First Interstate Bancsystem Inc Q4 FY2023 Earnings Call

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the First Interstate BancSystem, Inc. Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. This call is being recorded on Wednesday, January 31. I would now like to turn the conference over to Andrea Walton. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter earnings conference call. As we begin, please note that the information provided during this call will contain forward-looking statements. Actual results or outcomes may differ materially from those expressed by those statements. I'd like to direct all listeners to read the cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements contained in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC and in our earnings release as well as the risk factors identified in the annual report and our more recent periodic reports filed with the SEC. Relevant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements are included in the earnings release and in our SEC filings. The company does not undertake to update any of the forward-looking statements made today. A copy of our earnings release, which contains non-GAAP financial measures, is available on our website at fibk.com. Information regarding our use of the non-GAAP financial measures may be found in the body of the earnings release, and a reconciliation to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included at the end of the earnings release for your reference. Joining us from management this morning are Kevin Riley, our Chief Executive Officer; and Marcy Mutch, our Chief Financial Officer, along with other members of our management team. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Kevin Riley. Kevin?

Thanks, Andrea. Good morning, and thanks again to all of you for joining us on our call today. Again, this quarter, along with our earnings release, we have published an updated investor presentation that has some additional disclosures which we believe will be helpful. The presentation can be accessed on our Investor Relations website. If you have not downloaded a copy yet, I would encourage you to do so. I'm going to start today by providing an overview of the major highlights of the quarter. And then I'll turn the call over to Marcy to provide more details on our financials. Our fourth quarter performance reflected our ability to generate strong financial results in this challenging economic environment. In the fourth quarter, we generated $61.5 million in net income or $0.59 per share. There were some moving parts on both the balance sheet and the income statement that Marcy will go over in her remarks. For the quarter, we remain disciplined in our new loan underwriting and pricing criteria. The new production rate, excluding draws on construction lines approximated about 7.8% during the quarter. This reflects our efforts to generate strong risk-adjusted returns on new production. Additionally, as with the prior quarter, we continue to see construction projects being completed and moving into the commercial real estate portfolio, while undrawn construction lines also declined. We also saw the expected seasonal declines in deposits in December and utilized our strong liquidity profile to selectively allow some high-cost time deposits to lead the balance sheet while remaining focused on retaining our relationships. And lastly, you probably saw the 8-K we filed in December, where we were able to repurchase 1 million shares during the quarter. Even with this, capital ratios continue to increase modestly providing us with the ability to pay a healthy dividend while maintaining flexibility going forward. The challenging banking and rate environment is resulting in near-term earnings pressure but we are confident these pressures will lessen in the back half of 2024, setting us up for a strong 2025. Over the course of last year, we invested in areas to drive future efficiencies and profitability. As we noted previously, we standardized and streamlined our mortgage process. We also realigned operational support and line of business functions. These improvements have allowed us to provide an enhanced suite of products and services to our clients, such as our consumer credit card, which we discussed last quarter. At the same time, we delivered on our promise to evaluate the existing cost structure of the company, resulting in a reduction of workforce in December. In short, we continue to make strategic decisions to strengthen the long-term value and profitability of our franchise. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Marcy, so she can provide some additional details around our fourth quarter results.

