Eastern Bankshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBC) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Eastern Bankshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBC) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript April 24, 2026

Operator: Welcome to the Eastern Bancshares, Inc. First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. Please note that this event is being recorded for replay purposes. In connection with today’s call, the company posted a presentation on its Investor Relations website, investor.easternbank.com which will be referenced during the call. Today’s call will include forward-looking statements. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statement involves risks and uncertainties and is not a guarantee of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied due to a variety of factors. These factors are described in the company’s earnings press release and most recent 10-K filed with the SEC.

Any forward-looking statements made represents management’s views and estimates as of today, and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements because of new information or future events. The company will also discuss both GAAP and certain non-GAAP financial measures. For reconciliations, please refer to the company’s earnings press release. I’d now like to turn the call over to Denis Sheahan, Eastern Chief Executive Officer.

Denis Sheahan: Thank you, Rob. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. With me today on the call are Bob Rivers, Executive Chair and Chair of the Board of Directors; Quinsey Miller, our President and Chief Operating Officer; and David Rosato, our Chief Financial Officer. Our first quarter performance was solid and in line with our expectations with results reflecting the impact of typical seasonal trends. Operating income increased 31% and operating earnings per share increased 18% from a year ago and generated an operating return on average tangible common equity of 12.8%. As expected, period-end loan and deposit balances were down modestly from year-end. However, customer sentiment remains positive and commercial loan pipelines ended the quarter at record high levels, giving us confidence for strong activity in the coming quarters.

Following a record year of originations, our commercial lending team remains energized and that momentum is carrying into 2026. Overall, we believe Eastern is well positioned to deliver meaningful value to shareholders by executing on organic growth opportunities and a consistent return of capital. We continue to see positive trends across many areas of the business. First quarter highlights include continued momentum in Wealth Management with positive net flows approaching $400 million in the quarter. Solid build in loan pipelines for both commercial and home equity lending, strong asset quality, significant capital return to shareholders and the successful completion of the Harbor One merger core system conversion. Wealth management is an important component of our long-term growth strategy.

Beyond strong investment solutions and results we provide comprehensive wealth services, including financial, tax and estate planning as well as private banking. Wealth assets increased to a record high of $10.3 billion including $9.8 billion in assets under management, driven by strong positive net flows, partially offset by weaker equity market performance. We’ve been pleased with the integration of the Eastern and Cambridge wealth teams, which continue to capitalize on the deepening alignment within our banking business, elevating client engagement and referral activity. Notably, we have considerable opportunity to expand relationships within Eastern’s client base, and our plan is to lean into that meaningfully over the next several years.

Given the wealth demographics of our footprint, we are encouraged by the momentum of our business. Asset quality continues to be a real strength for us. Net charge-offs were 17 basis points, and we saw a solid improvement in nonperforming loans since year-end. We remain very comfortable with our risk profile with limited exposure to current higher-risk sectors, including private credit, software, life sciences and clean tech. Our lending to non-deposit financial institutions or MDFIs as defined by the call report, is less than 3% of total loans and as low risk as it is largely centered on organizations that provide affordable housing in Massachusetts, REITs that lend in our market, mostly in the multifamily space. and a small number of asset-based lending relationships we know well.

Overall credit trends are positive and reflect the quality of our underwriting and deep knowledge of our customers, communities and local economy. Importantly, as the macro and geopolitical environment continues to evolve, we remain vigilant and closely engaged with our customers and consistent with our proactive risk management approach we will address any emerging issues prudently and quickly. Turning to capital. Given our profitability, we continue to generate capital in excess of our growth needs, we remain focused on rightsizing our capital through a combination of organic growth, share repurchases and quarterly dividends. This was evident in the first quarter as we repurchased 3.9 million shares for $75.1 million. As of quarter end, we’ve completed 59% of the current authorization and we expect to finish the program around midyear, at which point we anticipate executing a new authorization subject to regulatory approval.

In addition, we announced a 15% dividend increase, marking our sixth consecutive year of dividend growth since becoming a public company, reinforcing our commitment to deliver consistent capital returns to shareholders. In February, we successfully completed the Harbor One merger core system conversion. With this milestone behind us, we are excited to realize the full potential of the combined franchise. This achievement reflects the extraordinary efforts of our employees, particularly given the conversion was partly executed amid a significant snowstorm in Greater Boston. I want to sincerely thank everyone who contributed to this effort for their dedication and teamwork. Importantly, we remain on track to capture the merger’s targeted cost savings and onetime charges are largely complete with approximately $2 million remaining in the second quarter, bringing the total to $67 million.

