Alerus Financial Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
April 29, 2025
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Operator

Good morning, afternoon and evening, and welcome to the Alerus Financial Corporation Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. This call may include forward looking statements and the company actual results may differ materially from those indicated in any forward looking statements.

Operator

Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward looking statements are listed in the earnings release on the company's SEC filings. I would now like to turn the conference over to the Alerus Financial Corporation President and CEO, Katie Lauriston to begin. Katie, please go ahead when you're ready.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President, CEO & Director at Alerus Financial

All right. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Alaris Financial Corporation's first quarter financial results. I'm Katie Morrison, President and CEO, and I'm pleased to be here in The Twin Cities with our Chief Financial Officer, Al Villarlon our Chief Operating Officer, Karin Taylor our Chief Banking and Revenue Officer, Jim Collins and joining us via phone is our Chief Retirement Services Officer, Forrest Wilson. I want to extend my gratitude and thanks to each of these leaders who continue to play a crucial role in driving our company's culture with the mindset of success is never final and the hard work and courageous leadership that has fueled our transformation over the past two years to the stronger company we are today.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President, CEO & Director at Alerus Financial

The first quarter of twenty twenty five showcased a continued blend of progress in performance and strategic execution. Our performance ratio continued to improve with an adjusted ROA of 1.1%, a 25 basis point improvement from our adjusted ROA last quarter. The first quarter also represented our first full quarter with HMNS fully integrated. The addition of our Home Federal team members, along with the hiring of dozens of other talented professionals with deep expertise and broad networks, has created continued momentum in high quality organic growth, driving efficiency improvements and unlocking new opportunities to deepen relationships with our client base. We remain focused on our One Aleris strategy, a unified and collaborative approach that leverages our best in class diversified business model to grow our franchise through full relationships that extend from traditional commercial banking, full service treasury management to private banking management.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President, CEO & Director at Alerus Financial

Our focus over the past few years has been on enhancing our commercial bank with talent and expertise, targeting mid market and business banking clients in addition to niche segments to consistently grow organically, maintain our well diversified balance sheet and build a strong brand across our geographic footprint. I'm extremely proud of the leadership and the talent within these banking teams. The integration of their work between the teams in client acquisition and expansion has never been tighter. The results are evident with another strong quarter of loans, deposit and wealth management client growth. Our net interest margin improved again this quarter with the teams across the company executing great discipline in pricing on both sides of the balance sheet.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President, CEO & Director at Alerus Financial

Our loan to deposit ratio was stable with continued success in onboarding full commercial and private banking relationships. In addition, synergistic deposits in our retirement business allowed us to deepen the plan relationship while adding exceptionally stable funding with no related branch for client service costs. We continue to exercise prudent risk management and early and proactive risk identification. Our non performing loans decreased during the quarter with a full payoff of a large non accrual loan. While it's hard to predict the ultimate impact of the potential tariffs and government spending cuts, we continue to engage with our client base as we do in normal course to assess their potential exposure.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President, CEO & Director at Alerus Financial

Given the uncertain environment and continued normalization of credit, we are committed to carrying robust reserves, which increased to 1.52% of total loans in addition to the discounts we carry on the acquired portfolio. Our unique business model continued to excel with core non interest income excluding building gains and MSR adjustments growing almost 11% year over year. Our non interest income as a percentage of revenues of 40% continues to position Aleris as one of the highest fee income banks in any peer group, a key differentiator in creating premium valuation and sustainable shareholder value. Our wealth management group, which generated revenues 13% higher than a year ago, shines brighter than ever in times of market uncertainty and volatility. Our exceptionally talented advisors continued their efforts of proactive outreach to clients during the quarter.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President, CEO & Director at Alerus Financial

