Greetings, and welcome to ConnectOne Bancorp's Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Siya Vansia, Chief Brand and Innovation Officer. Thank you. You may begin.

Good morning, and welcome to today's conference call to review ConnectOne's results for the second quarter of 2021 and to update you on recent developments. On today's conference call will be Frank Sorrentino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Bill Burns, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The results as well as notice 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 discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements included in this conference call are made only as of the date of this call, and the company is not obligated to publicly update or revise them. In addition, certain terms used in this call are non-GAAP financial measures, reconciliations of which are provided in the company's earnings release and accompanying tables or schedules, which have been filed today on Form 8-K with the SEC and may be accessed through the company's website 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, Siya, and good morning, everyone. So 2021 has been marked by the consistent execution of our operating strategy, and we're exceedingly pleased with ConnectOne's strong second quarter financial results. Our performance highlights our commitment to serve our growing client base and our ability to capitalize on a variety of growth opportunities. We entered the year in an uncertain state, and as we saw signs of economic momentum building, we were well positioned to actively participate in the early stages of our markets reopening. Our teams were prepared and took a proactive approach, which is clearly demonstrated in our results. This quarter's results were highlighted by record performance, meaningful organic growth in our balance sheet, and record operating metrics. Our pre-tax, pre-provision return on average assets was 2.19%. Our tangible book value per share grew another 4% for the quarter and is up in excess of 15% over the past year. Loans, excluding the PPP, grew by 22% on an annualized basis. And our net interest margin expanded again for the 7th quarter in a row to 3.6%. We continue to build valuable, noninterest demand and low-cost core deposit balances, leveraging our relationship banking model as we see an uptick in client activity. We realized accelerated loan growth, especially towards the end of the second quarter and heading into the third quarter, our pipeline remains at record high levels. For the remainder of 2021, we expect annualized double-digit loan growth at favorable market spreads. Beyond our existing pipeline, we continue to pursue attractive opportunities to grow responsibly and expand ConnectOne's valuable franchise. We've experienced numerous opportunities to support our clients' growth, both in size and in capability. We continue to see opportunities to leverage our client-first, sense of urgency culture to attract clients from the largest institutions. And finally,…

Okay. Thank you, Frank, and good morning, everyone. I'm going to be echoing Frank's comments, the positive economic momentum out there carried us forward, leading to record operating results and meaningful organic growth for the second quarter. And so far, this morning, the Street has reacted very favorably to our report. So a lot of positive things to report on. First off, the PPNR as a percent of assets increased another 13 basis points sequentially to 2.19 this quarter. That places us among the top industry performers. Our return on tangible common equity reached 17.8% and that was helped by the reserve release, but it would have been outstanding anyway even with a normalized provision probably about 16.5%. As Frank alluded to, we had a strong loan growth towards the latter part of the quarter. So the impact of that growth on net interest income for this quarter was minimal, but it will certainly benefit the third quarter. On an annualized basis, excluding the PPP, sequential growth was 22%. And even with including PPP forgiveness, it was still a healthy 8% annualized. Spreads on new loan originations continue to remain favorable. It was a weighted average origination rate in the quarter of approximately 3.75%. The composition of the loan growth was largely CRE. However, based on our current pipeline, it remains robust. We are seeing C&I picking up and anticipated spreads on that pipeline remain reasonable, but we do continue to monitor the market for competitive pressures. To PPP loans at period end, we were down to $327 million from our gross originations of about $675 million. So the forgiveness time line has accelerated. The yield on the PPP loans for the second quarter was approximately 3.15, and I would expect that approximate yield to continue as the portfolio winds…

Thanks, Bill. That's certainly a very positive report. So as we've discussed, our second quarter's earnings are a testament to ConnectOne's team and highly efficient client-first, sense of urgency business model. Our performance is highlighted by record operating metrics, record organic originations, and improved efficiency. And as we move into the second half of the year, our earnings profile is strong, balance sheet and credit are in a good place. We continue to grow organically and see a strong growth rate for the rest of 2021. Our capital position is strong. We have a valuable franchise and continue to benefit from multiple streams of income and increased momentum across multiple platforms. We're continuing our digital enhancements and investments. While we continue to invest in our future, we continue to improve our best-in-class efficiency. We're excited about our future. We remain confident in our ability to drive long-term sustainable growth and industry-leading returns. Our outlook for the second half of 2021 is extremely positive, and we remain well positioned to capitalize on meaningful growth strategies. With that, we're happy to take your questions. Operator?

Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from William Wallace with Raymond James.

So a couple of questions. On the loan growth guidance, Frank, I believe you said double-digits, and if I look at the first half of the year, you're running around 14% annualized. Given what you saw late in the second quarter. Do you think that, that growth rate could be higher than that? Or do you expect that we've had some pent-up loan growth and maybe that'd be too aggressive to model in kind of mid-teens run-rate for the year?

Wally, I'd love to say yes, but we're trying to be disciplined as well. Spreads are something we focus on, the quality of the business, where it's at, what type of business it is, how it's fitting into our balance sheet. We're definitely here to support our clients. But there's a lot of competition out there. So I think we're going to have strong growth for the balance of the year, but I really wouldn't want to speculate that it's going to be that much stronger than what we've experienced recently.

Okay. And then looking at -- kind of dissecting the loan growth, especially this quarter, can you talk about where you're seeing demand, both geographically in your markets and from a product category?

So we are seeing growth from our existing client base, which started to happen once the economy began to reopen, our existing clients could come back to us. You would take notice that much of the growth this quarter came from CRE and in some cases, from Multifamily, those were the easiest things to get closed. So timing, I think, has some impact. We are seeing the pipeline build in other areas of our loan portfolio as well. And generally, it's coming from -- I would say the vast majority is coming from what you would consider to be our market today. We are pushing the boundaries of that market just a bit as we hire new individuals from different parts of the market, either that we acquired or that we've been building into. And we're seeing requests from our clients from other places as well. We've mentioned before, we've had some business and have followed some of our clients into the Florida market. So we're seeing demand from lots of different places.

And then what about in New York City? Manhattan specifically.

New York City has been awakening recently in quite a strong way. And when I say New York City, I'm talking about the 5 boroughs. It was a little bit of a lag. We saw the awakening in New Jersey first. But we're seeing a lot of positive signs in and around the 5 boroughs, and we think that's all going to show up pretty much in the third and fourth quarters.

Great. And then if you could expand a little bit on the hiring opportunities. I'd love to know how many new lenders you've hired so far, and there's obviously a ton of disruption in your markets. What is the opportunity set to continue to hire? And how will you make -- if you have the opportunity to hire, kind of at will, how do you sort of govern the expense growth versus the potential upside down the road?

Wally, I would be very happy to report to you that our expense growth went up dramatically because we made a lot of high-quality hires. Thus far, we've been able to hire and maintain our efficiency. And in this particular case, actually lower the efficiency ratio. And typically, under normal circumstances, we can continue to hire handful to a half a dozen or so lenders at a time and really not negatively impact the efficiency ratio. But I will tell you that based on what we see in the marketplace today, we are very enthusiastic about the quality of the people that are falling out of companies that you have and others have high respect for, that are just not happy with the way things are going, either in the mergers and/or displacements that are occurring. And they are -- not only are we seeking them, they're seeking us out. ConnectOne is starting to become the place to go to, if you want to be able to bring your clients to a stable, progressive, client-first mentality organization. There's not a whole lot of choices left in the market today. So when you really think about our marketing, you think about the banks that are satisfying their clients' needs. We're beginning to become -- I don't want to say we're unique, but we're beginning to look like we're unique. And so we're out there looking, and they're out there looking for us.

Okay. And could you maybe quantify how many net new hires -- lenders you've hired this year, year-to-date? Just to kind of help us frame this conversation.

I don't know exactly, but I would say it's in excess of a half a dozen so far, and we have a pipeline of people who are interested in joining.

Our next question comes from Frank Schiraldi with Piper Sandler.

I just wondered if you could -- Frank, you talked about the Korean Multifamily being just the -- I guess, the greatest opportunity in the quarter. And you also talked about a pickup in C&I. Just wondered on the C&I side, if you could talk a little bit about the average size of the relationship you're targeting, if that's changing at all, if you're seeing the opportunity to move upmarket in terms of size?

