Earnings Call Transcript - CNOB Q3 2022

Siya Vansia, Chief Brand and Innovation Officer

Good morning, and welcome to today's conference call to review ConnectOne's results for the third quarter of 2022 and to update you on recent developments. On today's conference call will be Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Bill Burns, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The results as well as notice of this conference call on a listen-only basis over the internet were distributed this morning in a press release that has been covered by the financial media. At this time, let me remind you that certain statements and assumptions in this conference call contain or are based upon forward-looking information that are being made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are subject to numerous assumptions, uncertainties and known or unknown risks, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risk factors are more fully discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements included in this conference call are only made as of the date of this call and the company is not obligated to publicly update or revise them. In addition, certain terms used in this call are non-GAAP financial measures, reconciliations of which are provided in the company's earnings release and accompanying tables or schedules, which have been filed today on Form 8-K with the SEC and can also be accessed through the company's website at ir.connectonebank.com. Each listener is encouraged to review those reconciliations provided in the earnings release together with all other information. I will now turn the call over to Frank Sorrentino. Frank, please go ahead.

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Siya, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. By now you've seen our release and the extraordinary organic growth we achieved this quarter on both sides of the balance sheet. Our deposits grew by 10.5%, while our loans grew by 8.5% sequentially. And importantly, average noninterest-bearing deposits increased by nearly 5%. So I'd like to reflect on just how ConnectOne continues to accomplish record levels of organic growth and superior operating metrics. At ConnectOne, we've established a long and proven track record of high performance with disciplined and consistent growth through various economic cycles with some of our best times coming at economic inflection points. The strength of our origination franchise is rooted in our relationship-based banking model. And that speaks directly to the team that we've built and our dedication to delivering a best-in-class banking and client experience, a direct founding principle here at ConnectOne Bank. We've always treated those factors as key market differentiators, the culture we've built, the team we have and now the bankers who are actively seeking us out to join a known client-centric culture and organization. And those have resulted in consistent market share gains in our traditional operating area. And on top of that, over the past year, we've expanded into new geographic areas, including the robust Southeast Florida and Eastern Long Island markets. We're also creating opportunities across new verticals. We recently brought on our health care team, enhanced our SBA lending capabilities and continue to build our franchise referral and lending platform in conjunction with BoeFly. Our net staff count has grown in excess of 75 people over the last year, now taking us over 500 employees as we continue to capitalize on M&A dislocation in our market. Several highly seasoned and talented bankers have joined the team, unsolicited in many cases as they were attracted to ConnectOne's culture and reputation. Finally, we're executing on a number of innovation initiatives in order to enhance the client experience while digitizing workflows and expanding opportunity to generate deposits. As a result, a significant majority of this quarter's loan originations also have a base deposit relationship. With that backdrop, we're extremely pleased with ConnectOne's third quarter performance, yet again delivering high-quality earnings and strong performance metrics. PPNR increased by almost 4.5% for the quarter and 12% from a year ago and was in excess of 2% once again. Tangible book value per share increased for the 10th consecutive quarter and is up 30% over that period. And our efficiency ratio improved to 38.4% even as we significantly invest in both technology and people. Notwithstanding this quarter's results, we are experiencing increased competition for deposits. But our client-focused model has proven adept at generating core deposits at a commensurate pace with loan growth. Our company-wide deposit focus, along with the investments we're making in our people and technology, give us confidence in our ability to continue that match pace. Regarding loans, growth for the third quarter was higher than anticipated, but we expect growth rates to level off for the fourth quarter and heading into 2023. This tempered growth outlook reflects higher rates, the impact of the Fed tightening and normalization in our pipeline. In this environment, growth guidance is really challenging, but our best estimate right now is low double digit on an annualized basis. From a business perspective, we have longstanding relationships with highly experienced operators. Simultaneously, as a result of our expansion, we're seeing a healthy diversification in the profile of our originations, including geography, segments and business lines. Additionally, origination metrics remained strong, reflecting conservative underwriting standards. And for the third quarter, weighted average yields were near 5.5%. And as of today, yields are already well over 6%. We're clearly benefiting from our recent investments in our business and growth-focused initiatives we've shared over the last few quarters or years. Ultimately, our success comes down to investing in our people and the digitization of our tech-focused infrastructure, both of which, in our view, enhances ConnectOne's competitive advantage and provide a superior client experience. As I mentioned earlier, we're extending our New York and Long Island presence with a business development office in East Hampton. That office, which just opened this month, builds on our existing presence on Long Island, allowing us to support existing clients while building on opportunities in a new market. The East end of Long Island has a robust small business market that values the relationship-focused banking that ConnectOne provides and is yet another opportunity we're excited about. Let's turn to credit. Once again, the company's credit metrics remain sound. Our NPAs continue to trend lower. Delinquencies remain near 0, and we're prudently maintaining reserve levels which are commensurate with our organic growth and the changing macroeconomic forecast. Bill will provide further color around our CECL-based provisioning. As we look ahead, a number of recent strategic tech investments are moving through to implementation. Earlier this year, we announced a partnership with Nymbus to build a new business vertical on a lean and nimble cloud-based tool. We've now branded this vertical VentureOn and it will provide bespoke banking services for deposit-rich tech-focused businesses. You'll hear more details regarding VentureOn later this year as we expect an early 2023 rollout. We're also well underway with the implementation of MANTL, a tool to enhance our deposit origination infrastructure. We expect the first phase of the initiative to be rolled out by year-end. And then, of course, at BoeFly, we continue to enhance our platform and the user experience while increasing the number of net franchisors and franchisees. This is the foundation that contributes to loan opportunities in both the SBA and now non-SBA lending verticals. ConnectOne entered 2022 with a strong and resilient balance sheet and we're committed to preserving that position going forward. We have a deep capital base and strong earnings that can support growth initiatives, dividends and share repurchases. On a macro basis, there are certainly headwinds facing our industry, but our third quarter and year-to-date results fully support our belief that ConnectOne is operating from a position of strength. At ConnectOne, we've always set ourselves apart by making it easier for our clients to do business with us, while empowering them with the latest technology to meet their evolving needs. Powered by our operating leverage, ConnectOne remains one of the most efficient banks in the industry, leveraging both our technological advantages and our culture to drive our results. As we look ahead in terms of size, it's likely we'll be crossing the $10 billion threshold in 2023 and we're both ready and prepared. And with that, I'll turn it over to Bill.

