, we completed our $50 million of year buybacks and we paid $0.20 per share dividend. Even after these actions, we ended the quarter with a very strong CAD1 of 17%, which leaves ample room to continue investing strategically in our franchise technology enhance competitiveness and improve the customer experience, which is our primary objective.

Moving to slide 5, happy to see that in spite of the global noise and war, we continue to see an environment that is positive and stable, supportive of the long activity that we see.

If we look at the main market, unemployment stands at 5.6%, which is pretty good for our market considering trends. Reconstruction activity continues to provide economic support and the islands continue to benefit from encouraging reshoring and manufacturing investments announcements that represent actually future benefit.

While industry, on the other hand, industry-wide sales continue to reflect the impact of tariffs, the recent trends for the last quarter suggest that the market is beginning to normalize with June industry-wide auto sales down 3%, only 3% year-over-year. So we believe sales are stabilizing.

Again, this backdrop, our business continued to perform really well, loan growth accelerating in the second-half of the year as business activity in Puerto Rico continues, and Alaska, Florida, it's having a really good pipeline also.

That said, we sustain our loan growth guidance target of 3% to 5% for the year, obviously looking forward to achieve that in the second-half of the year. We also continue, depending on the customer engagement through the multi-channel strategy, Active DB, the users continue to grow with 6% versus prior year and we continue to increase to 95% now deposit transaction captured through digital and service channels.

As we look ahead, the priorities really remain unchanged, very focused on our execution, focus on selectively growing the market share in our core business, confident and willing to grow organically to discipline execution while evaluating potential alternative strategic opportunities as they arise, maximizing the significant organic growth opportunities that we see in front of us.

At the same time, continue to invest in the franchise, technology, leveraging AI to automate routine processes and enhance the client experience. I think we all are in the early innings of this AI journey, and we're encouraged by the opportunities that we see. At the end, it's about how you can service the customer better, how you can improve processes, short-term lifecycle and improve.

The management of potential fraud. This quarter reflects what has become a hallmark in our franchise from profitability, disciplined risk management, robust capital generation, and what is most important is consistent execution across our different cycles.

As always, I really thank you for your interest in First Bank. We appreciate your continued support. Now, I will turn the call to Said, our recently appointed CFO, to go welcome Said to the call to go over the financial results in more detail.

Thanks, Aurelio, and good morning, everyone. As Aurelio mentioned, for the second quarter of 2026, we earned $96.1 million or $0.62 per diluted shares, which compared to $88. Million or $0.57 per share last quarter. Pre-tax-free provision income increased by $6 million or 5% when compared to the previous quarter and reached an all-time high of $138 million. The return on average asset was 2.02% for the quarter compared to $189 on the previous quarter.

Results for the quarter did include additional interest income on approximately $3.4 million related to two re-financings during the quarter, commercial loan and a municipal bond, which resulted in an accelerated recognition of deferred fees or discounts. If we exclude this impact, net income would have amounted to $93 million or about $0.60 per diluted share. The provision for the quarter was relatively flat.

The provision did benefit from a reduction in charges of approximately $5 million, remaining in the auto portfolio. This was offset by loan growth, particularly in the commercial residential portfolio.

The macro, as already mentioned, continues to show slight improvements in the unemployment projection and the home price index for a lower degree than on the previous quarter. Income tax expense for the quarter was $24 million. Compared to $25 million in the previous quarter, results included about $1.3 million benefits from a lower estimated tax rate for the year as a result of the proportion of tax-exempt income deductible income. The estimated annual effective tax rate is expected to be closer to 21% compared to 21.6% in the previous quarter.

Moving on to slide 8. Looking at net interest income, it grew about 3.7% quarter-over-quarter and amounted to $229.1 million compared to $221 million in the previous quarter. The increase of $8.1 million in net interest income includes the $3.4 million of additional interest income related to the aforementioned refinancing of which $1.8 million was included as part of interest income of investment securities and $1.6 million was included as interest income on loans.

Excluding the impact of the fee acceleration, interest income on loans grew by $1.7 million, primarily due to the initial date in the quarter. Interest income on investments and cash increased by $4.5 million. During the aforementioned refinancing, the yield on the investment portfolio continued to increase and increased by 18 basis points as we have continued to reinvest cash flows from maturity securities into highly yielding instruments.

Looking at the interest expense side, we continue to proactively manage our funding costs with overall deposit costs declining by 2 basis points versus the prior quarter. The cost of paying deposits, excluding broker deposits and public funds. Decreased by 8 basis points to $3.26.