Yes. I would say that the vast majority of the opportunities we're seeing are pretty much right in our wheelhouse. It's in that $5 million to $15 million range of C&I exposure. The types of companies that we're dealing with are pretty much right down the fairway. Are we leaning a little bit towards larger sizes just because we can? I would say the answer is yes. We're getting in front of more sophisticated companies. But for the most part, I think it would look pretty much like what you would have seen in the portfolio through to this day.

Okay. And then in terms of growth, I mean, thinking about what the portfolio could look like 6, 12 months out. Any color there in terms of if you have your druthers in terms of where the growth will come. And for example, what C&I could move to as a percentage of total loans and sort of what the offset is?

Yes. I would have to spend a little time to think about that. We are happy with the production we're seeing in our C&I portfolio, and I think it will continue to be a bigger part of the balance sheet. But people are coming to us in -- whether it's the construction portfolio, the CRE portfolio, the Multi portfolio because of our ability to execute. And so we're seeing more opportunities across all the various segments that we're in. And it's really hard to sort of say we're going to time those things. We take them as they come. And we're there to support our clients in their time of need. So I do think, as time goes on, we will see a larger percentage coming from C&I because we are putting efforts behind that. But that doesn't mean we're doing less in the way of whether it's Multi or CRE or construction. And we're trying to do every deal that makes sense for us to do, specifically with the client base that we have today, and expanding that into the markets that we have.

Got you. And then just lastly for me. I know it's not your core business line in terms of your operations, but the stock seems very undervalued to me here. Bill, you mentioned buybacks when you talked about the recent shelf. And so it sounds like that could be tied to some -- a debt instrument. And just wondering how aggressive you could be on that front, if you think in terms of size and timing?

Well, there are a lot of factors that affect the speed at which we can buyback a stock. We have 500,000 shares left on the current program. I would hope to get through that over the course of this year, and then re-up the authorization before the end of the year.

Okay. And do you think you could -- was that -- was I listening correctly in terms of the messaging, a debt instrument was possibly tied to that and using it to accelerate that program?

Yes, either a preferred instrumental or debt interest.

Okay. So I guess, any color on in terms of how large you could go on the next program? Or is that too hard to say?

I don't want to speculate at this point. Let's see what the growth in the company is. Any way you look at it, we have a lot of flexibility. We're probably operating at capital ratios that are above where we should be, and we continue to generate a tremendous amount of retained earnings. So there should be a lot of flexibility to do all the things we've been talking about, which includes double-digit growth, share repurchases, and dividend increases.

Our next question is from David Bishop with Seaport Research Partners.

On the margin, I think, Bill, you mentioned there might be some more opportunity to lean a little bit on the funding side. Just curious where you're onboarding new funds on the CD side and any sort of outlook you can give in terms of what's rolling off here in the next quarter or so?

Yes, we have -- well, let's first talk about where we're putting new CDs on, and that's in the 40 to 50 basis point range. The impact has been quite dramatic over the past year. It's slowing down a little only because the CDs we have in our portfolio are in the -- I think it's about 120, 130. So -- but we still have another $1 billion left of that over the next year, with most of it occurring over the next 6 months.

Got it. And I think I heard you say in terms of the outlook for operating expenses in second half, mid-single digits. I assume that was sort of an annualized rate. Just curious, at the investment in lending talent, which Frank spoke about, just curious where you see sort of the...

Right. No, no, that is actually a sequential increase. So we do expect -- and don't forget, we've been basically flat the past 3 or 4 quarters or so. So I do expect a little bit of a jump up in expenses, maybe a little bit more in the fourth quarter from the third quarter, but revenue is growing as well. So you could see -- look, our efficiency ratio was down to 38%. I see it more in the 40% range, but maybe a little bit above, maybe a little bit below.

And as we look into 2022, I know the past couple of quarters, the positive operating leverage, you mentioned there'll probably be a little bit of pressure on the margin side, but offset by top line spread income growth. Do you think you can maintain and still generate that positive operating leverage heading into -- during 2022, given what you said for that?