Before turning the call over to David, I wanted to spend a moment on artificial intelligence, a topic we are frequently asked about. Everything we are doing in AI is centered on improving how we deliver for our clients. Our focus goes beyond streamlining processes and efficiency and is centered on the objective of knowing our customers better than we know them today. One of Eastern’s long-standing strengths has been the depth of our client relationships and AI will allow us to scale that advantage in meaningful ways. It will enable us to better anticipate customer needs, provide more relevant product recommendations and engage customers at the right time with the right solutions. This will further differentiate our franchise through an even higher level of personalization that customers typically receive from much larger banks.

As a result, we view AI not only as an efficiency tool though it certainly will streamline workflows and improve productivity, but also as a driver of revenue growth. David, I’ll hand it over to you to provide a review of our first quarter financials.

R. Rosato: Thanks, Denis, and good morning, everyone. I’ll begin on Slide 3 of the presentation. The first quarter marked a solid start to the year and was mostly in line with our expectations. We reported net income of $65.3 million or $0.29 per diluted share. Included in net income was $30.8 million of nonoperating costs, mostly related to the Harbor One merger. On an operating basis, earnings were $88.6 million or $0.40 per diluted share. While operating earnings decreased 6% linked quarter, they were up 31% year-over-year reflecting the enhanced earnings power of the company. Looking at Slide 4. We are pleased with the continued strength of our profitability metrics while operating ROA of 117 basis points and return on average tangible common equity of 12.8% were down from Q4.

Both metrics improved from a year ago when operating ROA was 109 basis points and operating return on average tangible common equity was 11.7%. We remain focused on driving sustainable growth and profitability. Moving to the margin on Slide 5. Net interest income of $244.7 million or $250.8 million on an FTE basis increased 3% from Q4. The growth was driven by margin improvement due to lower cost of funds, partially offset by $3.1 million of lower net discount accretion, which totaled $19.5 million compared to $22.6 million in the prior quarter. Excluding accretion, net interest income increased approximately 5%. As you all know, quarterly accretion income can be lumpy. Looking ahead, we expect accretion to average $21 million to $22 million per quarter.

In Q1, accretion of $19.5 million was about $2 million below trend. The net interest margin expanded 2 basis points linked quarter to $3.63. The improvement was driven by a 16 basis point reduction in interest-bearing and liability costs, reflecting improved deposit pricing. This more than offset a 7 basis point decline in yield on interest-earning assets, primarily due to lower loan yields, partially offset by higher security yields. Net discount accretion contributed 28 basis points to the margin compared to 34 basis points in Q4. Excluding the impact of accretion, the margin expanded approximately 8 basis points from the fourth quarter, highlighting the underlying strength of our core margin performance. We have included a new disclosure report on the repricing characteristics of our interest-earning assets on Page 18 in the appendix.

Excluding the impact of cash flow hedges, which are in runoff mode, $1 billion or approximately 35% of our total loan portfolio is floating at current rates. The remaining $14.9 billion is comprised of variable and fixed rate loans of $4.1 billion and $10.8 billion, respectively. The time buckets reflect the dollar value of any repricing or cash flow events for the portfolio, including projected prepayments based on the forward yield curve. We have also disclosed the projected yields as assets run off the balance sheet, inclusive of purchase accounting. Current loan origination yields are 5.75% to 6% for commercial, 5.5% to 6% for residential, and HELOCs are indexed to prime. Excluding floating rate loans, we expect approximately $2.8 billion of turnover for repricing over the next 3 years.

Based on current origination yields, this activity is expected to be accretive to NII and margin. For the securities portfolio, we expect approximately $1.5 billion of principal cash flow in the next 3 years at a weighted average book yield of 2.86%. Again, this cash flow will be accretive to NII and margin. Turning to Slide 6. Noninterest income for the quarter was $43.6 million, a decrease of $2.5 million compared to the fourth quarter. On an operating basis, noninterest income was $45.1 million, down $1.6 million. The largest contributor contribute to the variance was a $1.9 million loss on investments related to employee retirement benefits, reflecting weaker equity market performance. This compares to $1.7 million in income for the prior quarter, resulting in a $3.6 million quarter-over-quarter reduction in noninterest income.

