First Merchants Corporation (NASDAQ:FRME) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call January 25, 2024 11:30 AM ET
Company Participants
Mark Hardwick - CEO
Michael Stewart - President
Michele Kawiecki - CFO
John Martin - Chief Credit Officer
Conference Call Participants
Daniel Tamayo - Raymond James
Damon DelMonte - KBW
Terry McEvoy - Stephens
Nathan Race - Piper Sandler
Brian Martin - Janney
Operator
Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the First Merchants Corporation's Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call.
Before we begin, management would like to remind you that today's call contains forward-looking statements with respect to the future performance and financial condition of First Merchants Corporation that involve risks and uncertainties. Further information is contained within the press release, which we encourage you to review.
Additionally, management would refer to non-GAAP measurements, which are intended to supplement, but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAAP measures. The press release available on the website contains financial and/or other quantitative information to be discussed today as well as reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded.
I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Mark Hardwick, Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Hardwick, you may begin.
Mark Hardwick
Good morning, and welcome to the First Merchants' full year 2023 conference call. Thanks for the introduction and for covering the forward-looking statement on Page 2. We released our earnings today at approximately 8:00 AM Eastern and you can access today's slides by following the link on the third page of our earnings release.
On Page 3 of our slides, you will see today's presenters and our bios to include Mike -- our President, Mike Stewart; Chief Credit Officer, John Martin; and Chief Financial Officer, Michele Kawiecki.
On Page 4, we have a few highlights of the year to include final total assets of $18.3 billion, $12.5 billion of total loans, $14.8 billion of total deposits, and $7.3 billion of assets under advisement.
On Slide 5, if you look at the bullet points under our fourth quarter results, we grew loans during the quarter by 6.6% annualized with a new and renewed loan yield of 8.01%. We also increased deposits by 4.8% during the same period and we reported Q4 2023 EPS of $0.71 per share, or $0.81 -- or $0.87 when adjusted for several one-time expense items incurred during the quarter.
Those items include $12.7 million in one-time charges that include the FDIC special assessment due to several bank failures in March of '23, severance expense related to a voluntary early retirement incentive plan that we offered to employees in the fourth quarter of 2023, and the write-off of a lease agreement due to our Indianapolis regional headquarter move.