Peoples Bancorp Inc. (CBNK) Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, and welcome to Peoples Bancorp Inc.'s Conference Call. My name is Nick, and I will be your conference facilitator. [Operator Instructions] This call is also being recorded. If you object to the recording, please disconnect at this time. Please be advised that the commentary in this call will contain projections or other future forward-looking statements regarding Peoples' future financial performance or future events. These statements are based on management's current expectations. The statements in this call, which are not historical fact, are forward-looking statements and involve a number of risks and uncertainties detailed in Peoples' Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Management believes the forward-looking statements made during this call are based on reasonable assumptions within the bounds of their knowledge of Peoples' business and operations. However, it is possible actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Peoples disclaims any responsibility to update these forward-looking statements after this call, except as may be required by applicable legal requirements. Peoples issued a press release this morning regarding the proposed merger with Capital Bancorp, Inc., and the press release and investor presentation are available at peoplesbancorp.com under Investor Relations. This call will include about 10 to 15 minutes of prepared commentary, followed by a question-and-answer period, which I will facilitate. An archived webcast of this call will be available on peoplesbancorp.com in the Investor Relations section for 1 year. Participants in today's call will be Tyler Wilcox, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Katie Bailey, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, and each will be available for questions following opening statements. Mr. Wilcox, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Nick. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. We are excited to announce that we have entered into an agreement to acquire Rockville, Maryland-based Capital Bancorp, Inc. We view this as a transformational combination, not simply because of the additional scale, but because of what capital adds to our franchise and the opportunities the combination creates going forward. Before I get into the transaction, I want to recognize Capital's management team, their Board of Directors and the organization they have built. Ed Barry and his team have created a high-quality franchise with a differentiated set of businesses a strong track record of growth and profitability and a talented team across the company. Just as importantly, we have been very impressed with the way that they have approached this process. Our interactions throughout the discussions and diligence have been thoughtful, collaborative and constructive and have reinforced our confidence in both the cultural fit and the opportunity we see in bringing these organizations together. There are a few highlights I want to point out regarding the transaction. First, strategic fit. As I mentioned, Capital has built a differentiated and high-performing franchise anchored by a strong relationship-based commercial bank in Washington, D.C. in the metropolitan area, complemented by several established and profitable specialty businesses with national capabilities. Those businesses include OpenSky, a consumer credit card platform that provides secured, unsecured and partially secured credit cards nationwide, which are digitally originated and served. Inter Advantage a loan service provider that offers community banks and credit unions, a comprehensive outsourced SBA and USDA platform. Capital Home Loans, which originates conventional and government-guaranteed residential mortgage loans, primarily for sale into the secondary market and a government guaranteed lending platform with a particular expertise in areas, including solar and renewable energy. These are established businesses with experienced leadership teams and importantly, the ad capabilities and sources of earnings that we do not have today. Capital has demonstrated an ability to translate their differentiated business model into consistently strong financial performance. The company has generated attractive profitability including the last 12 months return on average assets of approximately 1.58% and return on average tangible common equity of approximately 16% while also producing strong balance sheet growth. Over the last 3 years, capital has grown assets, loans and deposits at approximately 20% annually, well above peer averages. We believe that this combination of diversified capabilities, strong growth and demonstrated profitability is particularly compelling. We are acquiring a business that is performing well today. The merger will create additional opportunities to enhance that performance through the scale, products and resources of our combined organization. Capital also brings an attractive deposit franchise including specialized national deposit verticals that complement our traditional relationship-based funding base and provide additional avenues for growth. We believe our expanded product suite and expertise, including wealth management, insurance, equipment finance, premium finance and other commercial capabilities creates opportunities to deepen relationships across capital's customer base. We also see opportunities to expand a number of capital specialty businesses across our broader franchise. Notably, none of these revenue opportunities are reflected in our modeling assumptions. Our financial projections are based on the businesses largely as they operate today, -- so we view successful execution against these opportunities as potential upside to the returns we included in our investor presentation. This transaction gives us meaningful scale and a more diversified financial profile. On a pro forma basis, we expect to have approximately $14 billion of assets, $10 billion of loans and $11 billion of deposits. Just as importantly, the combination creates a more balanced earnings mix. We retained a predominantly relationship-based community banking franchise while adding multiple national lending, deposit and fee generating businesses. On a pro forma basis, approximately 23% of revenue would come from fee income, providing greater diversification in our sources of earnings, which we see as key to our future. An important part of that scale is the $10 billion asset threshold. We have been preparing for this threshold for a number of years, investing in our systems, infrastructure, talent, risk management and governance. During due diligence, we thoroughly reviewed the existing infrastructure of capital to ensure it conform to our needs for passing the threshold. This transaction allows us to cross $10 billion with meaningful scale and earnings capacity rather than simply growing incrementally over the threshold. Our stand-alone projections already contemplate the approximately $11 million of Durbin-related revenue impact associated with our existing business including the pending Citizens merger, while capital adds very little incremental debit card exposure. We believe this is a financially efficient way to move through that threshold and position us for our next phase of growth. We believe the financial returns are very compelling. We have spent significant time understanding capital in each of its businesses. Our diligence process was broad and cross-functional with a particular focus on credit in the specialty businesses, including an extensive review of OpenSky. The work we completed gives us confidence in both the quality of what we are acquiring and our ability to successfully integrate the organizations. Ultimately, we believe this combination accelerates the strategy we have been pursuing for a number of years and validates our watchwords of strategic patients that we have repeated with our investors for the past few years. This transaction gives us greater scale and significantly amplifies our current business in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia markets. It also adds attractive and complementary businesses improves and diversifies our earnings power while creating meaningful opportunities for continued growth and shareholder value. I will now turn the call over to Katie for some additional background on performance metrics of the proposed deal.