On the other hand, cost of interest-bearing checking and savings accounts increased by 5 basis points to 126%, driven by higher rates on certain government accounts. Additionally, the cost of brokered deposits decreased by 9 basis points, and the average balance in the quarter was down by approximately $27 million.

Our net interest margin on a GAAP basis was $47. A 12 basis point increase when compared to the previous quarter. If we exclude the acceleration of fees discounts recognized in the quarter, our net interest margin would have been closer to $480, reflecting a 5 basis points increase when compared to the prior quarter. It was slightly higher than the 2 basis points per quarter guidance we have provided at the beginning of the year.

As the rate environment has continued to evolve and after any rate cuts in the second-half of the year, we believe our asset-sensitive balance sheet position continues to be well positioned for additional NIM expansion. We expect for the remainder of 2026, our margin to expand by 3 to 5 basis points per quarter out of the 480 base.

Shifting to order income and operating expenses on page 9, order income was up. It amounted to $35.7 million versus $37. I'm sorry, it was down it it amounted to $35.7 million versus $37.7 million in the previous quarter. The decrease was mostly related to seasonal contingent commissions, which are typically received in the first quarter.

Operating expenses for the quarter were relatively flat when compared to the previous quarter, reaching $127.3 million. If we exclude the gains from Oreo operations, expenses amounted to $128.2 million, and we're on the lower end of our guidance. The efficiency ratio was 48.1%, slightly lower than the 49.1% on the previous quarter, associated to the higher levels of income we saw this quarter.

We expect our quarterly expense base for the remainder of 2026, excluding Oreo gains or losses, to range between $128 million to $130 million, as may increase take effect during the third quarter, combined with pickup in business promotions and projects and expense trends on our technology projects. We believe that our efficiency ratio levels for 2026 will be closer to the lower end of our 50% to 52% range as the changes in expenses and income components continue to play out in the future.

Moving to slide 10 to discuss asset quality. Non-performing assets grew $5.1 million when compared to the previous quarter, mainly related to the inflow of a C&I loan in the Florida region of approximately $14.8 million, which this one is well collateralized. Excluding this relationship. Non-performing assets decreased by $9.7 million as we did see reductions in the residential mortgage portfolio, consumer portfolio and repo set ups. Inflows to non-accrual were $40.7 million, which is $6.4 million higher than last quarter. Excluding the aforementioned inflow in the employer region, inflows to non-accruals were $8.4 million lower than prior quarter mostly driven by a $4.6 million decrease on the autumn finance lease portfolio.

On the other hand, we did see early stage delinquency up in the quarter by approximately $32.9 million when compared to the previous quarter, mainly due to a $20.7 million increase in the autumn finance leases portfolio.

In the first quarter, we did see a reduction in early delinquency as consumers typically received tax refunds early in the year. Early delinquency in the consumer portfolio, if we compare it to December 2025, is actually lower by approximately $10.3 million. We continue to see stability in the overall delinquency trends and credit quality and continue to closely monitor consumer behaviors more broadly.

Moving on to the allowance and capital on slide 11, in terms of the allowance, it amounted to $245 million, which represents 1.85% of total loans and was relatively flat when compared to previous quarter. In general, the allowance increased due to loan growth, particularly in the commercial and residential portfolios and higher delinquency in the auto and finance leases portfolios just mentioned.

Such increase was offset by multiple factors, including improvement in the macroeconomic projections, particularly on employment and HPI, combined with improvements in delinquency in the consumer unsecured portfolio.

Net charges for the quarter were approximately $60 million or 49 basis points of average loans, significantly lower than 65 basis points we had in the prior quarter. This improvement was mostly due to a decrease of $4.7 million in consumer and finance leases net charges, mainly the auto portfolio.

Capital remains strong and our healthy and consistent profitability levels have enabled us to repurchase $15 million shares of common stocks and declare $31 million in dividends. Our regulatory capital ratios continue to exceed regulatory levels and remain relatively unchanged against prior quarter as earnings have offset capital deployment actions and growth in RWA.

Annual book value per share grew to $12.68. While tangible common equity ratio decreased 3 basis points to 10.08%, mainly related to growth in tangible assets. We still hold about $2.36 in tangible book value per share and about 166 basis points in tangible common equity ratio related to the other comprehensive loss adjustments from the investment portfolio.

Overall, we're very satisfied with the results for the second quarter and remain focused on supporting our clients and growing our business, while delivering close to 100% of earnings to shareholders in the form of buybacks on Divya.

