Alerus Financial Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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January 29, 2025
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Operator

Good morning, afternoon and evening, and welcome to the Alaris Financial Corporation Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Call. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, this event is being recorded.

Operator

This call may include forward looking statements and the company's actual results may differ materially from those indicated in any forward looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward looking statements are listed in the earnings release and the company's SEC filings. I would now like to turn the conference over to Alaris Financial Corporation's President and CEO, Katie Lorentzen, to begin. Please go ahead.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Alaris Financial Corporation's fourth quarter and financial results. I'm Katie Lorentzon, President and CEO, and I'm pleased to be here with our Chief Financial Officer, Al Villalon our Chief Operating Officer, Karen Taylor our Chief Banking and Revenue Officer, Jim Collins and our Chief Retirement Services Officer, Forrest Wilson. Each of these leaders continue to play a crucial role in driving our company's progress to transformational growth and top tier performance. Before we dive into the details, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to our dedicated employees, our loyal clients and the shareholders in support of communities we serve.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

Your trust and confidence in Alaris have been instrumental in our historical success and we are deeply appreciative of your continued support. Now let's get into the highlights of our performance. We ended 2024 on a strong note with performance improving including an adjusted return on tangible equity eclipsing 14%. This quarter marked meaningful and deliberate progress in our journey back to top tier profitability. The clear highlight for the quarter was the successful closing and conversion of our acquisition of Home Federal and our launch into the vibrant Rochester and Southern Minnesota markets.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

This acquisition, the largest in our company's history, pushed our total assets to over $5,000,000,000 and increased our client base by nearly 50%. In addition, we are on track with our projected cost savings and deal expenses were 5% less than our original estimate. When we announced this transaction last year, we expected the combination to help drive top quartile performance metrics and we fully anticipate this to be the case. I'm pleased to share with all of you within the more than 30% reported growth of loans and deposits, we continue to see robust organic growth in all Alaris markets on both sides of our balance sheet. I'm beyond proud of the talented team members we have attracted and retained at Alaris.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

Our continued success in gaining market share and adding new clients throughout our footprint and in our various verticals including C and I, government not for profit, equipment leasing have been transformational. Even with this organic growth and our continued focus on being highly selective and allocating our capital and dry powder to franchise accretive holistic relationships, the pipelines moving into 2025 remain robust. We are disciplined and vigilant in our proactive monitoring and identification of credit as trends are normalizing. This involves closely tracking loan performance and making adjustments as needed to mitigate risk. Meanwhile, we continue to build reserves with balances increasing to 1.5% at the end of the year.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

Our net interest income saw a substantial increase of nearly 70% and our net interest margin improved by 97 basis points to 3.2%. Al will get into the specifics and all the moving parts, but I wanted to commend the team for their concerted efforts to improve pricing disciplines. Non interest income, which represents nearly half of our total revenues, grew by almost 20% quarter over quarter, supported by improvements across all fee based businesses and gains on sale of offices as we constantly look to invest in and optimize our branch footprint. It is important to note our core fee income grew 10% on a year over year basis across all business lines and is our ultimate differentiator. In our retirement business, we saw core year over year growth in revenue of 6% with another record level of new planned sales in 2024.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

Our talented team continues to execute on several key strategic initiatives to grow our business, our core revenues and make meaningful operational improvements. We remain especially bullish on this business given the tailwinds coming with Secure Act 2 which aims to increase the number of businesses offering retirement plans and has provisions to support higher participation in those plans, in addition to growing opportunities for M and A. Aside from the top line revenue growth, the value of the retirement business is multifaceted due to the stability and the durability it brings to our company, in addition to the synergies we leverage in deposits and the capture of Wealth business. In our Wealth business, we saw year over year growth of 19% in revenues. We are focused on growing our Wealth business with long term with a long term goal to have our AUM match the asset side of our bank.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

We intend to continue to add to our deep bench of talented producers as well as reinvest in systems, automation and process improvement. Our focus is on improving the client experience in addition to creating more capacity for our talented team members to keep growing the clients. Although it was a noisy quarter from an expense management perspective, we achieved a notable improvement in our adjusted efficiency ratio, which decreased to 68.97% from 77.71% in the Process improvement, automation and continued progress to higher profitability through prudent expense management remains key priorities into 2025 and beyond. Capital levels decreased as expected during the quarter due to the acquisition and organic growth. The acquisition is highly accretive to earnings and we expect to continue to build back capital levels with our superior business mix delivering superior returns.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

