Avidbank Holdings (AVBH) Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Loan and Core Deposit Growth Strengthen

Key Takeaways

• Net income reached $10.2 million, while diluted EPS increased to $0.94 from $0.71 in Q2 2026. Return on average assets improved to 1.42%, and the efficiency ratio remained below 50%.
• Loans grew by approximately $58 million, or 10% annualized, during the quarter and were up 17% year over year, led by C&I, multifamily and owner-occupied commercial real estate lending.
• Net interest income increased by $2.0 million to $28.7 million. Net interest margin declined 19 basis points sequentially to 4.07%, largely because higher cash balances reduced the margin by an estimated 17 basis points.
• Excluding a temporary client deposit of approximately $270 million and brokered deposits, Avidbank generated about $76 million of core deposit growth across the franchise.
• Nonperforming loans rose modestly to 0.70% of total loans after a $1.5 million land loan was placed on nonaccrual. Net charge-offs were essentially zero, and management reported no broad-based credit deterioration.
• Management expects Q4 loan production to remain solid, but elevated construction loan payoffs are a key uncertainty for reported loan growth.

Core Financial Data

Business and Operating Performance

Loan growth was broad-based, with C&I, multifamily and owner-occupied commercial real estate serving as the main contributors. Construction and land balances continued to decline because of elevated payoffs, offsetting part of the production elsewhere in the bank.

Management said loan pipelines remained healthy entering Q4. However, newly booked construction commitments are initially only partially funded, while repaid loans were fully funded. As a result, construction activity may not immediately translate into comparable balance-sheet growth.

The reported deposit increase included approximately $270 million from an existing client following the sale of part of its business. Management expects these temporary funds to leave during Q4. More durable funding trends were reflected in approximately $76 million of core deposit growth after excluding temporary and brokered balances.

Avidbank ended the quarter with 171 full-time equivalent employees, compared with 162 at the end of Q2 and 151 at year-end. Recent hiring included teams focused on SBA lending, homeowner association banking and specialty deposits. Management expects these initiatives to have a more meaningful balance-sheet impact in 2027.

The company also issued $30 million of new subordinated debt and redeemed an existing $22 million issuance, providing additional capital support for organic growth.

Management Guidance

Management expects Avidbank’s asset-sensitive balance sheet to benefit from the September federal funds rate increase during Q4, as the increase occurred too late to materially affect Q3 results.

Excluding temporary deposits, management estimated normalized Q3 net interest margin in the low-4.20% range before the September rate increase. Deposit pricing remains competitive, but the company is targeting a cumulative deposit beta below 50%, potentially closer to 40%.

For Q4, operating expenses are expected to be approximately flat to slightly higher. Further increases in salaries and benefits should be largely offset by lower legal and professional fees.

Management expects Q4 to be a relatively strong production quarter based on current pipelines. Actual loan growth will depend heavily on the timing and size of construction loan payoffs.

The company aims to keep its efficiency ratio around or below 50%. Management said any further improvement is likely to be gradual as Avidbank continues investing in personnel and infrastructure.

Avidbank expects to work toward preferred-lender status for its SBA operation, potentially in Q1. Management also indicated that the effective tax rate could return to the mid-28% range next year after tax-exempt BOLI proceeds reduced the 2026 rate.

Risks and Watch Items

• Approximately $270 million of temporary deposits is expected to leave during Q4, creating a near-term funding and balance-sheet management consideration.
• Deposit costs remain competitive and could pressure net interest margin outside the benefit from additional rate increases.
• Elevated construction loan payoffs may limit reported loan growth despite solid new commitments and pipelines.
• Nonperforming loans increased following the addition of a $1.5 million land credit to nonaccrual status, although management reported no broad-based credit deterioration.
• Higher interest rates are painful for borrowers and could eventually affect activity. Management said its clients are generally seasoned and not highly leveraged, and it is not currently concerned about portfolio-wide stress.

Analyst Q&A Highlights

Management estimated the adjusted deposit spot rate at approximately 3.30% at September 30 when excluding temporary deposits, compared with 3.07% in the prior quarter. The company expects some additional funding-cost pressure but aims to keep deposit beta below 50%.

New loans were originated at a blended core yield of approximately 6.82%, excluding fees. Management said future margin performance will depend primarily on deposit costs and the pricing of new funding.

The remaining $10 million of brokered deposits is scheduled to mature in Q4. Avidbank will then decide whether to use brokered funding again based on pricing and funding needs.

Management expects hiring to be modest for the rest of the year, while remaining open to opportunistic additions. The focus is shifting toward generating returns from existing and recently hired bankers and building infrastructure for 2027.

