BOK Financial Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
April 22, 2025
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Operator

Greetings. Welcome to Bulk Financial Corporation's First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

Operator

I would now like to turn the presentation over to Heather King, Director of Investor Relations for POC Financial Corporation. Please proceed.

Heather King
Heather King
Director - Investor Relations at BOK Financial

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining our discussion of BOK Financial's first quarter twenty twenty five financial results. Our CEO, Stacy Kymes, will provide opening comments and cover our loan portfolio and related credit metrics. Scott Brower, Executive Vice President of Wealth Management, will cover our fee based results. Our CFO, Marty Grunst, will then discuss financial performance for the quarter and our forward guidance. Slide presentation and press release are available on our website at bokf.com.

Heather King
Heather King
Director - Investor Relations at BOK Financial

We refer you to the disclaimer on Slide two regarding any forward looking statements made during this call. I will now turn the call over to Stacy Kymes, who will begin on Slide four.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Thank you, Heather. We appreciate you joining the call this afternoon. We are pleased to report earnings of $119,800,000 or EPS of $1.86 per diluted share for the first quarter. At BOK Financial, we worked hard over the years to build a reputation as a strong, stable and growing financial services provider. In today's volatile market environment, the stability of our franchise is apparent.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

We have a consistent risk management framework built to weather many different economic and market cycles. Our capital levels remain strong and in fact improved yet again this quarter with TCE reaching 9.5% and CET1 reaching 13.3%. These strong capital levels not only help insulate us from market disruptions, but also allow us to confidently and strategically plan for future growth. Another insulator is our liquidity position. At 62%, our loan to deposit ratio is one of the lowest in our peer group.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Additionally, part of our stability story is a disciplined approach to credit that doesn't change over cycles. That consistency has driven solid performance in our loan portfolio with low criticized classified levels and the combined allowance at a healthy 1.4% of outstanding loans. Our long term credit performance of 26 basis points of charge offs is peer leading and we believe in our ability to continue outperforming the market in this area. Commercial real estate is another area that can be sensitive to market conditions. Our CRE concentration is currently well below limits which at 185 limit on Tier one capital plus reserves in itself is low compared to peers.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Our financial performance this quarter reflects our ability to navigate through times of extraordinary market volatility. Despite recent market disruptions and geopolitical events, our diverse business model has performed well. Our strategy at BOK Financial is to produce long term sustainable value for our shareholders and we base our decisions on that strategy. While we may see fluctuating results in some of our business lines during unstable conditions as we did this quarter, these businesses are built for long term success. During the quarter, net interest income was strong and we continue to see net interest margin expansion for the third quarter in a row as we recognize the down rate deposit betas with continued lower repricing.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

We are already showing a total liability beta of 74%, which is one of the highest in our peer group. The lack of clarity and volatility in the financial markets impacted our fee income, specifically in our trading business. Trading fees in January were in line with our expectations. The trading volumes and spread were compressed during February and March as uncertainty in the market slowed fixed income trading. However, as we mentioned last quarter, we expected a mix shift in trading revenue to net interest income as the yield curve steepened and we saw that come to fruition in Q1 with some of our fee income decline recaptured in net interest income growth.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Scott will talk more about this in his commentary. Consistent with the rest of the industry, loan growth in the first quarter has been challenging. As you can see on slide six, we experienced contraction in our loan portfolio mainly driven by pullback in our energy book. Excluding energy, our total loan portfolio was relatively consistent with prior quarter. Loan balances in the Energy business decreased 12.1% linked quarter.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Our appetite for adding new Energy transactions is unchanged and we're proactive in supporting our customers in this space. Over the last few quarters, the Energy industry has been consolidating, which has generated payoffs in the portfolio. We expect these balances will rebound over time as the market adjusts. Our core C and I loan portfolio, which represents our combined services and general business portfolios, was relatively stable linked quarter contracting only 0.7%. On a year over year basis, these portfolios are still showing positive results growing 4.2%.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Our healthcare business loans decreased 4.5% linked quarter. We set a new record for Healthcare commitment production in Q1. However, payoff levels have remained elevated relative to historical standards and more than offset the increased outstandings. Payoff activity is a normal component of this business and was driven by increases in asset sales by sponsors and refinancing into non bank long term non recourse loan options. We expect payoff activity especially related to refinances to moderate and pipelines to remain robust.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Our commercial real estate business increased 2.1% quarter over quarter with the majority of the growth coming from multifamily housing and industrial projects. We are starting to see the loans that we originated in 2024 fund up as they move through the construction phase as we signaled the past couple of quarters. We expect to see further growth in outstandings in the second half of the year. As I mentioned last quarter, we are expanding into the mortgage finance and warehouse lending business. This initiative is progressing nicely with the system implementation well underway and the talent already in place.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