As we look to capital allocation, we will continue to prioritize franchise building organic growth in addition to maintaining long dividend history. Thank you, and I'll now turn it over to Al for a more detailed review of our financial results.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Thanks, Katie. I'll start my commentary on Page 11 of our investor deck that is posted in the Investor Relations part of our website. Let's start on our key revenue drivers. On a reported basis, net interest income increased 69.8% over the prior quarter, while fee income grew 19.4%. The increase in both was primarily driven by the acquisition of Home Federal.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Fee income represented almost 47% of revenues during the quarter. Let's dive into the drivers of net interest income on the next slide. Turning to Page 12. In the net interest income increased to $3,830,000,0.0 and our reported net interest margin increased 97 basis points to 3.2%. As you can see on the bottom left, our adjusted net interest margin was 2.81% or 46 basis point improvement over the last quarter.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Our net interest margin improved mainly due to acquisition of Home Federal, organic balance sheet growth and repricing of both loans and the deposits. We saw a 54 basis point improvement in our cost of funds mainly due to the Home Federal acquisition as our cost of funds dropped from 3.07% to 2.53%. Of the 100 basis point decline in the Fed funds so far, we have seen our deposit beta around 30%. We anticipate our deposit beta to be around 45% once all Fed cuts have been fully priced in. Total earning asset yield increased 48 basis points to 5.6, again, due to the acquisition of Home Federal and the remixing of the investment portfolio.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Let's turn to Page thirteen to talk about our earning assets. Total loans grew 31.7% over the prior quarter, mainly due to the acquisition of Home Federal. Outside of the acquisition, Alaris still saw organic loan growth of $157,000,000 or over 5% from the prior quarter. Turning to Page fourteen. On a period ending basis, our deposits also increased 31.7% from the prior quarter.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Excluding the acquisition of Home Federal, Alletta still saw organic deposit growth of $93,000,000 or almost 3% from the prior quarter. Given the increase in deposits, our loan to deposit ratio remains steady at 91.2% and still below our target level of 95%. Turning to Page 15, I will now talk about our Banking segment, which also includes our mortgage business. I will focus on the fee income components now since net interest income was previously discussed. Overall, non interest income for Banking was up $480,000,0.0 or over 87 percent from the prior quarter.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Most of the increase was from a $350,000,0.0 gain recognized in the sale of 1 of our offices in the El Fargo market. Excluding gains on properties from both quarters, non interest income was up over 37%. In the there was $1,000,000 of fee income related to client swaps. As a reminder, these swap fees tend to be lumpy from quarter to quarter based on client appetite. On Page 16, I'll provide some highlights on our Retirement business.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Total revenue from the business increased 2.1% mainly due to non market based fees from our HSA business. While assets under management decreased 1.3% mainly due to market performance, we did see organic net inflows of over $37,000,000 We continue to see steady organic growth in plant participants as well. Participants within Retirement grew 1.6% during the quarter. New business production continues to be strong as over 500 opportunities were won this year. Synergistic deposits within retirement grew 6.6% over the prior quarter.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

HSA deposits, which carry low cost of funds around 10 basis points, grew 2.2% over the previous quarter. During the Page 17, you can see highlights for our Wealth Management business. On a linked quarter basis, revenues increased 4.9%, while end of quarter assets under management increased 4.1% mainly due to the acquisition of Home Federal. Synergistic deposits here grew over 3.7% from the previous quarter. Page 18 provides an overview of our noninterest expense.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

During the quarter, noninterest expense increased 32% over the previous quarter, mainly due to the acquisition of Home Federal. Within the quarter, we had $330,000,0.0 of merger related expenses and $230,000,0.0 in severance and signing bonus expenses. Excluding these 1 time expenses, our adjusted efficiency ratio was 68.97% versus 77.71% in the prior quarter. Turning to Page 19, you can see our credit metrics. During the quarter, net charge offs were 13 basis points.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Nonperforming assets increased to $6,290,000,0.0 mainly due to 1 construction land and development deal. As a percentage of total assets, NPAs increased from 1.18% in the prior quarter to 1.19%. Our allowance from credit losses is now at 1.5% of total loans. Within the allowance, we have over $690,000,0.0 related to non PCD loans acquired in the home federal deal, although it is known as the CECL double count. I'll discuss our capital liquidity on Page 20.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

