Earnings Labs

First Commonwealth Financial Corporation (FCF)

Q1 2010 Earnings Call· Fri, Apr 23, 2010

$18.85

+1.13%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon and welcome to First Commonwealth’s First Quarter 2010 Earnings Conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions) After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Rich Stimel. Sir, you may go ahead.

Richard Stimel

Management

Thank you. As a reminder a copy of today’s earnings release can be accessed by logging on to fcbanking.com and selecting the Investor Relations link at the top of the page and then selecting news on the left side of the page. We’ve also included a slide presentation on our Investor Relations page with supplemental and financial information that we’ll reference throughout today’s call. With me in the room today are John Dolan, President and CEO of First Commonwealth Financial Corporation, Mike Price, President of First Commonwealth Bank and Bob Rout, Executive Vice President Chief Financial Officer. After brief comments from management we’ll open the call to your questions. For that portion of the call we’ll be joined by Bob Emmerich, our Chief Credit Officer and John Previte, our Senior Vice President of Investments. Before we begin I’d like to caution listeners that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements about First Commonwealth, its business, strategies and prospects. Please refer to our forward-looking statements disclaimer on page two of the slide presentation for description of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. Now, I’d like to turn the call over John Dolan.

John Dolan

Management

Good afternoon everyone and thanks for joining us today. There is a lot to cover on the call and I’d like to start with an overview of the first quarter and an update on some key strategic initiatives. As I mentioned on last quarter’s call we’re very pleased to have Bob Rout on Board as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Bob will be providing details on our first quarter financial performance and then finally Mike Price will discuss our operating initiatives and performance of our clients and business. Needless to say our first quarter net loss of $13.2 million was extraordinarily disappointing. This compares to net income of $1.7 million in the first quarter of 2009. During the first quarter of 2010, we saw enormous declines in collateral values. The volatility we’re experiencing remains largely a product of a small number of out of state credits concentrated in the real estate sector. Mike will get into the details of our credit quality a little later but in general non-performing loans increased roughly 12.7% to $167.4 million from December 31, 2009. There were two key participation loans that were placed into non-performing status in the first quarter and again Mike will go into those details a little bit later. On our first quarter provision for loan losses was $45 million which represents an increase of $36.8 million from the first quarter of 2009, and was primarily driven by the deterioration of collateral values. Obviously credit quality remains our number one focus as we continue to work to resolve the credit challenges in our out of state construction loans and construction loans. These loans make up a relatively small portion of our portfolio and have had a disproportionately large effect on our earnings. In addition, they have obscured what is…

Robert Rout

Management

Thank you, John. Good afternoon everyone. Certainly it has been another busy quarter for us as credit has established itself as the most important topic of discussion. I’ll touch on our reserve levels that will allow Mike Price to discuss specific details of those credit issues. And then I also planned to quickly through some of the other issues that are affecting our performance for this first quarter. The first and certainly the most interesting issue affecting our interest this quarter was the $45 million of provision expense we took as a result of the deterioration on two loans which were replaced in the non-referral status during the third and fourth quarters of last year and as well as two new ones out of market condominium participation ones. And these handful of large credits continued to cause a disproportionate affect earnings something that we’re all well aware of and are currently taking every necessary steps to mitigate those affects. Net charge-offs were approximately $8 million for the quarter and as a result the reserved increased to $37 million to 71% of our non-performing loans. This is slightly better than the industry peers, was at the end of the year. I would also like to point out that in excess of $50 million that reserve is related to specific reserves dedicated to two of our largest non-performing credits. Slight a higher level of non-accrual loans, net interest income had increased $2.5 million or 5% year-over-year. The increase has been driven by nine basis point expansion in the margin which makes it five out of the last seven quarters that we saw improvement in that net margin. Our focus on growing core deposits in the associated household relationships allowing these securities portfolio to run off and then paying down borrowings has considerably…

