West Bancorporation (WTBA) Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Profit Rises 25%, Loans Return to Growth

Key Takeaways

• Third-quarter net income increased 25% year over year to $11.6 million. Net income for the first nine months of 2026 rose 32% to $33.3 million.
• Net interest income grew $3.9 million, or 17%, from Q3 2025. Net interest margin expanded 8 basis points quarter over quarter and 41 basis points year over year.
• Loans increased 1.5% from the second quarter to approximately $3 billion, marking the first sequential increase in five quarters.
• Credit quality remained strong: there were no loans more than 30 days past due, no nonaccrual loans and no other real estate owned. Watch-list loans represented 0.6% of total loans.
• Management described the fourth-quarter loan pipeline as strong, with known prospective payoffs declining to about $30 million from roughly $90 million entering Q3.
• The board approved a quarterly dividend of $0.26 per share, payable November 25 to shareholders of record on November 11.

Key Financial Data

Business and Operating Performance

Loan balances returned to sequential growth despite continued refinancing and asset-sale payoffs. Management said customers were generally selling assets to increase liquidity rather than moving relationships to competing banks. Growth came partly from existing customers expanding their asset bases.

The loan pipeline was broadly distributed across the bank’s markets. Management cited larger recently closed transactions of $25 million in Des Moines, $23 million in Iowa City and $22 million in Minnesota.

Minnesota operations posted slight growth in both loans and deposits. The company attributed its progress there to relationship-based business banking, disciplined client outreach and quick decision-making.

Commercial real estate continued to perform as expected. Watch-list credits were concentrated mainly in transportation, but management said they remained well secured, properly structured and current on scheduled payments.

Management Outlook

Management characterized the fourth-quarter loan growth opportunity as potentially “robust,” while cautioning that pending transactions and prospective relationships could still change.

Approximately $550 million of fixed-rate loans are scheduled to reprice over the next 12 months. Their weighted-average rate is about 4.5%, while new loan production is being booked in the high-6% range.

The company expects asset repricing to support net interest margin over the next year. However, additional short-term rate increases would likely slow margin expansion because of the bank’s relatively high deposit beta.

Fourth-quarter expenses are expected to remain similar to levels recorded throughout 2026. Management is evaluating higher technology and product spending for 2027 and 2028 but has not determined the amount.

Risks and Areas to Watch

Deposit competition and pricing pressure intensified after the market began anticipating higher interest rates. Management expects deposit betas during the current rate cycle to be similar to the previous hiking cycle, creating a potential constraint on further margin expansion.

Loan growth remains exposed to customer asset sales and secondary-market refinancing. Economic and political uncertainty, along with interest-rate volatility, has also kept new activity relatively mild despite the stronger pipeline.

Analyst Q&A Highlights

• Loan growth: Management said the bank absorbed approximately $90 million of known payoffs entering Q3 while still expanding loans. Known prospective payoffs through year-end were about $30 million at the time of the call.
• Margin sensitivity: Higher deposit costs are expected to slow, but not necessarily reverse, net interest margin improvement. Fixed-rate loan repricing should provide a partial offset.
• Asset quality: Watch-list borrowers continue to make scheduled payments. Management is focused on maintaining strong collateral positions while giving borrowers time to execute improvement plans.
• Deposit strategy: Retaining and growing deposits has become as important as loan production due to renewed pricing competition.
• Expense priorities: Technology and product investment are the areas most likely to produce expense growth above the company’s recent pace in 2027 and 2028.

Full Earnings Call Transcript

Complete Earnings Call Transcript

Management Remarks

Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the West Bancorporation, Inc. Q3 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Jane Funk, CFO. Please go ahead.

Jane Funk

Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Jane Funk, the CFO at West Bancorporation, Inc. and I'd like to welcome the participants on our call today, and thank you for joining us.

With me today are Dave Nelson, CEO; Harlee Olafson, Chief Risk Officer; Brad Winterbottom, our Bank President; and Brad Peters, our Minnesota Group President. I'll start by reading our fair disclosure statement.

During today's conference call, we may make projections or other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company.

We caution that such statements are predictions and that actual results may differ materially. Please see the forward-looking statement disclosure in our 2026 third quarter earnings release for more information about risks and uncertainties, which may affect us. The information we provide today is accurate as of September 30, 2026, and we undertake no duty to update the information. And with that, I'll turn it over to Dave Nelson.

David Nelson

Thank you, Jane, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate your interest in West Bank.

