Bank of Marin Bancorp (BMRC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and thank you for joining Bank of Marin Bancorp's earnings call for the third quarter ended September 30, 2026. I'm Krissy Meyer, Corporate Secretary for Bank of Marin Bancorp. [Operator Instructions] Joining us on the call today are Bank of Marin President and CEO, Tim Myers; and Chief Financial Officer, David Bonaccorso. Our earnings news release and supplementary presentation, which were issued this morning, can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website at bankofmarin.com, where this call is also being webcast. Closed captioning is available during the live webcast as well as on the webcast replay. Before we begin, I want to note that we will be discussing some non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the reconciliation table in our earnings news release for both GAAP and non-GAAP measures. Additionally, the discussion on the call is based on information available as of Friday, October 23, 2026 and may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those set forth in such statements. For a discussion on these risks and uncertainties, please review the forward-looking statements disclosure in our earnings news release as well as our SEC filings. Following our prepared remarks, Tim, Dave and our Chief Credit Officer, Misako Stewart, will be available to answer your questions. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Tim Myers.

Thank you, Krissy. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our quarterly earnings call. Our third quarter results reflected another period of improved financial performance. We increased earnings per share and return on average tangible common equity, expanded net interest margin, grew loans and noninterest-bearing deposits, bolstered core noninterest income and continued our prudent expense management. Our net interest margin expanded 10 basis points in the quarter which drove sequential quarter EPS growth of 7% and year-to-date EPS growth that was 62% higher than the prior year period. Quarterly return on tangible common equity topped 12%. Return on average assets exceeded 1%. Our efficiency ratio improved to below 60%, and pretax pre-provision earnings increased by 17%. Higher of loan yields higher core fee income, lower deposit costs, healthy loan production and disciplined expense management all contributed to stronger profitability during the quarter. Taken together, these results reflect continued progress across the core drivers of our business and provide further evidence that our efforts are translating into stronger and more reliable core financial performance. During the quarter, we originated $102 million in new loan commitments, which improved year-to-date originations to $281 million, a level that is 21% higher than last year. While funded loans of $64 million were relatively flat in the third quarter compared to the prior quarter, a higher level of unfunded commitments in the quarter includes $25 million of construction loan commitments, which will contribute to growth in subsequent quarters at relatively high interest rates as projects fund. Newly funded loans were originated at a weighted average rate that was 12 basis points higher than the prior quarter, which contributed to our net interest margin expansion during the quarter and we'll provide additional benefits in the fourth quarter. Despite competitive pressures, the yield profile of new production remains attractive and is accretive to our overall portfolio yield. And we believe this healthy production, continued relationship development and disciplined underwriting will continue to translate into sustainable improvement in asset yields and earnings of time. Though organic loan fundings resulted in loan growth for the quarter, we supplemented that growth by using a portion of our excess liquidity to purchase a $31 million pool of California residential loans which we expect to provide attractive risk-adjusted returns. Turning to credit quality. Special mention loans decreased by $36 million, while classified loans increased by $15 million. The movement in both categories was primarily due to the downgrade of $114 million owner-occupied commercial real estate relationship facing a borrower-specific issue. The borrowers paying as agreed, and we do not expect any loss given the strong collateralization. Special mention loans also benefited from $18 million in upgrades and payoffs. Net charge-offs were minimal, primarily driven by loan growth and higher commitments, we did record a $500,000 provision for credit losses on loans and a $325,000 provision for unfunded commitments. Our allowance for credit losses was 1.07% of total loans, consistent with that of the prior quarter. Total deposit balances increased $25.3 million including a $45 million increase in noninterest-bearing balances, partially offset by decreases in money market and time accounts. We were especially pleased to see meaningful growth in noninterest-bearing deposits during the quarter, which we view as a reflection of the strong relationships our teams have built with clients over time. To that end, our focused outreach continued to result in strong new client activity generating $23.2 million in new relationships, including $13 million in new noninterest-bearing deposits. Noninterest-bearing deposits represented 37.8% of total deposits at quarter end, continuing to differentiate our franchise and provide a meaningful funding advantage in a very competitive market. With financial markets expecting additional hikes in the Fed funds target rate range, we believe our high noninterest-bearing deposit concentration positions us well to achieve a relatively low rising rate deposit beta as we've experienced in previous rising rate cycles. Overall, the third quarter reflected continued progress across the franchise, including higher earnings, continued margin expansion and loan growth. With that, I'll turn the call over to David Bonaccorso to discuss our financial results in more detail.