Thanks, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. As I walk through our financial results, unless otherwise noted, all of the prior period comparisons will be to the third quarter of 2023, and I'll begin with our income statement. Our net interest income decreased $5.9 million as the increase in our average yield on earning assets was outpaced by the increase in our total funding costs. Our reported net FTE interest margin was 3.01%, a decrease of 6 basis points from the prior quarter as we continue to see less pressure on our net interest margin than we did in the first half of 2023. Our adjusted net interest margin, excluding purchase accounting accretion, also decreased by 6 basis points from the prior quarter to 2.94% due to higher overall funding costs, which offset our loan yield expansion and a 1 basis point reduction from reinvesting cash flows back into the investment portfolio, which I'll discuss in a minute. Looking ahead, we anticipate deposit costs moderating in the first half of the year as the majority of our time deposits have already repriced near market rates and the customer mix shift into higher cost deposits has slowed. That, along with the repricing of our adjustable rate and maturing assets, supports our confidence that both the margin and net interest income will begin to increase in the second half of 2024. Our total noninterest income increased $2.5 million quarter-over-quarter. Our fee business performed generally in line with our expectations, with the increase driven by a net gain on the sale of fixed assets. Moving to total noninterest expense. We had an increase of $4.9 million from the prior quarter, but there's a lot of noise in that number. Salaries and employee benefits expense was lower as a result of lower incentive accruals of $11.5 million, which was partially offset by higher severance costs of $3.6 million as a result of the reduction in workforce Kevin mentioned earlier. Other expenses were higher and included the special FDIC assessment of $10.5 million and an increase in our credit card rewards accrual of $2.1 million as we saw higher engagement from our clients in our new rewards program. Adjusting for the items noted, our quarterly noninterest expense would approximate $161 million. Moving to the balance sheet. Loans held for investment increased modestly by $66 million from the end of the prior quarter. As Kevin indicated, much of the growth in commercial real estate loans was driven by the movement of completed construction projects into permanent financing. Our outstanding commitments on commercial construction lines totaled just under $700 million at the end of the fourth quarter at a weighted average rate of approximately 5.7%. This represents about a $200 million decline from the previous quarter. We expect the impact on our margin from this portfolio to lessen in the back half of 2024, as those lines continue to fund up and we're seeing limited new commitments. We had a $162 million increase in the securities portfolio, which was primarily due to an increase in fair market value. We chose to reinvest approximately $135 million of cash flows back into securities, locking in a weighted average yield of 5.5% during the quarter. Going forward, we may selectively reinvest cash flows depending on the returns available in the market at the given time. I would note that the decision to reinvest some of the cash flows, along with the increased fair market values in the fourth quarter, will contribute to a roughly 4 basis point reduction in our net interest margin in the near term. On the liability side, total deposits decreased by $356 million as we saw seasonal deposit outflows during the latter half of the fourth quarter. As Kevin pointed out, we also let some higher cost retail CDs runoff given the high level of liquidity we have on our balance sheet. Moving to asset quality. This is a little noisy as well. While we reported an increase in criticized and nonperforming loans, we are seeing positive underlying and overall credit trends. We moved $35 million of held-for-sale loans back into the held for investment portfolio as the opportunity arose to restructure these loans for a more favorable outcome. This transfer accounted for the increase in nonperforming loans. Excluding this transfer, nonperforming loans declined $2 million. The transfer also accounted for most of the increase in criticized loans. Finally, total watch loans decreased by more than $90 million in the quarter, which was the second consecutive quarter of improvement. Through our normal course workout process, we will enter agreements with these borrowers to improve the quality of the underlying credits and we anticipate the associated credits will either be upgraded or exit the bank in the second half of 2024. In summary, we believe total credit quality performed well this quarter, showing underlying improvement, and we remain confident in our near- and long-term credit outlook. We recorded a provision for credit losses of $5.4 million, which increased our allowance for credit losses by 1 basis point to 1.25% of total loans held for investment. Net charge-offs in the quarter remained low at $4.8 million or 10 basis points of average loans. And finally, the leverage ratio was flat quarter-over-quarter with all other regulatory capital ratios modestly increasing as we continued to manage our risk-weighted asset exposure. Tangible book value increased due to a positive shift in AOCI and the earnings generated during the quarter. Going forward, our strong capital position continues to give us the flexibility to take advantage of growth opportunities and allows us to remain dedicated to serving the needs of our customers and attracting new households to the bank. And lastly, we declared a dividend of $0.47 per common share, which equates to a 7.2% annualized yield on the average closing price of our stock in the period. And with that, I'll turn the call back over to Kevin.

