First Financial Bancorp. Q1 2024 Earnings Report

First Financial Bancorp. EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.76
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

First Financial Bancorp. Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $214.86 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

First Financial Bancorp. Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2024
• Date: 5/14/2024
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: N/A
• Conference Call Time: N/A

First Financial Bancorp (NASDAQ: FFBC) is a bank holding company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the parent of First Financial Bank. The company provides a comprehensive suite of commercial and consumer banking services through a network of more than 100 full-service banking centers and mortgage offices across Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Its core mission centers on delivering personalized relationship banking to businesses, individuals and public sector clients.

First Financial Bank’s product portfolio includes deposit solutions such as checking, savings and money market accounts, alongside a range of lending offerings that cover commercial and industrial loans, real estate and construction financing, home mortgages and home equity lines of credit. The bank also delivers treasury management services designed to optimize cash flow and working capital for corporate clients, while its wealth management division offers investment advisory, brokerage, trust and retirement planning services. Digital and mobile banking platforms support both retail and business customers with online account access, payment processing, fraud management and other self-service tools.

Tracing its heritage to 1863, First Financial Bancorp reorganized as a bank holding company in 1983 to enhance its strategic flexibility and expand its geographic footprint. Today, the company serves key markets in the greater Cincinnati region as well as select communities in Indiana and Kentucky. Its senior management team, supported by an experienced board of directors, emphasizes community engagement, prudent risk management and long-term shareholder value. First Financial Bancorp remains committed to its community banking roots while leveraging regional scale to offer a full spectrum of financial services.

First Financial Bancorp. Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Adjusted EPS was $0.59, delivering a 1.3% return on assets, 19.1% return on tangible common equity, and a 4.1% net interest margin, with loans up 10% annualized and deposit growth moderating to 2.3% after a $100 million seasonal outflow.
• Repositioned $228 million of securities at a $5.2 million loss to secure a 278 bp yield pickup, launched a workforce efficiency program saving $5 million (with $10–12 million more expected by year-end), and began restructuring bank-owned life insurance to boost second-half income.
• Closed the all-cash acquisition of Agile Premium Finance, adding $93 million (growing to $119 million) in high-quality, short-duration loans that diversify the portfolio and complement Oak Street and commercial banking units.
• Guidance includes near-term loan growth of 10–12% annualized, Q2 net interest margin of 3.95–4.05% (assuming no Fed cuts), full-year net charge-offs around 30 bps, fee income of $56–58 million, and noninterest expense of $120–122 million, while maintaining the current dividend.
• Asset quality remains stable with net charge-offs declining to 38 bps and nonperforming assets down 9.8%, backed by a conservative 1.29% allowance coverage of loans, robust liquidity, and capital ratios well above regulatory and internal targets.

Presentation

[Operator]

Thanks for standing by. My name is Mandeep, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the First Financial Bancorp 2024 earnings conference call and webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press Star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, press Star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Scott Crawley, Corporate Controller. You may begin.

[Scott Crawley, Corporate Controller at First Financial Bancorp]

Thank you, Mandeep. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on today's conference call to discuss First Financial Bancorp's first quarter financial results. Participating on today's call will be Archie Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jamie Anderson, Chief Financial Officer, and Bill Harrod, Chief Credit Officer. Both the press release we issued yesterday and the accompanying slide presentation are available on our website at www.bankatfirst.com under the Investor Relations section. We'll make reference to the slides contained in the accompanying presentation during today's call. Additionally, please refer to the forward-looking statement disclosure contained in the first quarter 2024 earnings release, as well as our SEC filings for a full discussion of the company's risk factors.