The trust they build strengthens our reputation and drives referrals and a strong brand. The ultimate differentiator from a diversification standpoint is our National Retirement and Benefits business, which grew organically 3% on a year over year basis. Organic growth in sales continues to improve while retention remains better than industry standards. In addition, we are seeing increasing momentum with meaningful partnerships across the country. We are steadfast in our belief that this business is the cornerstone for delivering consistent, high quality returns with no credit risk and minimal capital allocation.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President, CEO & Director at Alerus Financial

And I've never been more confident in the continued and future success of this business with the leadership team we have in place, the talent we have across the business unit and our scale and position in the industry. We continue to engage with smaller subscale firms across the country as an acquirer of choice in an environment where the catalyst for consolidation continues. Cost saves from Home Federal are on track and expense management continues to be a top priority as reflected by our adjusted efficiency ratio of 66.9% this quarter. We aim to achieve further improvements as the year progresses with recent headcount reduction. In addition, as we work to integrate all the new talent that has joined our organization over the past few years, we are engaging a consultant who will take all the best practices and expertise of our team to formulate and develop the Alaris operating model for commercial credit.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President, CEO & Director at Alerus Financial

We expect this consultant will identify opportunities to optimize processes, procedures and policies to improve efficiency. In addition, we believe this partnership will allow us to ramp up and carefully grow our company while improving the client experience as we remain focused and committed to getting better, not just bigger. Capital levels improved during the quarter and are at levels consistent with expectations post the Home Federal closing. We continue to build back capital levels with our enhanced profitability metrics. As we look at capital allocation, we will continue to prioritize franchise building organic growth, retirement roll off opportunities in addition to maintaining our long dividend history.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President, CEO & Director at Alerus Financial

Thank you. And now I will 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 key revenue drivers. On a reported basis, net interest income increased 7.5% over the prior quarter, while fee income decreased 18.4%. The increase in net interest income was driven by organic loan growth at higher spreads and lower interest expense tied to Fed rate cuts in the back half of '20 '20 '4.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Non interest income in the prior quarter included the sale of our property resulting in a $3,500,000 gain. Excluding this gain, interest income was down 9.2% from the prior quarter on an adjusted basis, primarily due to seasonal decline in mortgage originations. Our fee income remains over 40% of revenues and well above the industry average of 19%. Let's dive into the drivers of net interest income on the next slide. Turning to Page 12.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

In the first quarter, net interest income increased to a new record level for Aleris at $41,200,000 and our reported net interest margin increased another 21 basis points to 3.41%. Our net interest income is now over two times larger than we initially had on our initial public offering in 2019. Our net interest margin continues to show improvement. Our total cost of funds dropped 19 basis points to 2.34% as we lowered deposit and money market rates due to Fed cuts in the back half of twenty twenty four. We had $5,100,000 of purchase accounting accretion or 42 basis points in the quarter.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Of those 42 basis points, four basis points were from early payoffs. Lastly, we had non accrual recovery, which favorably impacted net interest margin by five basis points. Our net interest margin has rebounded not only from our balance sheet being slightly liability sensitive, but from continued discipline in pricing on both new loan and deposit originations. We continue to focus on delivering a full C and I relationship ROE over 12% in banking. Let's turn to Page 13 to talk about our earning assets.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Organic loan growth was 2.3% over the prior quarter as we continue to grow our commercial presence, especially in middle market companies and in business banking. Commercial loans now make up over 70% of total loans versus 58% at our initial public offering in 2019. We continue to transform into a prominent commercial bank within our footprint. Our investment portfolio declined to $839,000,000 or just under 17% of earning assets. AOCI improved to an unrealized loss of $63,000,000 as we saw the belly of the treasury curve decline over 40 basis points during the first quarter.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

