Good day ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ConnectOne Bancorp, Inc. Second Quarter 2017 Earnings Call. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. And at this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Joe Calabrese with the Financial Relations Board. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Leah. Good morning everyone and welcome to today's conference call to review ConnectOne's results for the second quarter of 2017 and update you on recent developments. On today's conference call will be Frank Sorrentino, Chief Executive Officer; and Bill Burns, Chief Financial Officer. The results, as well as the notice of the accessibility of this conference call on a listen-only basis over the internet was distributed this morning in a press release that has been covered by the financial media. At this time, let me remind you that certain statements and assumptions in this conference call contain or are based upon forward-looking information and are being made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are subject to numerous assumptions, uncertainties and known or unknown risks, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risk factors are more fully disclosed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements included in this conference call are only made as of the date of this call, and the company is not obligated to publicly update or revise them. In addition, certain items used in this call are non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of which are provided in the company's earnings release in the company tables of schedules, which have been filed on Form 8-K with the SEC on July 27, 2017 and may also be accessed through the company's web site at ir.connectonebank.com. Each listener is encouraged to review those reconciliations provided in the earnings release together with all other information provided in the release. I will now turn the call over to Frank Sorrentino. Frank, please go ahead.

Thank you, Joe. Good morning and thanks for participating in today's conference call to review ConnectOne Bancorp's results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2017. We certainly appreciate your interest, and are delighted to have the opportunity to share with you our solid operating and financial performance year-to-date. Regarding our format today, Bill will provide detailed color on our financial results in a few minutes. I will begin today's discussion with a strategic review of the company's performance, as well as update you on our operating results and tell you a bit more about how we are positioned for the rest of the year. We will also leave some time for Q&A at the end of the conference call. So we are exceedingly pleased with our second quarter operating performance, highlighting our continued ability to capitalized on opportunities in serving our growing client base and consistent execution against key operating objectives. Those include, maintaining strong organic loan and deposit growth, delivering accelerated and sustained earnings growth, improving return on equity and building and refining our infrastructure. But today, before we start speaking about our operating results, let's just talk a little bit about our taxi portfolio. As you saw in today's press release, we recorded a $9.7 million pre-tax expense, as a result of further weakness in the valuation of New York City taxi medallions. Thereby reducing the carrying value of our portfolio, which is predominantly corporate medallions in New York City to $50.9 million. This reflects a per medallion valuation of approximately $374,000. The valuation of the medallions on ConnectOne's balance sheet has been and will continue to be reflective of market conditions. We have been very disciplined in this respect. Bill will speak a little bit more about this in a few minutes. Due to the charge,…

Thank you, Frank. Let me start off with some comments about the taxi valuation. We were one of the first banks two years ago to recognize there was weakness in the sector. We were among the first to place the assets in non-performing and to take a charge. So as Frank just mentioned, we have been very transparent in reporting charges or valuation allowances that are consistent with available market data, which admittedly at times has been challenging. As you know, we have the medallion portfolio classified as held-for-sale. We believe this is a correct classification, because this is our preference [ph], but doesn't mean we are required to liquidate the assets, especially at a poor valuation that would hurt long term shareholder value. The cash flow on our adjusted portfolio value of about $50 million yields in excess of 6%. So I think it's clear that we don't need to sell, our decision rests on price versus our view on risk adjusted value. Details regarding our valuation methodology are forthcoming in our second quarter Q. Now, to operating results; from an operating perspective, we had a very-very strong quarter by all measures. Loan and demand deposit growth were strong. Our net interest margin widened; credit quality remained excellent; our efficiency ratio improved significantly from the first quarter, and operating earnings were above what was expected by the market. At June 30, total assets have grown organically to $4.7 billion, that's an increase of $250 million in just the first half of 2017. Loans led the way, growing by $190 million from the prior quarter, that's more than 20% on an annualized basis. For the half, it's up 16% and our expectations are that we will grow at about 15% for the entire year, could be a little more, could…

Great Bill. Thanks. Before turning the conference call over for your questions, I'd like to just take a moment to discuss some of our strategic priorities and outlook for the remainder of 2017. I am proud of our management team's performance and we continue to believe the overall environment and the market fundamentals provide ConnectOne with an excellent opportunity to enhance earnings and build book value. We are continuing to increase momentum across our platform, which gives us considerable confidence in our outlook for the remainder of the year and beyond. ConnectOne will continue to focus on creating a desirable franchise as well as maximizing shareholder value. We have certainly demonstrated this through our ability to attract and retain talent in the deposit and loan origination areas, our continued investment in the necessary technology, infrastructure, to create additional operating leverage, and our expansion into new markets at a measured pace. Within the consolidating bank environment, value creation for ConnectOne can also be achieved through M&A, by engaging with potential partners that would augment our existing plans, or by partnering with a desirable franchise, seeking one of the best markets in the country. With that said, this concludes our prepared comments. We are now going to turn the call over to the operator and open it up to any questions that you may have.

