OFG Bancorp (OFG) 2012 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Lynn and I will be your conference operator today. Thank you for joining us for this conference call for Oriental Financial Group.

Our participants are Jose Rafael Fernandez, President, Chief Executive Officer, and Vice Chairman; Ganesh Kumar, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Norberto Gonzalez, Executive Vice President and Chief Risk Officer; and Ramon Rosado, Senior VP, Treasurer. Jose Ramon Gonzalez, Senior Executive VP, Banking and Corporate Development, is out of the office this week on a scheduled vacation.

Please note that this call may feature certain forward-looking statements about management's goals, plans, and expectations, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties outlined in the Risk Factors section of Oriental's Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated. We disclaim any obligation to update information disclosed in this call as a result of developments which occur afterwards.

All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Fernandez.

Thank you for listening in today. We have a presentation that accompanies our remarks. It can be found in the Webcasts, Presentations, and Other Files page on our Investor Relations website.

I'll review our results and Ganesh will go over the income statement and balance sheet. I will come back and give you our thoughts regarding our outlook, and then we will go into the question-and-answer session.

Starting on page 4 of the presentation, you can see that results for the second quarter were generally in line with expectations. Income per common share was $0.34, up from $0.23 in the first quarter. Income available to common shareholders was $13.8 million compared to $9.5 million in the preceding quarter.

Book value per share was $15.32 at June 30, 2012, up from $15.27 at March 31, 2012. Cash dividends per common share were $0.06, up 20% from the year-ago quarter.

Turning to page 5, the major news during the quarter, of course, was the announcement of our planned acquisition of BBVA Puerto Rico's operations for $500 million. Of that amount, $350 million will come from available cash.

In addition, we raised $84 million of the remaining $150 million through the sale of convertible perpetual preferred stock. The balance will be raised in common stock and preferred by the end of the third quarter or beginning of the fourth quarter.

We are combining this capital raise strategy and a securities deleverage to reduce the common equity required for the transaction and to generate attractive returns that are accretive to our income from the first year onwards. The acquisition of BBVA Puerto Rico has been well received and remains on target for closing, subject to customary regulatory approvals before this year-end.

Turning to page 6, operationally, we remain on track in the second quarter with a number of positive developments, all in line with our strategy to continue building our banking operations. We continue to reduce the cost of core retail deposits while maintaining our levels of these deposits. We also continue to reduce the cost of wholesale funding largely due to actions taken prior to the quarter, and we anticipate further reductions in the second half in both cost of deposits and the cost of wholesale funding.

We continue to successfully reduce the size of our investment securities portfolio, in particularly through the sale -- at a gain -- of mortgage-backed securities that have higher yields, but which are also subject to higher prepayment speeds. Please keep in mind that as part of our BBVA Puerto Rico acquisition we plan to sell about $1.4 billion of Oriental's investment securities portfolio before the close of the transaction.

Largely due to reduced yield and volume in the investment securities portfolio, net interest rate margin was 2.28%. However, we expect NIM for the year to be around 2.50%, based largely on our expectation of lower cost of funds. This is at the low end of what we discussed on the last call, primarily due to lower rates and potentially higher prepayment speeds on our remaining MBS portfolio.

With regards to cash, we continue to build up our balances. Cash and cash equivalents totaled close to $690 million, up $71 million from March 31, 2012.

And we continue to control costs. Noninterest expenses came in at almost the same level as the first quarter and 5.5% below the year-ago quarter.

While loan and lease production was less than last quarter and the year-ago quarter, based on our pipeline we believe we are on track for a very strong year and should be able to more than offset the declining interest income from residential mortgages. Through June 30, we have already written more than $91 million in new commercial loans, and we are comfortable we will hit our 2012 target of approximately $200 million in new commercial loans.