Thanks, Tim. Good morning, everyone. Our third quarter net income was $9.9 million or $0.62 per share compared with $9.2 million or $0.58 per share in the prior quarter. Return on average assets increased to 1.05%, return on average tangible common equity grew to 12.26%, and our efficiency ratio improved to 58.65%. Our net interest income increased from the prior quarter to $31.4 million due to both higher interest income and lower interest expense. We recorded higher interest income on loans due to an increase in average loan yields from 5.12% in the second quarter to 5.23% in the third quarter. Additionally, we recorded lower interest expense, largely due to a higher proportion of noninterest-bearing deposits and active balance sheet management through sales of one-way deposits, which drove a reduction in average total deposit costs from 1.28% to 1.24%. Our yield on new loan fundings increased to 6.65% during the quarter, which was a 12 basis point improvement over the prior quarter. The 142 basis point spread between the yield on new loan fundings and the yield on the entire loan portfolio is evidence of the opportunity we have to improve net interest margin through loan remixing and repricing over the coming quarters. Importantly, with a loan-to-deposit ratio of 63% and high levels of cash flow expected from our shorter duration securities portfolio, we have substantial capacity to support loan growth without utilizing wholesale funding. Our noninterest income was up by $501,000 during the quarter, primarily due to $251,000 increase in service charges on business deposit accounts resulting from an updated pricing strategy effective July 1. And an increase in dividend income due to a special dividend on FHLB stock of $199,000. Importantly, the increase in service charges reflects initiatives we implemented earlier this year which are helping diversify our revenue streams and build a more durable source of recurring fee income, and we expect to see these continued benefits in our results going forward. Our noninterest expense improved by approximately $1 million primarily related to an incentive bonus accrual adjustment, prior quarter annual expense that was not repeated, a reduction in professional service expense and more normalized FDIC insurance expense levels. Looking ahead, we expect expenses to remain well managed while continuing to make targeted investments in areas that support future growth. Although quarterly expense levels may vary, our focus remains on balancing disciplined cost management with investments in our people, technology and client-facing capabilities. With quarterly improvement in interest income, interest expense, noninterest income and noninterest expense, our pretax pre-provision net income improved by 17% on a sequential quarter basis. As Tim noted earlier, growth in both loan fundings and loan commitments drove provisions this quarter, which impacted net income. The quarterly net income still improved 7% compared to the prior quarter and 32% compared to the third quarter of 2025. Our regulatory capital ratios continue to improve with our common equity Tier 1 ratio increasing to 12.96%. Our total capital ratio increasing to 15.59%, and our Tier 1 leverage ratio increasing to 9.04%. Rising market interest rates negatively impacted AOCI by $24.8 million during the quarter, which lowered our tangible common equity ratio to 8.05% and tangible book value per share to $18.81. Given our continued strength, our Board of Directors declared a cash dividend of $0.25 per share on October 22, the 86th consecutive quarterly dividend paid by the company. With that, I'll turn it back over to Tim for closing comments.

Thank you, Dave. To close, the third quarter was another quarter of strengthening profitability through our strategic focus areas. We delivered improved earnings, expanded net interest margin, we assume balance sheet growth and generated meaningful improvement in core fee income, while maintaining strong liquidity, capital levels and overall credit performance. While the current operating environment remains competitive, we are encouraged by the opportunities we see to continue growing relationships, add earning assets at attractive yields and maintain disciplined deposit pricing. Together with our ongoing focus on balance sheet management and expense control, we believe these efforts position us well to continue building long-term shareholder value. With that, I want to thank everyone on today's call for your interest and support. We will now open the call to your questions.

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Woody Lay with KBW.

I wanted to start on the net interest margin. Now it's great to see the quarter-over-quarter improvement. And I was just curious if you had the NIM in the month of September to kind of get an idea of the starting point for next quarter? And then just any additional thoughts on the magnitude of NIM expansion we could see over the coming quarters?

So the September NIM was 3.54% tax equivalent, 3.52% reported. That includes about $145 million of one-way sales. So that definitely has a positive impact there. If you were to completely eliminate one-way sales, you're probably in the 3.46% area. But I think we have the intent and capacity to continue those. And quarter-to-date, we are about $115 or so million, which gives you sort of a $351 million level that we kept that level of one-way sales going. So around about way to give it to you, but there is some nuance to it.

Yes. And I guess on the one-way strategy, so you all were at 100 -- call it, $131 million this past quarter. But on an average basis, do you think that can go to $300 million next quarter?