We continue to let the balance sheet remix from low yielding investments to higher yielding loans. Turning to Page 14. On a period ending basis, our deposits organically grew 2.4% from the prior quarter. While we saw pressure on non interest bearing deposits, we still grew our commercial banking presence as public funds and commercial clients were over 42% of total deposits. Synergistic deposits grew 7.5% over the prior quarter with HSA deposits growing 4.4%.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Growth in HSA, which carry low cost of funds around 10 basis points, helped offset some of the mix shift away from non interest bearing deposits. Non interest bearing deposits are now 19.8% of total deposits. Given an increase in deposits, our loan to deposit ratio remained steady at 91.1% and is still below our targeted level of 95% with nearly deposits. Turning to Page 15, I'll now talk about our banking segment. I'll focus on the fee income components.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Overall non interest income from banking was $4,600,000 for the first quarter. The prior quarter had $3,500,000 gain on the sale of our property. Excluding this gain, interest income declined by $2,300,000 on an adjusted basis. Of the $2,300,000 decline in fee income, mortgage revenues were down $1,800,000 as overall mortgage originations were down over 20% sequentially. The first quarter generally tends to be the most seasonally challenging for mortgage business.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

We also had a $734,000 decrease in the fair value of mortgage servicing rights, which we inherited from the Home Federal acquisition. Currently, we carry $7,400,000 of mortgage servicing rights on our balance sheet and are not looking to actively grow this portfolio. Given recent volatility in interest rates, we do anticipate further fluctuations in evaluation of this MSR portfolio. Besides the $1,800,000 decline due to mortgage, the remainder of the $2,300,000 overall decline on adjusted non interest income was due to less client swap fees being realized. As we said in the past, these swap fees tend to be lumpy each quarter based on client appetite.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

On Page 16, I'll provide some highlights on our return Total revenue from the business decreased 2.3% mainly due to market based and other fees. We saw growth across our core products and services. The decline in participants was tied specifically to our administrative services only line of business. The fees from this administrative product offering are only at the plan level, so the decline in participants had no material impact on overall revenues. Assets under administration and management decreased by about 2% mainly due to market performance.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

New business production continues to be solid as we won 161 plans in the first quarter. Lastly, synergistic deposits within Retirement grew 8.8% over the prior quarter. 52.5% of these synergistic deposits in Retirement remain indexed. Turning to Page 17, you can see highlights for our Wealth Management business. On a linked quarter basis, revenues decreased 1.5%, while end of quarter assets under management decreased 1.7%, mainly due to market performance.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Synergistic deposits grew over 4.7% from the previous quarter. Almost 94% of these deposits are indexed. Within Wealth, we are excited about transitioning from a legacy system to a new platform that will drive a better experience for both the financial advisor and client. We believe this new platform will provide more revenue synergies for Aleris as we continue to grow its commercial wealth bank. Page 18 provides an overview of our non interest expense.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

During the quarter, non interest expense decreased 16.7% as there were less acquisition expenses in the quarter on a reported basis. Our reported efficiency ratio was 68.8% on an adjusted basis, which excludes M and A and severance and signing bonuses. Our efficiency ratio was 6.9 versus 69% in the prior quarter. Both of the improvement in adjusted efficiency ratio was driven by core expense improvements. Core operating expenses decreased 2.8% from the prior quarter.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Turning to Page 19, you can see our credit metrics. During the quarter, net charge offs were only four basis points. Nonperforming assets increased decreased by almost $11,900,000 mainly due to the payoff of a nonaccrual commercial real estate loan during the quarter. NPAs and total assets decreased 24 basis points from the prior quarter to 96 basis points. Our allowance for credit losses is now at 1.52% of total loans, which includes over $8,200,000 related to non PCD loans acquired in the Home Federal and Metro Phoenix deals, otherwise known as the CECL double counts.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

I will discuss our capital liquidity on Page 20. We continue to remain well capitalized as a common equity Tier one capital to risk weighted assets is at 10%. Our tangible common equity ratio improved 30 basis points to 7.43%. On the bottom right, you'll see a breakdown in sources of $2,900,000,000 in potential liquidity. Overall, we continue to remain well positioned for both a liquidity and capital standpoint to support future growth or weather economic uncertainty.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Turning to Page 21 now, I'll update you on our guidance for 2025. We expect the following. Loan growth now mid single digits for 2025. While we have achieved growth of 2.3% in the first quarter, economic landscape remains fluid. Deposit growth of low single digits remains