This lays the foundation for a launch of this new line of business in the September to October timeframe. This won't be a monoline offering and we believe that this will unlock value across our existing lines of business and allow us to better support and engage with the more than 500 independent mortgage originators that we do business with today. Transitioning to Slide seven, credit quality remains exceptional across the loan portfolio. This isn't a new story for us. We've consistently shown peer leading credit outcomes over the last thirty years across good and challenging market cycles.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Nonperforming assets not guaranteed by the U. S. Government increased $36,000,000 to $79,000,000 However, this is coming off the lowest levels in the last twenty years and remains exceptionally low. The resulting non performing assets, the period end loans and repossessed assets, increased 15 basis points to 33 basis points. Committed criticized assets also remained very low relative to historical standards.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

In addition, we had minimal net charge offs of $1,100,000 during the quarter and net charge offs have averaged four basis points over the last twelve months. We expect net charge offs to remain below historical norms in the future. Our combined allowance of credit losses is $331,000,000 or 1.4% of outstanding loans, which is a healthy reserve level. Overall, I'm pleased with the results this quarter. We are focused on people and process.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Our exceptional team demonstrates the grit and determination it takes to succeed in a very dynamic and fast changing market. We continue to add revenue generating team members and our sales process continues to produce opportunities for us going forward. And now I'll turn the call over to Scott.

Scott Grauer
Scott Grauer
Executive Vice President of Wealth Management at BOK Financial

Thank you, Stacy. Turning to our operating results for the quarter on Slides nine and ten, total fee income decreased $22,800,000 on a linked quarter basis, contributing $184,100,000 to revenue. As Stacy mentioned, market volatility resulting from uncertainties surrounding U. S. Domestic and foreign policy affected our trading business this quarter, but this business is designed to produce solid long term results.

Scott Grauer
Scott Grauer
Executive Vice President of Wealth Management at BOK Financial

To give you a sense of the composition of our trading portfolio, more than 97% is residential mortgage backed securities issued by US government agencies. Even in more challenging environments, the credit quality of this portfolio is high and comes with limited basis risk. This quarter, you started to see the transition from fee income to the trading related net interest income that we discussed in our last call. During the quarter, total trading revenue was $23,300,000 which was down from $37,700,000 in the prior quarter. Dollars 10,600,000.0 of fee revenue shifted from fees to net interest income as the yield curve steepened.

Scott Grauer
Scott Grauer
Executive Vice President of Wealth Management at BOK Financial

The remainder of the decline in trading revenue reflects lower MBS trading volumes and tightened spreads as client demand was muted toward the end of the first quarter. We also experienced seasonally weaker pipelines in our municipal desk. We've provided a table on slide nine to allow you to see this dynamic. Mortgage banking revenue grew 1,700,000 linked quarter, coming in at 19,800,000.0 driven by higher mortgage production as client demand begins to increase and inventory constraints ease slightly. Turning to slide 10.