[Scott Crawley, Corporate Controller at First Financial Bancorp]

The information we will provide today is accurate as of March 31st, 2024, and we will not be updating any forward-looking statements to reflect facts or circumstances after this call. I'll now turn the call over to Archie Brown.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Thanks, Scott. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. Yesterday afternoon, we announced our financial results for the first quarter. I'll provide some high-level thoughts on our recent performance, and then I'll turn the call over to Jamie to provide further details. I'm pleased with our first quarter results and encouraged by our trends, several of which were bolstered by actions we took during the quarter. These actions included a repositioning of a portion of the investment portfolio, a workforce efficiency initiative, and the acquisition of Agile Premium Finance. We also commenced the restructuring of a portion of our bank-owned life insurance portfolio, which is expected to increase income in the back half of the year.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Adjusted earnings per share was $0.59, which resulted in a return on assets of 1.3% and a return on tangible common equity of 19.1%. At 4.1%, the net interest margin remains very strong. Asset yields remained steady during the quarter. However, as expected, the continued rise of funding costs negatively impacted our net interest margin. Additionally, loan growth was robust for the second consecutive quarter, with balances increasing by 10% on an annualized basis. Average deposit growth slowed for the quarter to a 2.3% annualized growth rate, and it included a seasonal outflow of approximately $100 million in business deposits early in the quarter. I'm pleased that non-interest income rebounded from the fourth quarter, with increases across most of our fee revenue areas.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

During the quarter, we incurred a loss on the sale of investment securities associated with the repositioning of a portion of the investment portfolio. This repositioning has a very short earn back and should enhance our asset yields going forward. We also intensified our focus on expenses during the quarter. Our workforce efficiency initiative resulted in the reduction of approximately $5 million in annual expenses, and we expect to realize an additional $10 million-$12 million in annualized expense reductions by the end of 2024. While expenses increased on a linked quarter basis, most of the increase was related to seasonal employee costs and variable compensation tied to the increase in fee income. We're excited to add Agile to our mix of specialty businesses. An overview of the company and transaction can be found on slide 13.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Agile operates an impressive business model, which originates high quality, short duration loans at attractive yields. At closing, we acquired $93 million in loans, which grew to $119 million at the end of the quarter. Agile will further diversify the loan portfolio and is a perfect complement to our Oak Street and commercial banking businesses. Asset quality was stable for the quarter. Net charge-offs declined for the second consecutive quarter to 38 basis points and were primarily driven by charges on two office loans that had been on non-accrual since early 2023. These two loans have been charged down to their net realizable value, and no other office loans had a classified risk rating at the end of the first quarter.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Overall, classified assets increased 12 basis points to 0.92% of assets, while non-performing assets declined 9.8% from the prior quarter. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Jamie to discuss these results in greater detail, and then after Jamie's discussion, I'll wrap up with some additional forward-looking commentary and closing remarks.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Thank you, Archie, and good morning, everyone. Slides four, five, and six provide a summary of our first quarter financial results. The first quarter was another solid quarter, highlighted by strong earnings, net interest margin that was in line with expectations, solid loan growth, and the purchase of Agile Premium Finance. Similar to last quarter, our net interest margin declined due to increasing deposit costs, but remains very strong at 4.1%. Additionally, we repositioned a portion of the securities portfolio, which included selling $228 million of securities at a $5.2 million loss. We expect the reinvestment from these sales will bolster the margin in coming periods with a 278 basis point increase in yield.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

