Veritex Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:VBTX) Q1 2024 Results Conference Call April 24, 2024 9:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Will Holford - Director of Strategic Corporate Development
Malcolm Holland - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Terry Earley - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Catherine Mealor - KBW
Stephen Scouten - Piper Sandler
Ahmad Hasan - D.A. Davidson
Matt Olney - Stephens

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Veritex Holdings First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions]. Please note, this event will be recorded.

I will now turn the conference over to Will Holford with Veritex.

Will Holford

Thank you. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you that this presentation may include forward-looking statements, and those statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause and anticipated results to differ. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly revise any forward-looking statement.

If you're logged into our webcast, please refer to our slide presentation, including our safe harbor statement beginning on Slide 2. For those on the phone, please note that the safe harbor statement and presentation are available on our website, veritexbank.com.

All comments made today are subject to the safe harbor statement. Some financial metrics discussed will be on a non-GAAP basis, which management believes better reflects the underlying core operating performance of the business. Please see the reconciliation of all discussed non-GAAP measures in our filed 8-K earnings release.

Joining me today are Malcolm Holland, our Chairman and CEO; and Terry Earley, our Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Malcolm.

Malcolm Holland

Thank you, Will. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter earnings call. For the first quarter, we reported earnings of $29.1 million or $0.53 per share. Pretax pre-provision return was 1.42% or $43.7 million. We continue our strategic plan in improving our balance sheet and our liquidity profile, while at the same time adding to tangible book value, increasing our loan loss reserves and decreasing concentrations.

Additionally, during the quarter, we announced the securities loss trade transaction that is anticipated that add $0.05 annually to EPS and a $50 million stock repurchase program. From a growth standpoint, we continue a very cautious rate, but we focus on our balance sheet transformation.

For the quarter, loans were up $114.7 million or around 1%, while deposits were up $316 million or 12% annualized. Interesting to note that over the last 12 months, our loan growth is virtually flat, while deposits were up 18% or $1.6 billion. Progress is being made. Our primary focus in addition to continued deposit generation is a more advantageous mix of deposits that will continue to break down our funding costs.