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

For the second and third quarters, we'll see seasonal deposit outflows from our public funds. Net interest margin of 3.2% to 3.3%. Within the guidance, we're assuming several things. First, we're not expecting any more non accrual recoveries like we saw in the previous quarter, which aided our margin by five basis points. Second, we are only expecting 35 basis points of purchase accounting accretion in the quarter.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Our guidance does not include any early payoffs, which increased purchase accounting accretion by four basis points in the first quarter. Third, we're expecting seasonal outflows from our public points, which will impact our net interest margin. And lastly, we're expecting a further decline in non interest bearing deposits. We are forecasting a 200 basis point mix shift from non interest bearing to interest bearing as we continue to grow our commercial presence. We do believe this mix shift forecast may be conservative.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

There's no change to our non interest income outlook, but with equities down in second quarter, we may see some pressure on fee income with assets under management facing headwinds in both retirement and wealth. On the mortgage side, we're seeing the normal seasonal uptick in mortgage originations, which is encouraging. The Mortgage Bankers Association is still forecasting over a 16% growth in originations for 2025. Lastly, we expect our adjusted efficiency ratio, which excludes one time items to be below 68% for 2025 as we continue to realize cost saves from Home Federal. In the second quarter, we expect our core expenses to be around $49,000,000 which includes a seasonal uptick in mortgage incentives.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

We remain focused on continuing to manage our expense prudently and continue to focus on improving the overall profitability of the company. To summarize on Page 22, as we start our first full year after we completed our biggest merger in company history, we are off to a strong start. We continued organic growth in both loans and deposits. For the first quarter, our adjusted pre provision net revenues grew nearly 8.2% over the prior quarter. Our current adjusted ROE, ROTCE and ROA are either in the top quartile or close to the top quartile based on returns over the last decade.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

We understand this is just one quarter and we remain committed to generate consistent returns for our stakeholders in upcoming quarters and years. With that, I'll now open up for Q and A.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. And our first question comes from Brandon Nobel with Hovde Group.

Brendan Nosal
Director - Equity Research at Hovde Group

Hey, good morning, folks. Thanks for taking question. Maybe just starting off here on margin. Thank you for all the details that you offered in the prepared remarks around this quarter's core level and some of the drivers going forward. Maybe just digging into the core margin a little bit.

Brendan Nosal
Director - Equity Research at Hovde Group

If this quarter's core was 2.94%, if we adjust for purchase accounting and non accrual recoveries, just help us understand how you're expecting the core margin to trend off that 2.94% level over the next few Thanks.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Yes, thanks Brendan for the question. We still continue to expect our core margin to improve from these levels. We're still seeing really strong loan growth somewhere in north of around the 7% range and our liability side, things are cost of funds, we're seeing deposit growth, non maturity deposits to be somewhere in the two So we're still picking up very good spreads on both sides of the balance sheet.

Brendan Nosal
Director - Equity Research at Hovde Group

All right. That's helpful. Maybe turning to asset quality. Nice to see a couple of wins on the nonaccrual side this quarter. But just wondering if you could update us on that non accrual construction loan that you had been making protective advances on over the past couple of quarters.

Brendan Nosal
Director - Equity Research at Hovde Group

Just kind of curious where it stands from a completion standpoint, when you expect to begin marketing the property and any line of sight to what the ultimate resolution looks like?

Karin Taylor
Karin Taylor
EVP & COO at Alerus Financial

Sure, Brendan. This is Karen. The project has made good progress. The borrower is in compliance with our agreement and is ahead of our benchmarks. So the interior is substantially complete.

