Premier Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:PFC) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call April 24, 2024 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Paul Nungester - CFO
Gary Small - President and CEO

Conference Call Participants

Christopher Marinac - Janney M. Scott
Bader Hijleh - Piper Sandler

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Premier Financial Corp. First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Paul Nungester with Premier Financial Corp. Please go ahead.

Paul Nungester

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. This call is also being webcast and the audio replay will be available at the Premier Financial Corp. website at premierfincorp.com. Following our prepared comments on the Company's strategy and performance, we will be available to take your questions.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that during the conference call today, including during the question-and-answer period, you may hear forward-looking statements related to future financial results and business operations for Premier Financial Corp. Actual results may differ materially from current management forecasts and projections as a result of factors over which the Company has no control. Information on these risk factors and additional information on forward-looking statements are included in the news release and in the Company's reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

I'll now turn the call over to Gary for his opening comments.

Gary Small

Thank you, Paul, and good morning to everyone and thanks again for joining us today. Quickly, for the quarter, we reported net income of $17.8 million, or $0.50 per share. And I'll begin with comments on our most significant topic in the quarter. Our average annual deposit growth was a respectable 2.6% for the quarter. Consumer deposits were once again the strength of the storyline average outstanding’s were up 7.5% annualized, and that's a continuation of being up 6.7% annualized during the second half of 2023.

So that's three very strong quarters on the consumer side. Public funds grew $66 million from point-to-point over the course of the quarter, which was about 4%. Commercial deposits provided the unfavorable surprise for the quarter, with commercial non-interest bearing deposit balances down $86 million, and that's about 8% in the month of January, and that's far in excess of the typical post year-end balance decline that you're accustomed to for tax payments and distributions and so forth. We performed a detailed client relationship review and it revealed the elevated use of the deposit liquidity to fund more typical CapEx financings and other financeable working capital borrowing needs.