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question today comes from Collyn Gilbert with KBW. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning guys.

Hi Collyn.

If we could talk a little bit about the loan growth and kind of outlook, obviously it was very strong this quarter. What do you kind of see driving that, and especially, it's a good yield on the C&I side, maybe just talk a little bit more about kind of what's happening on the C&I side?

Thank you, Collyn. As you know, momentum has been building here at ConnectOne. We started and we had said in the past over the last number of years, we have been building some infrastructure around the ability to generate C&I type loans. We have hired a number of individuals over the last couple of years, that is starting to gain some momentum, and we really saw quite a bit of that in this quarter and our expectation going forward, is we see a decent size, if not larger contribution coming from the C&I space. We also, I mean, just in general, over the loan portfolio, we have had momentum in a lot of different areas, whether it be our expertise in multifamily lending, or in other forms of CRE and construction. Although in this quarter, as you noted, our construction portfolio remains somewhat flat. We are sort of happy about that. That's our disciplined approach to how we approach the construction segment.

Okay. Okay, that's helpful. And then just on the funding side Bill, maybe talk a little bit about, I know you said deposit pricing pressure, you are modeling that in. Maybe just talk a little bit about your broader funding strategy and what specifically you are seeing, in terms of deposit pricing pressure in the market?

Well, from a commercial relationship perspective, we are always trying to drive non-interest bearing demand. And so a lot of this depends on the success we have there. We have had success over the past year, and I look forward to more of that in the future. In terms of the pricing pressure, on the interest bearing transaction accounts, the competition keeps raising rates, and so we need to raise rates just to protect the balances we have and possibly grow. But again, it's just a small portion of our total funding costs, and it's not really impacting the margin in a very significant way.

Okay. And how about on the borrowing side, what you are doing there? Is that an opportunity to look -- go ahead.

You mean federal home loan bank borrowings?

Yes. Yes.

Yeah. Well we continue to you know -- we continue to fund part of the balance sheet there. Our preference is to do it through deposits. But the tremendous amount of liquidity there. There is $1 billion of availability at the federal home loan bank. So -- and I think we use it, when we need to, but there is not a particular strategy to increase our federal home loan bank borrowings.

Okay. And then, on the -- just to confirm, did you say Bill, 15% targeted loan growth for the year?

Yeah. I think that's a good -- if you want to pick one number. But we can't control these things. It could be a little bit higher, it could be a little bit lower. You could see, the second quarter was much higher than the first quarter, and those kind of swings in loan growth per quarter, is normal.

Okay. And then, tying it just to the NIM guidance there; obviously you came in better than I think what you guys were expecting for the quarter. Kind of maybe talk about sort of the variables, as you are looking at your NIM for the rest of the year?

You know there are so many variables, right. Depends [ph] on non-interest bearing demand is a big driver, and then the mix in the portfolio, because we had more C&I, the spreads are a little bit wider. That helped the margin. So it really depends, but when I average it all out, I am really looking at kind of a flat margin, and that includes the negative effect of the purchase accounting. So if you take that out, I am really projecting a slightly widening margin. I think I said in my prepared remarks, between 3.40 and 3.50 was a place I was comfortable with.

Oh you did, yeah, right. Yeah. Okay, good. And were there no pre-pays this quarter?

Yeah. There always is a sum, and probably added a couple of basis points to the margin for the quarter. And as you are analyzing this, we had lower cash balances. So if you take those two items, it was kind of a flat, slightly up quarter in terms of margin, but not compressing.

Got it. Okay. And then just finally on the taxi portfolio, any update there in terms of interested parties in the portfolio or timing on a sale or maybe thoughts there?