We anticipate further net interest margin contraction in the coming periods due to additional pressure on deposit pricing and changes in funding mix. However, we expect the pace of the decline to moderate. Total loans grew 10% on an annualized basis, which exceeded our expectations. Loan growth was concentrated in commercial real estate, with smaller increases across the various other portfolios. Loan balances also included $93 million of acquired balances from Agile, which is a finance company specializing in insurance premium lending. We acquired Agile in an all-cash transaction at the end of February, and the deal resulted in the creation of $5.6 million of intangible assets, primarily consisting of goodwill and a customer list asset. Excluding the loss on the sale of investment securities, non-interest income increased compared to the linked quarter.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Leasing and wealth management once again had solid quarters, while foreign exchange, client derivatives, and mortgage income increased from lower levels in the fourth quarter. Non-interest expenses increased from the linked quarter due to seasonal employee costs and higher variable compensation. Overall, asset quality trends were stable, with lower net charge-offs and declining non-performing asset balances, with an increase in classified assets. Annualized net charge-offs were 38 basis points during the period, which was an 8 basis point decline from the linked quarter, while non-accrual loans decreased 10%. We recorded $11.2 million of provision expense during the period, which was driven by net charge-offs and loan growth. Our ACL coverage remains conservative at 1.29% of total loans. From a capital standpoint, our regulatory ratios are in excess of both internal and regulatory targets.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Tangible book value increased slightly, while our tangible common equity ratio increased by 6 basis points during the period. Slide seven reconciles our GAAP earnings to adjusted earnings, highlighting items that we believe are important to understanding our quarterly performance. Adjusted net income was $55.8 million, or $0.59 per share for the quarter. Adjusted earnings exclude the impact of the FDIC special assessment, losses on the sales of investment securities, as well as acquisition, severance, and branch consolidation costs. As depicted on Slide eight, these adjusted earnings equate to a return on average assets of 1.3%, a return on average tangible common equity of 19%, and an efficiency ratio of 60%. Turning to Slides nine and 10, net interest margin declined 16 basis points from the linked quarter to 4.1%.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

As we expected, higher funding costs outpaced increases in asset yields, primarily due to a 19 basis point increase in funding costs. These costs were partially offset by a modest increase in asset yields during the period. Our cost of deposits increased 22 basis points compared to the linked quarter, and we expect these costs to continue to increase in the coming months, but at a slower pace than we saw in the first quarter. Slide 11 details the betas utilized in our net interest income modeling. Deposit costs increased in the first quarter, moving our current beta up 5 percentage points to 43%. Our modeling indicates that our through-the-cycle beta is approximately 40%-45%. Slide 12 outlines our various sources of liquidity and borrowing capacity. We continue to believe we have the flexibility required to manage the balance sheet through the expected economic environment.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Slide 14 illustrates our current loan mix and balance changes compared to the linked quarter. As I mentioned before, loan balances increased 10% on an annualized basis, with growth concentrated in ICRE and moderate growth in almost every other portfolio. Additionally, the acquisition of Agile contributed $119 million of growth during the quarter. Slide five provides detail on our loan concentration by industry. We believe our loan portfolio remains sufficiently diversified to provide protection from deterioration in any particular industry. Slide 16 provides detail on our office portfolio. About 4% of our total loan book is concentrated in office space, and the overall portfolio performance metrics are strong. No office relationships were downgraded to non-accrual during the quarter, and our total non-accrual balance for this portfolio declined to $17 million.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Slide 17 shows our deposit mix, as well as a progression of average deposits from the linked quarter. In total, average deposit balances increased $76 million during the quarter, driven primarily by a $198 million increase in money market accounts and a $186 million increase in retail CDs. These increases offset declines in non-interest-bearing deposits, public funds, and savings accounts. This was expected as the current interest rate environment has driven customers to higher cost deposit products. Slide 18 illustrates trends in our average personal, business, and public fund deposits, as well as a comparison of our borrowing capacity to our uninsured deposits. On the bottom right of the slide, you can see our adjusted uninsured deposits were $3.2 billion. This equates to 24% of our total deposits.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