I have a few general comments, and then we'll turn the call over to others who will provide more details. West Bank had another strong quarter, and our earnings per share continues to increase as expected. Our Board of Directors approved a $0.26 per share quarterly dividend payable Wednesday, November 25 to shareholders of record as of Wednesday, November 11.

About the only thing that hasn't been enviable about West Bank this year has been our flat loan growth. We had good loan production, but our net loan growth was hampered by customers selling assets.

There are likely a couple more coming sometime next year, but it's likely to subside during 2027. We did have some loan growth this past quarter, and we have a solid loan pipeline that is favorable. West Bank does not have credit problems and has not had any for a very long time.

Our calling efforts, market disruption, and asset repricing will all continue to favorably impact our margin. All of our performance metrics are good and continue to strengthen. Those are my prepared comments. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mr. Harlee Olafson, our Chief Risk Officer.

Harlee Olafson

Thank you, Dave. Credit quality is very strong at West Bank. We have 0 past dues over 30 days, no other real estate, and no nonaccruals.

Our watch list is only 0.6% of total loans. The majority of our watch list credits are in the transportation business. All are well secured and properly structured. After going through a time when opportunities for new business seem quite limited, we have now seen an acceleration in new closed business and have a very robust pipeline.

We continue to maintain our underwriting standards, and they include strong balance sheets, strong global cash flow, and liquidity from our customers and prospects. Our diversified commercial real estate portfolio continues to perform as expected.

After all our prepared remarks, I'm available for questions. And I now turn it over to Brad Winterbottom, our Bank President.

Brad Winterbottom

Thanks, Harlee. For the quarter ended 9/30/26, our loan portfolio increased 1.5% when compared to the second quarter. We're right at $3 billion in outstandings.

This is the first quarter in the past 5 quarters that we've experienced an increase in outstandings from quarter-to-quarter.

We continue to experience notable payoffs as a result of secondary market refinancing and asset sales. We're not losing customers, but they're selling assets to gain liquidity. We were able to add to our loan portfolio during the quarter due to existing customers adding to their asset base with new and/or proven assets.

We still believe new activity is mild due to the economic and political issues we're facing. However, our pipeline going into the fourth quarter is very positive. As always, deposit gathering sales efforts continue to be an emphasis in the markets we serve, and they are extremely competitive. Those are my remarks. I'll turn it over to Brad Peters.

Bradley Peters

Thanks, Brad. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to provide you a brief update on our Minnesota banks. Our expansion into Minnesota began with our first full-service bank in Rochester opening 10 years ago.

We grew our presence in Minnesota early in 2019 by expanding into St. Cloud, Mankato, and Owatonna. Each regional center has strong vibrant markets with diverse businesses driving their respective economies.

Although it has been nearly 8 years since our recent expansion, we are still relatively new to the marketplace and continue to introduce West Bank to our communities. Our relationship-based model with a business banking focus has allowed us to grow while maintaining a small number of employees.

Our clients like the fact that they can count on West Bank to be responsive with quick decisions and a predictable, common-sense approach to banking. Our disciplined calling approach has driven results.

Our business banking focus and our seasoned team of bankers set us apart from the competition. We have also strategically invested in unique facilities, offering our teams the opportunity to entertain and engage in quality conversations with our clients and prospects.

This relationship-building strategy has been a key in growing our commercial banking business. We are also winning the personal banking of our business owners, key executives, and high-value retail prospects in our communities.

We continue to see our clients challenged with the uncertainty in the economy and interest rate volatility. Our bankers have been diligent in staying close with our clients and have increased calling activities to better manage relationships.

Despite those challenges, we continue to see slight growth in both deposits and loans. Those are the end of my comments. I will now turn the call back over to Jane.

Jane Funk

Thanks, Brad. Net income for -- was $11.6 million for the third quarter, and that compares to $9.3 million in the third quarter of 2025 and represents a 25% increase in net income. Year-to-date, our net income is $33.3 million, which is 32% higher than the first 9 months of 2025.

Net interest income continues to improve from improvement in our net interest margin. Net interest income increased $3.9 million or 17% compared to third quarter of last year, and our margin increased 8 basis points compared to the previous quarter and 41 basis points compared to the third quarter of last year.

Our cost of deposits increased 3 basis points compared to the previous quarter, but has declined 41 basis points compared to third quarter of last year. As described earlier, credit quality remains pristine and no provision for credit losses was recorded this quarter.

Noninterest expenses remained well controlled with a 3% increase from the third quarter of last year. And year-to-date, noninterest expenses are up just 2.7% compared to the first 9 months of 2025. Those are the end of our prepared remarks, so we will open it up for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Brendan Nosal with Hovde.