Thanks, Marcy. Now I'll wrap up with a few comments on our outlook and priorities for the coming year. We are entering 2024 with a high level of capital liquidity as well as a conservatively underwritten loan portfolio. This positions us well to perform this year even if economic conditions remain challenging. In 2023, one of our goals was to manage our expense levels, which we did well. This will continue to be a focus in 2024. As mentioned, in December, we completed a reduction in workforce and some organizational restructuring that will enhance our efficiencies. The cost savings from these actions as well as leverage from our automation and process improvements will help offset our investment in technology and risk management. These efforts are reflected in our expense guidance. In the near term, we are still seeing some reluctance from potential borrowers, but expect this to change as economic conditions and the weather improve. Given that outlook, we are expecting total loan balance to be flat or up low single digits in 2024. However, given the strength of our balance sheet, if market demands increase, we'll be able to respond quickly to additional growth opportunities. As always, customer relationships are top of mind. Considering this, we continue to make improvements in the delivery of our products and services. We recently restructured our Treasury Solutions business, bringing in new leadership, aligning our business development efforts and expanding our offerings. We are investing in a new consumer and small business loan origination system, which will allow us to streamline our client experience and speed up our origination process. We are enhancing our business credit card offerings as we did with the consumer card in 2023. This will allow us to offer a more attractive, comprehensive suite of products to our business clients. We are also continuing our journey to automate manual processes to make us more efficient. While the environment is tough right now, we are taking advantage of this time to capitalize on these opportunities so that we can deliver more effectively when the environment improves. In closing, we believe that revenue growth will return in the second half of 2024. Coupled with our ongoing expense discipline, this sets us up well for a strong back half of the year with improving operating leverage and notably improved profitability run rate as we look into 2025. We believe our diverse footprint, the talent of our people and our disciplined culture positions us well to win. We remain focused on the long-term value of our franchise and are optimistic and confident in the future earnings power. So with that, we'll open the call up for questions.

The first question comes from Andrew Terrell at Stephens.

Maybe first question on the margin. I mean the loan yield expansion we saw this quarter was good and maybe a few parts to my question here. One, do you spot loan yields at 12/31? And then can you remind us if there any lingering headwinds from the construction fund-ups? And then just kind of bigger picture and maybe holding rate moves aside, just would you expect similar upward trajectory in the loan yields throughout 2024 as the 7 basis points you saw in the fourth quarter?

Yes. So the spot loan yields were about 7.8%. Again, the construction fundings are happening at about $200 million a quarter. The weighted average yield on those is 5.7%. So there will continue to be some pressure from that portfolio in the first half of the year which should taper off as we get to the back half of the year. What's the second part of that question? And in terms of loan yields going forward, we think there'll be a few basis points higher than the Q4 average.

Yes. And then I guess, just like going throughout 2024 on a quarterly basis, would you expect a similar kind of 7-basis-point-or-so pickup in loan yields per quarter?

Yes, it should be kind of mid-single digits right in there somewhere.

Okay, then Marcy on the securities portfolio cash flow in the first quarter. I mean, obviously, a bigger amount of cash flow coming off the bond book in 1Q. Is the plan to use that to pay down borrowings? Or is there a preference to kind of build liquidity or reinvest back into the bond book right now?

I think we're going to see what the market provides during that time, and we'll make decisions based on that. If the market offers favorable rates for reinvesting, we might choose that option. However, if the market has changed significantly, we'll likely focus on reducing borrowings. Additionally, we need to consider the seasonal behavior of deposits in the first quarter. There are several factors at play, and while I understand it may be difficult for you to make projections, we believe that it won't significantly impact the numbers in either direction.

I’m trying to get a clearer picture of the net interest income guidance and how the three rate cuts might impact it. I understand that the organization is somewhat sensitive to liabilities at this moment. If we were to consider a scenario where we fully assume the forward curve or, conversely, assume no rate cuts, how significant of a factor would the commercial and industrial guidance be? How might the guidance change based on these different scenarios?

If there are more than three rate cuts, it will benefit us. Over 50% of our CD book is maturing in the first half of the year, and 90% will mature by the end of the year. Additionally, 17% of our deposits are in the indexed money market product, which will reprice. We will likely see an improvement in some of our borrowing costs. However, there may be a delay on the deposit side, as those deposits could adjust a bit slower than the rate cuts implemented by the Fed.

We don’t anticipate any changes. In a stable rate environment, we expect net interest income to grow in the latter half of the year even without any rate cuts. As rate cuts occur, we anticipate a greater positive impact on net interest income. However, we have calculated the scenario with no rate increases, and net interest income should still grow in the second half of 2024.

Okay. That's helpful. I appreciate it. And then just if I can sneak one last one. Marcy, it sounds like within your expense guidance, we should be using kind of $161 million or so as the run rate for operating expenses that I presume kind of grow as we work throughout 2024. Is that fair?

That's fair.

That's fair.

The next question comes from Chris McGratty at KBW.

