First BanCorp. (NYSE:FBP) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call October 23, 2024 10:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Ramon Rodriguez - IR
Aurelio Aleman - President and CEO
Orlando Berges - EVP, CFO
Conference Call Participants
Timur Braziler - Wells Fargo
Steve Moss - Raymond James
Frank Schiraldi - Piper Sandler
Kelly Motta - KBW
Operator
Good morning all. And thank you all for attending the First BanCorp Q3 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Brica and I will be your moderator for today [Operator Instructions].
I would now like to pass the conference over to your host, Ramon Rodriguez, Investor Relations Officer at First BanCorp. Thank you. You may proceed, Ramon.
Ramon Rodriguez
Thank you, Brica. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining First BanCorp's conference call and webcast to discuss the company's financial results for the third quarter of 2024. Joining me today from First BanCorp are Aurelio Aleman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Orlando Berges, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin today's call, it is my responsibility to inform you that this call may involve certain forward-looking statements, such as projections of revenue, earnings and capital structure as well as statements on the plans and objectives of the company's business. The company's actual results could differ materially from the forward-looking statements made due to the important factors described in the company's latest SEC filings. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. If anyone does not already have a copy of the webcast presentation or press release, you can access them at our Web site at fbpinvestor.com. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Aurelio Aleman.
Aurelio Aleman
Thank you, Ramon. And good morning, everyone and thank you for joining our call today. This morning, we reported another strong quarter for our franchise earning $73.7 million in net income or $0.45 per share, which resulted in a solid return on assets of 1.55%. Adjusted pretax pre-provision was slightly down to $112 million, mostly due to an increase in expenses as we have discussed before. Still, the organization continues to operate in the 52% efficiency ratio range in line with our guidance. Credit demand continues to be healthy in our environment, resulting in actually our strongest quarter of commercial loan originations for the year. Our loan portfolio grew by $63 million despite higher levels of unexpected commercial prepayments that amounted to approximately $102 million in the third quarter. Even though we continue to see a very strong pipeline and we continue to work towards our 5% loan growth guidance but we now expect our loan portfolio to grow closer to 4% in 2024 and that’s really primarily driven by the higher than forecasted prepayments that I just made reference to. In terms of deposit, market dynamics seems to be behaving as expected at the start of this easing cycle. Core deposits other than broker and government deposits remained at $12.7 billion. We did prepay some broker CDs, most of the decline coming from noninterest bearing deposits.