Positive market recognition of Oriental's solid financial position continues to be a factor in expanding our business. We also continue to generate a high level of core noninterest revenues, with year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter increases in wealth management and banking services. Wealth management is benefiting from greater brokerage and trust activities and continued growth of assets under management, which hit a record $4.5 billion at June 30, 2012, up 9% from a year ago and up 2% from the end of the first quarter. Banking service revenues are higher, benefiting from increased electronic banking activity, from new products and services.

Turning to page 7, year-to-date recurring net revenues from client businesses, lending, banking and wealth management services continued to maintain their strong level of growth. If we continue at our first-half rate, we will achieve a better than 24% increase over 2011, which in turn was up 27% from 2010.

We consider growth of these revenues a significant accomplishment. It shows how we are building the revenue-generating power of Oriental Bank and Trust and Oriental Financial Services, and lessening our dependence on the investment securities portfolio.

Another way of looking at the progress is our balance sheet. Loan as a percentage of loans and investments continued to be at more than 31% at June 30, 2012, the highest level over the last five years.

And now I would like to turn the call over to Ganesh.

Thank you, Jose Rafael. First, let's look at the income statement. All the comparisons will be to the first quarter of 2012 unless otherwise noted.

Turning to page 8, interest income from noncovered loans declined about $900,000 primarily due to lower residential mortgage loan balances. In line with our emphasis on banking activity, we have been building our commercial and consumer loan and auto leasing portfolio, which generated increased interest income during the quarter. Based on our origination targets, we believe that over the course of the second half of the year we should begin to see interest income from commercial and consumer loans and auto leasing offsetting the decline from residential mortgages.

Looking at the interest income from covered loans, it declined $1.2 million due to lower balances resulting from normal pay downs, as expected. Interest income from securities declined $7 million. Approximately $4.4 million of that was attributable to lower yield and lower balances, reflecting the reduction in the size of portfolio; and approximately $2.6 million was due to higher premium amortization on the Oriental mortgage-backed securities portfolio.

This quarter, we sold approximately $343 million of MBS at a net gain of $11.9 million, reflecting the ongoing Oriental strategy to sell mortgage-backed securities subject to higher prepayment speeds. In all, the interest income from loans as a percentage of total interest income equaled 62%, which is up 35% in the year-ago quarter, underscoring our emphasis on increased banking activity.

Now, turning to page 9, the cost of deposits fell $1.3 million, reflecting lower cost of funds primarily due to continuing progress in repricing our core retail deposits. Total interest expense on borrowings fell more than $2 million.

Provision for noncovered loan and lease losses increased $800,000, while the last provision for covered assets -- the former Eurobank loan -- was $1.5 million, a decline of nearly $6 million.

Turning to page 10, the total banking and wealth management revenues of $11.7 million were level with the preceding quarter, but up 15% year-over-year. We are particularly pleased to see both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year growth in banking service revenues, and we anticipate that mortgage banking activities will hit our target of approximately $10 million in revenue this year.

On the next page, you will see that a total non-core non-interest income was $5.5 million compared to $1.3 million in the preceding quarter. Second-quarter 2012 results primarily reflect a $12 million net gain on the aforementioned sale of the mortgage-backed securities and a $5.6 million in amortization of FDIC loss-share indemnification assets, mainly due to a favorable improvement in the revised cash flow projections of certain covered loan pools in 2011.

On page 12, the expenses are being tightly and prudently controlled. As a result, noninterest expenses of $29 million were down from -- down more than 5% a year ago and virtually level with the preceding quarter. Second-quarter expenses included approximately $430,000 in legal costs related to the BBVA Puerto Rico acquisition, and another $1 million in favorable tax settlements with San Juan municipality related to the Eurobank transaction.

We expect the expenses to rise slightly for the rest of the year, rest of the 2012, primarily due to increased marketing expenditures. We continue to expect operating expenses to be within our target of $123 million for all of 2012, which we mentioned on the last call. All of this, of course, is excluding costs related to the BBVA Puerto Rico acquisition.

