Heritage Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:HFWA) Q3 2024 Results Conference Call October 24, 2024 1:00 PM ET
Company Participants
Jeff Deuel - CEO & Director
Don Hinson - Executive VP & CFO
Tony Chalfant - Executive VP & Chief Credit Officer
Bryan McDonald - President
Conference Call Participants
Jeff Rulis - D.A. Davidson
Matthew Clark - Piper Sandler
Eric Spector - Raymond James
Andrew Terrell - Stephens
Kelly Motta - KBW
Operator
Hello, everyone, a warm welcome to the Heritage Financial Q3 2024 Earnings Call. My name is Emily, and I'll be coordinating your call today. [Operator Instructions]. I will now turn the call over to the CEO, Jeff Deuel, to begin. Please go ahead.
Jeff Deuel
Thank you, Emily. Welcome and good morning to everyone who called in or those who may listen later. This is Jeff Deuel, CEO of Heritage Financial. Attending with me are Bryan McDonald, President and CFO -- CEO of Heritage Bank; Don Hinson, Chief Financial Officer; and Tony Chalfant, Chief Credit Officer.
Our third quarter earnings release went out this morning premarket, and hopefully, you have had the 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, which includes more detail on our deposits, loan portfolio, liquidity and credit quality. We will reference this presentation during the call. Please refer to the forward-looking statements in the press release.
We're very pleased with our operating results for the third quarter, including strong loan growth, deposit growth, margin expansion and the continued benefits from our expense management efforts. The increases in average earning assets and net interest margin resulted in an improvement in net interest income. We are optimistic the combination of core balance sheet growth and prudent risk management will continue to benefit our core profitability.
We will now move to Don, who will take a few minutes to cover our financial results.
Don Hinson
Thank you, Jeff. I'll be reviewing some of the main drivers of our performance for Q3 as I walk through our financial results, unless otherwise noted, all the prior period comparisons will be with the second quarter of 2024.
Starting with the balance sheet. Loan growth was strong again in Q3 with loan balances increasing $147 million for the quarter. Yields on the loan portfolio were 5.60%, which was 8 basis points higher than Q2. Bryan McDonald will have an update on loan production and yields in a few minutes.