Mercantile Bank Corp (MBWM) 2013 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good morning and welcome to the Mercantile Bank Corporation first quarter 2013 earnings results conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions). After today's presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions. (Operator Instructions). Please note, this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Karen Keller. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Yusef. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Mercantile Bank Corporation's conference call and webcast to discuss the Company's financial results for the first quarter 2013.

I'm Karen Keller with Lambert Edwards, Mercantile's investor relations firm, and joining me are members of their management team, including Michael Price, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer; Robert Kaminski, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer; and Chuck Christmas, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We will begin the call was management's prepared remarks and then open the call up to questions.

However, before we begin today's call, it is my responsibility to inform you that this call may involve certain forward-looking statements, such as projections 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 any forward-looking statements made today due to the important factors described in the Company's latest Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. If anyone does not already have a copy of the press release issued by Mercantile today, you can access it at the Company's website, www.mercbank.com. At this time I would like to turn the call over to Mercantile's CEO, Mike Price.

Thank you, Karin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our first-quarter 2013 results and other recent developments for Mercantile Bank Corporation. On the call today our Chief Financial Officer, Chuck Christmas, will provide details on our financial results, followed by Chief Operating Officer Bob Kaminski and his comments regarding asset quality and other operational successes for the quarter.

Hopefully you have all had a chance to review our quarterly results, which were highlighted by improved net income, a further decline in nonperforming assets, and a stronger balance sheet. We made additional strides in our efforts to improve asset quality, and as a result Mercantile reported a negative $1.5 million provision for loan losses during the first quarter.

This quarter was no different from past recent quarters in that our efforts remain focused on reducing nonperforming assets, protecting our net interest margin, and maintaining our strong capital position. Earlier today we also announced another increase in our quarterly cash dividend from $0.10 to $0.11 per share.

Our Bank continues to grow stronger each quarter, and we are proud of our many accomplishments. We are convinced our relationship-based approach is essential to our success in gaining market share while remaining respective partners to our customers by adding long-term value for them and our shareholders.

The success of these relationship-building efforts was evident in our origination of approximately $50 million in loans to existing and new borrowers during the quarter. As we look ahead, the Michigan economy continues to gain strength and is being recognized both locally and nationally, not only for the rate of its recovery but also for the future prospects in several key industries.

Mercantile remains well positioned to continue our success as a leader in our markets, and our strong capital position creates many opportunities for us to fully participate in these trends as they play out in 2013. We will do this while remaining focused on building our franchise and helping our communities prosper.

At this time I'll turn it over Chuck.

Thanks, Mike. Good morning, everybody.

This morning we announced net income attributable to common shares of $4.4 million for the first quarter of 2013, reflecting a 72% increase over net income attributable to common shares of $2.6 million we recorded in the first quarter of 2012. On a diluted earnings per share basis, we earned $0.50 per share during the first quarter of this year -- an increase of over 78% from the $0.28 per share we earned during the first quarter of 2012.

We have now recorded a net profit for 9 consecutive quarters. The quality of our loan portfolio continues to improve, allowing for negative provision expense and further reductions in problem asset administration costs.

The level of nonperforming assets has declined by almost $100 million, or about 84%, over the past 3 years and is currently at its lowest dollar volume since March 31, 2007. Our improved earnings performance and financial condition also reflect the many positive steps we have taken over the past 5 years to not only mitigate the impact of asset quality-related costs in the near term, but to establish and improve foundation for our longer-term performance as well.

We have increased our net interest margin to well above historical levels, strengthened our regulatory capital ratios, and further enhanced our liquidity position through dramatically less reliance on wholesale funding. In addition, our improved financial condition and operating results led to the resumption of a quarterly cash dividend in our common shares during the fourth quarter of 2012, which we have since increased from $0.09 per share to the current $0.11 per share.

Despite economic and regulatory headwinds that continue to face our industry and the economy, we continue to believe we are very well positioned to succeed as a strong community bank and to take advantage of lending and market opportunities. Highlights from the first quarter of this year include a steady net interest margin that remains well above our historical levels and that has helped to mitigate the negative impact of the smaller loan portfolio.

Net interest income during the first quarter of 2013 was 3% lower than the first quarter of 2012. Average loans declined by $33 million or 3% during the first quarter of this year when compared to the first quarter of last year.