We continue to remain well capitalized as our Tier 1 equity capital to risk weighted assets is at 10% while our tangible common equity ratio is at 7.15. On the bottom right, you'll see a breakdown in the sources of $290,000,000,0.0 in potential liquidity. Overall, we continue to remain well positioned from both a liquidity and capital standpoint to support future growth or weather any economic uncertainty. Turning to Page 21 now, I'll provide some guidance. On this slide, you will see the twenty twenty four starting points used for the guidance given in for 2025.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

So we expect the following. First, loan growth of low to mid single digits based on bigger on a bigger combined balance sheet at deposit growth of low single digits a net interest margin greater than 3% for 2025 with no further rate cuts by the Fed being factored in. Within the reported margin, we also expect 30 to 35 basis points of purchase account accretion each quarter. We will start the year closer to 3%. If the margin improvement if the improvement in our margin was linear, which it won't be due to timing of projected balance sheet growth and the timing of purchase account accretion, you would see a 3 to 4 basis point improvement each quarter in the margin.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Reminder that in the of each year, we typically see seasonal outflows from our public funds, which will affect the margin. Next, with no market appreciation being factored in or revenue synergies from the Home Federal deal, we can continue to expect our fee income to remain stable year over year on a reported basis that you see here. Reminder that our reported fee income of $11,490,000,0.0 had gains from property sold and fee income from client swaps. So on an adjusted basis, excluding both property gains and swaps, our core fee income would be up mid single digits. Lastly, we expect our adjusted fishing ratio for 1 time items to be below 70% for 2025 as we continue to realize cost saves from home federal.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

There will be some volatility from quarter to quarter due to the timing of expected cost saves and seasonality of some expenses. To summarize on Page 22, excluding the largest merger in company history, we continue to see both strong organic loan and strong deposit growth in the quarter. For our adjusted pre provision net revenue grew nearly 90% over the prior quarter. For the full year, we saw our adjusted PPNR increase almost 25% compared to 2023. While we are a little over three months since the official completion of the merger, we continue to see strong momentum in our new markets.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Beyond growth, as Katie mentioned, process improvement, automation and continued improvement of profitability through prudent expense management remain key priorities heading to 2025 and beyond. With that, I'll now open up for Q and A.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. And our first question comes from the line of Nathan Race with Piper Sandler.

Nathan Race
Nathan Race
Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies

I appreciate all the commentary around kind of the reported margin outlook and just kind of the impact from accretion going forward. But if we take kind of the 281% core margin coming out of the can you kind of just speak to some of the repricing benefits that you have on the right side of the balance sheet and kind of what that implies for kind of the trajectory of the core margin over the

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Yes. So, Dave, our deposit beta right now is around 30%. So we have another we think it's going to get to 45% sometime in the year. So there's still a little bit more room for that to move. So if you really think about it from a simple math terms, the 30% beta on 100 basis points, we had 30 basis point of improvement.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

So that's roughly $9 plus million of improvement. So you can probably expect another $4 plus million on the right side of the balance sheet to improve from there. And then on the left side of the balance sheet, we're thinking that we have some we have some loans that are contractually going to be paying down during the course of the year, and we expect another 3 to 4 basis points of improvement each quarter there.

Nathan Race
Nathan Race
Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies

Okay, got it. That's helpful. Maybe a question for Katie. Now that you have HMNF combined and you guys are operating on a consolidated basis going forward, just curious what you view are some of the challenges or major opportunities as you kind of continue to integrate that franchise across the going forward?

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

Sure. Thanks, Nate. Well, I would say our opportunities and our priorities are very much aligned with in all markets and that relates to a focus on continued organic growth, specifically full relationships, C and I, private banking, government non profit business, all verticals that we've had good success in the markets that we're in and that we feel we will have continued success as we enter into our new markets. We will also continue to invest in wealth management business. As I mentioned, our goal there is to have our assets under management, keep pace with our banking assets, as well as some opportunities for expansion of our retirement business.