All I would say Collyn, in that regard is, certainly as we sit here today, there is definitely more interest that's coming to market, relative to the taxi medallion portfolio, from whether it's private equity, other owners, other people interested in the space, that probably didn't exist even six months ago. And so while I can't sit here today and tell you, there is any sort of sale contemplated. The level of interest is much-much higher today in this space. I am assuming that's because of where the valuations are today, relative to the cash that's coming in, or the cash flow that's coming in from those medallions.

Okay. That's helpful. I will leave it there. Thanks guys.

Thank you, Collyn.

Our next question comes from William Wallace with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning guys.

Hey Wally.

I wasn't going to lead with taxi, but since you just were talking about it. Maybe, can you just talk a little bit about underlying trends that you are seeing from the cash flows, from the fleet fleecing to the drivers, changes out of TLC that are contemplated, and then maybe if you could tie those thoughts into -- I need to be careful about giving a number, but how you would think where a -- you mentioned that you are not going to sell at a fire sell value, so how do you think of where you draw the line of value that you would be willing to accept to move these off the balance sheet versus a value that you think is too economically detrimental to shareholders?

Wally, I think you sort of hit the nail on the head and let me take the last part first. The portfolio today is -- I think it's over 95%, or 96% paying, and those payments are generating an over 6% return on our portfolio as it stands today. So we have to put that up against, whatever potential sale offer would be made to us, and that's what we will look at in order to make a decision. At this time, we have not had or had the opportunity to sit down and get to a finalized number. So I can't tell you what that would be. As far as the industry in general, there are a lot of changes that have occurred and continue to occur at the TNC, which are two sides of the same coin. On one hand, we are seeing loosening of regulation for taxi. A lot of different regard that we believe are beneficial for the industry. On the other side, there is increasing momentum about further regulation, and changes in regulation relative to all the TNCs. At some point, those things are going to meet the middle, and we will get some equilibrium in the space. But as we sit here today, that is not true. The number of non-taxi or transportation network vehicles continue to rise in the city, and notwithstanding the fact that those drivers are not really making any money, that has driven some pressure back towards taxi for more drivers that want to go back to taxi. We still believe today and we have seen evidence that the revenue that's going into a single taxi cab, has not really diminished all that much, but it's the driver who is in control of the fair share of that revenue, when it's not making its way back to either the operator or the medallion owner. And until that whole scenario plays itself out, it's our belief there will continue to be pressure on the medallion space. I do believe, we are getting closer to the bottom. I think as you saw, many banks recently have either taken some charges ore revalued their portfolio, taking a lot of this information into account. We have been one of the first to come out and do that. But I do believe over time, that we will get to some equilibrium in the market, and I believe we are a lot closer to that today than we were, let's say a year ago.

And do you have -- can you put some numbers behind what the cash flows of the fleets are able to collect on a medallion, when they are leasing it out to drivers, and maybe what that has done this quarter versus the last quarter or last year?

Yeah, there is still a lot of variables that go into that today, it depends on the size of your fleet, your driver operation, whether you have an individual medallion, a corporate medallion. There is no simple answer to that, it's a complex answer to what seems to be a simple question.

Well, yours are all corporate, mostly all corporates right?

Right. That is true.

And at the end of the day, that's going to be the primary driver of value for anybody who is looking to buy these assets, it’s the cash flow that's actually being collected from the drivers to the operators -- I mean, to the owner, right?

Right. And I think it has been pretty stable for cash flows in the industry. But you know, these are medallions we are valuing, and the medallion valuation is more based on the cash flows for the medallions, which is the least amount. So it is two different things, I appreciate your question about the industry, and I think it has been stable in terms of the cash flows per cab.

Okay. Thank you. In the prior press releases, you gave the gross loan fundings amount, I didn't see it in the release, I apologize if I missed it. But can you -- what was that number this quarter?

Well, in the gross -- most gross offence, it was $500 million in the quarter, and that includes loans that matured and we refinanced here.

So last quarter it was $340 million that you put in the release, is that, it is --

It was $500 million this quarter.

Okay. Wow. On the two fintech partnerships that you highlighted in your prepared remarks Frank, I assume there is some investment associated with these. I am wondering if those have the potential to pressure the efficiency ratio nearer term or does your continued expense management offset any costs that get layered on because of these partnerships?

Well we have always said, our infrastructure costs are all pretty much baked in. We don't expect any blip in or spike in our expenses due to these -- whether they are partnerships, or moving into new spaces, it's all modeled into what our expense structure is.