Scott Grauer
Scott Grauer
Executive Vice President of Wealth Management at BOK Financial

Our asset management and transactions businesses were very consistent with the prior quarter, contributing a hundred and 33,200,000.0 in revenue. Importantly, there is diversification within this portfolio with 43% fixed income, 34% equities, 15% cash and the remainder in alternatives. AUMA decreased $659,000,000 linked quarter, reflecting the volatile market conditions during Q1. And now I'll hand the call over to Marty to cover the financials.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

Thank you, Scott. Turning to slide 12. Net interest income was up $3,200,000 and headline net interest margin expanded three basis points, reflecting growth in trading related net interest income. Core net interest margin excluding trading decreased four basis points and was driven by several factors. The securities and fixed rate loan portfolios continue to reinvest cash flows at higher current market yields.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

The upward repricing in the securities portfolio was dampened this quarter from lower accretion of purchase discount. Non interest bearing DDA balances declined slightly coming off seasonal highs of Q4. While these balances were sequentially lower, both the average balance and the trends within the quarter were aligned with our expectations. Loan fees declined during the quarter after being elevated for the prior two quarters, which negatively impacted effective loan yields. Loan fees are now in line with our typical historical and seasonal patterns.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

Loan spreads were pressured due to a mix shift within the loan portfolio with higher spread energy loans being replaced with narrower spread core C and I loan, and of course the lower day account impacted Q1 versus Q4. Each of these factors vary in terms of their predictability and stability of trends. Fixed rate asset repricing has clear drivers and an established supportive trend. DDA mix shift seems to have largely run its course, and normal seasonality and customer usage variability have been more visible lately. Over time, we have demonstrated the ability to generate very good loan growth in our specialty lines of business, and we believe that represents future loan yield opportunity.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

Turning to slide 13, total expenses were consistent with prior quarter. Personnel expenses grew $3,500,000 largely driven by annual merit increases in the first quarter. Seasonally higher employee benefits costs driven by payroll taxes were offset by lower incentive compensation costs resulting from reduced trading activity. Non personnel expense decreased $3,600,000 led by a reduction in mortgage banking costs. Slide 14 provides an update on our outlook for full year 2025.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

Loan balance projections reflect continued fund up activity on construction loans in the CRE portfolio, continued growth in core C and I and the successful launch of our mortgage finance business later in the year. We recognize the economic policy uncertainty adds some risk to this guidance. Our net interest income expectations remain unchanged. This assumes two twenty five basis point rate cuts with a small amount of upside should additional cuts materialize. I will note that trading related interest income will be impacted by rate levels and curve steepness, which would largely be offset by trading related fee income.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

We widened the range of our guidance for fees and commissions given the impact of economic and market uncertainty on activity within our fixed income trading business. Lastly, on credit, nonperforming assets are remarkably low and portfolio credit quality is very strong, all of which supports our expectation that charge offs will remain well controlled for the foreseeable future. With that, I would like to hand the call back to the operator for Q and A, which will be followed by closing remarks from Stacy.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. And your first question comes from the line of Jared Shaw with Barclays. Jared, please go ahead.

Jared Shaw
Jared Shaw
Managing Director at Barclays Capital

Hi, thanks a lot. Good afternoon.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Hey, Jared. Welcome.

Jared Shaw
Jared Shaw
Managing Director at Barclays Capital

Thanks. Good to be back on the call. Maybe just first, looking at the dynamic with trading income and the trading fees versus the NII, when you look at total trading revenue still down, is all of that $14,000,000 roughly due to the lower volume as you said? And at some point, guess, when what's a normalized level would you say for total trading revenue? Is it closer to what we have this quarter?

Jared Shaw
Jared Shaw
Managing Director at Barclays Capital

Or should we expect to see that start to trend higher?

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

Yes, Jared. So the short answer to your first question is yes. That was just all volume driven. There's nothing else within there. Yes, we do expect to see trends come back.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

It's certainly market dependent, but our view is that that trends back up here over the second quarter in the trading business. As a matter of fact, the first few weeks of the quarter, we've seen some rebound activity there. So that gives us some confidence about how that trends going forward.

Scott Grauer
Scott Grauer
Executive Vice President of Wealth Management at BOK Financial

And so Jared, this is Scott. So I would add that so as Stacy mentioned early in the call, we actually on our trading activity, specifically in the mortgage backed securities, we started the year very solid out of the gates. Our January was in line and actually growing versus our previous results in 2024. And then as the economic and trade uncertainties, I'll call them, were introduced into the market in both February and kind of climaxed in March, that activity suffered significantly. As you look forward into April, we believe that where we started the year and where we expected that activity to be absent that significant uncertainty is reasonable.