Thank you, Tyler. The proposed transaction is for full stock consideration with a fixed exchange ratio of 1.11 shares of people for each share of capital. Based on our 20-day average price, that represents an aggregate transaction value of approximately $728 million. Following the close, we expect our existing shareholders will own around 2/3 of the combined company and capital shareholders will comprise the remaining 1/3 on a diluted basis. . Additionally, 3 current directors from capital will join our Board. We anticipate completing the transaction during the first half of 2027 and subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals, along with customary closing conditions. As Tyler mentioned, we believe the financial characteristics are attractive. Based on our current assumptions, we expect fully phased in 2027 earnings per share accretion of approximately 19%. Initial tangible book value dilution is approximately 10.8% with an earn-back period of less than 3 years. And the modeled internal rate of return is greater than 25%. We will continue to maintain a strong capital profile after the transaction and are estimating a CET1 ratio of approximately 11.9% and providing meaningful capacity -- capital capacity as we integrate the businesses and continue to grow the combined franchise. I would like to highlight some of the assumptions used within our projections. We are modeling cost savings equal to approximately 30% of Capital's noninterest expense with approximately 70% phased in during 2027 in the full amount realized in 2028. Again, we have not modeled any revenue synergies despite the opportunities that Tyler discussed. We are currently estimating approximately $56.5 million of pretax transaction expenses and have incorporated a 3% gross credit mark on Capital's loan portfolio, along with the other purchase accounting adjustments outlined in the presentation. We believe those assumptions appropriately reflect the diligence completed thus far and provide a sound basis for the financial returns we have included in the presentation. We expect that our interest rate risk profile will be relatively unchanged after the merger and will be consistent with our position for the last few quarters. I will now turn the call back over to Tyler for his closing comments.

Thanks, Katie. While we are in the process of completing our merger with Citizens, we have an established record of being able to close and convert multiple mergers within a short period of time. We announced this Monday that regulatory approvals have been received, and we are on schedule to close Citizens on October 30. We are confident that we have the capabilities and workforce to successfully complete both mergers and begin realizing their benefits in the near future. We are focusing on a streamlined close and conversion process for both of our mergers, while working to bring our collective clients together with our expert associates to provide products and services that not only meet but exceed their needs. Our culture is relationship based at its core and will continue to be the primary driver of our day-to-day interactions with our clients. We believe the proposed merger will drive meaningful shareholder results with improved long-term financial performance and will further establish our long-term strategy to be a unique, diversified financial services company that provides quality returns for our shareholders. We are looking forward to discussing our quarterly results at our next call on Tuesday, October 20. This concludes our commentary, and we will open the call for questions. Once again, this is Tyler Wilcox. And joining me for the Q&A session is Katie Bailey, our Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call back into the hands of our call facilitator.

Operator Instructions] The first question will come from Jeff Rulis with D.A. Davidson.

I guess on the niche business lines, I guess, just the strategy going forward? Is it kind of run those as is? Do potentially extend that to people's platform. Just kind of wanted to see the -- your thoughts on kind of how those businesses are run post close?

Sure. Thanks for the question, Jeff. One, those businesses are a key part of why this transaction is so attractive to us. We have had a chance to obviously review the financial results, but also to be introduced and spend time with the leadership of those groups to see the operational excellence and see the returns that those add to capital. And so as we have done that, we have a high degree of confidence that they will fit in well with people. We have a track record of integrating differentiated businesses across kind of the scope of the entire country with our national business platforms. And so our expectation is bringing over the leadership and the infrastructure of those additional businesses is going to enhance people's going forward. So -- they certainly will have their own systems, their own operational excellence and obviously, quality leadership and all of those things will enhance people's. So that is what we see as one of the main upsides of this opportunity.

Got you. Tyler, you mentioned a couple of times the leadership. So the expectation is that sort of the key heads of those business units would be expected to be retained or staying on...

That's right.

Okay. Got you. And maybe, Katie, if I could, just jumping over to the margin projection of 5% plus -- is that inclusive of purchase accounting accretion? And if not, if you could just kind of outline what you think that expectation is from an annual contribution?

