RBB Bancorp Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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April 29, 2025

There are 10 speakers on the call.

Operator

Day, everyone, and welcome to the RBB Bancorp First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen only mode, and we will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Rebecca Rico. Ma'am, the floor is yours.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Matthew. Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss RBB Bancorp results for the first quarter of twenty twenty five. With me today are Johnny Lean, David Morris, Lynn Hopkins and Jeffrey Yang. David, Johnny and Lynn will briefly summarize the results which can be found in the earnings press release and investor presentation that are available on our Investor Relations website, and then we'll open up the call to your questions. I would ask that everyone please refer to the disclaimer regarding forward looking statements in the investor presentation and the company's SEC filings.

Speaker 1

Now I'd like to turn over the call to RBC Bancorp's Chief Executive Officer, David Morris. David?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Rebecca. Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. First quarter net income declined to 2,300,000 or $0.13 per share as we took decisive strategic action to address our non performing assets. We reduced our non performing assets by 20% and our net exposure to non performing loans by 32% to $51,000,000 To accomplish this, we sold $18,000,000 of loans, recognized provisions of $6,700,000 and received pay downs of $1,800,000 We believe the provisions we have taken over the last few quarters have addressed the vast majority of potential losses in our non performing loans. As we said last quarter, we are focusing on resolving our non performing loans as quickly as possible while minimizing the impact of earnings and capital and we think our actions in the first quarter helped accomplish this.

Speaker 2

We continue to work through our remaining non performing assets and expect to be able to report additional progress in the coming quarters. We did downgrade a $5,300,000 New York CRE loan to nonperforming in the first quarter after the largest tenant moved out. While unfortunate, we feel relatively confident that it will be resolved without any loss of principal as the borrower is actively working to fill the vacancy and has also listed the property for sale. A recently completed appraisal on the property indicates LTV of about 85%. Now I'll hand it over to Johnny to talk about half year subjects like loan growth and margin expansion.

Speaker 2

Johnny?

Speaker 3

Thank you, David. As David mentioned, in addition to making good progress resolving our troubled loans, we had strong loan growth in the first quarter, another quarter of NIM expansion. Loan held for investment grew by $90,000,000 or 12% on an annualized basis, driven by the continued execution of our growth initiatives. Growth in commercial, SBA and SFR balances more than offset the decline in C and D loans. We've seen especially strong results from our in house mortgage origination business, which despite the rate environment originated $112,000,000 in mortgages in the first quarter.

Speaker 3

These contribute nicely to our total first quarter loan originations of $2.00 $1,000,000 at a blended yield of 6.77%, which will continue to support our asset yields and margins going forward. Our pipelines remain full, so we expect to continue to see loan growth, though likely at a more moderate pace than we experienced in the first quarter. Net interest margin increased 12 basis points to 2.88% due primarily to a 29 basis point decline in the cost of our interest bearing deposits, which drove a 17 basis point decline in our overall cost of funds. We expect some incremental decreases in funding costs from here, but likely at a slower pace than we've seen since they peaked in the third quarter last year. It's worth highlighting that since that time, we've reduced the cost of deposit by 50 basis points and the total cost of funds by 42 basis points.

Speaker 3

With that, I'll hand it over to Lynn to talk about the results in more detail. Lynn?

Speaker 4

Thank you, Johnny. Please feel free to refer to the investor presentation we've provided as I share my comments on the company's first quarter of twenty twenty five financial performance. Slide three of our investor presentation has a summary of our first quarter results. As David mentioned, net income was $2300000.0.0.13 dollars per diluted share. First quarter results were negatively impacted by a $6,700,000 pretax provision for credit losses as we work to address several nonperforming assets.

Speaker 4

Net interest income before the provision increased for the third consecutive quarter to $26,200,000 We are optimistic that lower future provisions and the redeployment of capital previously tied up in non performing assets will result in increasing net interest income after provisions in the coming quarters. As Johnny mentioned, we had another quarter of net interest margin expansion, our third in a row, primarily driven by the decrease in the cost of deposits. Our spot rate on deposits on March 31 was 3.06% or seven basis points below the average of 3.13% for the first quarter. So costs are likely to continue to decrease, but at a more measured pace in future quarters. Funding costs also included the first quarter maturity of $150,000,000 of low cost FHLB term advances, which were largely replaced with $110,000,000 of FHLB advances with an average rate of 3.88%.