The unfavorable impact on income was partially offset by a $1.2 million improvement and related benefit costs reported in noninterest expense. Conversely, noninterest income benefited from a $2.9 million increase in miscellaneous income and fees. Primarily driven by a $1.7 million gain on the sale of commercial loans. This gain is related to a Harbor One loan workout that resulted in a note sale above our remaining fair value mark. Turning to Slide 7, we highlight Wealth Management, which is our primary fee business and accounts for more than 40% of noninterest income. Wealth assets increased to a record $10.3 billion, including AUM of $9.8 billion, driven by strong positive net flows. We’re particularly pleased with this performance given that weaker equity market conditions during the quarter created headwinds for asset values, yet we were still able to deliver growth.

underscoring the strength of our client relationships and full-service capabilities. Fees decreased modestly from the fourth quarter, but increased nearly 12% from a year ago primarily driven by strong growth in assets. Moving to Slide 8. Noninterest expense was $198.6 million, an increase of $9.2 million compared to the fourth quarter. The increase was primarily driven by seasonal costs and a full quarter of Harbor One operating expenses, partially offset by lower nonoperating costs. On an operating basis, noninterest expense was $167.9 million, up $11.8 million from the prior quarter. The increase reflects seasonally higher payroll and benefit-related costs as well as the full quarter impact of Fiber One. The largest contributors to the quarter-over-quarter increase were salaries and benefits of $10.6 million.

Occupancy and equipment costs increased $2.1 million and technology and data processing expenses rose $1.2 million. These increases were partially offset by a $2.2 million reduction in professional services expense. Nonoperating noninterest expense of $30.8 million decreased $2.6 million, primarily due to $1.8 million of lower merger-related costs and $800,000 lower other nonoperating expenses. As a reminder, the first quarter typically represents a seasonally high point for expenses, and we expect a moderation in the quarterly expense run rate over the remainder of 2026. Importantly, with the completion of the Harbor One core system conversion in February, we remain on track to achieve the projected merger cost savings. Moving to the balance sheet, starting with deposits on Slide 9.

As expected, balances declined from year-end. Deposits finished the quarter at $25.1 billion, down $366 million or 1.4%, primarily due to seasonal outflows at elevated competition for deposits. In addition, $81 million of Harbor One’s broker deposits matured in Q1. Total deposit costs decreased 13 basis points to 1.46% and primarily driven by lower costs and time deposits and money market accounts. We are committed to increasing deposits to support our loan growth strategies. The New England deposit environment remains competitive, and we are taking targeted actions to ensure our offerings are appropriately positioned to defend and grow share. While these efforts will result in some upward pressure on costs, we remain focused on balancing growth of our high-quality deposit base with that of the margin.

Notably, retention of Harbor One deposits has been consistent with our expectations. Turning to Slide 10. Total loans declined modestly from year-end, consistent with our expectations. Period-end balances were down $187 million or less than 1%. The decrease was driven in part by nonperforming loan resolutions of $35 million and commercial real estate payoffs. We are pleased C&I continue to be a source of growth with balances increasing $49 million or 1.1% from year-end. We finished the quarter with record commercial pipeline of approximately $800 million. which gives us confidence in strong origination activity in the coming quarters and supports a favorable growth outlook as we move through the year. We continue to benefit from the strategic investments we have made in hiring talent and our differentiation in the market.

We can deliver the breadth and products and services typically associated with much larger banks by retaining the certainty of execution that comes from local decision-making and a deep understanding of our customers and communities. Turning to consumer lending. Home equity balances grew slightly during the quarter. We are underpenetrated in this line of business, and growth has been somewhat episodic. Largely due to capacity constraints within our legacy origination platform. We are in the process of implementing a new home equity origination platform, which we expect will improve speed scalability and consistency, enabling more sustained growth. Given the strong underlying consumer demand across our footprint for this product, we are excited about the opportunity ahead and we see home equity as an attractive area of growth.