Bill Burns, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

All right. Thank you, Frank. Good morning, everyone. As Frank mentioned, we have a long track record of organic growth while delivering leading performance metrics. And what we've built here is a highly valuable franchise, one that I believe is a compelling investment opportunity, especially at these market levels. We're currently trading at less than 1.2 times tangible book, and we believe and we estimate that is 20% behind what the metrics tell us. And I want to start there and add some more detail before covering the rest of the quarter. Overall, on operating earnings, PPNR easily reached a new record, reflecting that strong organic growth and a continued stable and strong net interest margin. And this quarter, again, we are right at about 370. I have to tell you, although not completely unexpected, I was quite pleased with how the results turned out for the quarter, in particular, that large amount of growth combined with a stable margin. Spreads on new loan originations have tightened. And my initial outlook was the more we grew the balance sheet, the more compression we would have, but it turns out we had close to no compression on a core basis. I know all of you out there live and die by 5 basis points, but there is easily plus or minus 5 basis points of natural volatility in NIMs for all banks. And keep in mind, our margin never compressed over the past 2 years. We have maintained margins at a very profitable level for an extended period of time. I'll attribute our NIM performance and stability to pricing discipline, to stability and pricing discipline from our lending team, combined with relationship banking, in other words, the building of deposits along with the loan growth. The other metric I'm watching is our efficiency ratio. We have reported and we've guided our expense growth has been accelerating, especially as we add significant staff, reward our people with incentive compensation and continue to make technology investments. But even with that double-digit growth in OpEx, our efficiency ratio has remained very low, decreasing again this quarter to 38.4. Let me turn to some details on the quarter, and I'll conclude with some comments on our outlook and give you guys some guidance. So once again, a truly remarkable quarter, highlighting the strength of the organic origination franchise we've built here over the past decade. Deposits led the way this quarter, growing by a record $700 million or more than 10% sequentially. We were very effective at repricing deposits in terms of both magnitude and timing. That served to not only retain deposits, but also attract new clients. And we expect that a large majority of those new deposits will benefit us going forward. We believe most will stick and some will evolve into larger relationships. And in any case, the deposit growth and a good portion of it was CDs, added fixed duration to our liabilities, helping to protect the margin over the next year. Loans, they grew by 8.5% sequentially. The growth reflects not only strong market conditions for bank lending in general, but also our culture, our new hires and our geographic expansion. As you know, rates have risen dramatically, but duration max spreads have been tight by historical standards, probably due more than anything else to the speed of rate increases, essentially the beta on loans. We have had success, probably a little better than most on driving our origination rates higher. There's still room to go, even though, as Frank mentioned, our rates have already crossed well above 6% in the fourth quarter. So we do expect continued upward movement on loan pricing and wider spreads as we finish out the year and head into 2023. We all know the Fed is set to continue to raise short rates, but hopefully, the longer end will be less volatile. We, of course, will continue to monitor that. With that in mind, we will continue to grow as we always have. That is with a focus on relationship banking, which includes deposits. Virtually all loans originated this quarter had at least some deposit relationship. The overall segment composition of loan growth was consistent for ConnectOne, although construction remained about flat and that's typical for construction when rates are rising. And just to give you a little more color, 75% of the loan growth was from our traditional markets and existing clients, while about 25% of it came from new hires, new markets such as Florida and new verticals, such as franchise or health care lending. For the quarter, about 2/3 of the growth was CRE, while 1/3 was commercial, including owner-occupied. We've maintained strict underwriting standards with regard to LTVs, cap rates and distressed debt service coverage ratios. Now turning to the margin and net interest income. And there's always moving parts here. So let me just reset the landscape a little bit. As a reminder, the second quarter included $3.5 million of favorable but nonrecurring items in our NIM. So our core margin declined by just a few basis points. But more importantly, reported net interest income increased by 3.5% sequentially. And if you adjust out those special items on a core basis, it increased by 8.5% sequentially. Our net interest margin remains very strong relative to both the industry and to our own