Our net interest margin during the first quarter of this year was 3.68% or 5 basis points lower than the comparable period in 2012. However, it should be noted that our first-quarter 2012 net interest margin was our highest ever quarterly net interest margin.

During the past 5 quarters our net interest margin has averaged 3.67% and has been within a range of only 11 basis points. The steady net interest margin reflects a lower cost of funds that has offset a lower yield on assets.

The lower cost of funds primarily results from the maturing of higher costs in certificates of deposit and borrowed funds as well as lower rates paid on local deposits. The lower yield on assets primarily results from a lower loan yield, reflecting a low interest rate environment; improved borrower financial performance; and increased competition, as well as a lower securities yield reflecting US agency call-in reinvestment activity as well as principle paydowns on higher-yielding mortgage-backed securities.

The declining level of nonaccrual loans has helped offset the impact of lower yields on our loan portfolio. We remain dedicated to maintaining the strong and steady net interest margin.

For example, to the extent possible we are match funding fixed-rate commercial loans, and we have entered into certain derivative interest rate contracts. While these and other strategies generally have a negative impact on shorter-term net interest income, we have been able to maintain a relatively steady net interest margin, one that is well above our historical average.

This was completed in conjunction with strengthening our interest rate risk position, especially if interest rates are to increase in the future. The continued improvement in the quality of our loan portfolios and recoveries of prior period loan charge-offs, which have provided for a positive impact on our loan-loss reserve migration calculations, allowed us to make a negative provision of $1.5 million through loan-loss reserve during the first quarter of this year.

Of the $2.4 million in gross loan charge-offs during the quarter, $2 million or about 83% is from charge-off of specific reserve by nonaccrual loans that were established in prior periods. Recoveries of prior-period loan losses totaled $1.3 million during the first quarter.

Our loan-loss reserve was $26 million as of March 31 or 2.55% of total loans. Despite the significant improved condition of our loan portfolio and a 20 basis point reduction in our reserve coverage ratio during the first quarter of 2013, our loan-loss reserve coverage ratio remained substantially higher than historical averages.

Local deposits and sweep accounts were down slightly during the first quarter of 2013 but are up almost $365 million since the end of 2008. As is typical during the first quarter each year, we experienced some withdrawals relating to the payment of taxes and bonuses. However, deposits from new depositors and increased deposit balances from existing depositors substantially offset the withdrawals.

Local deposit growth and a reduction in total loans have enabled us to reduce our level of wholesale funds by over $1.1 billion since the end of 2008. As a percent of total funds, wholesale funds have declined from 71% at the end of '08 to 22% at the end of the first quarter of this year.

Nonperforming asset administration and resolution costs totaled only $0.1 million during the first quarter of 2013. This expense line item was positively impacted by $0.7 million in gains on the sale of foreclosed properties, in part reflecting our conservative valuation approach.

In addition, further foreclosed property valuation write-downs totaled only $0.2 million during the quarter. While growth expenses remain elevated over historical levels, we continue to experience significant expense reductions, and we expect further declines in nonperforming asset administration resolution costs in future periods as the level of nonperforming assets continues to go down.

We remain a well-capitalized banking organization. As of March 31, 2013, our Bank's total risk-based capital ratio is 15.4% and in dollars was over $62 million higher than the 10% minimum required to be well capitalized.

Those are my prepared remarks. I'll now turn the call over to Bob.

Thank you, Chuck, and good morning, everyone. My comments this morning will focus on client acquisition, credit quality, and the general operations of the Bank.

The net reduction of total loans for the first quarter does not tell the complete story of the successful new client acquisition and relationship-building activities of our staff. While we showed a reduction of loans on the net basis for the quarter, Mercantile lenders funded $37 million in loans to new customers and another $13 million in loans to existing customers.

The success of the new loan funding was masked by some unexpected loan payoffs. These instances were primarily in commercial real estate loans where the borrower sold the asset, causing a payoff of the underlying loan.

Additionally, some new loans scheduled to fund late in the first quarter were delayed. However, this creates a very strong pipeline of projected new loans to be funded in the second quarter.