Jared Shaw
Jared Shaw
Managing Director at Barclays Capital

Okay. All right. That's good color. Thanks. And looking at the pressure on balances in Energy and Healthcare, is that dynamic continuing second?

Jared Shaw
Jared Shaw
Managing Director at Barclays Capital

Should we assume that that's just sort of a in this current environment, that's going to be a consistent pressure? And going back to like the loan yields that we should think that incremental loan yields are under pressure from here?

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

I don't think so. I think the calling the absolute bottom on the energy loans is difficult, but I think we feel pretty confident that if we're not there, we're close to there. I don't think that's going to be a headwind for us to the extent it has been the last two quarters going forward. Actually, you look, it's always dangerous to talk about April results, but we're up in all categories really in April across the board. So early trends there are very positive.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

But with respect to both Healthcare and Energy, I don't think you're going to see the headwind there in the next three quarters like you saw in the last two quarters. But understand, a difficult one for us to forecast with great accuracy as well, just given the market dynamics and what the shape of the curve is at any point in time. And particularly in the M and A space, acquisitions mergers and acquisitions have played a significant role there. We do see that slowing down a bit, which is part of the optimism about the lack of headwind going forward.

Jared Shaw
Jared Shaw
Managing Director at Barclays Capital

Okay. All right. Great. And then just finally for me, when we look at the provision guide with sort of the dynamic of the loan growth guide, should we assume that you're going to be growing the ACL as a ratio over the course of the year? And I guess what are some of the dynamics you're using in terms of qualitative overlay and potentially a more risk or a more adverse scenario?

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

Yes. So Jared, so we would not expect to need to grow the coverage ratio over the course of the year. You know, if you look at how we closed out the first quarter, you know, the increase that we saw in credit quality on our portfolio combined with where the actual balance levels came. So when we ran our our reserve calc, it actually suggested that, that we could do a a a reserve release. However, when we looked at, you know, current circumstances, that just didn't make any sense to us.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

So so, you know, we obviously provided at at zero, but that just gives you a sense for the fact that there is some, you know, judgmental addition in there on top of what it would normally be.

Jared Shaw
Jared Shaw
Managing Director at Barclays Capital

Great. Thank you.

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Jon Arfstrom with RBC Capital Markets. Jon, please go ahead.

Jon Arfstrom
Jon Arfstrom
Managing Director - Associate Director of US Research at RBC Capital Markets

Thanks. Good afternoon.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

Hey. Hello, John.

Jon Arfstrom
Jon Arfstrom
Managing Director - Associate Director of US Research at RBC Capital Markets

Hey. I wanted to ask a little bit about the loan growth outlook. But can you give us an update as to what you're hearing on pipelines in general? And then, Stacy, maybe give us an update on the expected size of the mortgage finance business maybe by the end of the year.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Yes. So pipelines are good. We actually track our pipelines through Salesforce. Marty and I review those every month, and those are very strong. I think that the color that's hard to weave in that is how will borrower uncertainty play out.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Will the deal that they've agreed to, will they go ahead and close that in the face of a less certain economic environment. I think that's the piece that's hard for us to put our finger on exactly. And so I think when Marty alluded to the loan growth guidance, he acknowledged that there's some uncertainty around that. But based on what we know today, we still feel confident in that. So I'm not worried about the pipeline.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

I feel really good about where we're at there and how we're building those and how we're growing those. The piece that's the wildcard that we can't really discern well is how will the borrower response be. Will they advance on the line of credit? Will they go ahead with the new piece of equipment or the whatever is driving the capital need? I think that's a harder one for us to deal with great certainty today because as we've learned, what are the conditions today, they could be very different tomorrow.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