This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the call for questions. Thank you.

Thank you. (Operator instructions)

Arren Cyganovich, Truist Securities.

Aaron, good morning.

Aaron, you may be on mute.

Sorry about that. Loan growth, very solid this quarter, and it sounds like your pipelines are going well, both in Puerto Rico and in Florida. Maybe you talk a little bit about what types of originations you're doing, what kind of spreads you're seeing in the competitive environment there?

Yes. As I said before, obviously, the growth this quarter primarily was commercial. On the other hand, better stability on the other consumer portfolios than that we have anticipated. So there was a little slightly growth there too, not a contraction, which is very positive.

On the commercial side, I think it's a good mix of ome acquisitions by the larger player, some CRE, some construction, C&I. So it's a good mix of assets around development of warehousing, hotels, actually a small piece on the healthcare part of it. But it's all I would say, commercial activity.

Not necessarily focused on the very large, but for the middle market. And there was some transaction in the government of significant size, which was the refinancing of debt, restructure of debt, which we increased our exposure on a very solid municipality in terms of financial. So overall, and there was some infrastructure refinancing too. Which led to an increase. So I think we look for diversification of risk and where we position our capital in terms of the asset classes that are embedded.

In just around 17% of CET1, what are you seeing on maybe M&A front, something that you might be able to utilize all that excess capital?

I mentioned, as I mentioned before, we're looking to things like potential activity. There's not much we can say about that, but we're active participants in looking at what could be a strategic fit for our franchise that could follow our same operating model and could deliver the consistent results that we have, but there's not much we can say other than that.

It's opportunistic. In the meantime, we continue to deliver, execute our buyback and deliver a competitive dividend and obviously primary organic growth. So we're seeing good activity in our new region in Florida that we opened in the last four or last year. The vocals at the office, so we continue to see pretty good activity there, too. So the organic play continues to lead, the front of our efforts.

Okay. Thank you.

Kelly Mota, KBW.

Hi. Thank you so much for the question. Great quarter.

Thank you, Kelly.

Maybe to kick it off, the margin clearly a highlight and even, if you exclude those loan fees, definitely came in well above where we had expected with what it sounds like some expansion ahead. Can you walk through some, remind us the repricing dynamics of the securities though, because clearly that's a big driver here.

Okay, I'm going to make a few comments and pass it to the side. I think it's important that there's obviously the yield curve has to do with this with versus our projection, rates continue to be better in the investment portfolio and those maturities as I will talk about, but also long activity on the commercial book, which a significant portion of our book is variable. So we that those two components are important in understanding how our margin continues to get better, which is good to say that it's better than anticipated. And that's why we revisit the forward guidance to a higher range.

Obviously, this quarter, we did have what we consider non-recurring items regarding these two loans that were renewed and have some benefits underneath.

Yes, in terms of repricing in the investment portfolio, we expect about. $400 million on the second-half of the year, those are yielding around 1.92%. So looking at 2027, there are about $100 million coming in of securities yielding about 1.73%. So all in in the next 18 months, it's about $1.2 billion of.

Okay. That's helpful. And then I apologize if you hit on this, but with the deposit growth, it looks like about two-thirds of that was on the government deposits. Can you help us out with the expectations around flows on that side, as well as any commentary on.

How competitive pricing dynamics are holding up for the core portfolio. Thank you.

Yeah, when you look at deposit costs, it's almost flat. Obviously, there's a portion of government deposits that are linked to an index. And there's always been volatility on that government book in terms of, large chunks moving in or out in a specific quarter. Based on key relationships that receive funds primarily from reconstruction and funds come in, go out and some other time deposit that we negotiate with our core relationships that are transactional based.

I will say, just, think about for the government deposits staying around this average that we have for the last year, liquidity is very solid in still, funding coming in through both CDBG and FEMA for different purposes and reconstruction, even Prepa or some of the other entities that we have in the portfolio. I think in the core customer, we're seeing again obviously linked to money market rates and treasury rates. You start to see again high balances that need to be retained.

In the quarter, we, for example, increased customers in both retail and commercial on the deposits, but in some of the large customers, we lose some of the deposits, net-net was positive, but we start to see a little bit of that noise.

And we start to compete to retain better. So I will say deposit cost will continue to be in the same place that we are because it's a very large deposit base. And when you look at the CVDs in a very specific component that you can actually play and not really impact the franchise. So I will say stability in both government deposits and obviously, we continue to target growing our core franchise.

