Heritage Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:HFWA) Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call October 20, 2022 1:00 PM ET
Company Participants
Jeff Deuel - CEO
Donald Hinson - CFO
Tony Chalfant - Chief Credit Officer
Bryan McDonald - President and COO
Conference Call Participants
Eric Spector - Raymond James
Jeff Rulis - DA Davidson
Eleanor Hagan - KBW
Operator
Good morning. Thank you for attending today's Heritage Financial Corporation Q3 2022 Earnings Call. My name is Bethany, I will be the moderator for today's call. [Operator Instructions]
I would now like to pass the conference over to our host, Jeff Deuel, CEO of Heritage Financial. Please go ahead.
Jeff Deuel
Thank you, Bethany. Welcome and good morning to everyone who called in and to those who may listen later. This is Jeff Deuel, CEO of Heritage Financial. Attending with me are Don Hinson, Chief Financial Officer; Bryan McDonald, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Tony Chalfant, Chief Credit Officer.
Our earnings release went out this morning pre-market and hopefully, you had an opportunity to review it prior to the call. We have also posted an updated third quarter Investor Presentation on the Investor Relations portion of our corporate website. We will reference the presentation during the call. Please refer to the forward-looking statements in the press release.
We're very pleased to report a strong third quarter, we reported good organic loan growth, which was aided by lower payoffs, higher line utilization and a pool of purchased residential mortgage loans. We're pleased with the positive trend we have seen in the number of new commitments and new loan closings across the footprint in spite of strong competition. NIM is improving with the deployment of cash into loans, higher rates with the Fed and growing the investment portfolio.
Don and our Treasurer have done a nice job of carefully managing our investment portfolio over the past couple of years, which has limited impacts of AOCI. We continue to carefully manage expenses, although we are experiencing the impacts of inflation.
You may recall, we guided to a range of $38 million to $39 million for the quarter and we finished slightly above that range. Notably, our long-standing focus on credit quality and actively managing our loan portfolio continues to play out well for us. Staying focused on our conservative risk profile has enabled us to continue to report improving credit trends and provide a good foundation, facing into a potential recession.