Residential mortgage balances were down approximately 1% from year-end. Our expectation is the residential portfolio will remain relatively flat in 2026 as we favor HELOC and commercial loan growth. Turning to securities on Slide 11. We continue to be pleased with the overall quality and positioning of the portfolio. Balances increased $171 million since year-end, reflecting disciplined deployment into attractive opportunities. The portfolio yield increased 14 basis points to 3.18% for the quarter, supported by recent purchases. From a valuation perspective, AFS unrealized losses totaled $277 million at quarter end compared to $259 million at year-end. Turning to Slide 12. Our capital position remains strong, as indicated by CET 1 and TCE ratios of 13.2% and 10.2%, respectively.

As Dennis stated earlier, we are focused on rightsizing capital through organic growth, share repurchases and quarterly dividends. We expect to generate excess capital but plan to manage our CET1 towards the median of the KRX, which is currently 12%. Our commitment to rightsizing capital was evident in Q1 and with the repurchase of 3.9 million shares for $75.1 million at an average price of $19.33 which was $0.68 below the VWAP for the quarter. As a result, our diluted common shares outstanding were 220.8 million as of March 31. Second quarter to date, we have repurchased an additional 740,000 shares through yesterday for a total cost of $14.4 million and now have 4.2 million shares remaining on our authorization. We have now completed 65% of the buyback.

We currently anticipating completing the buyback around midyear, at which point we anticipate executing a new authorization subject to regulatory approval. Additionally, if the Basel III proposal to reduce risk weights on certain assets is adopted, our preliminary estimates suggest an increase to Eastern’s risk-based ratios of approximately 1%, which will support additional share buybacks over time. As displayed on Slide 13, asset quality remains excellent as evidenced by net charge-offs to average total loans of 17 basis points. Nonperforming loans improved as expected, falling nearly $35 million linked quarter to $138 million or 60 basis points of total loans. NPLs were lower in both the legacy Eastern and acquired Harbor One portfolios. Progress has continued in the second quarter, and we expect further credit resolutions in the quarters ahead.

Reserve levels remain robust as demonstrated by an allowance for loan losses to $37.9 million or 143 basis points of total loans. Criticized and classified loans of $801 million or 5.1% of total loans, were up modestly from $793 million or 5% of total loans at year-end. The increase was driven by higher criticized balances on the Harbor One portfolio, largely offset by continued improvement in legacy Easter loans. As we deepen our knowledge of the acquired portfolio, we further refined risk ratings and this led to the increase in Q1. In addition, we booked a provision of $5.8 million, up from $4.9 million in the prior quarter. Finally, slides covering our CRE and investor office portfolios can now be found in the appendix. We remain focused on the investor office portfolio and believe the worst of the office loan issues are behind us.

so we remain realistic in our outlook. The portfolio totals $1 billion or 4% of total loans. Criticized and classified loans are $160 million an improvement from over $170 million at year-end. Our reserve level of 6% remains conservative. Importantly, we reunderwrite all investor office loans of $5 million or more each year, and we recently completed that process during the first quarter with no unexpected findings. Before turning to Q&A, I’d like to briefly address our 2016 outlook on Slide 14. At this time, we are not making any changes to full year guidance as the first quarter performance was mostly in line with our expectations. While there were some offsetting factors in the quarter, none alter our overall view of the year, and we remain confident in achieving the projections in the outlook.

With that said, based on Q1 results, we may trend towards the lower end of the NII guidance range we shared in January. In addition, we are mindful that the economic environment remains fluid. We continue to closely monitor conditions impacting our business, our customers and the communities we serve. Given the ongoing uncertainty around geopolitical developments, interest rates, inflation and broader market volatility, we plan to revisit our outlook at mid-year this visibility improves. That concludes our comments, and we will now open up the line for questions.

Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line of Feddie Strickland from Hovde Group.

Feddie Strickland: Good morning, everybody. Just wanted to start off with a clarification. I appreciate the new interest earning asset pricing slide, and it seems like that’s maybe a big part of the margin expansion story at this point. But just as a point of clarification, it’s as projected yield on that. Is that where the yield is rolling off? Or where you expect those loans to be priced at?

Denis Sheahan: That’s the yield rolling off. Yes. And Feddie, just to be clear on that, there is a footnote that sense is on a non-FTE basis. That’s — I’ll give you an example. So if you see the total security yield of $310 million, we reported that for the quarter, securities were $38 million. That 8 basis point difference is the FTE adjustment on those assets.