Great. I'll step back. Nice quarter again. Thank you so much.

Steve Moss, Raymond James.

Good morning.

Good morning, Steve.

Nice morning, you guys.

Thank you.

Good morning. Maybe just, thinking about, expenses here and the efficiency ratio longer-term. Obviously, healthy business trends here. I know you guys are still guiding toward the 50% or being at the low end of the 50% efficiency ratio range. Just kind of curious, longer-term, do you think you'd go a little lower here, just kind of given balance sheet dynamics, just better growth on the island or 50% still kind of where you think I'll shake out later, longer-term?

Yeah, if you see, the absolute number on expense is very close to the guidance that we provided, so, we are we're making investments in both the technology and actually some of the branch expansion that we talk about in the early part of the year, there's one of the new branches just opened last week and...

And there's another one opening in a couple of weeks. So that continues. And then the technology transformation to cloud and the AI investment, it's there. So again, I think it's always like to see business ratio going down by more revenue. And that's what happened this year. Obviously, again, I think there's being as sensitive. So there's a part.

We're doing, really good growth on loans, but also there's a contribution coming from the rate environment that we that is helping every bank, so that was a sensitive, so, yes, there's always an opportunity to go below 50.

We're there today and if revenues continue at the pace and there is a simple relationship of revenue and expense, so we'll be there. But obviously, we still have significant investments ahead that we will continue doing either way without the new revenue opportunity or not. So that's why we are placed in that 50% target.

Great. That's helpful there. And then just kind of, thinking about, business activity on the island, it's quite a step up here, year over year in originations. I realize there's onshoring, obviously, fuel dynamics with the government. Is there, as you think, look at business activity here, just kind of curious, what you think are the biggest drivers maybe versus a year ago, obviously, healthy pipeline, it's good to hear the outlook for the second-half of the year.

I think, I have to highlight one sector, which is hospitality. Hospitality sector in Puerto Rico continues to show, significant trends, better trends than prior cycles, sustainable, both ADRs, occupancy, visitors. There's still, other projects coming around, and some of them are ongoing. And, I think investor confidence. This investment continues to show a very positive investor confidence in the island.

Whatever political and macro challenges are out there, both in Puerto Rico and the US, the economies continue to sustain these trends and investors are looking to play some of their equity projects, so we'll benefit out of that. And I think the island is being a positive place for that for some years.

Got you. And then, on capital deployment here, I know you guys generally target a 100% payout ratio. Obviously, earnings have been strong and run ahead of your planned buyback. Should we expect, a catch-up with the buyback or special dividend later this year?

As we give the optionality and every quarter we sit down. That will happen now in August of September. In October, you will see our, we will publish again our capital plan, which we, it's a cycle that we do. So we'll, definitely that is our strategic goal. And, we haven't concluded on how we're going to get there. So, but, we'll probably talk about that in the next call in more detail.

Okay. I really, I appreciate all the color here. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

(Operator instructions)

Manuel Navas, Piper Sandberg.

A lot of my questions have been asked and answered. I just want to circle back on the early delinquency rise. You had some commentary around it. Is there anything more specific in the auto portfolio we should be watching? Is there any particular FICO scores that are rising more than others? Anything you could add on that delinquency rise?

To be honest, obviously, I say seasonal because when we compare to private periods, we saw a significant improvement in the first quarter that we attributed to. To a lot of liquidity that came in the island for taxes, benefits, and other matters.

We're back to what I could say a more normal level, normalized level. We don't expect significant uptake from here in those delinquency levels. When we look at the charge of going through, it's really focused on the early delinquency buckets. So we don't see anything that tells us that this is going to continue at this stage, yeah. It's actually better than December than in line with prior year.

Okay. Most other credit metrics are pretty solid. I just wanted to ask about that one. Yeah, no, I've heard it. Additionally, as we look at this new kind of, can we reset on the margin. Your sensitivities to hikes or potential declines. I appreciate the new kind of go-forward guidance with kind of flat rates, but what would happen in either increases or decreases from here?

Well, we disclosed that on the Thank-Q, any pickups, and it's going to be similar, consistent with what has been disclosed in the queue. On NII, right? So 2% to 3%, which we -- and you have the breakdown, sir, by each of the scenarios that we evaluate.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Manuel.

Arren Cyganovich, Truist Securities.

Thanks for the follow-up. I just wanted to just clarify on the NIM guidance. You're not assuming any rate increases through the end of the year.

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you. Yeah.

If we have no further questions, this will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.