Okay. All right. Great. And then just one kind of housekeeping question; Bill, you mentioned the tax rate. Your 31.5% kind of core expectation, assuming no additional taxi valuation adjustment. So those adjustments, are those non-deductible?

No it's not that. It's that you could apply our margin of 40% to 41% for any special charges.

Okay. Okay. Thanks. That's all I had. Thanks guys.

Thanks Wally.

Thank you, Wally.

[Operator Instructions]. We will hear next from Matthew Breese with Piper Jaffray.

Good morning everybody.

Hey Matt.

Just wanted to talk about the mix of the loan portfolio a little bit. Frank, you seem a bit more bullish on residential for-sale housing. You also talked about growth in the commercial segment. So just think about those two items, and looking out a year or two years, how do you see the mix of the loan portfolio evolving?

So, we definitely see increased capability at ConnectOne to generate and book more C&I exposure. We are very bullish on the for-sale market, specifically in our market area. So we expect to see more in the way of both for-sale construction and first mortgages for residential properties, and more specifically in the jumbo area for those. I think the combination of those things will take some pressure away from our CRE concentration. I don't think it's going to change it dramatically, but I think you are going to see a directional shift and a change over time.

[Indiscernible] think about residential loan growth, last quarters have been quite strong, certainly stronger than what we saw last year. Is this 3% to 4% a quarter kind of rate, is that something we should look for going forward here?

Yes, and hopefully a little bit higher. That's what we are aiming for.

Matt, that business also ties into our quasi-private banking model, where the client that we are servicing had the business and owns a high valued home, and we want to do that mortgage as well, as to be part of a complete relationship.

Understood, okay. And then could you just provide us with the commercial real estate concentration this quarter, and if we are talking about a directional change lower, just give us some idea of the extent that might change?

Well, it was about the same as the prior quarter. There is almost no change in the concentration. And our aim is to lower that ratio.

Okay. And then on the fintech partnerships. Admittedly, I don't know much about either of these, I just wanted to get a sense for, where is the need coming from, are the customers demanding it. And if there is a P&L impact from a revenue perspective, I would just love to hear that, or is it more of a growth engine for relationships and deposits, is that more of the goal?

So in the first case, with the Zelle product, for those of you know what Venmo is, this is a Venmo competitor, and it was designed by some of the top banks in the country, and there is a consortium of banks of which we are one of, that are participating in this product. This is a product that we believe, from everyone from the millennial generation on forward to just about everybody, that is moving from a check-based system to cashless and mobile payments platform. This is going to be the product of choice. It's instant, real-time payments over a network, and it really doesn't matter what bank you're with, if you're within the consortium. So whether you are with one of the top 10 banks of the country, or you connect one, you would have immediate ability to transfer funds amongst any number of people. So I believe close to 88% or 89% of the population is covered just with those 30 banks. So to me, that's a product that people may not know they want today, but they are going to want it, and we are going to be there. We have a first move position in this product space. So that's just being a little bit forward thinking, and making sure that connect one is relative, to whether you are a business client, a consumer client, doesn't matter, we want to make sure we have the right tools and the right products for any client, anytime, anywhere. On the other hand, nCino is more an internal product. Although, our clients will see a change in the utilization of that product. But that product is going to allow us to really streamline -- further streamline all of our operations inside, from credit underwriting through credit administration, every point of contact with our client. Every point of contact within the bank for every person that works here, revolving around the clients and being able to do that in an automated way, having small business loans, have automated decisioning, giving regulators, auditors, even clients themselves and their experts, access into the system to be able to provide information in a real-time basis, and further reduce our costs over time. So from a revenue generation perspective, we believe that, like we believe in a lot of things with ConnectOne, if we can convince our clients that we act with a sense of urgency and we are going to be the ones to get there first, and we can do it in an efficient manner, and we can close it with a guaranteed certainty of execution, we are going to win those transactions, we are going to win those relationships, and we are going to win those market initiatives, and nCino is the partner that's going to help us to make it even better or to further our ambitions to be one of the most efficient banks in the country.

Very good. Look forward to hearing more about that. Interesting. That's all I had. Thank you guys.

Thank you, Matt.

Thank you, Matt.

It appears there are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to Mr. Sorrentino for additional remarks.

Well thank you and thank you everyone for joining us on our second quarter earnings call. We look forward to speaking to everyone again in our next call in October.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's presentation. We appreciate your attendance. You may now disconnect.