historical standards and is driving solid performance metrics, including PPNR, return on equity and assets and the efficiency ratio. Our static core balance sheet has been and is well immunized. In other words, we've been successful when we aimed for interest rate risk neutrality. Our business development team, combined with our treasury team have done a great job maintaining a strong net interest margin throughout the full cycle of the pandemic. In our view, the beta on our core deposits has remained quite low, below 20% per our calculations. Any beta above that typically comes from new growth, which we monitor religiously and have been effective at minimizing. Lower beta performance in many other banks also reflects deposit runoff at those banks. So the comparison to us is a little bit apples to oranges. Turning to noninterest income. At about $3.5 million for the quarter, it was lower than typical. BoeFly is contributing about $400,000 per quarter now on fee income. That continues to grow. Gains on sale of loans declined as this quarter it represented only by SBA. There were no residential or CRE sales this quarter. As I mentioned before, we sell CRE strictly on an opportunistic basis, and we have some in the pipeline today, so you'll see some gains in quarter 4. In terms of expenses, as I've mentioned before, we continue to hire talented staff and that along with wage inflation has caused a sequential increase at about 5% per quarter. I expect that to moderate a bit in quarter 4. And for those out there who know us well, our best-in-cost efficiency is based on our branch-light model, technology and revenue growth. And in terms of credit quality and CECL provisioning, first, all signs remain positive. Charge-offs were next to nothing. Same is true for delinquencies. We have less than $1 million in 30-plus day delinquency at quarter end. That's 0.01% of loans. Nonperformance continues to decline and taxi medallion reserves are trending towards a recovery. There were virtually no additional reserves for any specific credits. Provisioning was elevated in the quarter, increasing our reserves by about $10 million, given the growth and that basically maintained our reserve-to-loan percentage of 1.16%. Actually, it was up a couple of basis points. About $6 million of the $10 million of the reserve supported growth in the portfolio. The other $4 million came from macroeconomic factors, namely a reduction in the forecasted GDP growth. And the biggest impact for us there was in the C&I segment. In any case, we think it makes sense to be building reserves at this time, notwithstanding the strong credit metrics for ConnectOne and for the industry in general. And finally, I do want to mention our tangible book value creation, which is up 30% over the last 10 quarters and that reflects both our strong earnings and management of the securities book. All our securities are available for sale, which is the way it should be. The portfolio is a source of liquidity. We refrained from purchasing securities during the pandemic when rates were low and we only restarted purchases recently at today's much higher treasury levels. We also have in place hedges protecting about half the portfolio. And with that, we offset about $50 million in pretax securities devaluation. All in all, the security devaluation represents less than 4% in tangible capital, and our tangible book value per share is now up 10 consecutive quarters to about $21 per share. Looking forward, loan growth is expected to slow to an approximately 10% annualized rate in the fourth quarter. That's based on our actual pipeline, could fluctuate by the level of prepayments. And we are attributing the decline in growth to a slowdown in demand resulting from higher rates. Loan growth in 2023 will naturally depend on economic conditions. On the net interest margin side, there are, of course, pluses and minuses. Loan yields continue to increase, both in absolute terms and spread terms. I don't think that 20% of our portfolio is pure variable, 40% of it is adjustable and our average rate on originations in the fourth quarter so far is approximately 6.25%. The difficult part of the equation is the cost of funding with continued quantitative tightening. And the recent data suggests that the Fed is working to actually reduce the money supply. There will be even more competition for deposits. So all in all, we could see some moderate core compression. I think that's true for ConnectOne, it's also true for the entire industry. But we still expect increased net interest income in quarter 4. In terms of noninterest income, quarter 3, as I mentioned before, represented a low point for us. I expect continued increases from BoeFly as well as CRE gains on sale from time to time, and SBA income is building will likely contribute more in the future. On OpEx, I did mention earlier that we see the expense growth moderating a bit. We are looking at slower expense growth in quarter 4, but that could pick up in quarter 1 as company-wide compensation increase is going to take effect. In terms of provisioning for loan losses, it's a little early to project. But with slower growth, I would expect reserve increases to slow down with the caveat that economic forecast could always take a turn for the worse. And with that, I'm going to turn it back over to Frank.