Speaker 4

Non interest income declined by 4,340,000.00 to $2,300,000 in the first quarter due to lower gain on sale of loans and other income that was partially offset by higher fees and servicing income. First quarter noninterest expenses increased by 873,000 to $18,500,000 due to a seasonal increase in comp and benefits, higher data processing fees and an increase in legal and professional expenses. We expect comp and benefit expenses to normalize next quarter and for legal and professional expenses to trend down from here. Turning to credit. The provision for credit losses was $6,700,000 compared to $6,000,000 in the prior quarter.

Speaker 4

The first quarter provision was due to an increase in specific reserves of $2,800,000 net charge offs of $2,600,000 and an increase in general reserves of $1,300,000 due mainly to loan growth. The increase in specific reserves relates mostly to two lending relationships. Net charge offs included $1,200,000 related to an $8,800,000 loan that was moved to REO and subsequently sold and $1,400,000 related to a bulk sale of $10,800,000 of underperforming SFR mortgages, of which 6,500,000.0 were on non accrual at year end. Slide five and six have additional color on our loan portfolio and yields. The loan portfolio yield was stable from the fourth quarter at 6.03%.

Speaker 4

Slide seven has details about our $1,500,000,000 residential mortgage portfolio, which remains stable and consists of well secured non QM mortgages, primarily in New York and California, with an average LTV of 55%. Slides nine through 12 have details on asset quality, some of which David has already covered in detail. NPLs decreased $20,700,000 or 25% to $60,400,000 and represent 1.92% of loans held for investment at quarter end. With the increase in specific reserves to $9,700,000 our net exposure to NPLs decreased 32% to $50,600,000 Substandard loans decreased $24,000,000 and totaled $76,400,000 at the end of the first quarter. The decrease was primarily due to $11,700,000 in loan sales, transfers to REO totaling $12,800,000 of which $8,800,000 was subsequently sold, and payoffs and paydowns totaling $5,400,000 These decreases were partially offset by downgrades of two loans totaling $6,200,000 Of the total substandard loans at March 31, '16 million dollars were on accrual status.

Speaker 4

The ratio of our allowance for loan losses to total loans held for investments increased by nine basis points to 1.65, inclusive of the specific reserves, while the coverage ratio of our allowance for loan losses to nonperforming loans increased to 86%, up from 68%. When we exclude specific reserves and individually reviewed loans, the ratio of allowance for loan losses to loans held for investment was up one basis point to 1.36% at the end of the first quarter. Slide 13 has details about our deposit franchise. Total deposits increased at an 8% annualized rate from the fourth quarter to 3,140,000,000.00 with growth in money market accounts and CDs more than offsetting a decline in noninterest bearing accounts. Our tangible book value per share increased to 24.63.

Speaker 4

Our capital ratios remain strong with all capital ratios above regulatory well capitalized levels. Now I'd like to hand it back over to David and Johnny for a few closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Lynn. As this is my last earnings call here at RBB, I want to take a moment to express my gratitude to all of our employees, customers, the Board and our shareholders. We have had our share of challenges over the last few years, but have not lost sight of our goal to be the bank of choice for Asian Americans nationwide. I've enjoyed the friendship I've built since joining RBB over fifteen years ago and I look forward to continuing to be serviced on our Board of Directors. Johnny?

Speaker 3

Thank you, David, and thank you for your years of leadership and contributions to rural businessmen. We are particularly grateful for all the work you have done over the last year to work through our non performing assets, and we look forward to your continued input and guidance as a member of Board of Directors. With that, we are happy to take your questions. Operator, please open up the call.

Operator

Certainly. Everyone at this time will be conducting a question and answer session. If you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone at this time. Your first question is coming from Brenda Nozzle from Hovde Group. Your line is live.