Moving on to the balance sheet on page 13, the increase in cash and cash equivalents, including securities purchased under agreements to resell, reflect the repayments on MBS and the proceeds from the sale of MBS. Total investments of $3.5 billion declined approximately $114 million, also reflecting the previously noted sale of the MBS.

As Jose Rafael mentioned, we do plan to sell approximately another $1.4 billion of our investment securities portfolio before we close on the BBVA Puerto Rico acquisition. The purpose is to minimize issuance of common equity and reduce the proportion of securities that contribute to the net income after the acquisition.

During the third quarter, we purchased hedges to protect unrealized gains on these securities. On page 14, total noncovered loans of $1.2 billion declined approximately $19 million, primarily due to repayment of residential mortgage loans in the present lower rate environment. Covered loans of $448 million declined $14 million as they continue to pay down in line with projections.

Turning to page 15, retail deposits of $2 billion declined just slightly; but the cost of deposits dropped from (sic) 1.34%, from 1.52%. Wholesale deposits declined $87 million as we continued to allow short-term broker CDs to mature.

Looking at page 16, borrowings of $3.4 billion remain approximately level, but with their cost declining from (sic) 2.34% from 2.52%. We've continued to reduce the cost of borrowings in May 2012 with a new $350 million in repos costing 4.26% at a new effective rate of approximately 1.90%.

Another $450 million in borrowings mature over the balance of 2012. These funds are currently costing us an average of 4.32%. We expect to renew them at an average of approximately 2.6%.

We estimate that all of the actions that we have taken since December and that we plan to take this year should reduce annualized interest expenses by more than $40 million.

Turning to page 17, we continue to maintain our already-high credit quality. Nonperforming loans fell $2 million, while net credit losses increased $1 million.

We increased provision for noncovered loans by $800,000 to reflect increased production of commercial and consumer and auto leases. Early delinquency loans are down $2.6 million, and total delinquency loans are down approximately $12 million. We regard these as key indicators for future credit performance.

On page 18, stockholders' equity totaled $692 million, an increase of close to $3 million from the end of the last quarter. This reflects the increase in retained income and in mark-to-market on our investment securities, partially offset by the negative marks on the interest rate swap as the rates declined. Book value per share was $15.32 at June 30, 2012, compared to $15.27 at March 31, 2012.

Going on to page 19, Oriental maintains regulatory capital ratios well above the requirements for a well-capitalized institution, and it continues to improve. At June 30, 2012, the leveraged capital ratio was 10.81%; Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio was 32.52%; total risk-based capital ratio was 33.82%; and the Tier 1 total common equity to risk-weighted asset ratio was 29.25%.

Now I would like to turn the call back to Jose Rafael.

Thank you, Ganesh. I am now on page 20. As I mentioned on our last call, 2011 was a year where we successfully completed the integration of the Eurobank acquisition. As we move through 2012 we are fully engaged in expanding our banking and financial services activities.

Based on the progress we have experienced to the midyear, we are encouraged with the momentum we are achieving. We are totally focused on the completion and smooth integration of the BBVA Puerto Rico acquisition.

So looking ahead to the third quarter we anticipate, one, to reduce interest income from securities due to lower yields on sales but higher interest income from commercial, consumer loans, and auto leases.

Two, lower cost of funds of both deposits and borrowings. Three, credit continuing to be stable. Four, core noninterest income will continue to grow in wealth management as well as bank service revenues. And five, recurring expenses should be somewhat higher at around $31 million.

With regards to our planned acquisition, the third quarter we will see the net effect of the $84 million in preferred stock we raised in July. We expect to report third-quarter 2012 EPS on an as-if-converted basis. We continue to anticipate $40 million of acquisition-related restructuring expenses, but we expect most of that to be booked in 2013.

On a final note, the Puerto Rico economy continues to show signs of stabilization. The forecast is for 1%-plus growth in the government's fiscal 2013, which just began in July; and this will be the first year of growth since 2005.