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Bill. As you know, our team joined the ConnectOne de novo just over 15 years ago. And today, we now stand at the precipice of $10 billion in assets, driven primarily through organic means, something we are very proud of here. Moving ahead, our foundation is stronger than ever and we're prepared and geared to continue to gain market share even with a number of uncertainties hanging over the industry. We have a dynamic team, one that's uniquely accustomed to high growth on both sides of the balance sheet. We have a scalable operating model that continuously evolves by leveraging technology, and we view 2023 as a year that will be ripe with opportunities for continued execution of our prudent growth model, particularly given the M&A disruption and our proven success at capitalizing in these moments. We're very excited for the future ahead. In our view, ConnectOne continues to generate meaningful shareholder value and remains a very compelling investment opportunity. So thanks again. And at this time, we're happy to take your questions.

Operator, Operator

Our first question comes from Michael Perito with KBW.

Michael Perito, Analyst

I wanted to start on the margin. I appreciate the color. I guess, just kind of conceptually though and realizing this is a kind of a challenging question, but if we just kind of look at the consensus rate forecast that's out there right now and then we look back to kind of the last time rates are rising and where the NIM kind of troughed out, I guess, any thoughts around where this NIM could normalize, assuming that that consensus rate forecast has some aspect of credibility here? I can realize it's a big assumption. But just trying to get a better grasp of kind of structurally where you guys think the NIM could trend over a multi-quarter period.

