Earnings Labs

Mercantile Bank Corporation (MBWM)

Q2 2010 Earnings Call· Tue, Jul 20, 2010

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Mercantile Bank Corporation Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. There will be a question and answer period at the end of the presentation. (Operator instructions) Before we begin today’s call, I would like to remind everyone that this call may involve certain forward looking statements such as projections of revenue, earnings and capital structure, as well as statements on the plans and objectives of the company or its management, statements on economic performance and statements regarding the underlying assumptions of the company’s business, the company’s actual results could differ materially from any forward looking statement made today due to important factors described in the company’s latest Security and Exchange Commission filings. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward looking statements made during this call. If anyone does not already have a copy of the press release issued by Mercantile today, you can access it at the company’s website, www.merbcank.com On the conference today from Mercantile Bank Corporation we have Mike Price, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Bob Kaminski, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and Chuck Christmas, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Mike Price

Management

Thank you, and good morning everyone and welcome. Our strategic initiatives continue to provide steady improvement to our results. Asset quality and margin improvement led the way and we almost swung back to profitable status for the quarter. Bob Kaminski will detail the entire dynamic of our loan portfolio and the provision for loan losses during his comments. While we did suffer a small loss for the quarter, significant improvement in our pass-through loans and our nonperforming assets suggest that we may have finally turned a corner in our relentless efforts to counteract the effects of the steep economic downturn. Even if we have turned the corner, we know that upcoming quarters will still be difficult as commercial real estate values remain challenging and the cost of disposing of our remaining ORE portfolio will also be challenging. It is, however, very heartening to see some very tangible signs of improvement in so many areas. Chuck Christmas and Bob will detail these actions in their comments as well. I want to thank our customers for their loyalty and support, our board for its wisdom and vision and our hardworking employees for their dedication and sacrifice. At this time I'm going to turn it over to Chuck Christmas.

Chuck Christmas

Management

On a pre-tax basis, which we believe provides a more accurate comparison of our operating results given the change in our tax position, our net loss during the second quarter of 2010 was $1.2 million compared to a net loss of $9.6 million during the second quarter of 2009. And our net loss during the first 6 months of 2010 was $4.3 million compared to a net loss of $16.9 million during the first 6 months of 2009. While we are of course disappointed any time we have to report a net loss, we are encouraged with the significant improvement in our operating results as well as the continued improvement in may key areas of our financial condition and performance. Our financial performance during 2010, like that throughout 2009 and 2008, has been impacted by a significant provision expense. Unfortunately, continued state, regional, and national economic struggles have negatively impacted some of our borrowers' cash flows and underlying collateral values, leading to increased nonperforming assets, higher loan charge offs, and increased overall credit risk within our loan portfolio when compared to historical norms. From the time we sensed economic weakness over 2 years ago, we have been working with our borrowers to develop constructive dialog, which has strengthened our relationships and enhanced our ability to resolve complex issues. With the environment for the banking industry likely to remain stressed until economic conditions improve, credit quality will continue to be our major concern. We will remain relentlessly vigilant in the identification and administration of problem assets. Unfortunately, provision expense as well as nonperforming asset administration and resolution costs will likely remain higher than historical levels, dampening future earnings performance. But during the second quarter of 2010, we saw the continuation of very positive trends we reported for the first quarter of…

Bob Kaminski

Operator

Thank you Chuck. My comments today will address asset quality performance during the second quarter. As usual, our press release has much information in tabular form, aligning the key statistics for the quarter, so my comments will amplify, and in some cases add color to that information. Mercantile continued to see some signs of stabilization in the key metrics in the marketplace and in the loan portfolio. As we noted in the first quarter, there has been an uptick in the inquiries and movement of real estate, including some troubled asset real estate, although low values are still a significant challenge. Additionally, some commercial industrial customers are experiencing increased backlogs for the rest of 2010 and into 2011. Nonperforming assets at June 30 showed a $7 million net decrease from the totals at March 31. That net decrease was reflected and led by a reduction of over $2.2 million in non-real estate commercial loan types, plus over $1 million in net reductions, each in nonperforming assets in the residential land development, residential construction, and commercial owner-occupied asset categories. Offsetting $13 million in new nonperforming loans in the second quarter were $7.3 million in principal payments, $2.4 million in sales proceeds, $1.4 million in loans returning to performing status, and $8.2 million in chargeoffs. Also included in nonperforming asset totals are $5.9 million in restructured but accruing loans where the bank is working with the distressed borrowers to provide relief with some loan modifications. Total net chargeoffs during the quarter totaled $8.6 million compared to $6.2 million in the first quarter. It should be noted that the second quarter number is net of $1.3 million in loan recoveries. These were loans that were previously charged off and the recoveries were possible by diligent and persistent collection activities. $2.5 million of the…

Mike Price

Management

Thanks Bob, and thank you Chuck for your comments. At this point we would like to open it up for Q&A.

Operator

Operator

Stephen Geyen - Stifel Nicholaus

Analyst

Mike Price

Management

Stephen Geyen - Stifel Nicholaus

Analyst

Bob Kaminski

Operator

Stephen Geyen - Stifel Nicholaus

Analyst

Bob Kaminski

Operator

Operator

Operator

Terry McEvoy – Oppenheimer:

Bob Kaminski

Operator

Mike Price

Management

Terry McEvoy – Oppenheimer:

Bob Kaminski

Operator

Mike Price

Management

Terry McEvoy – Oppenheimer:

Mike Price

Management

Operator

Operator

Greg Dodgson - Royal Securities

Analyst

Mike Price

Management

Operator

Operator

Eileen Rooney – KBW:

Mike Price

Management

That's a good question and I'll try to answer it. As you know, we don't really particularly pay a lot of attention to does the chargeoff number and the provision number match up. That, in our point of view, has nothing to do with anything. Although I know some people are really concerned about that, what's more important is what is the provision as to where things are looking at in your portfolio, and as you might imagine some very positive things happened in the second quarter because the provision did come down a little bit. But if you look back at the first quarter and the fourth quarter, we hit some real strong provision numbers in those quarters, especially the fourth quarter, because we weren't sure of a couple of major things. One of them was we provided for a couple of loans that had some strong personal guarantees on them, but we were not sure of how those guarantees were going to be collected. And fortunately during the last two quarters we collected a lot of that money that we had provided for in case we weren't able to collect on those unsecured personal guarantees. So that in effect gave us a little wiggle room if you will, as to not having to provide for that in the first or second quarters. And finally, the overlay is is that you're exactly right, your view that nonperformers have seemed to cop out a little bit. Our watch list numbers have started to trend down, which is the first time in probably a long long time we've been able to say that.

Operator

Operator

Mike Price

Management

Thanks again for your interest in our company. If you do have any follow up questions please feel free to give Chuck or Bob or myself a call, and we will talk to you again next time.