MidWestOne Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MOFG) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Damon DelMonte: Hey, good morning everyone. Hope you’re all doing well today. Just wanted to start off on the margin and kind of the outlook there. Barry, could you maybe just provide a little bit more context and color around some of the dynamics you’re seeing here going into year end? It was a pretty sizable step down this quarter compared to what I think we — most of us were looking for. So how do we kind of think about the margin over the next, say, couple quarters and where it may trough?

Barry Ray: Yes, thank you, Damon. So here’s some of the dynamics that we’re seeing on the margin. I would say on the asset side, on the loan yield, we’re seeing about 4 basis points per month of increased in asset yield. And so, that’s been a fairly standard pattern over the past 6 months as our loans reprice and renew. And then if I flip to the liability side, our cost of deposit, that pace has slowed such that it’s around 6 basis points per month. And so as we look out into 2024 and assuming that the FOMC is mostly done with their moves and we continue to experience the deposit stabilization that we’re seeing right now, we think that there’s still some room for margin compression certainly in the fourth quarter, perhaps not quite of the magnitude we observed quarter-over-quarter this quarter, perhaps some additional compression and starting to trough in the first half of 2024, Damon. Those are the dynamics that we’re seeing.

Damon DelMonte: Great. That’s helpful. Thank you. And then with regards to the outlook here for credit, you did note that there was one commercial relationship that went into non-performing status and I think you said it was like a senior living center or something. Any update on that as far as what the resolution would be there? It doesn’t appear that much if any of it came through in charge off. So are you optimistic about being able to resolve this and exit without any material losses associated with this?

Charles Reeves: Hey, Damon, this is Chip. Our Chief Credit Officer, Gary Sims is with us today. So, we’ll turn it over to Gary for that.

Gary Sims: Yes. Damon, the — really the move to non-performer in that asset was driven by the — during the quarter, that entity went into receivership, so it’s actually in the hands of a receiver right now and being managed by a third-party management company. The goal being to stabilize that asset for eventual sale. So in the quarter, we actually did take a reserve against that $15.3 million asset of $2.4 million. So that really positions us well to be able to work with the receiver to manage that asset to a conclusion. Sometime in the future, senior living assets take a while to work through and get moved on, but we feel confident that we have a clear path.

Damon DelMonte: Great. I appreciate that color. And then with regards to kind of the outlook for provision, how should we think about that if you know the loan growth flows a little bit and credit maintains pretty stable levels, would you kind of keep the provision level similar to this quarter or maybe a little bit lower?

Gary Sims: No, Damon, I really see the provision being in the range of what you’ve seen over the past quarter or two — few quarters. I think that’s pretty representative of what we’re going to see on a go-forward basis.

Damon DelMonte: Okay, great. That’s all that I had. Thank you very much.

Charles Reeves: Thanks, Damon.

Operator: Our next question comes from Brian Martin from Janney. Brian, your line’s not open. Please go ahead.

Brian Martin: Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Maybe [Multiple Speakers] just one more follow-up for Gary, just on the increase in the quarter in the special mention category. Was there something driving that as well or is that this one credit you were referring to? I guess it was — it looked like it was up about $30 million in the quarter.