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Mike, that's a great question. There's quite a bit of uncertainty in the market. We've been successful in keeping our margins stable historically. Our strategy is centered on protecting the portfolio, and we're particularly attentive to loan spreads. There is a possibility of some margin compression. I previously mentioned the potential to drop to around 350. However, I believe this will lead to continued strong performance. It's important to note that our margins have not compressed, unlike some other banks that are reallocating excess cash into new securities and loans at higher rates, often lower than the rates at which we're currently originating new assets. I'm confident we're headed in the right direction and will keep improving our return on equity, return on assets, and efficiency ratio.

Michael Perito, Analyst

Great. Helpful color. And then on the growth side, I was wondering if you guys can give a little bit more detail. I appreciate the comment in the release about how new commercial customers are bringing in deposits with them. I mean, any more kind of context you could provide in terms of like what types of deposits, how much, any thoughts around that would be helpful so we try to get an idea of the magnitude because I imagine you guys expect that to continue moving forward as loans grow?

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Well, like as we mentioned before, just about every loan that we brought in had a depository relationship. As you would expect, in the one-third of the pipeline that we brought onboard this quarter, that was C&I, that meant all their deposits. It meant noninterest-bearing, interest-bearing, time deposits. In the CRE bucket, it's a little bit harder to bring on those noninterest-bearing deposits. We had some success there, a little bit easier to bring on some of the interest-bearing deposits. So it's really a mix across the board. And as you also know, typically, the deposit growth from new clients lags the closing of a loan, especially in the CRE world where you get the loan done and then everybody lags on the deposit side. So there's still a lot of work to be done with that large volume of increase in loan origination. But I think the most important point that we try to make here is that these are all relationship-based businesses. We weren't out buying loans, we weren't out doing things that just to put numbers up on the board. We were, in fact, originating high-quality relationships that will bring in deposits. It's never a perfect match. But in this case, we were pretty happy with the overall movement both in the deposit growth and the loan growth.

Bill Burns, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

I'll just add that the value of deposits comes from those relationships. As Frank mentioned, we have a mix of noninterest-bearing and interest-bearing deposits at rates that contribute to earnings and spreads. We have been proactive; our CD balances have increased. We aim to be both reactive and proactive. We raised CDs below 3%, which we consider beneficial as it locks those rates in. Currently, we're issuing CDs at 3.25%. When you consider all these factors together, combined with the loan origination rates, we're now well over 6%, and loans are being issued at 4.93%, while we're putting back on at 6.25%. All these elements result in a fairly stable margin.

Michael Perito, Analyst

And lastly, Frank, I understand that the loan growth outlook for the upcoming months is difficult, but regarding the low double-digit figure you mentioned, I’m curious about what factors could potentially influence that number to go higher or lower. Are you considering contributions from some new markets and lending offices? It would be great if you could provide more detail on that.

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

I believe the third quarter truly symbolizes a convergence of various factors. Over the past year, we have undertaken numerous initiatives to improve our current markets, capitalize on M&A disruptions in the industry, and attract new talent to strengthen existing markets and explore new ones. When considering our products, personnel, services, and overall business approach at ConnectOne, it all culminated in an exceptional quarter. We have made significant hires, totaling 75 in the past year, and these new team members have contributed to our business growth early on. However, I anticipate that this momentum will eventually stabilize, leading to a more typical growth rate. Even a normalized growth rate of around 10% for ConnectOne translates to over $1 billion in annual growth, which is substantial. Overall, this quarter's success was the result of many collaborative initiatives. While I hope for more quarters like this, I am not certain that it is entirely realistic.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from Frank Schiraldi with Piper Sandler.

Frank Schiraldi, Analyst

You mentioned that 25% of the growth in the quarter was attributed to new markets or new verticals. Could you clarify how much of that was specifically from Florida? Also, could you provide the total balances for loans and deposits in that area?

Bill Burns, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Florida market has about $180 million, approaching $200 million in total balances today.