It is very encouraging that each of these new loan opportunities has been created by Mercantile staff through persistent relationship building with a continual demonstration of value-added benefits for the prospective clients. Our lenders are getting good opportunities with prospects who are attracted to the Mercantile community banking philosophy.

We continue to have success in identifying lending opportunities in commercial, industrial, owner-occupied commercial real estate, and non-owner-occupied commercial real estate loans. We are confident that by providing our sales officers with ongoing training and coaching our relationship-building strategies and techniques, we are focusing on the key to success. The first quarter successes have served to further encourage the staff that the approach Mercantile takes toward client acquisition is the best strategy for our obtaining long-term, mutually beneficial relationships.

Regarding community relations and marketing, in the first quarter Mercantile introduced its 2013 Giving Together program, which provides a $5000 gift to a different local nonprofit organization each quarter. The program is focused on donations to nonprofits that serve education, community and economic development, arts and culture, and health and human services.

The winner of each $5000 gift is chosen by the public, the voting taking place via social media. The 3 Mile Project, which is a local community organization supporting area used in Grand Rapids, was the recipient for the first quarter. With great response, we are now taking nominations for the second quarter.

Also during the first quarter Mercantile commenced its 2013 marketing plan with the production of 4 new television commercials featuring Mercantile customers accompanied by their bank relationship officers. These commercials have started to air in our markets and will continue throughout the year.

On asset quality, once again this quarter we generated a huge improvement in reducing nonperforming assets. Since December 31, NPAs declined over $7 million or 27.1%. Year-over-year NPAs have dropped $33.3 million or 63.8%.

Through the excellent work of our loan officers at our risk asset group, we have continued our momentum at reaching successful resolution on many troubled assets. Almost every category of problem assets saw significant reduction from December, with the largest drop in non-owner-occupied commercial real estate at $4.5 million.

During the first quarter there were only $692,000 in new NPAs. Gross charge-offs of $2.4 million were mitigated by loan recoveries of $1.3 million for net losses of $1.1 million.

Of the first-quarter charge-offs, 83% were losses previously identified and reserved in prior quarters. Loans identified on the Bank's watchlist continued to decline in the first quarter, representing at March 31 the lowest dollar total in over 5 years.

Our loan loss reserve remains very strong at 2.55% of total loans, and we continue to perform very well in terms of loan delinquencies. The level of loans past due 30 to 89 days remains low at $224,000, while 90 day past due loans were zero at March 31.

In conclusion, we remain very optimistic about our performance metrics for new business opportunities and continued improvement in asset quality for the rest of 2013.

This concludes my remarks. I'll now turn it back over to Mike.

Thanks, Bob, and thank you, Chuck, as well. Operator, at this time we would like to open the lines for any questions.

(Operator Instructions). John Barber, KBW.

Good morning, guys. I'm just wondering -- could you talk about the $50 million of originations this quarter? I think that compares to $64 million last quarter -- how much you were impacted by seasonality.

There is some seasonality. We saw in the first quarter some reduction of line balances, which was more than we typically see during the first quarter. That certainly hurt our net loan totals for the quarter.

As I mentioned in my comments, some loans that we were supposed to fund the first quarter pushed into second quarter. That obviously didn't help us as well, but we are very pleased with the activities that we saw in new loan fundings, and again, what remains in the pipeline is very optimistic for us.

And the timing of the stimulating originations -- was it more backend loaded? Or is it pretty even throughout the quarter?

It was more backend loaded.

Okay. And then how about the spreads on the new originations? How does that compare to your current loan yields?

The spreads -- we track those, obviously, very closely. While the new loans that we're funding are obviously very good quality loans, the margins -- while competitive -- I think are very much within the range of margins that we look at in terms of the overall margin maintenance program that we're looking at.

This is Chuck. If I could just echo Bob's comments, we certainly have a pretty comprehensive loan pricing model that we generally adhere to dependent on primarily the risk of the credit, but certainly the term and some other things as well. And we trace every single loan origination that we do and report it up to the channels.

We are very, very pleased with the results that we are able to get. If we just kind of look at it from a more global perspective, it's something that I kind of track on an ongoing basis. If you look at our average loan rate at the beginning of the year, and you look at our average loan rate at the end of the first quarter, we were down 3 basis points.

So able to hold it on our margin -- or our spreads pretty well. But certainly some compression there.