With this, we conclude our formal remarks. Operator, please open the call for questions.

(Operator Instructions) Michael Sarcone, Sandler O'Neill.

Good morning, guys. Can you just talk a bit about loan demand on the island? I know you guided to a step-up in commercial loan production in the second half of 2012. But what are you seeing across other loan buckets in terms of demand?

As we mentioned and you pointed out here also, on the commercial we do see an opportunity for us to continue to gain and kind of gain marketshare from the competitors. We don't see necessarily a high loan demand in Puerto Rico in general. There is no growth in the loan demand, that's what I am referring to, from the commercial side.

We do see a higher level of consumer loans from what we have done in the past. We are probably looking closer to the $8 million to $9 million a quarter rate type on the consumer loan.

Leasing, auto leasing should remain relatively stable with this quarter. And then on residential mortgage, we also see a range there between $45 million to $55 million per quarter; that is how we are viewing it.

To us, the most important aspect of our strategy is the commercial side, the commercial banking side. We are seeing, even though this quarter's numbers don't necessarily reflect a smooth trending upwards on our production, it really had a lot to do with the timing of when these relationships eventually close. But so we are very encouraged that we will finish the year with $200 million in new commercial loan originations.

Okay. What kind of rates are you seeing on new commercial loan production?

It really depends, but when you are looking at the small business or midmarket, we are seeing on the fixed side, we are seeing 5%, 5.25%, 5.5%.

On the variable, you are seeing a prime rate type of lending based with a floor. And that floor is going to be between, I would say 4.75% to 5%. So it will be LIBOR plus with a floor, as I just mentioned.

Okay. Then just switching to credit, net charge-offs spiked in 2Q, mostly in the resi mortgage book. Can you walk us through what you are seeing there?

Yes, sure, I will let Norberto go and dive into those numbers.

I think that in general terms, the credit quality is stable when I look at the chargeoffs. It is better to see them on a year-to-date basis. The residential mortgages is actually down on a year-to-date basis compared to last year.

It all depends on let's say the appraisals that you get. There are some quarters when you get more information than in others, and you are able to do some writedowns of nonperforming loans in one quarter more than the others.

But as you see, year-to-date it is actually $2.9 million compared to $3 million in the year 2011. The increase in chargeoffs is mainly in commercial loans and is mainly due to two specific cases that are two long-standing participations with [old] institutions in which we took a chargeoff this year, which account for significant portions of the chargeoff in commercial loans.

Consumer is actually significantly down compared to last year.

And in terms of the delinquency and nonperforming, if we look at the numbers as of June 30, 2012, the level of nonperforming loans is essentially lower than as of 6/30/11, March 31, 2012, and 12/31/2011. And that applies also to early delinquency.

And meanwhile, our allowance at $37.4 million is higher than as of March 31 and December 31 and so on. So that is more or less my analysis. I don't know if you have any follow-up question with that.

Yes, so just on the resi mortgage charge-offs in 2Q, that is -- we can say that is primarily related to new appraisals?

Yes. We do the analysis every quarter of loans that are nonperforming, and it's the matter of determining the timing when we do receive the appraisals. But -- and last quarter it was only $922,000.

But if you see on a year-to-date basis, it is basically similar to last year. So we more or less expect that the charge-off for residential mortgages for 2012 will be in line on an annual basis, at 2011, as it has been so far.

Okay, thank you.

Joe Gladue, B. Riley.

Let me start off with yields. It looks like there was a fairly significant decline in noncovered loan yields. I think they were down about 29 basis points from first quarter to second quarter. Recognizing that new loans are going on at lower yields, but that seemed like a fairly significant drop. Was there anything unusual going on there, or what caused that?

Primarily, Joe, it is related to a lower balance on the residential mortgage portfolio, where it continues to trend down as we sell our originations to Fannie and Freddie. So that is the main driver of the redaction in the interest income from residential loans.