Full Earnings Call Transcript

Complete Earnings Call Transcript

Management Remarks

Operator

Good morning. My name is Ben, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Avidbank Holdings, Inc. Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I'd like to introduce the presenters, Chairman and CEO, Mark Mordell; Chief Financial Officer, Pat Oakes; and Chief Operating Officer, Gina Peterson. You may begin your conference.

Gina Thoma-Peterson

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today for the Avidbank Holdings Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Before we begin, let me remind you that today's call is being recorded and is available in the Investor Relations section of our website at avidbank.com, along with our earnings release and presentation materials.

Today's call contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. These statements are intended to be covered by the safe harbor provisions of the federal securities laws. For a list of factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations, please refer to our earnings release under the heading Forward-Looking Statements as well as the disclosures contained within our SEC filings.

We will also reference non-GAAP financial measures alongside our discussion of GAAP results. We encourage you to review the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations provided in our earnings release.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Mark Mordell.

Mark Mordell

Thank you, Gina, and thank you all for joining us this morning. We appreciate your continued interest and support in our company and our story. Overall, the third quarter was very strong for us. Profitability improved. We continue to grow loans, and our bankers generated meaningful core deposit growth across the franchise.

Net income increased to $10.2 million for the quarter. Return on average assets improved to 1.42%, and our efficiency ratio was below 50%. I think these results demonstrate the improvement in earnings power of our franchise and the benefit of the investments we have made in our people and business lines.

Turning to growth. Loans increased approximately $58 million for the quarter or 10% annualized and were up 17% over the past year. Growth was broad-based with contributions from C&I, multifamily and owner-occupied commercial real estate being the chief drivers. Our loan pipelines continue to be healthy into Q4 and hopefully into next year.

Our construction and land portfolio continues to decline because of the elevated payoffs, so the growth we generated across the rest of the bank was particularly encouraging. As mentioned earlier, our loan pipelines continue to be strong, and we do expect construction payoff to remain elevated here in the fourth quarter. We believe we're getting closer to the point where that headwind begins to moderate and becomes more normalized as it has over the last 15 years.

On deposits, reported increase included approximately a $270 million deposit from an existing client following the sale from a portion of their business. We knew from the beginning that these funds would be temporary, and we expect them to leave over the course of the fourth quarter.

More importantly, excluding that temporary inflated balance and brokered deposits, we generated approximately $76 million of core deposit growth. That growth came from relationships across the franchise and is a good indication of the progress our bankers are making on the funding side of the balance sheet.

Turning to credit. Nonperforming loans increased modestly to 70 basis points of total loans after we placed a $1.5 million land loan on nonaccrual. As I said many times before, we never take credit for granted. We continue to monitor the portfolio closely and actively manage the credits that require additional attention. At the same time, net charge-offs were essentially 0 during the quarter, and we are not seeing any broad-based deterioration -- credit deterioration across the portfolio.

We also strengthened our capital during the quarter by issuing the $30 million of new subordinated debt and redeeming our existing $22 million issuance. That provided additional support for continued organic growth while we're maintaining strong capital ratios.

Overall, I'm pleased with the quarter. We are generating better profitability, maintaining solid growth across diversified commercial banking platform and are continuing to invest in the franchise. There's always more work to do, particularly around the funding and the credits we are actively managing, but I believe we are well positioned to move into the fourth quarter.

With that, I'll end my remarks and turn the call over to Pat to walk through the quarter in more detail.

Patrick Oakes

Thanks, Mark. Good morning, everyone. For the third quarter, we recorded $0.94 per diluted share compared with $0.71 per diluted share in the second quarter. Net interest income increased $2 million to $28.7 million, benefiting from higher cash balance related to the increase in deposits, higher loan balances and a larger investment securities portfolio. The net interest margin was 4.07% in the third quarter, down 19 basis points from the second quarter.

We estimate that 17 basis points of the decline resulted from average interest-earning balance -- cash balances that were $205 million higher during the quarter, including the impact from the temporary deposits Mark mentioned earlier, along with the overall strong growth in deposit average balances. The September increase in the Fed funds rate occurred late in the quarter, so it only had a minimal impact on the third quarter margin.

Looking ahead, we anticipate that our asset-sensitive balance sheet will benefit from the rate increase in the fourth quarter. The cost of our interest-bearing deposits decreased 9 basis points to 2.97% in the quarter, primarily because of the impact of the temporary deposits. Excluding those deposits, the spot rate at September 30 increased to 3.13% from 3.07% at June 30, primarily due to the September increase in the Fed funds rate.

Noninterest income was $1.7 million compared with $3.1 million in the second quarter. The second quarter included approximately $1.3 million of tax-exempt BOLI death benefit proceeds. Noninterest expense was $15.1 million compared with $16.5 million in the second quarter. The prior quarter included a $2.6 million litigation settlement. Without that settlement, expenses increased $1.3 million, driven primarily by higher compensation expense and credit-related legal expenses and professional fees. We ended the quarter with 171 full-time equivalent employees compared with 162 at June 30 and 151 at year-end.