Yes. I'm very optimistic about it. I keep saying on every call, there's going to be margin compression, and we keep expanding the margin. But at some point, especially with the low-rate environment. And I do believe, although we're getting really nice spreads right now that there will continue to be competition out there. So any way you look at it, we're just trying to -- at the end of the day, trying to drive return on tangible common equity. And with our margin, we were at 360, even at 340 (sic) [3.6%, even at 3.4%]. And I'm not saying we're going to express it that far. It's still going to be able to drive very high returns on equity.

Got it. And then I guess one final question. I think you mentioned a pretty nice quarter for the BoeFly fees on -- just curious if you had that number?

Well, on a pure quarter basis, they were in the $300 million to $325 million range. BoeFly always has a way to expand the sources of revenue we're always looking at. So they probably had another $50,000 to $75,000 of fees that were apart from their regular business, which is referrals of SBA loans to other banks.

[Operator Instructions] Next question comes from Matthew Breese with Stephens.

Frank, you mentioned a couple of times now potentially going after new opportunities, expanding the market. Could you just expand upon that comment? What markets are you making progress in? You mentioned some of the newer markets, you've mentioned Florida. And what markets are on the whiteboard that we might expect you to go into?

Well, I can tell you where we are. Certainly, some of the markets that were upstream from us or a little bit further out away from the dot in New York City that we gained through the acquisition of Greater Hudson or from our efforts out on Long Island, where we've seen an enormous amount of disruption. Those things are all just getting pushed out to their, I don't want to say their limits, but we're getting further out of field in those places because we're making great hires, and we have name recognition in those places. So it's really filling in more of the north and eastern part of the circle and getting a little bit further out of field. So that would be the primary areas of focus right now and that's where the greatest amount of disruption is taking place. I think that I mentioned Florida before, as I think everyone that is doing business in New York City today is also -- also finds some component of those developers, landowners, managing companies, whatever, attorney firms, they're all opening Florida locations. And so we felt over the last year or 18 months that we've had to follow our clients and be able to support them. So that's growing as we're moving along right now. But mostly, it's following our clients into those places.

Might we see an LPO opening in one of these further out Long island or Westchester or up to Hudson Valley, as you make continued progress?

Yes. I mean look, we generally base our growth around people. And so once we determine that we have good people working for us that want to come on board, then we'll make a decision about where to put a flag with real estate. We generally don't do it the other way around. And you need to -- obviously, you need to support the folks that are bringing the business in. And if they all live in a particular area, and we don't have an office there, yes, we're going to have to create office environments. We did that. That was the way we did it to get into New York City. We did it in Melville. We did it in Newark. We've done it in lots of different places. And I see no reason why we would change that strategy. It's been working very, very well for us.

Understood. Okay. Bill, how much of the portfolio today is floating rate and with or without floors? And as a follow-up, do you feel like the asset sensitivity of the bank, on paper it's really balance sheet neutral today? Is the asset sensitivity, given improvements to the deposit portfolio, understated?

Well, you would think we have -- as we benefited from rates falling, you naturally think we might be exposed to rates rising. We have been helped by the change in the deposit portfolio. And also, we are taking this opportunity to go out on the curve. So we're out in the market funding in the 5 to 6-year range, paying a little bit up from -- we could get it set to 60 or 70 basis points. We're paying 1% or a little more to protect ourselves. So I think a higher-rate environment -- you benefit from higher rates as the demand deposits are worth more, and we are protecting ourselves on the interest-bearing side of the liabilities equation. So I feel comfortable that we're basically pretty much immunized against changing interest rate levels.

Okay. And then last one for me is just on credit. It's amazing where charge-offs are considering where we were a year ago and 18 months ago. Is there anything on the horizon that would make the charge-off trajectory any meaningfully different than what we've seen over the last 4 to 6 quarters? Just want to recalibrate a little bit my expectations for losses here.

Not -- Matt, nothing meaningful on the horizon. The portfolio is really sound at the present time. And as I mentioned, delinquencies were at record lows.

Our next question comes from Mike Perito with KBW.