Nathan Race
Nathan Race
Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies

Okay. That's really helpful. And maybe you can just kind of speak to capital management priorities for this year. Obviously, TCE took a step back with the addition of the acquisition, but just curious how you're thinking about managing capital and kind of where you'd like to see some of the capital ratios get back to by the

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

From a capital position standpoint, it's in line with where we expected it to be subsequent to closing the deal. The earnings accretion from the acquisition is strong, And so we expect to continue to build that back throughout the year. And then of course, our capital light annuitized business from wealth and retirement will aid in a faster build back of capital than most. And so our priority is on organic growth, our dividends, and we're always looking at opportunities to optimize our balance sheets and profitably grow our company. Regulatory, we're above our regulatory ratios from a safety and sound standpoint, obviously, that's very important.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

But we'll look to build back that TCE ratio over the course of 2025.

Nathan Race
Nathan Race
Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies

Okay, great. Then if I could just sneak 1 more in for Al. Just curious if there's any more kind of balance sheet optimization initiatives that you guys are planning on undertaking as HMNF is integrated?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Yes. Thanks for that, Nate. We're always looking at opportunities out there to optimize our balance sheet. There's a lot of things we're looking at. Timing of that is still TBD right now because we're as as we kind of go through this right now, we want to make sure there's very little disruption to our clients, especially if it comes to any the answer is especially when we're in new markets and with new clients.

Nathan Race
Nathan Race
Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies

Okay. I appreciate all the color. Thank you, everyone.

Operator

The next question comes from Brandon Nozzle with Hoof Group.

Brendan Nosal
Director at Hovde Group

Hey, folks. I hope you're doing well. Thanks for taking the questions. Hey Brandon. Maybe just to start off, I wonder if you could help us unpack the fee guide a little bit more.

Brendan Nosal
Director at Hovde Group

I mean if I look at core fees for the quarter, they were like $3,040,000,0.0 I guess if you annualize that, that's like $122,000,000 but the outlook is calling for flat fees in the range of $115,000,000 versus the annualized $122,000,000 So just help us understand why the kind of the quarterly run rate is going to step down about 6% from the core run rate in the and what those main drivers are? Thanks.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Yes. So thanks for that, Brendan. If you really want to think about it in this way that you have to take a step back and take out about at least $350,000,0.0 from the sale of our Fargo property, that's 1 time in nature. That gain was recognized in our total fee income. And then we also had another we had swap fees totaling about $1,000,000 in net run rate.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

So we gave the full year run rate. We're looking at it just a calendar year basis of 100 let's just call it $115,000,000 for simple math purposes. I mean, if you take out probably anywhere to the tune of $4,000,000 to $5,000,000 from that number, that's kind of your starting point from a fee income basis. Because we kind of look at swap income and so income from our client related swaps and also to property sales to be kind of lumpy and 1 time in nature.

Brendan Nosal
Director at Hovde Group

Okay. All right. That's helpful color. Maybe moving on to the cost base. I guess versus what I was looking for cost maybe came in a little bit heavier than I was expecting even after backing out the merger charges and the severance or signing bonuses.

Brendan Nosal
Director at Hovde Group

Can you just help us kind of pinpoint the run rate on the expense base as we turn the calendar here and how you expect it to progress across the year as cost savings from the deal come through?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Yes. As we think about cost saves, Brandon, I would think about that it's probably going to be a little bit more front end loaded than back end loaded because as we just closed on the merger back on Oct. 9 and we converted in Dec. 0. So there's going to take time for a lot of contracts and other things to roll off.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

So that's going to be more in the front half of this year. So you'll get a cleaner number as the year progresses and probably more in the back half of the year.

Brendan Nosal
Director at Hovde Group

And then is there any kind of thoughts on the actual dollar run rate as we move through the year at this point?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

No, because right now a lot of it's the 1 thing that's variable in there too because we have some moving parts especially when it comes to production. So as we have loan and deposit production coming in, that's going to create some volatility in there in terms of our because our biggest comp line our biggest line is going to be comp in terms of expenses. So there's going to be some volatility there based on production. So I would just say that if you're looking at a quarter to quarter basis is that it'll probably be more a little bit more lumpier in the first half than the back half. But that's why I gave the guide in the if looking at the full year run rate because if we're basing on the full year, you've got that $170 plus million that is for a full year run rate and we're looking for low single digit growth in there.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

So you can separate it out by quarter and and then just say like, okay, low front half will be a little more heavy than the back half.