We remain comfortable with this concentration and believe our borrowing capacity provides sufficient flexibility to respond to any event that would stress our larger deposit balances. Slide 19 highlights our non-interest income for the quarter. Total fee income was relatively unchanged at $46.5 million during the first quarter and included the loss on the investment portfolio that I previously mentioned. Wealth management and leasing business income remained strong, while mortgage, foreign exchange, and client derivative income all increased from fourth quarter levels. Non-interest expense for the quarter is outlined on Slide 20. Core expenses increased $4.2 million during the period. This was driven by an increase in variable compensation tied to fee income, as well as higher employee costs, which includes annual raises and a seasonal increase in payroll taxes.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Turning now to slides 21 and 22, our ACL model resulted in a total allowance, which includes both funded and unfunded reserves of $160 million and $11.2 million of total provision expense during the period. This resulted in an ACL that was 1.29% of total loans, which was unchanged from the fourth quarter. Provision expense was driven by net charge-offs and loan growth. Net charge-offs were $10.6 million, or 38 basis points on an annualized basis, which was an 8 basis points decline from the linked quarter. In other credit trends, non-accrual loans decreased 10% during the period, while classified asset balances increased to 92 basis points of total assets, primarily due to the downgrade of two relationships.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Our ACL coverage was unchanged, and we continue to believe we have modeled conservatively to build a reserve that reflects the losses we expect from our portfolio. We anticipate our ACL coverage will remain relatively flat or increase slightly in future periods as our model responds to changes in the macroeconomic environment. Finally, as shown on slides 23, 24, and 25, regulatory capital ratios remain in excess of regulatory minimums and internal targets. During the first quarter, tangible book value increased slightly, and the TCE ratio increased 6 basis points due to our strong earnings. Absent the impact from AOCI, the TCE ratio would have been 9.18%, compared to 7.23% as reported. Slide 24 demonstrates that our capital ratios would remain in excess of regulatory targets, including the unrealized losses in the securities portfolio.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Our total shareholder return remains robust, with 43% of our earnings returned to our shareholders during the period through the common dividend. We believe our dividend provides an attractive return to our shareholders and do not anticipate any near-term changes. However, we will continue to evaluate various capital actions as the year progresses. I'll now turn it back over to Archie for some comments on our outlook. Archie?

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Thank you, Jamie. Before we end our prepared remarks, I want to comment on our forward-looking guidance, which can be found on slide 26. Loan pipelines remain healthy, payoff trends remain lower, and we expect seasonal tailwinds from our recent acquisition of Agile to contribute to overall growth of 10%-12% on an annualized basis over the near term. For securities, we expect the portfolio to remain stable. Deposit growth has been solid, and we expect to grow moderately over the next quarter. Our net interest margin has remained strong and resilient, and we expect it to be between 3.95% and 4.05% for the next quarter, assuming no Fed cuts. We expect our credit costs to remain consistent with the prior quarter, prior quarter, while ACL coverage as a percentage of loans is expected to be stable to slightly increasing.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

For the full year, we expect net charge-offs to be approximately 30 basis points. Fee income is expected to be between $56 million and $58 million as fees increase from seasonal lows, and this includes $12 million-$14 million for foreign exchange and $15 million-$17 million for leasing business revenue. Non-interest expense is expected to be between $120 million and $122 million, which includes $9 million-$11 million in depreciation expense for the leasing business. Specific to capital, our capital ratios remain strong, and we expect to maintain our dividend at the current level. Overall, I'm pleased with our quarter and the work our teams are doing to continuously improve the company. While we're in a difficult operating environment for the industry, I'm encouraged by our results and trends, and I expect that we will continue to have a strong year.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

We'll now open up the call for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you'd like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. If you are called upon to ask a question and are listening via loudspeaker on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question. Again, press star one to join the queue. Our first question comes from the line of Daniel Tamayo with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

[Danny Tamayo, Senior VP at Raymond James]

Thank you. Good morning, Archie. Good morning, Jamie.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Morning, Danny.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Morning.

[Danny Tamayo, Senior VP at Raymond James]

Maybe we start on the loan growth guidance. It's a good strong number, but just curious if you could kind of deconstruct that for us of where you're expecting that. And I know you put a lot of information on the Agile acquisition in the deck, which certainly appreciate, but just if you could incorporate how Agile fits into that loan growth as well. Thanks.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Sure. Sure, Danny, So the first quarter, you see it on the slide, it was a little bit more, ICRE and Agile were probably the bigger drivers. I think our view of the second quarter is going to be a little more broad-based. ICRE is going to probably fall back a little bit for the quarter. But we're going to see more broad-based. Agile will probably be about a third of that overall growth in the quarter. Commercial banking, our Oak Street unit, Summit Funding will all contribute more, we believe, in the second quarter. Again, ICRE will contribute some, just not as much as what you saw in Q1.