This is Andrew Liesch on for Chris McGratty. On that mid-single-digit NII decline guidance for 2024, what are you assuming for your noninterest-bearing deposit mix and your beta expectations?

NII deposit expectations and?

Yes, your NII deposit expectations and your beta expectations that go into the NII guidance?

So in the fourth quarter, our beta was 33% and then with the spot beta at the end of the year at 34%. We continue to believe that we'll see some migration out of noninterest-bearing into higher cost deposits as we go through the rest of the year.

But that's slowing.

Yes, it is slowing, but we assume that's going to move a couple of basis points higher into the second quarter.

The next question comes from Brody Preston at UBS.

Marcy, within the net interest income guidance, did you give the down beta that you're assuming with the cuts that you have in the back half of '23?

We didn't provide the down beta for the second half of the year, as we expect some lag under our assumptions. We believe that if rates decrease, there might be potential for better performance than what we have projected in our guidance. We anticipate a modest increase from the current 34% in December, and if rates do decline, we could benefit from that.

Okay. The NII guide itself, is that GAAP or is that FTE? I just wanted to clarify.

That is GAAP. Well, it's ex-purchase accounting. Yes.

Okay, regarding the expense guidance, I just want to clarify.

The guide, Brody, just to be clear, is GAAP.

Which includes –

Yes, which includes purchase accounting.

On the expense, I just wanted to clarify, it says excluding the $10 million – the $10.5 million FDIC, you're expecting a low single-digit increase, but that includes – I'm assuming that means that you're including the severance charges and stuff that you had last year. So if I kind of just took the $10.5 million out, it kind of implies that you're looking more towards like $658, $659 in expenses for next year, kind of like the midpoint of 1% to 3% up? Is that – am I thinking about that correctly?

That’s a fair way to think about it, yes.

You’re right on it.

The next question comes from Jeff Rulis from D.A. Davidson.

On that credit side, I wanted to discuss the agricultural loan group. First, can we assume that these are primarily legacy Great Western credits? Is that correct?

Are you talking about the ones that moved into nonperforming?

Correct.

Yes, they were legacy Great Western credits. However, we believe this situation is temporary as we are restructuring those loans. We need approximately six months of consistent payment performance on these accounts before we can categorize them as performing instead of nonperforming. Therefore, we expect those loans to transition out of nonperforming status in the third quarter of this year.

Yes, I heard it in the prepared remarks. I appreciate it. I wanted to follow up as it seems that moving that to held for investment allows you to sort of move those through. Is that the message behind the move, more or less?

Yes. And it's also the messaging is that we kind of were able to restructure these into performing loans. So I think that's more of the message that they're kind of getting cleaned up.

What type of agriculture does that represent, and what geographical area did it come from?

It's dairy and it's Arizona or California, down in that area.

All right. And on your guide of net charge-offs of 15 to 20 basis points, is that broad-based? Or is that including likely some of those ag loans to contribute to the bulk of that?

We are not currently anticipating any charge-offs on those loans, but that is a general observation.

Okay. So no particular segment. Just you think that's where you are in the cycle of 15 to 20 basis points for '24?

Yes, I guess the thing is we haven't hit that, but we're forecasting that.

Got it. Okay. Regarding the loan growth expectations being flat or low single digits, I wanted to address the discussion on the construction commitments. What segments of growth do you anticipate in 2024 compared to areas that might be stagnant or declining within that overall growth guidance?

I believe our franchise is involved in various industries and sectors. At this point, it's difficult to specify, but we expect growth to be driven across all these different sectors.

I think we'll continue to focus on our small business initiatives. We'll continue to focus on C&I growth. All of those things, of course, but to Kevin's point, it's going to be pretty broad-based and spread across the 14-state footprint.

Okay. So the commercial real estate growth largely from construction completion, that's a bit timing of Q4, but the balance of '24 again, kind of pointing to a pretty mixed contribution, albeit modest for the full year?

That's correct.

The next question comes from Adam Butler from Piper Sandler.

This is Adam on behalf of Matthew Clark. I would like to ask for some insights regarding the staffing reductions that were made in December. Was this primarily related to efficiency improvements in the back office or due to lower-performing revenue producers?

It's kind of broad with regards to that. I would say that we looked at the levels of staff that we needed in various areas based on the workload that people were doing, and we made reductions in order to bring efficiencies to the levels they should be at. I would say that, with that reduction, we also plan on adding, as we said in our remarks, putting more expense into, I would say, risk management as well as IT, so that bounce up. But we just really went through the company and looked at where we might have some excesses and took those out.