Brendan Nosal
Director at Hovde Group

Okay. All right. Thanks for taking the questions, folks.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

And I apologize to that growth rate was low double digits. Sorry.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Sorry.

Operator

The next question comes from Jeff Rose with D. A. Davidson.

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Thanks. Good morning. Al, just to clarify that, you said the full year core 24 expenses were $170,000,000 and expect to grow those low double digit in 2025?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Yes.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Well, if you're looking at it in terms of efficiency ratio, that's from the simple math I was doing. So that's how I get to less than 70%.

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Okay. Okay. If I were to circle back to the margin, kind of if we think about reported at 03/20, adjusted at two eighty and the expectation

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

for

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

3 or greater, is there do you anticipate a step back in accretion in the Or another way to put that, what is the accretion amount in '25 expected?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Yes. So we're averaging what we're going to be looking at is going to be on an average around just called low 30s from an accretion standpoint. So 30 to 35 basis points is the range I've given and then probably a little bit higher in the front end of the year and it's going to go to the lower end in the back half of the year.

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Do you

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

have a dollar figure, Al, on the accretion for the full year?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

I can get to that offline. Let me get that for you.

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Okay. And just as I again thinking about that, appreciate the basis point addition. You talked about the core, it sounds like some tailwinds. So expectation is that continues to lift as you get positive impact. But maybe as you say the second half accretion tails off a bit kind of on net barring other changes looking like a fairly stable margin across the year as those puts and takes occur?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Yes. The way I would think about it is that we'd still see core margin improvement during the course of the year from where we start to end. But again, what I'm saying is that our margin will probably lumpy here there given the timing of deposit inflows. So as we start the year, we'll probably have a little bit lower margin. As we end the year, it will be a higher margin.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

And then we'll have core margin improvement year over year. And to think about the total purchasing account accretion, I found the number here, we're thinking anywhere from around approximately around $4,000,000 a quarter.

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Perfect. Okay. And then just the housekeeping, you said the organic loan and deposit growth in the quarter, that was 157 and 93 respectively?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Let me just double check here. That is correct. So yes, I have $157,000,000 for organic loan growth and $93,000,000 for organic deposit growth.

Operator

Our next question comes from Damon DelMonte with KBW.

Damon Delmonte
Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Good morning, everyone. Hope everybody is doing well today. Just to kind of follow-up on the loan growth question there. So very strong, I think that you analyze that, linked quarters, it's about 20%. And I think the guide going forward for this year is low to mid single digits.

Damon Delmonte
Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

So you guys have had numerous quarters in a row of very strong loan growth. So just kind of curious as to what leads to the guidance in that low to mid single digit range?

Jim Collins
Jim Collins
Executive Vice President and Chief Banking and Revenue Officer at Alerus Financial

Thanks, Damon. I will tell you, we do have some the strategy that we've invoked the last couple of years, we're continuing on bringing on talent that we did the last couple of years. We picked up some pretty good talent from Southern Minnesota, both in leadership and C and I talent. We will continue to focus on C and I and slow kind of slow down a little bit on investor CRE. But as the investor CRE slows down a little bit, we still have a lot of fundings of current loans and the commitments that will fund up on the CRE side.

Jim Collins
Jim Collins
Executive Vice President and Chief Banking and Revenue Officer at Alerus Financial

And the C and I side, we're really focused on that higher end business banking and commercial, which comes with a lot of lines of credit, different levels of usage and full relationships. So there's still a lot of work to do. The teams build pretty good pipelines. And even with some of the disruptions in a lot of our markets with other acquisitions, we'll be opportunistic with. But that really continues to be the focus, and that's where we're at from that standpoint.

Damon Delmonte
Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Got it. Okay. Appreciate that. And then with regards to the credit trends this quarter, again, that was just driven by 1 or 2 credits. I may have missed that in the initial commentary.

Karin Taylor
Karin Taylor
Executive VP and Chief Risk & Operating Officer at Alerus Financial

Yes. Damon, this is Karen. Good morning. Good morning. The increase in non performing was primarily driven by advances on that large multifamily construction project we talked about in the past.