No, no, no. I think slightly higher would be the way to go. $300 million would be out of the range, but could we be $150 million, $160 million. Yes, could it be $120 million or $100 million, yes. So that -- those are the magnitudes I have in mind. The income from one-way sales this quarter, I believe, was $489,000 compared to $386,000 last quarter. And so I know there's a lot of attention on net interest income. But if you adjust for that, you basically assume that the deposits we have, if they weren't in one-way sales were on the balance sheet, our net interest income would have been about $489,000 higher. So another way of thinking about that. You asked a question about margin trajectory and if you think of -- in the higher rate environment we're in now, if you think about our greatest challenge and our greatest strength, our greatest challenge is loan yields. So the higher environment gives us more time to reprice loans, allows variable rate loans to reset higher than new originations at higher yields than previously thought. And then our biggest strength is our deposit franchise. And I think clearly, we get questions from customers about deposit rates. I wouldn't say it's been that material solar. But I think we've proven over a cycle, partly due to the high level of noninterest-bearing deposits, we tended to outperform. And if you look at peers, in the last cycle, our total deposit beta was 29% compared to 43% for peers. So I think on a relative basis, we're pushing very well for the rising rate environment, both managing deposit costs and then also continued loan repricing. There's lots of information about the repricing schedule on Page 13 of the deck.

Yes. I think, Woody, if you look at as our originations continue to improve, we're looking at a pipeline right now of the Q4 pretty similar to where we were last year. That ended up being a blowout quarter. But a lot of -- left here in the quarter was due to new loan originations. As Dave mentioned, the repricing over the next 12 to -- or 3 to 12 months variable-fixed rate repricing, we continue to think we have good tailwinds there. And also, we talked about in the loan section. We have some nice tails from construction lending given the type of stuff we do in the geographies. We do it in that was really a headwind for a number of years, primarily in San Francisco. And so a lot of unused commitment is going to borrow on construction loans, and that's -- those are our highest priced commercial real estate loans. So no real silver bullet there for everything, but a lot of things they're going to add up to I think continued growth.

Yes. And statistically, we've given out over the years is a monthly low yield 12 months from now. And based on our ALM forecasting with a flat balance sheet, we're looking at probably 25-ish basis points of monthly loan yield benefit a year from now, which I believe compares favorably to closer to 20 basis points last quarter. So that just shows a little bit more benefit in rising rates. And again, plant balance sheet there. So we have loan growth that we expect, there's some upside to that.

Yes, that's great to hear. And maybe just one more follow-up on the deposit side, deposit betas. You mentioned a 29% historical beta, do you think that's the right way to think about it to the extent we get additional rate hikes from here?

Yes. I don't see why it would differ. The last cycle had the complication of the regional bank failures in our market impacting things. And so relative to our nationwide peer group, you could argue we were disproportionately affected by that, and we were still at 29% relative to the 43%. So I don't see why it would differ from that. And we've had a long history of timing interest-bearing balances, which really gets you off on the right foot from that perspective in a rising rate environment.

Our next question comes from Jeff Rulis with D.A. Davidson.

I think you mentioned $102 million in origination activity. How does that compare linked quarter? And then a similar question, if you had payoffs both in the current and past quarter?

Yes. So sequential quarter originations went from $98 million to $102 million roughly. Fundings went from $62.8 million to $63.6 million. Payoffs went from a pretty high margin, $71 million, down to $31.6 million. And there is a table in our earnings release that has all this information, you can catch all that.

Yes. And we're excluding that. The $31 million of mortgage purchases are excluded from the numbers you just gave. So a nice trend in the past. And certainly, a big chunk of our year-to-date payoffs have been working on some of the historical problem loans on the real estate and line side. So we feel much better about the trend of that as well.

Okay. That was sort of the payoff visibility is historically pretty tough. But based on what you see, is that -- are you encouraged by maybe the payoff wall that you've seen that maybe is lower going forward? Or is there -- particularly, I guess, if we get higher rates, maybe also. But I guess the question is your expectations on payoff activity ahead.

No, that's fair. So there were 2 big headwinds there over the last year in a dead period. So we have about $28 million of the problematic loans, our big pandemic special CRE loan in the city and our large wine industry loan that we had talked about for both of which we had talked about for some time, that was $28 million of the payoffs. We also had a lot of construction projects that were completed which really the flip side of that is it brought our balances down to almost 0, like $16 million, but now we have added a bunch of new loans, those will fund up over the next 18, 24 months. So those are 2 of the larger headwinds for payoffs. So again, it's hard to predict timing. It's hard to predict resolution of workout credits or whatever, but we feel like it's a normalizing trend yet.

And this is the first quarter in a year where we've been sort of our last couple of year average, we've averaged about $40-or-so million between $38 million and $42 million, let's say, depending on your time frame over the last couple of years in payoffs. So we've had a lot of headwinds the last few quarters. This is the first quarter we've had a little bit early from a payout perspective.

Okay. And jumping off that, I guess, the further appetite for loan purchases, was this a one-off? Would you have more? And the kind of a related question is what rate did the mortgage pool come on this quarter?