Okay, thanks for those comments. Do you have -- by any chance have the accruing TER number? I had it, I believe, around $38 million last quarter. And maybe you could just talk more broadly about the performance of those credits.

I believe that number was around $39 million at the end of the first quarter. I think it reflects our conservative philosophy in looking at loans that are showing some signs of stress, and with that the accounting treatment is reflected there, and the specific reserves are established. And obviously working with the borrowers to try to make sure that we provide them with the resources, opportunities necessary to help their business or their real estate project, and continue to work with them and provide support as best we can. But it really reflects our conservative nature in terms of identifying those loans and -- that establishing the proper accounting treatment with the FAS 114 reserve.

Great, thanks. Just the last one I had -- Chuck, I think you said you've booked $700,000 of gains on OREO property sold. Was that related to just one or two properties or a large number?

There was a couple larger ones in there, but we definitely -- from a trend basis, when you look at the properties that we sold during the first quarter -- not only the first quarter, but the last few quarters -- we are seeing more gains than, certainly, losses. I think in large part it is our conservative nature to value these things as conservatively as we are allowed to do per the accounting guidance.

It also, I think, reflects some improvement in the real estate markets for certain types of properties. But if you look at the overall number, there were a couple larger gains in there. But I think I'm not going to say the word no net losses. I don't have the report in front of me. But there were very, very few losses on the sale of ORE during the quarter. And the pipeline that we have for the second quarter looks pretty strong as well.

Great. Thanks for taking my questions.

(Operator Instructions). Russ Aberman, Aberman Management Corporation.

Morning gentlemen, how are you? You talked about your strong pipeline. Could you break that down for us by just general categories, commercial and other? And in and around the state, where are you seeing sort of the best pockets of general loan demand growth, or demand, I should say?

I don't have the exact numbers in front of me as far as the breakdown, but I think from memory, it's a fairly balanced group of loans that are in the pipeline for funding in terms of the CAGR, as we discussed -- commercial industrial, owner-occupied commercial real estate, as well as non-owner-occupied commercial real estate.

In terms of the pockets, really, within the markets that we bank, the West Michigan Kent and Ottawa County region -- there's a healthy pipeline there, as well as central Michigan in and around the Lansing area, where our office is located. Some good loan opportunities there as well contributing to the overall pipeline. So we are very pleased with what we are seeing in the variety of loans to keep a balanced portfolio, which is our intention, and we are seeing that in terms of the looks that we are seeing within our markets.

And just one question. How -- in different parts of the country I'm hearing very aggressive pricing on, say for argument, the ten-year -- say a ten-year adjustable commercial rate loan. For argument's sake, where are you pricing that type of loan today?

I have to tell you, we do very, very, little of that. I'm not even sure we did any of that in any recent time. Occasionally we'll look at a seven-year term, but that is also pretty rare as well.

Per our policy and obviously our experience, we tried to balloon -- if it's a fixed rate, we attempt to balloon it in five years. I do know, as the lenders call me from time to time, asking me what the cost of funds are for 7 and 10. That definitely is out there. But that's something that we generally stay away from.

So what kind of real estate commercial loans are the typical terms?

They are going to be floating rate, primarily based on Wall Street Journal.

So everything that is floating, you don't lock it in for, I don't know, the first 5 or 7 years and then let it float?

That's possible, yes.

All right. Thank you very much, guys.

Daniel Cardenas, Raymond James.

Good morning, guys. Couple quick questions here on the lending side. Can you maybe talk about plans for increasing your lending staff, or are you pretty good with the folks that you have right now? And then maybe geographically, where do you see most of the new growth coming from?

This is Mike. We've got a real strong staff that we have been able to maintain for the last few years, even when we downsized the Bank a little bit for capital reasons. But that being said, we are constantly looking out in the marketplace to add people who might have specific expertise, especially in the C&I area.

But as you might imagine that there's a lot of banks looking for that type of expertise right now. But we'll continue to look at that. We've got also a very strong credit department that we have some people that are ready to take the next step up, so I think some of that is already happening and will continue to happen.

Geographically, we continue to look to take advantage of the success we've seen in central Michigan, especially through our Lansing office. I think Bob or Chuck or maybe both will have mentioned that that office has been a very strong region for us for a long time now, and we do continue to see some opportunity there.