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Growth has been pretty good in those areas.

Frank Schiraldi, Analyst

You mentioned that you expect to exceed the $10 billion threshold in 2023. I understand that this may be less significant for your company compared to others in relation to associated expenses. A common strategy to address this situation is through acquisitions. I'm curious if you believe that option is less likely in the current environment or what your overall thoughts are on mergers and acquisitions.

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

We've always been open to opportunities in mergers and acquisitions. If the right situation arises that benefits us financially, we will pursue it. However, as I consider how we will surpass the $10 billion mark, it really doesn’t concern us much. We are committed to moving forward, and whenever we reach that milestone, we will. We are well-prepared, and all the additional costs related to regulatory compliance and system management have already been accounted for. You don’t reach this stage without thorough planning. As a primarily commercial bank, we face minimal Durbin charges, which are very small, along with a few other minor costs like FDIC insurance. Overall, we do not anticipate anything more than a minor issue as we progress. If we do engage in a merger or acquisition this year, it might simplify things slightly, but overall the impact would be minimal. Regardless, we expect to reach that milestone unless something significant occurs.

Frank Schiraldi, Analyst

And lastly, could you provide more details about the fee initiatives you mentioned? I know you've managed to keep the efficiency ratio below 40% despite making investments. I'm curious if that might increase as we look towards 2023, especially if you ramp up investments in anticipation of potential revenues.

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

We have clearly communicated our intention to continue growing and seizing market opportunities as they arise. It's important to note that this process is not always straightforward, and there are times when we may encounter more opportunities than we feel prepared for, or we could face some temporary setbacks. As a result, our progress may not be linear. We want everyone to know that we might see our efficiency ratio rise above 40% if exceptional opportunities arise in the market. I am proud that so far we have capitalized on all the sensible opportunities and maintained revenue growth while keeping our efficiency ratio below 40%, which is our target. It's easy to see that if we stopped investing in our future, our efficiency ratio could drop significantly, but that isn't our strategy. We must position the company for the future through both technology and people-focused acquisitions over time. Therefore, while our efficiency ratio may fluctuate somewhat, the overall outlook remains positive.

Bill Burns, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

The trend is lower.

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, the trend is lower. The balance sheet gets bigger and the revenue opportunities get higher and the more we're putting focus you mentioned on noninterest income type projects. Those things keep picking up steam. I think BoeFly as we sit here today is probably close to double where we started with it three years ago. The SBA division started at zero and it's now a fairly decent contributor to noninterest income and that continues to grow. And there are a lot of other smaller opportunities that we're seeding at this time and investing in that may be not contributing necessarily to the bottom line but will over time. So we're pretty confident that as time goes on that diversification of that income stream and the growth of revenue will keep that efficiency ratio below that 40% range.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from Matthew Breese with Stephens Inc.

Matthew Breese, Analyst

I have a few questions, so if I talk too long, please let me know. Bill, when you mentioned that the net interest margin could drop as low as 350, I want to ensure I understood you correctly. Were you talking about a full cycle low for net interest margin or a worst-case scenario? Or does this indicate what we should anticipate in the fourth quarter?

Bill Burns, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Not the fourth quarter. I still see a stable margin maybe compressing a little bit. But I'm just thinking about the whole market out there and that the money supply is getting tighter and tighter and everyone is going to be affected by it. And so I think you're going to see a trend of lower margins at some point. So I'm just trying to give you guys an idea of how low I think it could go and that's based on the spreads on our new business and the ability to bring in deposits. And so it can't get below that because that's our way of doing business. That's how we price our business going forward. But next quarter, no. That's more out a few quarters.

Matthew Breese, Analyst

Okay. And then in terms of deposit funding, maybe just give us some idea of the near-term sources. And was the CD effort we saw this quarter more of a, in your mind, kind of a one-time effort, get ahead of price increases for the rest of the year?