And so we're very hesitant to kind of extrapolate kind of what happened in late first quarter, early second quarter and say, that's going to be the conditions for the rest of the year. It's likely to change in some way, shape or form. And so we felt more comfortable kind of sticking with what we knew, which was the pipeline that we have. On the mortgage warehouse side, I'm not ready to give volume estimates there yet when we haven't even made our first loan. But it did give us confidence to reaffirm the kind of point to point loan guidance we provided in our forward looking guidance.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

And so we still feel very good about that and frankly are excited about the team that we've put on board and as well as their ability to attract business. Like we said, this fits so well with the rest of our businesses with we have the core mortgage business. We've got the mortgage hedging, the pipeline hedging. We've got the structured finance business. And now we're going to have the warehouse business here as well.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

And so really integrates well into the 500 plus mortgage finance companies that are already our customers today. And so that's not going to just be about loans. It's also going to be about deposits as well. So we're probably more excited about that than we were even ninety days ago. So it just helps us feel more confident in believing that we'll achieve our point to point loan guidance that we provided.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

And John, just to be clear, we've got leadership in place, we've got operations folks, credit folks and producers all in place today. So we have, we have everything we need to to begin.

Jon Arfstrom
Jon Arfstrom
Managing Director - Associate Director of US Research at RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Good. That's helpful.

Jon Arfstrom
Jon Arfstrom
Managing Director - Associate Director of US Research at RBC Capital Markets

And then just, Scott, one follow-up for you. That that trading NII line, is that is that unusual? I mean, it looks like it's a big jump, but at the same time, you guys are flagging maybe a steeper curve as a driver Yes.

Scott Grauer
Scott Grauer
Executive Vice President of Wealth Management at BOK Financial

And that that is the you know, why that mix shift as we you know, the the curves return to steepness and an actual yield curve last year, while we talked about that in the fourth quarter in particular, as we do have steepness to the curve, that is a more traditional mix of the revenues as opposed to the flat or inverted curve we experienced for twenty four, twenty six months. So we don't expect that to be a onetime occurrence. We think that mix between fees and NII are more reflective of that business in a normal shaped curve.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

And John, it's Marty. I would add on

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

the bottom of Page nine on the slides. To understand the trends in the business, it's better to look at that total trading revenue line at the very bottom, and that gives you a much more muted level of change there. And that's really the insightful way to think about the trends, in that business unit.

Scott Grauer
Scott Grauer
Executive Vice President of Wealth Management at BOK Financial

And recognizing that our trading business is largely MBS in that category and then municipals. So there is no equities increased volume due to chaotic markets offset to that. So ours is gonna reflect that curve and the MBS activity overall, most most predominantly.

Jon Arfstrom
Jon Arfstrom
Managing Director - Associate Director of US Research at RBC Capital Markets

Yep. Okay. Yeah. I was just curious if we get a couple of cuts and we have a steeper curve if if in aggregate those numbers can move higher. That's that's kind of

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

They can. Yeah. You could see that shift, go even further if if what you just described laid out, but the total revenue of the business would remain unaffected.

Scott Grauer
Scott Grauer
Executive Vice President of Wealth Management at BOK Financial

And and historically, when we had that, you know, steeper curve, more traditional curve prior to the flattening and inversion, that was the composition of our business, and it was more predominantly NII than fees than where it is at the end of this quarter.

Jon Arfstrom
Jon Arfstrom
Managing Director - Associate Director of US Research at RBC Capital Markets

Okay.

Jon Arfstrom
Jon Arfstrom
Managing Director - Associate Director of US Research at RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Very helpful. Thanks, guys.

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Peter Winter with D. A. Davidson. Peter, please go ahead.

Peter Winter
Managing Director - Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Thanks. Good afternoon. Just had two questions. Just digging a little bit deeper into the outlook. First, you didn't lower the expense forecast given somewhat of a weaker fee income outlook.

Peter Winter
Managing Director - Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson

But can you talk about your flexibility to manage expenses if if revenues come in weaker?

