Brookline Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:BRKL) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call July 27, 2023 1:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Laura Vaughn - Attorney

Paul Perrault - Chairman & CEO

Carl Carlson - Co-President & CFO

Conference Call Participants

Mark Fitzgibbon - Piper Sandler & Co.

Stephen Moss - Raymond James & Associates

Christopher O'Connell - KBW

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Brookline Bancorp, Inc.'s Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions].

I would now like to turn the conference over to Brookline Bancorp's Attorney, Laura Vaughn. Please go ahead.

Laura Vaughn

Thank you, Alex, and good afternoon, everyone. Yesterday, we issued our earnings release and presentation, which is available on the Investor Relations page of our website, brooklinebancorp.com, and has been filed with the SEC. We will not be doing a slide flip this quarter. This afternoon's call will be hosted by Paul Perrault and Carl Carlson.

This call may contain forward-looking statements with respect to the financial condition, results of operations and business of Brookline Bancorp.

Please refer to Page 2 of our earnings presentation for our forward-looking statement disclaimer. Also, please refer to our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which contain risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements.

Any references made during this presentation to non-GAAP measures are only made to assist you in understanding Brookline Bancorp's results and performance trends and should not be relied on as financial measures of actual results or future predictions. For a comparison and reconciliation to GAAP earnings, please see our earnings release.

I'm pleased to introduce Brookline Bancorp's Chairman and CEO, Paul Perrault.

Paul Perrault

Thank you, Laura, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today on this earnings call.

Yesterday, we reported net income for the quarter of $21.9 million or $0.25 per share. Excluding about $1 million in merger choices, non-GAAP operating earnings were $23.2 million with operating EPS of $0.26. As we discussed during last quarter's call, in the first quarter, we added over $0.5 billion to our on-balance sheet liquidity and in the form of cash and securities.

During the second quarter, we prudently reduced most of this position. Our bankers remain very active in the markets. And while we continue to be prudent and attentive to our existing customers, we are seeing opportunities to bank strong new relationships.

Loan portfolio grew $94 million this quarter and core deposits grew by $110 million. Non-performing assets increased in the quarter off historically low levels and remain less than 0.5% of total assets. Net charge-offs for the quarter were just 5 basis points annualized while the allowance for loan losses increased to 135 basis points of total loans.