[Danny Tamayo, Senior VP at Raymond James]

Okay. And, I'm sorry, were you going to say something else?

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Nope.

[Danny Tamayo, Senior VP at Raymond James]

Okay. And, you mentioned cross-selling opportunities from Agile. Just curious what you're thinking about the opportunities there are?

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Yeah, there's going to be some work. It's not going to happen immediately, but we know that, you know, our commercial businesses are, you know, they sometimes, there's a lump payment due to, you know, for property and casualty insurance, and we've got the ability to help finance that over, you know, over a one year or a little bit less than a one-year window for them. So, some will want to take that opportunity to do that. So we need to just introduce Agile and work them into getting to know our commercial bankers and, you know, offering that as another alternative offering for our clients.

[Danny Tamayo, Senior VP at Raymond James]

Okay. And then, finally, just again, on Agile, just the, I think you had 10-20 basis points as the credit loss expectation for that business. How should we think about that? Is that kind of full cycle or near term or, you know, just if you could kind of-

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Yeah, I'd say, I'd say that as it ramps up and gets to kind of to its fuller run rate, that we would start to see that. You know, I would say more think about more later on as opposed to near term. When we acquired the portfolio, we did spend time selecting what we think were the highest quality assets and making sure the strategy fit with our kind of our credit appetite. So I would tell you when it matures, that's what we would expect, but in the near term, it'd be less than that.

[Danny Tamayo, Senior VP at Raymond James]

Okay. All right, well, terrific. Thanks for taking my questions.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Thanks, Danny.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from a line of Terry McEvoy with Stephens. Please go ahead.

[Terry McEvoy, Managing Director at Stephens]

Good morning, guys.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Hey, Terry.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Hey, Terry.

[Terry McEvoy, Managing Director at Stephens]

Jamie, I was wondering if you could help us think about the margin in the second half of the year when you take into consideration the BOLI restructuring, as well as the security sale that occurred in the first quarter?

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Yeah. So just to be clear on the BOLI restructuring, that income, it's down in fee income, so that is included in our fee income outlook. And that restructuring, it takes a little bit of time for that to kind of for the insurance carriers to process that. So it will typically take 90-120 days, kind of ish, for that to pull through, and we get those dollars reinvested. But that is down in fee income, so it's not really a margin, not really a margin item. So but on that, just to clarify, that'll hit mostly in the starting in the third quarter. There won't really be a large. We'll get some of it, but it won't be a large second quarter item.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

But obviously, then on the margin, the securities repositioning is going to help our asset yields. Also, the Agile acquisition as well will help increase our asset yields, plus just the reinvestment of assets into current rates is obviously helping as well. So, as the Agile assets, their yield is around 9%, so that is, you know, at least 100 basis points or so higher than kind of the rest of our current offering rates on the loan book. So that's going to help. And so when we look at the margin out in the future and obviously, we gave the outlook for the kind of the near term or the second quarter.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

When we look out in the back half of the year, we see the margin stabilizing. So our forecast, we currently have, two rate cuts, one kind of still in the middle of the year. Whether that'll happen or not will remains to be seen, and one towards the back half of the year in that November, December timeframe. And so we have our margin stabilizing in the back half of the year in that, you know, 3.90-3.95 range. And then if we don't get any cuts, you know, that just helps our margin stay a little bit higher for a little longer. So it would be maybe in that higher 3.90 range if we don't get any cuts.