Speaker 5

Good afternoon everybody. Hope you're doing well. Maybe just starting off here on capital. We'd just love to get your thoughts, your updated thoughts that is on potential for share repurchase at some point this year. It feels like you're getting better line of sight toward asset quality resolution and made progress this quarter.

Speaker 5

Capital ratios are strong and obviously the pricing for a buyback would remain pretty attractive.

Speaker 4

Thank you and thanks for starting with that. I think we all can recognize that with our current share price and our capital ratios, a buyback is one of the best uses of our excess capital. So we are working hard to put a buyback in place and hope to have more to report to everyone soon.

Speaker 5

Okay. Thanks for that Lynn. Maybe moving over to a couple of dynamics within the margin. Maybe just first, I wonder in the quarter exactly did that FHLB roll from the lower cost to the higher cost? Just to get a sense of how much that is embedded in this quarter's margin.

Speaker 4

I probably could answer that a couple of different ways. It's fully priced into our March net interest margin. And I would say our net March net interest margin is a little bit below the whole quarter's average. Obviously, the FHLB advances at $150,000,000 are just a fraction of our total funding base, even though they needed to come up into the mid to high 3s.

Speaker 6

Okay. All right.

Speaker 5

That's helpful. Last one for me before I step back here. Just wanted to hit on the interplay of the margin and non accruals for a minute. Can you just give us a sense of how much margin drag you're currently experiencing from the non accrual base at the moment? Thanks.

Speaker 4

I don't know that I translated it completely into basis points, but there is certainly a drag on our net interest margin. Last year when we were reversing our interest income when we were placing them on non accrual, those were expensive. I think when we look at just $20,000,000 able to come back onto accrual status at 6%, it's about $1,200,000 in the year. So that's probably how I would look at it. And we have $60,000,000 more to go.

Speaker 5

All right. Fantastic. Thanks for taking the questions.

Speaker 1

Yeah. No, thank Thank

Operator

you. Your next question is coming from Matthew Clark from Piper Sandler. Your line is live.

Speaker 7

Hey, good morning, everyone. Just on the staying on the margin, did you have any kind of outsized interest recoveries in the quarter from unloading some of these problem loans? Just trying to get a sense if there was any outsized reversals in the quarter.

Speaker 4

Fair question. The short answer is no. We tried to, I think, articulate that in the earnings, I think, release. So for this quarter, the resolution of the nonperforming assets did not result in the recapture of any interest income with the loans being sold and then also a couple of them moving to REO.

Speaker 7

Okay. And what's your appetite for doing more of these problem loan sales at this stage?

Speaker 2

Okay. We believe we want to keep all of our options open. However, we believe that we're well reserved for future write offs, if any. Yes.

Speaker 7

Okay.

Speaker 4

So I think they were let me add, I think we were opportunistic in the sales that occurred in the first quarter. Obviously, we took some charge offs associated with them. One was it's a unique property. We would have had operating costs. We took the opportunity to get that closed by quarter end.

Speaker 4

I think having the opportunity to approach a bulk sale where a majority of them had been on nonaccrual at year end, and then we were able to fold in some other less desirable SFRs. And again, get it done by quarter end, helped move it forward. I think for what's left, we believe that we're adequately reserved for what we would need to do to take action. And we are open to sales, working with the borrowers to return them to accrual status if that was a possibility. But do look to add them back to being performing assets or redeploying the money into earning assets.

Speaker 7

Okay. And then just on the tariff war, have you all I know it's probably still a little early, but have you made have you done any work to try to ring fence or quantify what exposure you might have from kind of an importexport perspective and maybe even from an indirect perspective?

Speaker 3

Hi, Matthew. This is Johnny. Yes, we have reached out to our top 10 customers and just to do a health check, if you will. So far, yes, we don't observe any potential financial impact at this time. Obviously, things

Speaker 6

are

Speaker 3

still there's still uncertainty here with the, you know, changing, you know, sort of terms associated with these tariffs and how it's going be applied and everything. But so far, it's definitely we do not observe any potential financial impact. And also, I just want to keep in mind that our overall C and I, three finance mix of the loan to our total portfolio loan portfolio is currently current about 4% only. So again, that's roughly the mix of our loan portfolio at this time.