Karin Taylor
Karin Taylor
EVP & COO at Alerus Financial

They do have a temporary certificate of occupancy. There is some exterior work that will need to be completed as the weather continues to improve here in Minnesota. But we expect a certificate of occupancy in the June or July timeframe. They are continuing to lease up. They're about 36% leased.

Karin Taylor
Karin Taylor
EVP & COO at Alerus Financial

Our agreement requires them to list the project for sale this quarter. And we understand that there is good interest in the project. So things are on track as we continue to work through resolution on that.

Brendan Nosal
Director - Equity Research at Hovde Group

Okay. Awesome. Thank you, Karin, the detail. Maybe I'll just sneak one more in here. Just on fee income for wealth and for retirement, just for the market sensitive components, can you remind us the timing of when those fees are assessed, just so we can get a sense of kind of what market levels were priced into this quarter's fee results?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Yes. Thanks, Brendan. So when we so on the retirement side, about 40% of our assets are market sensitive, and we build that on an average daily balance for the quarter. On the wealth side, we build at quarter end.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Adam Kroll with Piper Sandler.

Adam Kroll
Adam Kroll
Equity Research Associate at Piper Sandler Companies

Hi, good morning. This is Adam Kroll on for Nate Race. And thank you for taking my questions. I guess to start, maybe a question for Jim. Given the really strong start to the year, I was curious just what areas or geographies you're seeing the most opportunities currently and how the pipeline is looking and just if you've seen any borrowers pull back amid all the uncertainty?

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

Yes, sure, Adam. I think the way we're looking at it we are pulling back a little bit on investor CRE and really focusing on commercial C and I, which we've articulated that as our business plan going forward. We're finding some pretty good growth. And I would articulate it as taking market share, both in Arizona and Minnesota as well as North Dakota. So I'd say all markets are finding decent pipelines in C and I.

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

But again, share, we're not seeing a lot of customers expanding their business necessarily. It's really just moving their relationships from one bank to another due to other reasons, relationship reasons or other acumens with credit that work better for us. So really it's the mid market C and I that we're really focused on in all markets and that's really the bulk of our pipeline. Like Al said earlier, we're cautiously optimistic, but we're still sticking around that 7% growth annualized. We're not thinking we're going to have a lot more than that this year.

Adam Kroll
Adam Kroll
Equity Research Associate at Piper Sandler Companies

I appreciate the color there. Maybe a question for Al on expenses. Are you still expecting the low double digit growth year over year, implying that core expenses remain relatively stable around the 1Q or run rate for the year?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Yes, Adam. So we are still expecting double digit growth from based on the $170,000,000 reported last year. But we did give guidance that for the second quarter, we expect it to be around $49,000,000 which indicates it is going be stable.

Adam Kroll
Adam Kroll
Equity Research Associate at Piper Sandler Companies

Got it. And then just one more question for me for Katie. Capital ratios saw a nice build during the quarter. And as you continue to build capital at solid clips, was just curious how are you thinking about deploying excess capital and what's the appetite currently for M and A on either the bank or non bank side?

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President, CEO & Director at Alerus Financial

Yes, thank you. A good quarter of capital growth was the TCE increasing 30 basis points and focus on continuing to build on those current capital levels. From a prioritization standpoint, certainly very selective organic balance sheet growth as well as opportunities in the retirement space for acquisitions of smaller subscale and then continuing our dividend continues to be the top priorities for the company at this point.

Adam Kroll
Adam Kroll
Equity Research Associate at Piper Sandler Companies

Thanks for taking my questions. I'll step back.

Operator

Thank you. And the next question comes from Jeff Ralles with D. A. Davidson.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Hi, Jeff.

Jeffrey Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Thanks. Good morning. Hi, there. Just a kind of series of follow ups.

Jeffrey Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Al, on the reported margin, again, said helped by five basis points for the recovery and four basis points on payoffs above expected accretion?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

That is correct, Jeff.