[Terry McEvoy, Managing Director at Stephens]

Perfect. Thanks for all that information. And then as a follow-up on expenses, the actions taken last quarter, is that built into the 120-122 expense outlook? Or should we expect expenses to come down later this year? And I-- was it $10 million-$12 million? I didn't-- I couldn't write it down as quickly as I wanted to when Archie was discussing it.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Yeah, Terry, this is Archie. So the $5 million I referred to-

[Terry McEvoy, Managing Director at Stephens]

Five million

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

... is that we realized in the first quarter, by the end of the quarter. I think we've got that baked into our near-term expense outlook. You know, that did fully cover the, you know, the cost of the Agile operating expenses, so it does a nice job of that, but it's all baked into the near term. The 10-12 additional expense savings on an annualized basis, we think that'll be realized by the end of the year, so it'll affect more next year in full. But there's gonna be some gradual, you know, each quarter, some gradual incremental reductions coming from that work. It just won't be fully in effect or impacting the company until we get to the end of the year.

[Terry McEvoy, Managing Director at Stephens]

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Have a nice weekend.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Thanks, Terry.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Thanks, Terry.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Chris McGratty with KBW. Please go ahead.

[Chris McGratty, Managing Director at KBW]

Hey, good morning.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Hey, Chris.

[Chris McGratty, Managing Director at KBW]

Good morning. Jamie, a question on the funding. With the step up in the loan growth, what's the plan to fund it? Are you gonna borrow? Are you gonna do something on the CDs? What's the plan to fund the extra growth?

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Well, I mean, it'll be a little bit of everything. You know, so we have about 5% projected deposit growth for the remainder of the year, kind of across the board. And then we will, you know, obviously, depending on where the loan growth plays out. You know, so if you look at-- if you look at 5% deposit growth, that's about in that $175 million-$200 million a quarter deposit growth on the on that side. And, you know, if we have-- we're, we're showing around 10% or so growth in the second quarter in loans.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

And that doesn't quite cover that 10%, so we would fill in the rest with with borrowings, and then, you know, then we'll see where where loan growth shakes out for the rest of the year. But about 5% deposit growth, and then again, we'll just fill in with borrowings.

[Chris McGratty, Managing Director at KBW]

Okay, great. And then just a couple housekeeping items on the bond restructure. Do you have the spot rate for the bond portfolio?

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Well, the current yield, is that what you're asking?

[Chris McGratty, Managing Director at KBW]

Yeah, I'm just trying to, like, second quarter, like, security yield, is what I'm trying to get at.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Yeah. Give me one second here. So yeah, total, total investment yield projected around, around 4.15.

[Chris McGratty, Managing Director at KBW]

And then maybe I'll sneak one in on capital, Archie. I mean, you talked about organic growth, tuck-in deal. Is there any change in conversations, activity on traditional banks? Obviously, the marks are hard with rates, but you guys have a multiple. I was just wondering, getting thoughts there.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Yeah, Chris, it's Archie. I mean, there are. I'd say just we were having each quarter some conversations and, you know, I think things generally advanced a little bit, but I can't say that there's anything we're seeing right now near term that would use up the capital we're building. So it's something we'll keep working on to see if something makes sense for us, but there's nothing right now that's immediate or imminent.

[Chris McGratty, Managing Director at KBW]

Okay. Thank you.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Yep.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Jon Arfstrom with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[Jon Arfstrom, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Hey, thank you. Morning, guys.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Hey, John.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Hey, John.

[Jon Arfstrom, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

A few follow-ups. On Agile, Archie, where do you think this business could go? I see your $80 million end-of-year target, but what kind of longer-term growth expectations do you have for it?