Michael Price

Management

Hi thanks Bob. I’ll keep my comments brief given the supplemental financial data that we’ve provided. Unfortunately First Commonwealth is continuing to fill the impact of the environment and its effect on our commercial loan portfolio, mainly in our construction loans. However there are areas within First Commonwealth that continued to improve and I’ll get to those but first I’d like to provide some additional details around credit. Total net non-performing loans increased approximately $19 million or 13% for the first quarter of 2010, comparable to the increase in the fourth quarter of 2009. First quarter additions were primarily driven by two out of market credits, a $13 million participation loan secured primarily by a condominium development in Missouri that was originated in 2007 and secondly a $7 million participation loan on a recently completed condominium project in North Carolina. This loan was also booked in 2007, neither of these loans were shared national credits. Looking at the entire non-performing loan portfolio at March 31, 2010 which you can see on page seven of the presentation that $167 million which represents 3.6% of total loans. The construction portfolio has the largest amount of non- accrual loans but represents only 9% of our total loan portfolio and 95% of the construction non-accrual loans are out of Pennsylvania. Also about 13% of our non-performing loans were $21 million were shared national credits which you can see on page 21. And all of these non-performing loans were outside FPA. Out of state lending is a practice that we curtailed significantly in 2009. looking at the percentage of non-performing loans to outstanding loans by its type 20% of a construction loans are non-performing, 2% of commercial real estate loans are non-performing and 5% of C&I loans are non-performing. In aggregate our two largest non-performing…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Matt Schultheis from Boenning & Scattergood. Please go ahead. Matt Schultheis – Boenning & Scattergood: Good afternoon gentlemen.

Michael Price

Management

Hi, Matt. Matt Schultheis – Boenning & Scattergood:

John Dolan

Management

Mike you want to…

Michael Price

Management

$458 million in (snicks) and $900 in commitments.

John Dolan

Management

We have Bob Emmerich here as well. Bob, do you have any comments on that?

Robert Emmerich

Analyst

The sure national credit by state are shown in page 21 in the slide and the total we have there at March 31, was $431 million. Overall our utilization rate on our commercial facilities have been running in the mid 40s. They’ve declined a bit from a year ago, from into 50s to the mid 40s and I don’t have the utilization rates for the (snicks) specifically but I would think that they would be representative in that. Matt Schultheis – Boenning & Scattergood:

Robert Rout

Management

The one we’re talking about in Florida that was originally $39 million and that we now have a $32 million allocation on that is a credit that we did directly. Matt Schultheis – Boenning & Scattergood: Okay, as far as – okay, so that was as a direct, but okay, so as far as participations in general speaking the ones that you have done that have been problematic, are you the lead or you somewhere?

Robert Rout

Management

(Inaudible). Matt Schultheis – Boenning & Scattergood:

Robert Emmerich

Analyst

Generally speaking, this is Bob Emmerich generally speaking the Asian Bank doesn’t, would not reveal how they would set a reserves unless it was a sure national credit where you were mandated to take a chart off for generally speaking the Asian wouldn’t tell you what they’re reserving at the (inaudible). Matt Schultheis – Boenning & Scattergood:

Robert Emmerich

Analyst

We would be using our methodology, yes. Matt Schultheis – Boenning & Scattergood: Absolutely. Ok, I think that’s it from me. Thank you very much.

Michael Price

Management

Thanks Matt.

Robert Rout

Management

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, our next question comes from Damon DelMonte from KBW. Please go ahead. Damon DelMonte – KBW: Hi good afternoon guys, how are you?

John Dolan

Management

Good Damon, how about yourself? Damon DelMonte – KBW: Great thanks. Did you guys talked a little bit about the amount of (inaudible) that would be at risk with the upcoming regulation that takes effect in July?

Robert Rout

Management

Yes we calculated about a $1.2 million.

John Dolan

Management

Annual basis.

Robert Rout

Management

On an annual basis. Damon DelMonte – KBW: I’m sorry a $1.2 million.

Robert Rout

Management

Yes. Damon DelMonte – KBW: Okay, and then do you guys talked about programs that might mitigate that loss or is that what you think your best case scenario is?

Michael Price

Management

Let me clarify that Damon. The regulation that kicked into last half of the year. We anticipated that would be $1.2 million for the six months and so we are continuing to look at, its hard to quantify right now by the way, because its hard to tell what the customers reactions will be and their preference. But we’re continuing to look at what are the alternatives to be able to I’ll say maintain B levels even if its not in the (inaudible). So we were continued to evolve our solution their but right now the quick is going to be $200,000 a month and the other thing affects that we’re continued to grow our DDA balances and we’re hopeful that’ll offset some of the deficiency as well. Damon DelMonte – KBW: Okay, great. And then kind of going forward, how should we look at the provisions. Do you guys think that provision would net charge-offs going forward and this year 258 reserve level is adequate, you expressing more choppiness with some of these commercial credits.