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

Yeah. So we've got a

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

little bit of flexibility in a kind of a couple different areas. So number one, as you know, Peter, you'll you've got a couple of lines where the the compensation is heavily variable. And so both in the trading and investment banking and mortgage areas, you know, that'll just naturally ebb and flow with the revenue streams. And then number two, you know, we're always looking for efficiencies throughout our business. That's just a constant look for us.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

And, you know, so that's that's something that, you know, we can find more things from time to time. And then, you know, third, you know, most of our expense growth is really about strategic initiatives and investments in our future, whether that's technology, etcetera. By and large, those are decisions that we make thinking through a long term lens, and we're convicted about doing and largely make those on their merits. If the world changes and IRRs for those investments change as a result, that's something you might delay just based on the economics of it and something might be worth doing later. But largely, those are made through the lens of of the decision that the long term returns of that investment.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

So that kind of gives you a sense for how we think about the expense base.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Yes. Let me clarify, Peter. I think really two things. One, obviously, the trading revenue side, there's a lot of variability with that expense to the extent that the revenue is there. The expenses will be there.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

And to the extent that it's not, then that associated expense will decline. But I think I would be careful to characterize softness in fee revenue. I think softness in trading revenue. But if you look at mortgage banking, yep, year over year 4.5% hedging fees up 33% year over year brokerage fees up 6% year over year fiduciary and asset management fees up 10% year over year transaction card up over 6% year over year. So the core fee businesses are humming.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

You're really talking about one category, trading fees that were soft this quarter, and they were soft because of a really difficult macro environment. And from my perspective, in trading, the risks were very asymmetric this quarter. I'm really proud of the team and how we worked through that and the manner that we did with spreads moving wider and then contracting and moving in ways that aren't historical norms with treasuries. Our risk management team did a fantastic job keeping that portfolio well hedged and managing through that in a very positive way. And so the trading revenue was clearly volatile and underperformed.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

There's no doubt about that. But the rest of the fee businesses are really performing well and very proud of that and don't want to get don't want that to get lost in the noise of the trading revenue.

Peter Winter
Managing Director - Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson

No, I appreciate that color. Just can you talk maybe about the outlook for deposit growth and these talk about maybe further opportunities to lower deposit costs and funding costs if the Fed doesn't cut rates? And how you think the deposit beta trends from here?

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

Yes. So Peter, we're really proud of the activity that we did during the quarter on deposit pricing. We had a 75% deposit beta for Q1, which is a great result. And kudos to our teams for managing that well. I think when you look at it's probably smarter to look at the cumulative, interest bearing liability beta.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

The accumulatives are generally more insightful. And our cumulative interest bearing beta is 74, which is right on top of our cycle cumulative up beta, just almost almost within a percentage point. So we're very happy about that. And we do think that given the strong loan to deposit ratio we have, just really one of the strongest out there, that gives us the ability to to continue to work on deposit pricing over time. In fact, we did some of that at the end of the first quarter, and then we'll see some benefit rolling into q two as a result.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

And we'll continue to work on that throughout the course of the year. So yes, you can do some of that without Fed moves. We'll just look at the competitive environment, but certainly makes it easier if you do get some Fed moves.

Peter Winter
Managing Director - Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson

And just could you just mention how you're doing how the outlook on deposit growth?

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

Yes. So we do expect deposits to grow throughout the rest of the year. But given the loan to deposit ratio that we have, if we were to turn the dial some on deposit pricing and we saw a different trend line there, you know, that would ultimately be fine for us because of how how luxurious that level of loan to deposit ratio is. And at the end of the day, doing so would be something that would be net interest income accretive.

Peter Winter
Managing Director - Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Got it. Thanks, Marty.

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Michael Rose with Raymond James. Michael, please go ahead.

Michael Rose
Michael Rose
Managing Director - Equity Research at Raymond James Financial

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to start going back to the energy portfolio. Can you just help us better appreciate, what's going on with energy prices now and if they were to continue to fall versus what happened during the energy downturn from late 'fourteen through 'seventeen? I know the percentage is lower.