Turning to capital. At quarter end, our Tier 1 leverage ratio was 10.82%, and our total risk-based capital was 13.48%. Book value per share was $27.24, a 4% annualized increase from the second quarter despite the negative impact of higher unrealized losses as long-term interest rates increased. Book value per share has increased 9% since last September.

With that, Mark, I'll turn it back to you.

Mark Mordell

All right. Thank you, Pat. That kind of summarizes the quarter. Now I think we're ready to open up to questions, please.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question from the line of Matthew Clark with Piper Sandler.

Question-and-Answer Session

Matthew Clark

Just to round out the margin discussion, Pat, I think you gave a spot margin, but do you have the spot rate on deposit at the end of September, maybe even an adjusted spot rate, assuming those balances, the $270 million leaves? And then what kind of beta are you trying to manage towards through the cycle here?

Patrick Oakes

Sure. So excluding all these temporary deposits, we estimate the spot rate at September 30 was around 3.30%, up from 3.07% last quarter. So about 6 basis points increase so far. And that was all driven by the September rate increase. Obviously, we'll see a little more pressure here going forward. But we think that we'll get to keep that beta. We're pretty optimistic below 50. How much below that, we'll have to see. Hopefully, quite a bit, but I don't think it will go above 50%, hopefully, closer to 40% somewhere.

Matthew Clark

Okay. And maybe -- sorry, I missed that earlier. And then just the adjusted margin in September, I know it's 17 basis points impact from the temporary balances. But I guess in the month of September, how does that adjusted margin look?

Patrick Oakes

With all this noise, I don't really want to give a September margin. That's kind of what we guided you to that 17 basis point increase. So if you put that on -- if you kind of normalize cash balances, right, that margin was probably down a little bit, a couple of basis points here from last quarter. So normalized margin probably is closer to the low 4.20s before the rate increase, obviously, from -- or the September rate increase.

Matthew Clark

Yes. Understood. Okay. And then just on expenses, the run rate here you expect going forward on operating expenses?

Patrick Oakes

We'll probably still see salary and benefits increase here, but I think that's going to be pretty much offset by some of these higher legal and professional fees as we saw in the quarter. So my best guess is flattish to maybe up slightly for the fourth quarter.

Operator

Your next question from the line of Gary Tenner with D.A. Davidson.

Gary Tenner

I wanted to just ask question on the loan front. Mark, you gave some color, obviously, on the construction book and this quarter's growth overall was good. I know historically, the fourth quarter has been a good quarter for C&I. As you look at the pipelines now and think about the fourth quarter, any reason to think that, that will not be kind of the typical outcome in the fourth quarter?

Mark Mordell

There's no reason to expect that Q4 shouldn't be a pretty strong quarter for us. It seems -- I don't like patterns all that much, but if you go back 5 or 6 years, it seems Q3, Q4 are always stronger and Q4 is typically the top quarter. So we feel good about what we're seeing in the pipeline and what we close for the remainder of the year.

Gary Tenner

Okay. Appreciate that. And then just a minor question on the brokered deposits, I think, down to about $10 million at the end of September. Pat, will those go to 0 in the fourth quarter? Or will any linger into 2027?

Patrick Oakes

Well, that $10 million will mature in the fourth quarter. And then we'll decide if we want to add some before year-end on how from a funding perspective, we feel like it's a good deal to do that as a funding tool. But existing stuff should all be gone, then we'll just make some decisions going forward, how we use it.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your next question, from the line of Andrew Terrell with Stephens.

Andrew Terrell

Pat or Mark, maybe just to start, can you just talk about some of the new hires you've made? It seemed like a really good quarter from a hiring standpoint. I'd be curious on just the HOA Group, SBA team. And then can you just give us maybe an update or refresh on kind of the hiring pipeline more broadly?

Mark Mordell

The hiring pipeline for the balance of the year is going to be pretty modest if we still always be opportunistic. But I think the focus in SBA right now is we've got a reasonable pipeline, but focus on becoming a preferred lender. So we expect that to happen realistically -- Q1 realistically. So I don't think we're going to sell any loans or anything of that nature. We're just getting our infrastructure underneath us and getting some -- getting these things processed taking a little bit longer because we're not a preferred lender at this point.

So I think the HOA guys -- HOA team is doing what they need to be doing, pretty focused. They'll make an impact on some balances this year, but it will be pretty modest. And next year is the expectation of really getting some traction. The specialty deposits folks that we have, the HOA, they've been pretty active. Again, they have goals for this year, but really getting the legs underneath them and getting some credibility in the marketplace and having '27 being the year that they are much more impactful and much more impactful on our balance sheet.