Robert Emmerich

Analyst

Well it’s hard to predict the future there. So all I can say is that we believe that the amounts that we’ve set aside right now reflect a risk that we have in the portfolio in the existing conditions. If the conditions change, that will have an impact. Mike talked about the largest credits that we have remaining in that participation portfolio and the quality of what’s going on with those credits. That’s under current conditions as there seem to be doing okay, but in market changes that could have an impact so I’d rather not speculate on though.

Robert Rout

Management

Damon, it’s Bob Rout, also you need to consider that again $54 million of that reserve is specifically assigned to two credits. So we won't necessarily replace back to 258, if we’re some type of charged on those credits. Damon DelMonte – KBW: Right.

Robert Rout

Management

So I wouldn’t read into anything along that coverage ratio right now. Damon DelMonte – KBW: Okay, and from a lending perspective, are you guys still following customers outside of your core western (PA) markets?

Robert Rout

Management

No. Damon DelMonte – KBW: Sticking local? Okay, and then I guess my last question related to capital. Total capital at the holding company was 11%, I believe it was 10.4 at the bank level. I think from a bank level perspective its getting close to that well capitalized status but what’s your thought process regarding your current capital level and how do the recent self filing kind of come into that picture as well. What are your thoughts on capital?

Michael Price

Management

Well we remain well capitalized and we intent to remain well capitalized. We’re going to manage our need per capital as well, so the self registration was a precautionary method and I think kind of a precautionary thing and I think that its pretty common for banks in this environment to have a self registration. So I can't say we have any specific plans at time. Damon DelMonte – KBW: Okay, thank you very much.

Michael Price

Management

Okay, Damon.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from Mac Hodgson from SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. Please go ahead. Mac Hodgson – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey: Hi good afternoon.

Michael Price

Management

Hi Mac. Mac Hodgson – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey: Just quick a follow-up on that lost capital conversation. Do you have any liquidity in the holding company you could downstream in to the bank, for those support ratios.

Michael Price

Management

We do have some at the holding company and we also have an investment subsidiary that has additional liquidity? Mac Hodgson – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey: How much liquidity would that be?

Michael Price

Management

I don’t know if we disclose that in any of our documents but yes I’d rather not disclose all those details at this point in time. Mac Hodgson – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey: Ok, and on the large Florida credit, $39 million or so, I know you have a specific reserve for it earlier with the early appraisal in the first quarter, maybe what drove the change there?

Robert Emmerich

Analyst

This is Bob Emmerich. It was a appraisal and what we’re finding with a lot of these real estate assets is prices really don’t have much in the way of comps, in a lot of the comps they do have are just from share sales, foreclosures, and so that’s really impacting the value that they’re coming with particularly for a land acquisition of.

John Dolan

Management

Mac, this is John. What Bob says what we’re experiencing is these appraisals coming back. They’re already reflected in our provisions as we have experienced those.

Robert Rout

Management

And I think it’s also worthy to note that as the market has fallen out a long some of these market areas that we are having developers walk away through deals and walk away from workout plans thus forcing as it appraisals as suppose as complete appraisals and its having a very significant effect on valuations, (inaudible) connected to real estate development. Mac Hodgson – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey: So I think you guys are moving forward with the foreclosure there?

Robert Emmerich

Analyst

Yes that is one of the possibilities we are still continuing to negotiate with the equity partner there. Mac Hodgson – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey: Ok, got you. And maybe just one last one John you mentioned expenses you all feel like more opportunities to reduce expenses, could you provide any more detail on things you might look at and potential magnitude.

John Dolan

Management

There is nothing to really disclose at this time but we’re constantly looking at operating efficiencies, different ways to do business, and that’s one of the things that Bob is pretty good at is looking at the efficiencies. So we’re going to utilize his skills. Mac Hodgson – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey: Okay, thank you.

John Dolan

Management

Sure.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) We show no further questions at this time. I’d like to turn the call back over to your Mr. Stimel for any closing remarks.

John Dolan

Management

Well I’ll just – this is John. I just wanted to thank everybody for joining us this afternoon and looking at the first quarter it’s really about the convergence of the past and the future. On one hand we’re dealing with the past credit decisions which resulted in a small group (provided) market loans that today are having a disproportionate effect on our earnings and we continue to work through this issue. On the other hand we’re seeing ongoing signs of strong fundamentals with growth and deposits, loans, net interest income and net interest margin and we believe these results stemming from our firm commitment to responsible community banking will allow us to build more comprehensive customer relationship and lead us the long term sustainable growth. And we look forward to speaking with you again in the very near future. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

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