Feddie Strickland: Got it. And I guess of the fixed loans that are repricing. I mean, how much of that is kind of fixed over the next year? Just trying to get a sense for what the opportunity simply from backfill free pricing is.

Denis Sheahan: Well, we — I mean we I mean if you look at the columns. Yes, Q4 to 6%, 7% to 9%, 10% to 12%, right?

R. Rosato: Yes. You can see, we tried to break this out and obviously, we’ll be happy to take feedback on this since it’s the first time we’ve done it. But we tried to characterize the portfolio in the loan portfolio into the three major groups. Floating is prime and SOFR. And in commercial, that’s SOFR-based in consumer, that’s prime. Those are the HELOCs. Intermediate repricing and then what’s fixed. We aggregated that in buckets thinking that the most useful information was the current yield by maturity bucket or so than the exact mix of whether that’s fixed or floating. Now what you’ll find is within 3 months is the whole floating bucket. Everything else is fixed or variable, meaning intermediate term fixed, and that represents the repricing opportunity.

Feddie Strickland: That’s super helpful. And just one more for me. There’s been some news of some larger competitors moving into the Boston market on the wealth side. Can you talk about the extent to which you’ve run into them so far? Have you expect any pressure there?

Denis Sheahan: Sure, Feddie. So yes, there’s frequently news of entrance into the market. We’re not alone in understanding the very strong demographics from a household income and wealth perspective in New England and in Massachusetts, in particular. But it’s always been a very competitive market. We’d expect that to continue. So new entrants don’t disturb us. We’re well used to competing with others in the market and have been for many years.

R. Rosato: Dennis, I would just add to that. A lot of those new entrants are focusing higher asset amounts than our core, bread and butter.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Justin Crowley from Piper Sandler.

Justin Crowley: Just wanted to keep on the margin. You left the guide unchanged. And I think last quarter included two cuts in the guide. So — just kind of curious with the Fed likely on pause here, how you should think about that impacting the NIM and just the expansion that you’ve laid out?

Denis Sheahan: Sure. Thanks, Justin. So I would go back to what we’ve been very consistent for quite a period of time now is we are essentially interest rate risk neutral to NII. We’ve talked about on past calls that a steeper deal curve is better than a flatter yield curve, but it’s relatively modest. I pointed out 1 to 2 basis points positive margin impact up per 25 basis points of steepness. So the — we feel good about the NIM. We feel really good about the core NIM as well. The only challenge around margin is really just two things: One, it’s the variability of accretion that we’ve talked about in the past. We tried to point out, it was down $3.1 million linked quarter here had an impact on the reported margin; and then the other side the other issues or things that we think about is just the size of the balance sheet and then the growing issue for the industry is the cost of deposits.

Justin Crowley: Okay. And so on that latter point, just on funding costs, is that sort of the aspect that gets you to have a bias towards just the lower end of the range on NII? Are you thinking about deposit pricing pressure any differently here as you sit here today?

Denis Sheahan: Yes. So yes, we put out the original full year NIM of $1.20 billion to $1.050 billion. We’re thinking we’ll be within that range, but we’re concerned about being on the lower end of that range. That’s really driven by two factors: one, loan growth. It was — we expected weaker loan growth in Q1. It was slightly — it was down slightly more than we were expecting. And so that’s a volume issue on the asset side. And then it’s a price issue on the liability side around the deposit base. We had really good deposit performance in Q1 from a price perspective, a little less so on a volume perspective.

Justin Crowley: Okay. Got it. That’s helpful. And then just one last one. Just on loans. If you could just give a little more color on the loan pipeline. I know it’s at record levels, but just what that what that mix looks like and what gets you confident these pull-through as customers continue to get their arms around some of the uncertainty that still exists today.