You point it out also on the commercial, there is a -- the originations are coming in at a lower rate than the aggregate rate of our owned portfolio. So that also has to do with it.

But in general, it has to do -- the main part of it has to do with the volume, the balances on residential mortgage portfolio.

Moving a little over to the expense side, you did mention in the prepared remarks about a tax settlement. Could you just give a couple more details on that? What is that tax settlement?

Joe, this is Ganesh. We had a tax settlement close to about $1 million from San Juan Municipality following the Eurobank transaction. We had accrued for some past payments that Eurobank had owed. And we were contending that that is the FDIC's liability and not necessarily our liability, and which San Juan Municipality finally came and settled with us and agreed.

So these are the reversals for the provisions for tax that we had taken. That continued from 2010 to 2011, about a figure of 12 months; and then we stopped provisioning for such taxes. Now we are reversing that.

Okay. On the marketing expenses, they were up substantially in the quarter, and you mentioned you expect higher marketing. Is this, the second-quarter level, something that we should expect to continue? Or will it go up still further?

I think you should expect the level of the second quarter, and bear in mind that given the announced acquisition we are going to invest in the second half at the same rate as the second quarter, just to make sure that we continue to build on our brand.

I guess the anticipated sale of the $1.4 billion in securities, do you have a good estimate of which securities those are and what impact those sales will have on the average asset yields going forward?

Yes, just to reiterate, the sale of those $1.4 billion will be at the end of the year, and we have hedged them, so we protect the gain. I will let Ramon Rosado, our Treasurer, give you some color on the question that you pose in terms of the specificity of the securities (inaudible).

We have looked at the portfolio, and obviously we are targeting those securities that are susceptible to prepayment risks. So we more or less have an idea what securities we are looking at.

Right now, as Jose Rafael mentioned, we entered into hedging transactions that will help us counteract any rising rate environment. So this is a transaction that will probably be secured very close to execution date of the purchase.

So we obviously will look at the effectiveness of these hedges down the road and will make any adjustments that are needed to certify that the gains are protected.

Now, Joe, with regards to going forward, and in terms of what our assumptions are, in terms of the yields on our investment portfolio -- remaining investment portfolio, I can say that it's closer to the 2.25% to 2.5% assumption that we are making. So when we go into 2013 and beyond, the remaining portion, that is the assumption that we are making.

All right, I will ask one more and step back. I am just wondering if you've had much chance to look at the proposed new Basel III capital rules and figured out what impact that might have on your capital levels and any change in your strategy going forward.

We certainly have looked at it, and we are in the process of finalizing the evaluation.

I can tell you, it is more work for the banks in terms of all the calculations that we have to make and all these notings in terms of the capital buffer and all the different ratios. But we are obviously well capitalized, well above the requirements, and we will continue to be after the BBVA acquisition with all our profitability and the capital that we have raised.

So, we don't see the -- let's say, that this will affect us that much in terms of not complying with any of the new regs or the new calculations.

Joe, also I think the Basel III would most affect in the residential mortgage portfolio. It is just we are continuously monitoring as part of the capital requirements for the second transaction, because if you put two companies together we would have close to $1.8 billion in residential.

And given that and as well as the phased implementation, I think we have got some breathing room to accumulate the retained earnings and meet the requirements if there is anything.

Yes; this basically starts to apply in 2014, most of the things, so there is no rush in that sense.

All right. Thank you.

(Operator Instructions) Todd Hagerman, Sterne, Agee.

Morning, everybody. Ganesh, I've got a couple questions for you, just in terms of the margin. You mentioned the negative mark on the swaps this quarter. A couple things.

One, could you just give us the impact on the margin this quarter that the swaps had, and with that, how you see the second half of the year as it relates to your outlook for the margin as we go into the BBVA transaction?