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

We wanted to get ahead of price increases and believe this approach will be beneficial for us. Those deposits have a duration of about 1.5 years, allowing us to secure some cheaper funding. As the Fed raises rates, we may have more opportunities for this. A key part of our strategy is attracting relationship deposits, as they significantly contribute to our funding spreads. When discussing loan spreads, we are disciplined in assessing the marginal costs related to funded duration, and any deposits from these relationships enhance our spreads.

Matthew Breese, Analyst

And maybe along those lines, you talked about new loan yields coming in on that kind of over 6% range. Not that long ago, rates were kind of 3% to 4% in your market. As you refi old customers from those low rates into something higher, 6% yield, what have you, particularly in commercial real estate and multifamily, how are debt service coverage ratios reacting to the higher rates? And then when you do stress the new paper, what are you stressing for in terms of cap rates or rates on top of the 6%? And how are customers reacting to that?

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

So, Matt, cap rates are significantly higher than they were a year ago. Our stress models are likely consistent, maintaining the same level of basis points when we apply them. However, many people may not realize that most multifamily projects we finance have experienced rent increases exceeding 25%. Therefore, while an operator might not be able to extract much cash when refinancing this year or next, the debt service coverage ratio will align closely with where we were about three years ago. We have a solid track record for our projects. It's important to note that many of the projects we financed were either new constructions, resulting in a lower loan-to-value ratio, or purchase money mortgages, also typically with lower LTVs. The majority of our multifamily portfolio consists of purchase money mortgages, providing us with substantial capital and equity cushions in those properties. Despite the rapid rental increases over the past 12 to 18 months, the outlook remains relatively positive. However, conditions aren't as favorable as they were a year ago when lower rates allowed for additional cash withdrawals. This has contributed to a significant slowdown in the multifamily market.

Matthew Breese, Analyst

And then 2 other items. Frank, you had mentioned NIMs and that could get up and running early '23. Could you just provide us an update on where that partnership is heading? I think the way you last described it was it was a new core being brought on for a specific purpose to stand up a particular vertical. But I don't really have the details as to what the vertical is, what the purpose is.

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

So as I mentioned a little earlier this morning, we branded that vertical. It's going to be called VentureOn, and it will be focused on tech-type companies, generally that are venture-backed that typically carry large deposit balances. And so we'll be going after that segment or that industry. And we are building together, in partnership with Nymbus, a very bespoke deposit gathering model that takes into account what those businesses need in order to flourish and in order for them to do their business and not have to worry too much about their banking needs.

Matthew Breese, Analyst

Could you better describe the types of deposits, whether they will be noninterest-bearing or interest-bearing? And then generally, when you provide deposit services for the venture industry, there's lending along with it, will you be providing that?

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

So again, it will be a full banking relationship that we're envisioning and that would include all the various types of deposits. And if there are lending needs, of course, that would be something that we would consider. But we believe that this vertical, the way in which we're attacking it is going to be much more deposit-rich and less reliant on lending. Most of the things we do here at ConnectOne lead with our lending. This is really one of the first places we're specifically designing products to lead with the deposit-gathering capabilities.

Matthew Breese, Analyst

And then the last one, Frank, you'd also mentioned a couple of hires in the health care segment. I haven't heard you talk about this segment in a little while. Maybe provide some updates, types of loans, geographies, size of that portfolio?

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, we've been involved in the health care sector for quite some time, covering various areas such as senior living, assisted living, skilled nursing, and healthcare providers like doctors and dentists. Over the last few years, we’ve had team members focused on this space. Recently, due to a merger in our market, we were able to acquire an entire team that specializes in health care and has a substantial book of business. They are now onboard and assisting us in developing this sector comprehensively. We primarily focus on operators located within our geography, although we do acknowledge that these operators may have assets outside our primary market area, and we are comfortable with that arrangement.

Bill Burns, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

And Matt, if you wanted to know, right now we have about $200 million in outstandings in that health care group and 30% or 40% of it is deposits associated with it.

Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

I was going to say thank you. I really appreciate everyone's time today, and we certainly look forward to speaking with you again at our year-end conference call, which will be held in early 2023. So thank you.

Operator, Operator

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.