Speaker 7

Okay. Okay. And then last one for me, just on the gain on sale this quarter, a little light. Maybe speak to the weakness there and your outlook, if you could.

Speaker 4

You want me to start?

Speaker 3

Yes, you can start.

Speaker 4

So I'll start. Loan sales were a little bit lower in the first quarter. We did take the opportunity to keep some of it on the balance sheet. I believe that there is a little bit of a pipeline building on SBA that has larger gains. And I think our outlook is that it would return to more normalized levels that we at least saw in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 3

Okay, thank you.

Speaker 4

Anything you

Speaker 3

want to add? Oh, no, no. It's just I want to add comment on the SBA side. We did have new hire right now January. So, yeah, they're so it's coming online, so we do expect, you know, higher borrowing SBA loans being funded, you know, in Q2.

Speaker 7

Great. Thanks again. Thank

Operator

you. Your next question is coming from Andrew Terrell from Stephens. Your line is live.

Speaker 8

Hi. Good after good morning.

Speaker 4

Hi.

Speaker 8

I wanted to ask on just, I heard some of the comments early on. It sounds like expectations around loan growth are still generally positive, maybe at a slower pace relative to a pretty strong quarter here in the first quarter. But wanted to shift to the deposits and just get a sense on expectations around ability to core fund that expected loan growth, the sensitivity around 100% loan to deposit ratio, if any? And then I also wanted to drill down a bit on if you have any color on the noninterest bearing deposit trends. It looks like off a bit towards the end of the period.

Speaker 8

Any color as to what drove the NIB rotation this quarter?

Speaker 4

Sure. I'll start, you can add. So good question, Andrew. Thank you. With respect to the non interest bearing deposits, I think some of it was seasonal business activities.

Speaker 4

We observed and then we did observe some migration into higher yielding money market and CD products. So I think we did observe some of that in the first quarter. We did have a successful CD campaign in the first quarter that we were able to reduce our reliance on wholesale funding a little bit when you consider FHLB advances and our brokered funds. I think that we foresee success and being able to fund our loan growth organically. And again, our reliance on wholesale funding, I think is modest.

Speaker 4

We have some room there, to the extent that loan growth remains at the similar levels. And then we still remain focused on C and I production, how we can bring in some additional noninterest bearing deposits, but that will take a lot longer time period.

Speaker 8

Got it. Thank you, Lynn. I appreciate it. And then also just do you have the weighted average? It looks like the FHLB that you added in the quarter had varying maturities.

Speaker 8

Do you have the weighted average term or the range of terms there?

Speaker 4

Sure. So 130,000,000 of them are putable advances with the longest final terms at seven years. However, the put options at the FHLB side range from, I'm thinking, June until September year. So pretty short on the FHLB's call option side of things, with final maturities at three, four, and seven years.

Speaker 8

I got it. Okay. I appreciate it. And yeah, I just want to say, Dave, it's been a pleasure speaking with you on these quarterly calls for a while now. So congratulations.

Speaker 2

Okay, thanks. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Kelly Mota from KBW. Your line is live.

Speaker 9

Hi. Thank you so much for the the question. I just, again, wanna echo those sentiments of, David, it's been a pleasure working with you, and congrats on a a well deserved retirement, and congrats again, Johnny, on the upcoming role. I guess with with the credit, I apologize if you've addressed this at at this point. But in terms of the workout, I know you you talked a bit about your approach to the sales.

Speaker 9

I'm just wondering in terms of of the time frame of this workout. I think, originally, you were hopeful that would be completed by mid this year. It feels like that might get pushed out a bit. Do you have any sense in terms of the time frame in your ability to work out these credits, understanding that there's a lot of parties, insurance involved, etcetera?

Speaker 2

Kelly, it's thanks for the question. It is really hard for us to tell exactly when the NPLs are going to come off our balance sheet and to decrease it down to our normal baseline. However, we believe that by the second half of twenty twenty five, that could be our target. NPLs will continue to be lumpy through 2025. It's going to continue to be out there and so forth.