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Yeah, John, it's gonna be over some time. I mean, this year, I think we're, you know, it's, it's probably gonna be a little bit shy of $200 million by year end. It may actually... We've got some seasonality in the middle part of the year, so it may, it may peak out around $200 million in the summer and then, you know, slightly fall back to around $190 or so by year end. But then next year, we think that can ramp up some more. So I, I think over, over three to four years, if you're talking about a business that's, you know, maybe one and a half billion dollar range, that's probably what we would say right now. You know, these, these loans are very short in tenure. They're probably, you know, 10 months, something like that.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

So, you got to do a lot in order to, to keep it going. But if we get into that $400 million-$500 million range over the next several years, I think that's probably where, where it gets to. It's a nice— What we like, though, John, it's, it's got great granularity, high quality. It's another lever. It helps us diversify the overall loan book. It, it complements the commercial banking team. So we like all the different facets that, that come with it.

[Jon Arfstrom, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Yep. No, I think it makes sense. Jamie, for you, I hear you on the margin pressures, but how about net interest income inflection? When do you think that could occur? Given the loan growth, maybe that happens before the margin. Is that fair?

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

John, just to make sure I understand, you're talking about just dollars of net interest income?

[Jon Arfstrom, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Yes, dollars of net interest income.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Yeah, when that starts to move up again?

[Jon Arfstrom, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Yep.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

More like, more like in the towards the end of the year. I mean, obviously with, you know, we are looking at still here, first quarter to the second quarter of, call it, about 10 basis points of margin compression, you know, around that area. And then, so keeping the dollars the same here, first to second quarter probably is unlikely. But, but really then in the back half of the year, as the margin stabilizes a little bit more, you'll see that, with the growth that we have, you'll see that, those dollars start to stabilize and then move up.

[Jon Arfstrom, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Okay. All right, thank you. And then, Bill, maybe for you, just on credit in general, how you're feeling about credit, and then your-- I'd like that office maturity schedule slide or table on slide 16. What, what are you seeing on some of those loans that are coming up from renewal, from your point of view? How, you know, how-- and how do you, how do you kind of look ahead to get ahead of any problems?

[Bill Harrod, Chief Credit Officer at First Financial Bancorp]

Yeah, absolutely. So, on the office, in particular, we have a quarterly cadence for review, including stress testing of the book, from all the different angles that you would expect. And then we supplement that with portfolio review discussions on the buckets that we identify with potential issues. And we do this on a quarterly basis, and as we look at, you know, 2024 and 2025, you know, we have a manageable handful of deals to work through during that time. But overall, we feel good about our office book as it sits today. And we monitor it every, like I said, every quarter. On the global book, I feel good about it. I think as I look out in the future, we have the office nice and ring-fenced.Our C&I is performing very, very well, and feel pretty good.

[Jon Arfstrom, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Okay. All right. Thanks, guys, for the help.

[Bill Harrod, Chief Credit Officer at First Financial Bancorp]

Thanks, Sean.

[Operator]

Again, if you'd like to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Twerdahl with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

[Alex Twerdahl, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Thanks. Good morning, guys.

[Bill Harrod, Chief Credit Officer at First Financial Bancorp]

Hey, Alex.

[Alex Twerdahl, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Just wanted to go back to the loan growth guide. I think that 10%-12% in the near term, that makes sense, given, you know, that ramp-up that you talked about with Agile and some of the other pieces contributing in the second quarter. But, I mean, is that sustainable into the back half of the year, or do you think that there's going to be maybe, you know, as rates remain high, maybe that cools down a little bit in the third and fourth quarter?

[Bill Harrod, Chief Credit Officer at First Financial Bancorp]

Yeah, Alex, you know, it's a little harder to tell. Our pipelines coming into the quarter were—they were ramping up in Q1. They're healthy, and they're remaining pretty strong and stable. We can look out into the middle of the year and feel pretty good. Just a little murkier. If I'm handicapping, I would tell you it's probably... It feels like it may be just a little bit lighter than that 10%-12% annualized rate that we're talking about right now when you get in the back half.