Denis Sheahan: Sure, Justin. Happy to do that. So first of all, as David mentioned, our loan growth was a little softer than we expected in the quarter. And some of that is why the pipeline is as large as it is. We had a pretty rough first quarter in this part of the country in terms of weather. So something slipped a little bit. But we have a very — a record high pipeline beginning the second quarter here. So we do expect to have very, very good closings. In terms of — before I give you the numbers, would things slip a bit because of perhaps what’s going on geopolitically or what have you, we don’t think so. Certainly, with the pipeline as it stands today. These are pretty far along in the process. It’s a good mix between commercial real estate, C&I and community development lending with commercial real estate being about 57% of the portfolio C&I just under 30% and then the rest is community development lending, which is more affordable housing lending typically.

So a really good mix, and that also gives us a lot of confidence in where that commercial loan pipeline is headed. We also feel really good about our consumer home equity pipeline. David referenced that a little earlier we think that will have good progress second and into third quarter, too.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jared Shaw from Barclays.

Jared David Shaw: Maybe sticking with the deposit side. you have good betas through first quarter. I guess if we’re in a flat rate environment with some of the expectation that competition increases. Is this sort of peak beta, do you think here? And that could go going forward, we could see a little bit of pressure?

Denis Sheahan: Yes. I mean the short answer is, yes, I think there will be betas will be slower to come down than they were going up, our beta was 46%. The — we — again, I’ll go back to my original question as part of the original question of we’re roughly interest rate neutral. That’s good. But we — I would expect probably a 2 to 3 basis point incremental cost to deposits as the year unfolds here, which is probably translates into 1 or 2 basis points to the overall margin.

Jared David Shaw: Okay. And then do you have the spot deposit rate at the end of the quarter?

Denis Sheahan: Yes, it was 142 basis points versus 146 basis points for the whole — for the full quarter.

Jared David Shaw: Okay. Okay. And then when you’re looking at the sort of the competitive pressure. Is that primarily for attracting new money to the bank? Or is that — you’re expecting now to have to pay more for retention, maybe especially of retention of Harbor One?

Denis Sheahan: I think of it as a bit of all of the above when — just a little bit more color, thanks. We’ve talked about smaller banks being competitive in certain parts of our market repeatedly. That’s kind of the nature of this market up here. I think what’s changed is you’re now seeing more aggressive pricing from larger banks. Some of that’s to support what they’re trying to do in wealth management. Some of that is online, and some of that is just larger banks being more competitive. So those dynamics are changing, that affects everything that affects it attraction of new money, but it also impacts existing because of the flows that you see just across your deposit base in normal times. There’s a certain amount of money that’s always in flight.

R. Rosato: I think, Jared, I’d just add, I think you know we spend a lot of time thinking about our deposit base. It’s a wonderful deposit base. And we’re just signaling that we see we see cost increasing. But if you look at the trend and how we’ve managed this deposit base through a merger with the company that had a higher cost of deposits than we, if you look on Slide 9, now Q3 cost of deposits was 155 basis points. So through the merger, we’ve still been able to bring it down, as David said, spot is 142. So we spent a lot of time thinking about this, but we do think it’s fair just to signal that there is competitive pressure on deposits. And we think that we’ll certainly be affected to a degree by it. But even within that, we manage this deposit base very, very intently.

Jared David Shaw: Yes. Okay. I appreciate that. And then if I could just one final one. What would be, as we look at second quarter, with some of the moving parts on salaries and the closing of the deal, what sort of a good salary level for second quarter? And then should we expect marketing expenses to maybe trickle higher with some of this deposit initiative too?

Denis Sheahan: So let me kind of just go down the whole list. Yes, salary will come down Salary will be down linked quarter because of the timing of the merger as well as normal onetime in the first quarter. The tackle come down, occupancy will come down. The only thing I’m really thinking on the expense side is we were under a bit on professional. That will probably tick up, [indiscernible].

R. Rosato: And marketing, yes, it’s fair to say that’s seasonal as well. Home equity promotions will be much heavier in the spring season heading into summer. And yes, on the deposit side. So you should see marketing tick up in Q2.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Damon DelMonte from KBW.

Damon Del Monte: And David, I was just looking for a little bit of clarification on the guidance slide. If you look at the — if you try to back into like the average earning assets, when you look at the NII range that you provided in the margin ranges you provided, if you were to kind of take the midpoint of that, that kind of puts you at about $28 billion in average earning assets, which is where you guys hit this quarter. So just trying to connect the dots here of looking at where the average earning asset balance could be during the year, kind of given the outlook for loan growth.