Michael Rose
Michael Rose
Managing Director - Equity Research at Raymond James Financial

Energy companies are generally operating within cash flows, which is a big difference now versus then. But wouldn't there be some further delevering if energy prices remained under pressure, if we did move closer to recession? Just trying to better appreciate what those balances could look like over time, understanding that it is a bigger proportion for you versus many others. Thanks.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Yes. Good question. A lot of differences between 2014 and today. I think the biggest one is leverage. I mean leverage in the core portfolio was probably in excess of three times, somewhere between three and three point five times in 2014.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Today, the leverage in our energy production portfolio is less than one times. Part of the problem we have getting outstanding is we've had great commitment growth. The team has done a great job there. The borrowers are just not using the leverage today. And so that singularly is the biggest difference.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

The other one is hedging as a risk management tool is very different today. And so in 2014, borrowers were largely under hedged and that's not an issue today at all. So I don't know that lower commodity prices for the short term here are going to have a lot of headwind on energy loans. We do a lot of stress testing. We stressed oil down to $44 which is really the stress point today.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Don't see a lot of loss there. And really, that's because of the extensive amount of hedging and the very low leverage. So our average leverage is less than 1x on energy production and less than 1.5 times on midstream. And so those are very low levels of leverage from where we are today.

Michael Rose
Michael Rose
Managing Director - Equity Research at Raymond James Financial

Very helpful, Stacy. Appreciate it. And maybe understand that you have two cuts baked into your forecast. I don't think it's the biggest driver, but can you just give us a sense for if we did assume the forward curve, which I think is around four cuts, or what the impact on NII could be if we did get no cuts? Thanks.

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

Yeah. So either way, it would not make much of a difference and certainly not enough to make us, you know, think about changing guidance. So, basically, you know, an additional cut or two. It would be a little bit helpful in in the, you know, the later part of the year, but but nothing material. And by the same token, you know, if we don't get those rate cuts, you know,

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

that would that would be, you know,

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

virtually no impact to revenue. Now you'd see a a little bit of a different shift between trading fees and trading NII, but total revenue would be basically unchanged.

Michael Rose
Michael Rose
Managing Director - Equity Research at Raymond James Financial

Got it. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Woody Lay with KBW. Woody, please go ahead.

Woody Lay
Vice President at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Hey, thanks for taking my question. Wanted to start with the loan growth guide and just a follow-up there. So was the addition of the mortgage finance vertical, was that embedded in the loan growth guidance the last quarter or is adding that vertical sort of helping bridge the gap after the loan shrinkage this quarter?

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

Yeah. Woody, we did not have that in the guide we had prior quarter. We just weren't far enough along to feel like we wanted to put it in. So we did put it in this quarter just given that, you know, we've got all the all the groundwork laid. We feel very confident about where we are and so felt good about putting that in.

Woody Lay
Vice President at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Got it. And then I know you're not ready to sort of guide where balances could be by the end of the year. But, I mean, longer term, how do you sort of think about the concentration of mortgage warehouse in the loan portfolio?

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Yes. I mean we're not concerned with letting it grow. I mean we're going to walk before we run here. But we understand this portfolio can grow. And frankly, for us, it provides a diversification benefit across the broader portfolio.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

The risk in mortgage finance is less credit risk and more about operating risk. We like that aspect of it, and we like the full relationship that we're going to have both on depository side and on the hedging side and structured finance side. So for us, it kind of completes the vertical in many respects for us. And it has really limited credit risk and then provides strong diversification benefit for the rest of the loan portfolio. So we expect to see it grow and be a meaningful number when we're sitting here, say, end of twenty twenty six.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

I expect it to be a meaningful number for BOKF.

Woody Lay
Vice President at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

Alright. Got it. And then last for me, capital remains strong and, you know, the stock price has seen a pullback here just alongside the broader market. You know, how do you weigh buybacks in the current take given all the uncertainty on the macro side?

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

Yes. So as you know, we do have a very strong capital position and are sitting on some excess capital. And as we look at the alternatives available to us, we do expect to be active share repurchases in the second quarter.

Woody Lay
Vice President at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW)

All right. Thanks for taking my questions. Thank you.

Operator

And our final question comes from the line of Matt Olney with Stephens. Matt, please go ahead.