[Alex Twerdahl, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Yeah, that makes sense. Not a lot of banks projecting that pace of loan growth at all this year. So, when I guess, like, you know, going to the NIM, you know, with the Agile loans coming on, you know, with the 9%+, the securities restructuring, you know, some of the other dynamics, kind of, I guess, a little surprised to see that amount of NIM compression still expected for the second quarter. So are there some-- is it really just the funding, just like, you know, some higher tranches of borrowings, maybe repricing during the quarter? Or, you know, maybe talk about kind of really what's driving that level of compression in the second quarter still?

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

Yeah, Alex, it's Jamie. So, yeah, it's really the funding side that's driving all of that still. And really, what we are seeing is just that, continued mix shift on the deposit side. You know, the dollars moving out of, you know, the lower cost buckets into the, money market and CD specials. And that's just continues to drive up the... We were starting to see that, mitigate some in the, in the back half of the, of the first quarter, but we still see some of that, some of that going on in the second quarter, and that's just driving the cost up. We're seeing dollars continue to move out, slowly, still in the, in our business DDA, balances.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

And the average balance of those accounts are still higher than what they were, historically. So we're still seeing some dollars move out of there, and we're replacing those dollars with, CDs and, and money market accounts. So that's just driving up the funding. And so, yeah, we get a little bit of benefit from the asset yields. I mean, obviously, Agile helps. It's just, it's just a small, you know, you know, $200 million on the loan base. It obviously helps, but it's not enough here in the very near term to offset that funding pressure that we're seeing.

[Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp]

But we expect that funding pressure, again, to you know, another quarter of that with maybe a little, still some of it in the third quarter, not as much as the second quarter. And we just see that the deposit costs start to stabilize, again, absent any rate cuts.

[Alex Twerdahl, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

... Okay, appreciate that, Calder. And then, you know, as I think about the Agile and the, I guess, really more broad, broad term for the, for specialty finance businesses, I gotta think that, their funding costs are getting pressured, you know, even more than banks. And I'm just curious, you know, have you seen, an increase in these types of deals? Like, how many would you typically look at, you know, in any given year? And is that, so, you know, some of the specialty finance type transactions, are they gonna be-- I guess, should we expect them to be part of the overall growth strategy for 2024, you know, beyond the Agile acquisition?

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Yeah, Alex, this is Archie. I'll discuss it. You know, we do. I think because we have acquired several specialty companies, we are higher on, let me use an old term, the Rolodex of bankers that are calling around for different companies. But we've really never responded to those. Everything that we've really acquired has been, in a way, based on some relationships we have or a network we have with people. So we're really not out looking for more. You know, if I would tell you, certainly in the wealth space, if we ever found something that made sense and the pricing could be rationalized, right, we would consider something like that. But we're really not, we're really not out looking for more specialty companies.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

This came in through some connections we had, and we really liked what this business looked like in terms of, again, the diversity, the yields, how it complements commercial banking, the granularity. We liked all that. So, yeah, and it's a Chicago company, and that's, you know, right here, not far, and we've got other presence in the Chicago area. So, not looking for more, but it fits in the pattern of the things we've acquired over recent years.

[Alex Twerdahl, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler]

Great. Appreciate all the additional color. Thanks for taking my questions.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Thanks, Alex. Have a good day.

[Operator]

That concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the conference over to Archie Brown for closing remarks.

[Archie Brown, President and CEO at First Financial Bancorp]

Well, thank you for joining us on today's call and following along with us for our quarter. We look forward to talking to you again next quarter. Have a great weekend. Bye now.

[Operator]

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

Participants

Executives

• Archie Brown, President and CEO

Analysts

• Alex Twerdahl, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler
• Bill Harrod, Chief Credit Officer at First Financial Bancorp
• Chris McGratty, Managing Director at KBW
• Danny Tamayo, Senior VP at Raymond James
• Jamie Anderson, CFO at First Financial Bancorp
• Jon Arfstrom, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets
• Scott Crawley, Corporate Controller at First Financial Bancorp
• Terry McEvoy, Managing Director at Stephens