Karin Taylor
Karin Taylor
Executive VP and Chief Risk & Operating Officer at Alerus Financial

And then of course there was that 1 deal that was over ninety days past due and accruing. That loan is now current.

Damon Delmonte
Managing Director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Got it. Okay. And then just lastly, just to circle back on expenses, Al. So if I'm understanding this correctly, if you're putting the core operating expenses for $24,000,000 around $170,000,000 you're talking low double digit growth when you layer in the impacts from the transaction, understanding that the cost days will come as the year progresses?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

That's correct. And I'm looking at core expenses somewhere in like mid-170s, like 175, 1 hundred and 70 6 is where my starting point is. Okay. And then layering on low double digits to that? Right.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

So because as we think about it too, because as the cost saves, the timing of those contracts and cost saves happen, it's going to just it's going to take time. So because we've only been closed for I believe the merchant's only been about three months old right now.

Operator

The next question comes from David Long with Raymond James.

David Long
David Long
Managing Director at Raymond James Financial

Within the Retirement Benefit Services division, your synergistic deposit had some very nice growth over time. What is the competitive backdrop there? And can we expect deposit growth from that from the synergistic deposits to continue to outperform?

Forrest Wilson
Forrest Wilson
Executive Vice President & Chief Retirement Services Officer at Alerus Financial

Yes. Hey, David. This is Forrest Wilson. Thanks for the question. As far as synergistic deposits go, I think you can expect the continued kind of steady trend.

Forrest Wilson
Forrest Wilson
Executive Vice President & Chief Retirement Services Officer at Alerus Financial

There is some opportunity in the HSA space, which has much higher margin. I think as Al mentioned in his deck, the cost of those funds to us is only 10 or so basis points. So there's a nice spread there and that market is growing pretty rapidly. We have not taken advantage of that historically. I think there's some opportunity there.

Forrest Wilson
Forrest Wilson
Executive Vice President & Chief Retirement Services Officer at Alerus Financial

So we're working right now to see if we can do better in that market in terms of growth. But I don't think you'll see any big changes in the short term in terms of our trends.

David Long
David Long
Managing Director at Raymond James Financial

Got it. And then as we're talking about assets under management here and maybe even talk a little bit about wealth too, but market appreciation has contributed. How much do you attribute to the appreciation versus Alaris bringing in net new business?

Forrest Wilson
Forrest Wilson
Executive Vice President & Chief Retirement Services Officer at Alerus Financial

Yes, I can take that on the retirement side and then Al maybe you'll have a couple of comments, but that's something that I look at very closely. We I'm very pleased to see that we're growing participants and plans very nicely. The assets, as you point out, have been fueled by market performance quite a bit, and that's been a little concerning. I was happy in the We turned that corner and we saw if you take out the market performance was actually a loss in the but if you take that out, we drew assets about $38,000,000 on the retirement side just when you look at cash flow coming in minus money going out. So that would be sales and participant contributions, things like that, and taking away any terminations or even on a participant level or a plan level.

Forrest Wilson
Forrest Wilson
Executive Vice President & Chief Retirement Services Officer at Alerus Financial

So kind of had on that net basis turn the corner in the albeit just a little bit, but that's a good leading indicator of where we want to continue to grow and find that organic growth even in the asset side. So that's kind of a status. Hopefully that helps, David.

Jim Collins
Jim Collins
Executive Vice President and Chief Banking and Revenue Officer at Alerus Financial

David, this is Jim Conk. On the wealth side, David, yes, we've had some good market growth. But I will tell you, as we're working on improving platforms on the wealth side, we've had tremendous customer growth, new relationships, specifically in North Dakota and specifically in Minneapolis. We're working on all markets to continue that. But client acquisition has been very strong the last 2, and we'll I think we'll continue that trend the next going forward, specifically as we flop out platforms and have a more streamlined backroom.

Jim Collins
Jim Collins
Executive Vice President and Chief Banking and Revenue Officer at Alerus Financial

But we will continue to invest in talent in wealth. As Katie mentioned earlier, the strategy of building a strong commercial bank and segueing that wealth in through private banking and then into wealth advisory service is clearly working for us.

David Long
David Long
Managing Director at Raymond James Financial

Got it. And Al, I assume with your discussion on the expenses, any increase in talent is already incorporated into that?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Yes, that's correct. And David, since we brought up expenses, I just want to make sure when I was commenting earlier on an earlier question that I was referring to an unadjusted non interest expense number of $176,000,000 So that's the growth rate people should be basing off of.