Matt Olney
Managing Director at Stephens Inc

Hey, thanks guys. Just a few cleanups here. Stacy, you mentioned that energy customers already have lots of hedging on future production. In the past, we've seen increased activity, which is volatility to commodity prices. But it sounds like maybe we should not anticipate this given the existing customers already are fully hedged.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Yes. But customers are well hedged. And because leverage is low, hedge coverage may not be at the same level it was, say, even a year ago. But that hedge coverage is like an accordion. It grows as the leverage grows.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

And so with leverage less than 1x, you're going to have, I think, like 55% of our borrowers are hedged out the next twelve months or so. And that may seem a little bit low, but because the leverage is so low, we're not requiring the hedging when their leverage is that low. But that would grow to the extent that their leverage profile changed as well.

Matt Olney
Managing Director at Stephens Inc

I guess, a different way, Stacy, with lower commodity prices more recently, that may not represent a catalyst to see increased hedging activity for you guys.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Yes. That's a fair price. There's we had a really strong hedging activity in the first hedging quarter in the first quarter. Those guys are opportunistic and they'll dip in and dip out of hedging when they see the opportunities. Obviously, oil is under pressure.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

And so this may not be the quarter that people want to hedge more oil. But there's other ways they can do that with and still have a floor put a floor in without necessarily having a top end. So it can change. But you're right, dollars 60 oil, there's going to be less hedging activity in all likelihood during the second quarter.

Matt Olney
Managing Director at Stephens Inc

Okay. Perfect. And then Marty made another question on the trading interest revenue. I'll ask a little bit differently. I think you disclosed in the press release that the trading activity spread was around 98 bps in the first quarter.

Matt Olney
Managing Director at Stephens Inc

Does the full year guidance assume that we just maintain these levels around 98 bps or with the May and September cut, could we see that spread actually improve?

Martin Grunst
Martin Grunst
Executive VP & CFO at BOK Financial

Yes. So we do within the guidance, we expect that the spread improves some as you get those rate cuts later in the year. That's the right way to think about it.

Matt Olney
Managing Director at Stephens Inc

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator

That concludes our question and answer session. I will now hand it over to Stacy for closing remarks. Stacy?

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Thank you, everyone, for joining our discussion today. Our results this quarter are a testament to the strength and adaptability of our organization and our ability to operate successfully in any market cycle. Our exacting focus on our risk management framework and diverse business model work together and are core to our success. Credit quality remains excellent. We've got a strong loan pipeline relationships.

Stacy Kymes
Stacy Kymes
CEO, President & Director at BOK Financial

Net interest income is expanding, and our fee income businesses continue to work as designed. We appreciate your interest in BOK Financial and your willingness to spend time with us this afternoon. Please reach out to Heather King if you have any questions at h. Kingbokf dot com.

Operator

That concludes our conference call. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Heather King
      Heather King
      Director - Investor Relations
    • Stacy Kymes
      Stacy Kymes
      CEO, President & Director
    • Scott Grauer
      Scott Grauer
      Executive Vice President of Wealth Management
    • Martin Grunst
      Martin Grunst
      Executive VP & CFO
Analysts
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Key Takeaways

  • Reported Q1 earnings of $119.8 million or $1.86 EPS, supported by a strong capital base with TCE at 9.5% and CET1 at 13.3%.
  • Net interest income grew and net interest margin expanded for the third consecutive quarter, aided by a 74% liability beta and strategic shift from trading fees into higher-yielding trading‐related NII.
  • Total loan balances contracted 2.1% in Q1, driven by a 12.1% pullback in energy loans, while excluding energy loans the portfolio was broadly flat and CRE and C&I remained stable.
  • Credit quality remains exceptional with nonperforming assets at 0.33%, net charge-offs averaging 4 bps, and a combined allowance of 1.4% of loans.
  • Reaffirmed full-year guidance assuming 25 bps of rate cuts, with unchanged NII outlook, wider fee guidance due to trading volatility, and plans to launch a mortgage finance & warehouse lending business by September-October.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
BOK Financial Q1 2025
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