Speaker 2

But we are making steady progress, on all of these, right now. We're making steady progress and we expect to see more to go off in the second quarter.

Speaker 9

Got it. That's really helpful. And I appreciate the color on the trade finance and the C and I component. I know it's relatively small, but digging in a little further, I believe a lot of those factories in China have shifted production during the last Trump administration. Do have any ballpark as to your exposure to China versus some other countries, given you're a Chinese American bank, it might get lumped into that narrative with that niche there?

Speaker 9

Just trying to understand what the actual exposure might be.

Speaker 5

Kelly, that's a good

Speaker 3

question. All I can say is right now, as of today, all we know is that there's that 10% baseline, right, that impacts all countries. And then so for me personally, it's separated into two buckets, one that, you U. S.-China and U. S.-China, you know, rest of the world.

Speaker 3

So right now, U. S.-China, I mean, the China tariff is up to, what, 145%, and roughly the world, still based on 10 and then additionally there will be, you know, obviously depending on the trading balance between U. S. And those respective countries, there will be different tariffs potentially be applied to them, but now it's at a pause. So remains to be seen how that all going to play out, obviously it impacts different industries or different types of businesses that get impacted somewhat differently.

Speaker 3

So it remains to be played out.

Speaker 4

And Kelly, in addition to Johnny's comments, our loan portfolio, the 4% we mentioned about 120,000,000 in trade finance, portion that's China specific versus other countries or markets where they might have taken action, I don't think we have that exactly broken down within that category. But again, I think anecdotally, with the reach out, we're not identifying anything at

Speaker 3

this Right. Yes. Nothing at this point. And fact, our existing borrowers, they're all very seasoned. Obviously they've either made preparations in advance already or they have contingency plans put in place as, you know, as this all plays out.

Speaker 9

Got it. Last question for me. It sounds like, again, there's a lot of optimism about the loan growth pipeline, obviously not as strong as what was a really strong first quarter. But wondering if you could provide some insight as to the composition of that pipeline, either if there's any particular markets that are particularly strong that you're seeing or which categories the pipeline is weighted to?

Speaker 3

Sure, can answer that. So our pipeline remains strong and pretty much still primarily contributed by our CRE loans and single family residents. However, our C and I are starting to pick up. That does take time, but because of the new hires that we have recently, since the beginning of this year, we do expect that to incrementally contribute to the pipeline, but at this time, the pipeline is predominantly made up of CRE, MFRs, and SFR primarily, even though, you know, SFR is a relatively small mix of the lung, but I think we're doing gaining very good momentum on SPA as well.

Speaker 9

Thank you so much. I'll step back.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Tim Coffey from Janney. Your line is live.

Speaker 6

Great. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity to ask a question or two here. When apologies if this has already been discussed, I have a question about non interest expenses going forward. I heard the comments you made in the prepared remarks.

Speaker 6

Is it reasonable to think that expenses could look a little bit like they did the second half of last year versus the first half of last year?

Speaker 4

Yes. I think that's reasonable. I think we are still looking at our OpEx ratio to be around the 180 of average assets. So we do think they were a bit elevated in the first quarter, kind of as I talked about in our prepared remarks. And especially with salary and benefits moderating down, and I think there's opportunity in OPS to also trend down.

Speaker 6

How much of the additive to expenses are the new hires in the lending side going to be, if at all?

Speaker 4

It's a little hard to say in the sense that you have people coming in that are new and in charge of certain things. But then we're also rationalizing the expense in other places. So I don't think it's a direct add. I would just stick with the idea that we would estimate our operating expense run rate to be in kind of 17,500,000.0 to $18,000,000 maybe with some puts and takes.

Speaker 6

Okay. All right. Those are my questions. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Tim.

Operator

Thank you. That concludes our Q and A session. I'll now hand the conference back to our host for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Once again, thank you for joining us today. We look forward to speaking to many of you in the coming days and weeks. Have a great day.

Operator

Thank you. Everyone, this concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

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