Operator

So our next question comes from Nathan Race with Piper Sandler.

Nathan Race
Nathan Race
Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies

Just again to clarify on expenses. The low double digit growth from 176 in 2024, that doesn't include any 110 costs side of the acquisition, correct?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

No, it does not. It includes just basically anything that's rolling off in the cost base.

Nathan Race
Nathan Race
Director & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies

Okay, got it. Thank you for clarifying.

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Yes.

Operator

And the next question comes from Jeff Rose with T. A. Davidson.

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Thanks. Al, the merger costs by line item, do we assume a piece of that was in professional fees? Do you have any other detail that we can map that?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Yes. I'd say a chunk of it was also into salary and compensation line.

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Okay. Okay. If that's the goal Yes. Yes. Okay.

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

And then Karen, on to go back to that Wolfbat family construction project, is that completed? And are there more advances expected in the or beyond?

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

Yes. We determined that funding completion of that project is going to result in the most viable option to get it completed quickly and to reduce potential losses. So we will continue to fund that. It is over 90% complete. The interior is expected to be complete by the end of the Exterior work will continue into the just given the climate in which we live.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

And so you will see our exposure on that increase over the next couple of quarters.

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Do you have a dollar figure on additional funding through completion?

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

Yes. So our current book balance is about $28,000,000 and that would increase to $36,000,000 to $37,000,000

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

dollars And then, so the path of resolution beyond that is the expectation that the project is completed. What are the, I guess, your the game plan beyond that and possible timeline?

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

Our agreement includes the expectation that it's listed for sale immediately upon completion. In addition, they have started leasing and to date they are ahead of the agreed upon leasing milestones.

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Okay. And the completion date roughly, is it this summer or?

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

We expect it in the May 0, June 0 timeframe in order to get all that outside completion done.

Jeff Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And this concludes our question and answer session. So I would like to turn the conference back over to Katie Lorentzon for any closing remarks.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

Great. Thank you. Thank you to everyone for joining our call today. Looking ahead, we remain committed to driving sustainable and profitable growth while building and delivering value to our shareholders. Our strategic mantra is all about getting better and not just bigger.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

And our mission for 2025 is to focus and execute, keep bringing in profitable business and managing our expenses. We will continue to prioritize our organic growth opportunities and selectively take market share while maintaining strong asset quality. We've made meaningful progress in our performance. We're optimistic about the opportunities that lie ahead and are confident in our ability to navigate the evolving financial landscape. In closing, I want to reiterate my gratitude to our team members, our clients and our shareholders.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President & CEO at Alerus Financial

Your dedication and support have been the foundation of our success and together we will continue to build on our progress, our achievements and navigate the future with discipline and optimism. Thank you everyone.

Operator

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

Executives
    • Katie Lorenson
      Katie Lorenson
      President & CEO
    • Al Villalon
      Al Villalon
      EVP & CFO
    • Jim Collins
      Jim Collins
      Executive Vice President and Chief Banking and Revenue Officer
    • Karin Taylor
      Karin Taylor
      Executive VP and Chief Risk & Operating Officer
    • Forrest Wilson
      Forrest Wilson
      Executive Vice President & Chief Retirement Services Officer
Analysts
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Key Takeaways

  • We finished Q4 with an adjusted return on tangible equity exceeding 14%, marking deliberate progress toward top-tier profitability.
  • The Home Federal acquisition closed successfully—our largest ever—lifting total assets past $5 billion, growing the client base nearly 50%, and beating cost-saving targets by 5%.
  • Revenues surged as net interest income jumped ~70% and margin widened 97 bps to 3.2%, while noninterest income rose 19% quarter-over-quarter and core fee income grew 10% year-over-year.
  • In our specialty businesses, retirement services delivered 6% revenue growth with record plan sales and benefits from Secure Act 2, and wealth management revenues climbed 19% with a focus on matching AUM to bank assets.
  • Looking to 2025, management targets low-single-digit loan and deposit growth, a net interest margin above 3%, stable fee income, and an adjusted efficiency ratio below 70%.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Alerus Financial Q4 2024
00:00 / 00:00

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