It is inclusive of accretion, albeit I would note that is a relatively small and short-term benefit that will be received. So it's not heavily influencing that number. .

Okay. And Katie, I guess the pro forma balance sheet would kind of lean incrementally asset sensitive, but the rate profile is largely unimpacted?

That is correct. Exactly.

The next question will come from Brendan Nosal with Hovde Group.

Just kind of starting off on Durbin. I just want to make sure I'm perfectly clear. So you're providing accretion kind of outlook for fully phased in 2027, but Durbin doesn't start until the middle of 2028. Just want to make sure that $11 million drag from Durbin is fully factored into that 19% EPS accretion figure that you provide?

Yes. .

Okay. All right. Perfect. -- maybe committing to kind of the cost savings, the 30% outlook you have there. Can you just kind of walk us through where you see most of those savings coming from, just particularly given kind of the expense load of some of capital's kind of specialty or niche offerings.

Sure. No problem. As with every transaction, there's some corporate overlap, there's technology and data processing overlap, key vendor overlap. Obviously, what we don't have, but we never really have in many of our deals is a significant kind of branch infrastructure overlap, but that hasn't been the case in most of our deals, and we have a high degree of confidence in are historically always hitting our cost saving estimates and building in -- ensuring the capabilities of the perpetuation of those businesses. As I mentioned in the kind of the first question, is built into those assumptions, Brendan.

The next question will come from Tim Switzer with KBW.

So a follow-up on the kind of nice verticals you're acquiring here. You guys now have, I guess, 9, at least national business lines. Are there any as have your portfolio business this year, are there any that will be a particular focus for you and a primary larger driver of growth going forward than any of the others? And are there any that -- now that you have a lot of different business lines that are kind of less of a focus for people going forward?

Tim, I'm going to give you the answer you probably don't want to hear, which is that they are all of focus. I mean we are intentional with all of those businesses. We got into them for a reason. They all provide different risk and return profiles for us and so take insurance premium finance, which we're happy to grow and have been growing that carries significantly lower credit risk, but to carry some operational risk versus anticipating OpenSky and the different profile they have with the diverse customer base. And so you look at them as a portfolio of businesses. And just like all of us should be diversifying our portfolio, we believe that it gives us a differentiated returns for that reason. So I'm not trying to dodge your question by saying all of them will be a focus, but we're particularly interested in continuing to invest in all of them as we have been. And as we look at the investments that are anticipated in capital strategic plan, the investments they've been making in Windsor and OpenSky and all those verticals that they have. That is also attractive to us, and we plan to continue to make those investments that they have anticipated making and are making .

Okay. Yes. No, I mean I get it. It helps differentiate the business quite a bit. You mentioned OpenSky. If I look at capital historical net charge-off rates, they've been a little bit higher for the consolidated bank the last few years. I assume a lot of that is OpenSky. Can you kind of talk about your comfortability with that business and maybe what the risk-adjusted yield on that business line, what it looks like?

Absolutely. So we certainly have had our experience and with our diversity of businesses, having businesses that we are comfortable with, with the higher risk-adjusted return. -- and OpenSky is certainly in that range. They are in kind of a 20% range. And so highly profitable again, very granular. They have hundreds of thousands of clients with very small balances, particularly in the secured credit and they have been in a very measured way, growing the unsecured piece of that business, and we expect to continue to grow both of those pieces of business. So at the end of the day as well, it's -- the pro forma company is a $10 billion in loans operation and OpenSky, as it is today is about $150 million, driving oversized returns and punching above its weight, but certainly also screening, like we have historically a little bit higher relative to peers who don't have those higher returns in terms of net charge-offs. So we view that as a positive and an intentional investment. .

Okay. All right. Very helpful. And then sorry if I missed this and you're talking about retaining some of the management team, but will Ed bury have a role with the combined company?

Yes. Ed and I are absolutely aligned on our goals for kind of a successful merger, and he's committed to making the transaction a success today and beyond. You will talk more about that in the future, but very committed to the mutual success here.

The next question will come from Tyler Cacciatore with Stephens.

This is Tyler on for [indiscernible]. With the Citizens deal still underway and the associated balance sheet actions related to securities, can you just update us on any -- on if there's any changes there? And then is there anything on the CBK balance sheet that we should contemplate being in run-off mode?

As it relates to the Citizens transaction, that's trending as expected. As we noted in the second quarter results, we did a meaningful securities restructuring in advance of the closing of Citizens, which has proven beneficial to us based on the yield curve as it stands today versus when that was executed. You might see a little bit more, but I think the most meaningful portion of that was done in the second quarter. As it relates to capital and any balance sheet, I think we're committed to the businesses they have and the structure that they are today. and don't have any plans for meaningful change.

Okay. Great. And then just a quick 1 for me. I was just wondering what are the anticipated impacts to 2028 EPS from the deal?