Denis Sheahan: Yes. So the issue will be we have a strong pipeline from what we think will be, let’s say, at end of the second quarter, we’ll be right back on our expectations on an ending period basis. I think the issue, the crux of your question is really around the averages. So even though with that strong pipeline, we’ll get back to what internally we say is budget. I do believe the averages are going to take a little longer to catch up. So where — that’s the thought process around the lower end of the margin or the net interest income guide. Lower average balances on the asset side and then not lower averages on the deposit side, but slightly higher costs.

Damon Del Monte: Got it. Okay. All right. And then with respect to the outlook for provision, again, the guided range didn’t change from last quarter. But it came in later this quarter as you guys continue to work through credits where you need to reserve for. So I guess how are you thinking about the provision going forward, just kind of given the composition of nonperformers and expected growth?

Denis Sheahan: Yes. I mean, again, we’re not long post this merger. So there’s — admittedly, there’s a little bit of conservatism in not lowering the guide. We Obviously, credit improved a lot in Q1. Provision expense coming in at 58%. If you run rate that would take us towards the low end of the $30 million to $40 million. But we’re just being cautious there with the dynamic of still early in the Harbor One and with what’s going on in the macro economy.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Laurie Hunsicker from Seaport Research.

Laura Havener Hunsicker: I just wanted to go back to expenses here. Can you just share with us what was the FICA expense and what was the snow removal expense this quarter?

Denis Sheahan: Well, let’s think about it linked quarter. FICA was up $3.1 billion linked quarter. Snow was up about $650,000 linked quarter.

Laura Havener Hunsicker: Okay. That’s great. And then do you have a spot margin for March?

Denis Sheahan: Sure. 365. So up two from the quarter.

Laura Havener Hunsicker: Right. Okay. Okay. And that includes basically the same amount of accretion that you reported in the quarter?

Denis Sheahan: I mean we talk about accretion being lumpy quarter-to-quarter. It’s even more lumpy month-to-month. But that’s a good number, Laurie. I know in past costs, sometimes I’ll adjust it for you. This one doesn’t need adjusting.

Laura Havener Hunsicker: Okay. Perfect. And then just last question here on credit. Obviously love seeing the drop in commercial nonperformers. So 2 parts to this. Can you share with us the drop in office nonperformers at $37 million, down to $11 million. Can you just share with us the resolution there? And then second part, the industrial warehouse, it looks like the nonperformers there keep going higher. So you went linked quarter $25 million to $41 million. Can you just tell us a little bit about that since that book is larger?

R. Rosato: Sure. So Laurie, that was just a coding error that we found on Harbor One loans. So they — when we — when we closed the deal, that specific loan was coded as construction, but construction had been completed, and it should have been classified as industrial warehouse. So there’s really no change there. And that was all considered as part of the credit mark reserve established against, et cetera. Nothing changed there. It was merely a reclassification from construction to industrial.

Denis Sheahan: Yes. And then just — there’s nothing unusual in the resolution of any of those loans. They just Yes. I mean they were financed by another party. That’s basically it, Laurie. We had reserves established, et cetera. We went through a whole workout on them and they’re — that project is now with new borrowers, not financed by us. It’s — that’s simply it. Some — I mean, we did call out the gain on that one commercial loan. So there was a loan sale in there. We generated the $1.3 million gain, which just — the final resolution was better than the remaining fair value mark. So it was a good guide this quarter.

Operator: next question comes from the line of Matthew Breese from Stephens Inc.

Matthew Breese: Thanks for having me on. Maybe just thinking about the deposit strategy a little more. Is there a growth component or target, meaning there’s a certain dollar amount of deposits you’re looking to bring in because I guess what I’m worried about is, a, you certainly don’t want to dilute your most valuable characteristic too much or unnecessarily so. And then B, as you think about the promotional rates just on your website, money market and CDs and kind of the high 3s, low 4s versus incremental loan yields in the high 5% or 6% range. It’s just not great for the incremental margin. And so I wanted your thoughts on all that, where do you start to cut this off dollar-wise to come in.