Once Michigan is picking up steam, finally, after a longer period of time -- but the biggest question continues to be, and then the previous caller had the question, it continues to be the loan pricing. It continues to be very aggressive.

We clearly could've grown the loan portfolio even more in the last couple of quarters, which have been kind of breakeven, if we wanted to really see our margin take a hit. We've been really dedicated to maintaining that discipline. And as you can see, and Chuck mentioned, we've seen very, very high -- for us, anyway -- historical margins.

And we really want to continue to keep that strong. And so we've walked away from some deals that -- especially some of the larger money center banks have come in with really, in our view, ridiculous pricing. So we continue to work hard to express the Mercantile value proposition, which is really a relationship-based and not just a price-based proposition. And we are seeing some good success with that.

Good. Just kind a given the intense competition that you're seeing right now, I mean, what levers exist that you can pull that can help you maintain the net interest margin as we go forward?

The levers that we continue to pull are ones that we've been pulling for a while. Some of them have less juice to come out, let's say. But yes, we continue to see some pricing -- repricing opportunities on the liability side, although that clearly is not the benefit that we had for the last few years.

But there are still some opportunities with some block pricing that is coming up within our portfolio this year. The other real chance to keep the margin up there is to maintain the discipline that we have with our pricing on the loan side to make sure that we just stay with it and continue to express to the customer and prospect base the value that they get out of Mercantile.

And then on the capital front, you guys have done a good job. You've retired your TARP; you've brought back the dividend; you've increased it the last couple quarters. I mean, what other uses of capital are out there for you with loan growth being -- picking up a little bit but still being challenging?

That's a great question. And we continually -- in our Board room and executive management team is to look how to best deploy the capital. And as we've said now for a couple of years, and we continue to stay the course, we would love to continue seeing some organic loan growth.

And we are seeing -- it's been fits and starts, as you can see by the last few quarters, but we have got a real good backlog going into this quarter, and less and less of the bad stuff that we want to get out of the Bank. We're down to [1.3] now NPAs. So we don't have a lot of stuff compared to a year, two, three years ago, when we were really trying to force out the door.

So we'd like to continue and we will continue to focus on organic loan growth. We continue to say that if the right situation came up, that we would look at acquiring a bank. But again, the organic loan growth is our first pick.

And we also continue to look at other opportunities to increase shareholder value, which is -- you've mentioned one of them, increasing the dividend. And if we had to, we would look at further on down the line to look at stock buyback programs or those types of, I guess, financial maneuvering, if you want to call them that.

But all things are on the table. But I think rank order, we would love to see the organic loan growth be where we are seeing some increase of that.

But either way, I think that the Board and the management team hopefully have demonstrated to the investment community that through good times that we had in the first 10 years of this organization, some really challenging times for the last few years there, and now back to good times again, we do the very best we can to protect our shareholders and give them a good return.

Thanks guys. Good quarter.

(Operator Instructions). John Rodis, FIG Partners.

Good morning, guys. Most of my questions were asked, but I guess one additional question would be the -- I guess with the recent closing of the First Merit Citizens Republic transaction, can you talk about -- is there any opportunities in your markets maybe for new business or for new hires? Anything like that?

That's a great question. We get asked that a lot, because it is -- when you look at the size, John, that's a fairly sizable transaction in the terms of Michigan banking. But there was really not a lot of customer overlap, or -- most of the transaction that you're talking about there was on the east side of the state. Very little impact for us here in the central or the western side.

As far as talent of people, that remains to be seen. We're always on the lookout for talented bankers, so there may be some fallout there as the closing really starts to take place, and who is going to stay and who's going to go starts to shake out. But we don't see any real major -- I'm sure there will be some opportunities, but this isn't a deal like it was 10 years ago when Old Kent was sold to Fifth Third, or something along those lines.

Thanks a lot, guys.

(Operator Instructions). I'm showing no further questions. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Mike Price for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Yusef. Mercantile's momentum is increasing, and our team is motivated and dedicated to build on our success. As I stated earlier, our long-standing relationships and proven excellence in community banking are serving us well as we continue on the path of achieving efficient and profitable growth.

Thank you to all of you for joining us this morning and for your interest in our Company. We look forward to talking with you again. This now ends the call.

Your conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.