Let me ask Ramon to answer the question. He has got the --

Yes. Basically, you need to understand that the swaps are not necessarily hurting the margin. On the contrary, what they are use -- they are basically fixing the cost of our funding at a lower rate than what we had previously. We had fixed repos that matured at a 4.25%, 4.30%; and when they mature we renew those repos short term, and then fixed the rate with a longer-term swap at around 1.90% in some cases, 2% in others.

And that is the way that it impacts positively the results. So your premise is not necessarily (multiple speakers) correct from a margin perspective. It is a positive effect.

Okay. Then just as it relates to the accretable yield from Eurobank, how should we think about -- A, where did that stand in the quarter? I think it was $175 million in the first quarter. Where did that stand in the second quarter?

And how should we think about that run-off relative to the purchase accounting marks with BBVA at the end of the year?

The accretable yield stands around $145 million as opposed to $174 million. And we still think that we are looking for a total period of five years from April 2010. So we are looking at April 2015 as the rundown period. That is our target at this point in time.

Keep in mind the cash flow projections and the timing would be adjusted primarily because of the movement in the nonperforming -- higher amount of nonperforming that is sitting out there. And we are trying to liquidate that at the earliest time possible.

That's helpful. Do you have a sense though, yet, with the purchase accounting, how that may affect the benefit when the deal closes?

Sure. What do you mean, when the deal closes? Which deal you talking about, to be sure?

BBVA? The purchase accounting marks and how that is going to affect that five-year average life and the run-off in the yield.

Well, first of all, the accretable yield that I referred to was Eurobank portfolio, right? So that part of the book is not going to be touched when the BBVA transaction happens. So we don't comingle because it's clearly distinct pools with number loans in it; and they won't be touched at all.

Having said that, when BBVA happens, we would have another SOP 03 purchase accounting on those pools of loans, and that they will just be separately measured and protected.

I appreciate that. I am just wondering if you have a sense for how that mark is going to look relative to -- they've got the lower cost of funding (multiple speakers)

Oh, you mean BBVA?

Yes.

Sorry about that. I didn't understand your question. In the investor presentation during the capital raise, we showed a 7.5% mark as of the confirmatory due diligence that we did earlier before the capital raise. So the 7.5% mark is made up of roughly 80 to 100 basis points in the interest rate mark; and remaining is the credit mark that we took on the aggregate level.

Okay. Then just finally, Ganesh, just in terms of DTA came down a little bit this last quarter. How much has it come down? I'm assuming it came down again this quarter. Can you quantify that for us?

We are still calculating the tax schedules for the 10-Q, so I will be able to update that in maybe a couple of days, if you can give me some time.

Thank you so much.

(Operator Instructions) Derek Hewett, KBW.

Good morning, gentlemen. Quick question regarding the BBVA acquisition. Do you guys have any -- are you guys seeing any sort of material update to your expectations for 2014 of $2.17, I think, per share on a core basis ex- the one-time charges that you guys are expecting? Or is that pretty much still what you guys are thinking about right now?

Derek, remember that when we did the capital raise we used the IBIS median estimates. And the numbers that you are referring to are basically based on the [IVIS] median estimates going forward. So we have not made any guidance, specific guidance regarding the earnings per share of the combined Company going forward, as we need to continue to work with the integration process and the mark-to-market on the loans, etc. So we have not made any changes to that analysis since the capital raise.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Michael Sarcone, Sandler O'Neill.

Hey, guys. Just one follow-up for me. Do you have any color on the timing of the additional preferred and common equity issuances?

Later in the second half of the year; it will probably be closer to the end of the third quarter, maybe beginning of the fourth quarter. It depends on how we approach all this.

We need to get up to speed all the financial information from BBVA Puerto Rico, which is a private company. We need to make them SEC compliant. So we are on that process right now, and it looks like it is going to be later in the third quarter, beginning of the fourth quarter.

Okay, thank you.

At this time there are no further questions. I will now turn the call back over to Jose Rafael Fernandez for closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for listening in today. We will look forward to talking to you again we report our third-quarter results. I wish you a great day. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.