Jeffrey Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Okay. And as we think about kind of reported versus core, it sounded fairly positive on the core side, got your guide of $320,000,000 to $330,000,000 I guess the net of that is we're thinking about reported comes in, core comes up and again hugging that $320,000,003 30,000,000 for the year on total reported?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

That's a good assumption, Jeff. Again, one thing that's inherent or implied in our guidance to though is about a 200 basis point mix shift from non interest bearing to interest bearing, which will weigh on which is in part of that 3.2 to 3.3 forecast.

Jeffrey Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Okay. All right. Appreciate it. And then I guess on the reduction in the non accrual, it seems like it came out of the ninety day past due. Was that an HMF credit or trying to track down how what was resolved linked quarter?

Karin Taylor
Karin Taylor
EVP & COO at Alerus Financial

Jeff, this is Karen. That was a legacy Aleris credit. And if you recall on the call last quarter, we did get that renewed shortly after year end. So that came off the numbers. The other decrease was attributed to, as Al mentioned, a payoff on a commercial real estate loan that we had been working out of the bank for some time.

Jeffrey Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Conan, I guess we know and then throw in the large construction development, those are the ones we've been talking about, but broad based credit. Other pinch points or your just general comfort on credit from your perspective?

Karin Taylor
Karin Taylor
EVP & COO at Alerus Financial

Sure. Yes. I mean, I think in our portfolio, credit is normalized. We've talked about that over the last few quarters. We're seeing pretty normal migration.

Karin Taylor
Karin Taylor
EVP & COO at Alerus Financial

We're seeing upgrades as well as downgrades, and we're not seeing any specific patterns or segments affected. It's broad based. It's very normal activity. And while we've seen the increase in our criticized, we're not seeing significant risk of loss in the portfolio. We have a low level of past dues and the nonaccrual loans remain manageable, again driven by a couple of larger relationships.

Karin Taylor
Karin Taylor
EVP & COO at Alerus Financial

And we're just committed to remaining very proactive in identifying risk in our portfolio and making sure that we get it addressed early.

Jeffrey Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Appreciate it. And maybe a last one on the expenses, Al, going back to that, just trying to think about, have we fully captured HM and F cost saves? And I guess on the run rate, is there a if you're 50.4% this quarter, we expect sort of a leg down into Q2? Just trying to get into the kind of the quarterly run rate a bit.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Yes. So on a reported basis, we do see that it will be down probably from the $50,000,000 but we still have a little bit of federal cost that we realized there at one time. But with that being said though, the core expenses should be around the $49,000,000 which that's what I gave the guidance towards. Now within that guidance too, though, we are expecting a pickup of our mortgage incentives.

Jeffrey Rulis
MD & Senior Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Got it. And we track, I guess, the revenue side of that too. Appreciate Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And the next question comes from Damon DelMonte with KBW.

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

Hi, good morning everyone. Hope you're all doing well today. Al, just wanted to ask on the kind of some of the dynamics of the margin. Can you just remind us about the amount of CDs that are repricing for you guys as well as fixed rate loans that reprice this year?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Yes. When you get on the loans first, for the remainder of 2025, we have approximately $380,000,000 of loan contractual maturities, so over 9% of our loans. And we're expecting over about 100 basis point pickup in the most recent quarter for that. Then also too, we have about for the remainder of the year about $85,000,000 securities pay downs with those yields in the mid-2s. Let me track down the CD stuff for you.

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

Okay.

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

Maybe while Go ahead. Yes, okay. Ahead, As we think about kind of the provision level going forward here with expected loan growth, I know, obviously, there's a healthy boost to the reserve with the purchase accounting.

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

But I mean, do we should we kind of think about the provision level similar to previous quarters ex any merger noise, something maybe kind of in the $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 range kind of given the outlook for growth?

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President, CEO & Director at Alerus Financial

Yes, I think that's probably a fair assumption, Damon. I mean, the one caveat might be just given the way the CECL calculation works, happens with economic forecasts given the uncertainty.

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

Got you. Okay.