Other than that, the bankers that we've hired and certainly, we've -- as everyone is aware, we hired a new President. So we're really building on the team and focusing on the infrastructure for '27. I mean we've taken care of capital and taking care of facilities. We've taken care of our sub-debt. We uplisted. We got some currency to trade and it's about stacking up quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year in compounding earnings going forward. So we're pretty focused on the production that -- from our existing bankers as well as the new bankers.

Andrew Terrell

Great. I really appreciate it. And then just to ask on -- maybe more of a question on kind of longer-term expense growth. If I look at the efficiency ratio, I mean, the past -- this is the kind of second quarter in a row, sub-50%. You guys are holding the line and revenue growth obviously helps. But when we think about longer-term efficiency ratio, is mid- to high 40%, is that a reasonable bar just as you look out and you think about the expense growth investments you need to make? Or do you think it can go further below that? Or just any thoughts on longer-term efficiency?

Patrick Oakes

Well, I think we're really hoping we've set a bar below 50% at this point or around 50% to down, right? And it's not going to move down quickly, right? But I think the ultimate goal is to hopefully leverage, obviously, all the hiring that we're doing to grow revenue at a good pace to offset that expense growth. We're still going to add people and all that stuff. So hopefully, it does continue to move down, but I think it will be a slow incremental move down if it is.

Mark Mordell

Right, I would agree with that.

Operator

Your next question from the line of Andrew Liesch with StoneX Financial.

Andrew Liesch

Just a question, Pat, if you have it handy, what's the -- what new loan yields were coming on at during the quarter, maybe a blended average?

Patrick Oakes

Yes. So this is without fees, right? This is just the core loan yield. It's more like 6.82% or so, in the 6.80s.

Andrew Liesch

Got it. So maybe a little bit higher with some fees. So I think just then looking at the margin going forward, certainly, you'll get some benefit from the rate hike. But net-net, just given that you're pretty much in growth mode, do you think the margin maybe will trail off a little bit over time even with some rate hikes and still profitability gets better, but just like net-net, the margin might come lower?

Patrick Oakes

Right. So we'll benefit when the Fed increases rates, right? And then outside of that, you're asking what's going to happen with that? Boy, it's really depending -- loan yield, you can see what it's going to do, right? It will be flattish and move up when they increase rates. It's really dependent on deposit costs and how much you pay up. It's pretty competitive out there.

I'm hoping that, that gets better, but could there be pressure going forward potentially? Boy, it's really just hard because it's all on the funding side that really dictates that and the new deposit growth. I think I'm hoping with some of these new initiatives like the HOA and other things we're working on that we can drive down the deposit cost over time to take some of that pressure away. So I guess my long answer would be, I hope not. I hope we can keep it stable.

Operator

Your next question from the line of Tim Coffey with Brean Capital.

Timothy Coffey

Mark, looking into the pace of the rate hiking cycle here, how resilient do you think your customers and your markets are to higher rates? Is there a point where we see a certain number of rate hikes and at that point, things start to stall?

Mark Mordell

It's certainly possible depending on where they go. But I think most of the companies that we're banking here have been -- are pretty seasoned and aren't highly leveraged. So those rate hikes are painful for our clients for sure. But I don't -- we monitor it pretty closely. We do sensitivity tests and see where the thresholds may happen. But at this point, we're not concerned about that. I think companies have performed pretty well, and they got some margin there. So we feel pretty good about it.

Timothy Coffey

Great. And then Patrick, is the right tax rate somewhere between 27% and 28%?

Patrick Oakes

For this year, it's lower than it typically is because of the BOLI proceeds received in the second quarter, kind of drove that down for the year. And I think it will tick back up next year to the mid-28s.

Operator

With no further questions, I would like to turn the call back over to the presenters.

Mark Mordell

This is Mark. And one of the things that I did fail to maybe clarify a little bit when we talked about the loan growth. We have really solid pipelines across, including construction. But we do have those elevated payoffs in construction, which were significantly delayed from getting started. So I think the wildcard for actual loan growth of how much that's going to be is going to be what kind of payoffs actually materialize in Q4 here.

I think we're coming to the end of it, like I mentioned earlier, but that's probably the wildcard for Q4. They have been booking new commitments, but those of you that understand how construction works that we're trading 100% funded loans for 10% funded loans for the new ones that are coming on because it does take 18, 24 months to be fully drawn on. So just a little bit of caution, that's probably the wildcard because it's been 2 years of consistent payoffs, which is a good thing in construction, but it does impact our overall loan growth.

So with that, I'll close it up and say, again, thank you all for your interest in Avidbank. If you have any further questions that Pat or I can answer, please feel free to reach out, and I appreciate your interest. Have a great rest of your day.

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.