A lot of my questions have been answered. I just had a few things I wanted to hit. Just to put the credit theme for a second, a little bit of a conceptual question here. But just in the news flow here being in around the city again, you're starting to hear companies kind of walk back some of their policies around coming into the office and stuff with the Delta variant. And I mean, just as we think about the reserve moving forward, it might be a little early to ask this question, but is it fair to think that you guys will take the environment and be on the conservative side of the environment moving forward in that, if there is some type of modest pullback that you would use the opportunity to keep as much reserve as economically feasible?

Well, these days, Michael, we're tied into our CECL model. So it's really dependent upon for us and other banks, what the economic forecasts are. So if those -- I imagine at some point, the releases are going to slow down and stop for all of us. But I think as a sell-side research analyst, you should keep an eye on the economic forecast, and that will help you predict what banks are going to do with their reserve levels.

Yes. Helpful. And then 2 other questions for me to track back to the disruption conversation. It really is pretty incredible to see the list of banks, I'm sure you've competed with just dwindle in a fairly short period of time here. But I'll ask the question a little differently. I'm sure there's a lot of lenders and a lot of talented that you guys can look at. But are there any kind of specialty lines or deposit initiatives? All of these banks are just thinking about them, whether it's investors or people, a lot of them had initiatives to improve their C&I lending, initiatives to improve their deposits. The rate environment was obviously helpful, but it did seem like some -- most of them were making some progress. Are there any platforms or teams or specialty type situations where maybe you guys can do something that would enhance the funding side of the business longer term?

So we're definitely on the lookout for that. And clearly, we'd like to enhance the places either where we don't have expertise or where we'd like to build additional expertise. But you also would have to understand that a lot of the banks that we competed with, in the markets and on the products that we were good competitors, if there's somebody out there who's not happy with their current position, and they felt like we were worthy competitors, they're seeking us out because it's something they know. They know us, and they want to be a part of what we're doing. So I would tell you that we're having a lot of good success in the products and in the markets in which we -- that we already serve. But we are definitely on the lookout for how can we improve our product mix, pick up an additional line, as you described, and take advantage of some of those other opportunities. And I would tell you that it's my belief when we have this call a year from now our balance sheet will look a little bit differently.

Yes. And I might get tarred and feathered for even suggesting this, but are there any -- even like a 1 or 2s -- like I think someone asked about opening up an LPO in other markets, could there maybe be some branch divestitures where you get an office somewhere, maybe a few customers and a few deposits to help pay for the opening and anything like that? I imagine there's going to be a lot of shuddering in the marketplace, and I'm not necessarily a proponent of adding a ton of branches. But do you think there's anything opportunistic like that, that could come through, that would be of interest or not so much?

Michael, there could be. I wouldn't want to close the door and say, no, absolutely not. I would say, yes, it could be. But our -- the greatest success that we've seen and what we're looking -- staring right at right now is just a great opportunity for people. And either we incorporate them into our existing infrastructure, which obviously is the least expensive way to do it, or we build infrastructure to accommodate them, but it's really about the people. It's not about the locations.

Got it. And then just last for me. I think it's been about 9 months since you guys announced -- well, maybe it was earlier than that. But since the public market became aware of your partnership with Built and nCino on the construction software side. I'm just curious, given most of the other financial questions that have been asked, just -- if you can give a quick refresher on what the benefits of that is? And it's been almost a year now I guess, that you've had this live, I believe. And as there's -- construction activity picks up, I mean, is it a competitive advantage for you guys in the marketplace? And maybe just some additional color on that would be great.

38.4% efficiency. The whole rationale behind our push with nCino over the last couple of years and partnerships with companies like Built has been around delivering the highest quality service to our clients, removing as much friction as we can from the process so they actually like to do business with us, and driving an incredibly consistent product out with the least amount of cost. And I think that's beginning to show up in numbers like that efficiency ratio. And I think it's also showing up probably in a more meaningful way in the amount of repeat customers. The customers who come back to us, who are willing to pay a little bit more, because we don't provide a lot of brain damage. And we allow them to -- they know that they're going to close and execute on time. So to me, those are the initiatives that make a lot of sense, and it's very client focused, but it also allows us to build scale without building additional infrastructure.

We've reached the end of the question-and-answer session. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to management for closing comments.

Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us today for our second quarter call. We really look forward to another report at the end of the third quarter. Look forward to seeing you all then. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.