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

Those are the two questions that I had. So, Ali, if you want to come back towards the end of the call, whatever, that's fine.

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

David, I'm seeing right now

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

in our CD book right now about we have about, I want to say, close to $100,000,000 of CDs that are in the nine month range.

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

Okay. Great. And what

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

are those where you think those will roll off at versus what they would be put back?

Al Villalon
Al Villalon
EVP & CFO at Alerus Financial

Somewhere in the high threes. In the high threes right now.

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

Okay.

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

Thank you very much.

Operator

Our next question comes from David Long with Raymond James.

David Long
David Long
Managing Director at Raymond James Financial

Hey, everyone.

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

Hey, David.

David Long
David Long
Managing Director at Raymond James Financial

Question on expenses. As a growth company, you guys are always looking to bring in veteran bankers when the opportunity is available. What does the backdrop look like as far as new hiring?

David Long
David Long
Managing Director at Raymond James Financial

Is there some are there some opportunities to bring in some that have some C and I experience? I know there's been some M and A disruption within your footprint. Any opportunities there? And then how do you weigh that against your outlook for expense growth?

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

David, this is Jim Collins.

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

I'll take that one. As we finished up

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

the home

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

federal conversion and we start to look at our business plan going forward, we're realigning our resources. And with that realignment, we're agreeing that we will not add additional costs. What I mean by that is we have the ability to swap out some resources when we can be opportunistic to find good solid C and I bankers in our growth markets. We're committed to growing C and I in that big market space. So when we see the right talent for our culture, we will go after it, but we will make sure that it aligns with our realignment of resources.

David Long
David Long
Managing Director at Raymond James Financial

Great. Thank you. And then the 1% return on asset was a target that you guys have been looking at for a while and you got there in the first quarter. In your modeling the way you're looking at it out, you consistently do 1% going forward here?

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

That's the goal.

David Long
David Long
Managing Director at Raymond James Financial

Great. I figured you'd say that. Thanks. Appreciate taking my questions.

Operator

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

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President, CEO & Director at Alerus Financial

Great. Thank you, and thank you, everyone. The progress and success of this quarter is a testament to the dedication and the passion of our team and the trust that our clients place in us. We remain focused on delivering tailored advice, purpose driven solutions guided by our commitment to excellence and always doing the right thing. In conclusion, we're off to a strong start in 2025.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President, CEO & Director at Alerus Financial

We're energized by the opportunities ahead. We're grateful for the continued support of our shareholders, and we look forward to building on this momentum as we strive to achieve consistent top tier performance. Thank you, everyone, for your time today.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a great rest of your

Operator

day.

Katie Lorenson
Katie Lorenson
President, CEO & Director at Alerus Financial

Thank you.

Executives
    • Katie Lorenson
      Katie Lorenson
      President, CEO & Director
    • Al Villalon
      Al Villalon
      EVP & CFO
    • Karin Taylor
      Karin Taylor
      EVP & COO
    • Jim Collins
      Jim Collins
      Executive Vice President and Chief Banking and Revenue Officer
Analysts
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Key Takeaways

  • Adjusted ROA rose to 1.1% in Q1, supported by record net interest income of $41.2 million and a net interest margin of 3.41% on disciplined asset-liability pricing.
  • Organic loan balances grew 2.3% sequentially and deposits increased 2.4%, driven by expanding commercial & industrial lending and synergistic retirement deposits.
  • Core noninterest income (excluding securities gains and MSR adjustments) jumped 11% year-over-year, with wealth management revenues up 13% and fee income representing 40% of total revenue.
  • The Home Federal integration is complete, cost saves are on track, and the adjusted efficiency ratio improved to 66.9%, with a goal of sub-68% for full year 2025.
  • Full-year 2025 guidance calls for mid-single-digit loan growth, low-single-digit deposit growth, a net interest margin of 3.2%–3.3%, and continued expense discipline.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Alerus Financial Q1 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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