Okay. I appreciate the color there. And then second, I appreciate the guidance on the NIM and NII down in the first quarter relative to the fourth quarter. Do you guys happen to have either the spot rate on interest-bearing deposits or the NIM in the month of December or at the end of December?

I'm sure we have that. Go ahead, Marcy.

Our net interest margin in December was 2.86%, which was lower than the average for the fourth quarter. We experienced pressure in this area as most of our early cycle CDs were repriced in November and December. Additionally, the recovering fair market value of our investment portfolio and our choice to reinvest cash flows from that portfolio contributed to a slight decline in NIM for December. Furthermore, lower noninterest-bearing deposits and higher borrowings also played a role. Therefore, when we discuss our first quarter NIM, we anticipate it will be lower than the fourth quarter average, aligning more closely with the mid-280s range.

I appreciate the color and thanks for the time.

I just want to clarify that thing. That was excluding purchase accounting. That NIM guidance.

Next question comes from Timur Braziler from Wells Fargo.

Maybe looking at some of the in-migration into your geographies during COVID, your construction balances doubled over that period. I know that leading up to it, there had been a shortage of supply of housing along with other things, just inability to find workers. Can you maybe give us an update on where your geographies stand now and just some of the population migration, maybe how that's trending and if there are any areas within your geographies that you feel like might have been overbuilt given some of that migration over the past couple of years?

I think the migration has likely slowed a bit, but there is certainly a shortage of houses in most of our markets. We do not see any of our markets currently experiencing overbuilding. There is definitely a demand for housing. The only region that might not be as appealing as others is some of the larger cities, like Portland and Seattle. Other than that, I believe the rest of our areas are in good condition.

Okay. And Marcy, I guess the 4 basis points of NIM pressure from bond reinvestment at 5.5% in 1Q. I guess I don't understand that. Did I hear that correctly that as you're remixing the bond portfolio that's driving incremental margin or maybe you can move slightly?

I think the biggest thing is just that the earning asset balance is bigger because first of all, the fair market value adds more to earning assets would really not any more earnings in NII. And then when our forecast before we were looking at bringing down the investment portfolio and reducing earning asset balances. It really doesn't affect NII, but as you reinvest, you're not getting that same net interest margin. But NII improves, but the overall margin is impacted by the greater denominator.

Got it. And then lastly, Kevin, would love to hear your updated thoughts on M&A with some of the headwinds of '23 more or less in the rearview, purchase accounting a little bit easier as AOCI becomes less of a headwind. Maybe just give us an update on where you stand with M&A and how that fits into the capital deployment story at First Interstate?

That's a great question, Timur. I would tell you that as you probably have heard from other institutions, I think there's a lot more conversations that are being had out there. As you always know, we're very disciplined on our M&A strategy. We have a priority list of institutions that we believe would make our franchise better and we have been in touch with these banks for many, many years. And it's up to the seller itself. So I think there are more activities out there, but we're going to stay steadfast to the institutions that we believe will make our franchise better. And if they come and wanted to partner with us, then we'll probably put something together. But we're open to do something, but we're not going to just do something for the sake of doing something.

Next question is a follow-up from Brody Preston at UBS.

I just had a couple of other ones. I guess if I take the guidance on loans and kind of looking at what you said about the security cash flow and reinvestments there in the past. It sounds like maybe average earning assets should be flattish for the year. I just wanted to clarify that.

Yes.

Yes, that's exactly how we look at it, Brody.

Okay. And so if we're in the mid-2.80s ex-PAA on the 1Q margin, kind of the guidance on NII, Marcy, kind of implies like a pretty good step up in the NIM by the time we get to 4Q? And so where are you thinking that ex-PAA margin gets to by the fourth quarter?

We believe it could be comfortably over that 3% mark in the back half of the year, assuming stable deposits, and that's assuming the 3 rate cuts that we've discussed.

There are no further questions. I will turn the call back over for closing comments.

Thank you all for your questions. As always, we welcome calls from our investors and analysts. Please reach out to us if you have any follow-up questions. And thanks for tuning in today. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating, and we ask that you please disconnect your lines.