Denis Sheahan: So we guided to, David, 1% to 2% deposit growth for the year. So we don’t have outsized expectations in terms of growth. Again, what we’re just trying to signal is that we are seeing deposit competition increase in the marketplace, which is perhaps higher than we anticipated at this point. It’s coming from smaller competitors and larger competitors. So we’re just trying to bring some reality to our forecast on that, but we’re not we’re not guiding to significant increase in deposit growth. Again, it was 1% to 2% for the year. And I mean you referenced CDs and money markets. We also have checking what we call stacked offer, meaning different rewards for different levels of account balances across checking accounts, which is something this company has done for years very successfully.

So it’s not all coming in. All those deposit flows don’t come in at that highest money market or C&E rate. And then I would just reiterate, we are not the high in the market either. And I’d say again, Matt, what I referenced earlier, which is how we’ve managed the cost of deposits over the past several quarters even when adding a bank that has a higher deposit cost than the legacy company from 155 basis points in Q3 to a spot of 142 at the end of the first quarter. So that’s — you’re right, this is a very material component of the company, our deposit base, an important one, but we manage it very deliberately. Understood. And then tying that back to the margin, as I think about the NIM guide for the full year and where you sit today, is it fair to say that we kind of end the year closer to the high end of the range versus the low end?

Or what is kind of the cadence of the NIM throughout the year given everything you’ve outlined. Well, the somewhat dependent on the pace in the second quarter, the build of loan and deposit balances, but the — we’re expecting the core NIM without purchase accounting to incrementally improve each quarter. And so — and then I’ll go back to the — when we announced the Harbor One transaction a year ago at this point, we telegraphed a 3.70% margin that’s the middle of the guide we gave in January, and we still think we’ll be in that 10 basis point range. And we ended Q1 on a spot basis at 3.65% which is the low end of it.

Matthew Breese: Okay. I appreciate that. Last one, I think about the — some of the reductions and payoffs this quarter, how much of it was — or is there an outsized portion of it that was acquired loans versus legacy Eastern? And is any of that strategic in nature, meaning you got your arms around Harbor One and maybe the a bit more transactional commercial real estate that might be better off kind of elsewhere than with you. Is that a component of it? And is that incorporated into the full year guide?

Denis Sheahan: I think the only real color there, the Harbor One portfolio is nothing unexpected. We’re so early in it, but there’s nothing coming in either from a credit mark or from a payoff pace unexpected. There was, let’s say, some elevated commercial real estate payoffs in the legacy portfolios, legacy now being defined as legacy or and Paper Trust. We actually think that’s a sign of a healthy market. So that was a little higher than we expected, but we’ll see if that continues or not. It’s just a higher level of activity in the market.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Janet Lee from TD Bank.

Sun Lee: So on the deposit cost commentary, so you’re expecting some modest increase in deposit cost. A lot — I guess some of that has to do with the retention of. Or does that have to do with retaining Harbor One deposit base, which is obviously a higher cost base that’s — is that part of that. Is that what’s driving the increase along with the competitive deposit competition in your market. How much of the Harbor One retention is the factor in your deposit cost outlook? Is it harder to retain versus before?

R. Rosato: No. It’s more about just the market, pricing in the marketplace. I mean, certainly, an element of our deposit base. An important element is the Harbor One customer base — but this is what’s going on in the market broadly. And it’s been — it’s consistent and expanded from the back half of last year, we saw this pricing really kick off with lower institutions. Now we’re seeing it with institutions that are higher than us, so it’s reflective of what’s going on in the marketplace. But certainly, yes, we are engaged in very importantly retaining the Harbor One customer deposit base, and that’s going very well. But it’s mostly about what’s happening in the market.

Sun Lee: Got it. For loan growth, so it looks like the loan growth will be picking up in the coming quarters. But just given the lower base, is it fair to assume that it’s coming in at the lower end? Or do you have more optimism that it could be somewhere in the middle or even at the upper end, how should we think about the cadence of loan growth picking up?

Denis Sheahan: I think the original range is where our expectations are. It’s a fairly tight range. So I don’t want to shave that high or low at this point. As I would just go back to — we — loans were modestly down in Q1. It wasn’t a surprise to us. That’s normally what happens in Q1 and here in New England. It was a little worse because of the weather. But we have record pipelines. We feel good about it.

Operator: And there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Denis Sheahan for closing remarks.

Denis Sheahan: Thank you, everybody, for joining us. I appreciate your questions. We look forward to speaking with you at the end of our next quarter.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.