Question-and-Answer Session

Brendan Nosal

Maybe starting off here on loan growth. As you folks noted, really strong quarter, probably one of the strongest you've had in several years.

Maybe just to start off, can you just talk about what changed during the quarter versus the past 12 months that allowed you to post more visible loan growth?

David Nelson

Well, entering into the third quarter, looking at our pipeline, which is, kind of, when we're talking to our bankers, we probably had known around $90 million in payoffs that were coming.

They were getting refinanced or being sold. All those things took place. Right now, we're sitting at about $30 million that we know that's going to pay off -- supposed to pay off between now and the end of the year. So I think that we've done a nice job covering up the payoffs production-wise, and we've added -- and obviously, we've added a few more nice big transactions. Existing customers just expanding their asset base.

Brendan Nosal

Okay. All right. That's helpful. And then, kind of, as we look forward from here, I mean, certainly it sounds like pipelines are still strong. And the known amount of payoffs is smaller than it was 90 days ago. I mean that tells me that growth should be pretty robust in the fourth quarter, but I'm, kind of, curious how you, kind of, see the pace as we wrap up the year.

David Nelson

I would say that robust is a good word. We're not telling you what we think because there's still a lot of things that could happen with some of these transactions or relationships that we're chasing, but it does look good for us.

Brendan Nosal

Okay. Okay. Great. Maybe circling to the net interest margin, nice margin expansion this quarter. Just, kind of, curious how the Fed has shifted to raising short-term rates again. Just talk about the near-term margin impact from the September rate hike and to the extent that we get additional rate hikes either later this year or early next year, what that would do to your margin?

Jane Funk

Yes. I think the rate hike certainly slowed down our margin improvement. We've got a fairly high beta deposit base. And so with each incremental increase, that will slow down our net interest margin improvement.

I mean we do still expect a lot of asset repricing over the next 12 months to help offset that. So we don't necessarily foresee a squeeze on margin, but just probably slowdown in that improvement.

Brendan Nosal

Okay. That's really helpful, Jane. Maybe moving over to asset quality. Any updated thoughts on the small amount of criticized assets that you still have on the balance sheet and, kind of, what resolution could look like in terms of ultimate outcome or timing?

Harlee Olafson

Sure. We have a few assets on our watch list. The ones that we have, our first approach is always to make sure that they are well secured.

And if they -- if we improve our security position, we generally give them some time to work a plan that they might have. Otherwise, if the plan doesn't go forward in an appropriate way, then we take further steps.

But our general plan with our watch list type credits is to show continual improvement with them from a perspective of safety to the bank. And they are all well secured and all have good plans.

David Nelson

Not only that, they have not missed payments -- scheduled payments. So that's -- so they're still making their payments, just the balance sheet is weakened.

Brendan Nosal

Yes. That's helpful. Last one for me before I step back here. Jane, I just noticed that the tax rate has been, kind of, creeping up over the past couple of quarters. Any thoughts as to what's a good run rate tax rate for us to use in our models?

Jane Funk

I would say probably this quarter's tax rate would be a good run rate.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Adam Kroll with Piper Sandler.

Adam Kroll

I'm on for Nate Race. Maybe starting out going back to the loan growth discussion. It sounds like pipelines are pretty strong, but I was curious if any one of your markets is really driving that growth?

David Nelson

I would say no. I would say it's -- we're getting -- Des Moines is about half or the Central Iowa is about half of our portfolio. And I would say our pipeline is, kind of, equally spread between all of our markets.

Harlee Olafson

The last closed transactions of the larger closed transactions, $25 million came from Des Moines, $23 million came from Iowa City, and $22 million came from the Minnesota market.

Adam Kroll

Got it. Okay. And Jane, I was wondering if you could update us on the fixed rate loan repricings that you have over maybe the next year or so?

Jane Funk

Yes. So over the next 12 months, we've got about $550 million in fixed rate loans that will reprice. And I think the weighted average rate is somewhere around 450-ish.

Adam Kroll

Okay. And going back to the margin discussion for maybe just slower expansion than if we would have not gotten a hike. I guess what are your, kind of, deposit beta assumptions if we were to get another hike or 2 through the cycle and maybe compare it to the last hiking cycle, if there's any chance for different performance there?

Jane Funk

Yes, it's probably pretty similar. When rates were going down, we were pretty aggressive and our down beta was pretty high also.

And so with rates now in the last 3, 4 months, everybody before that, we're kind of still expecting rates to go down. So with the reversal of the market, we're seeing a lot of pressure on deposit pricing. And so our betas are going up are going to be very similar to what they were last time.

Adam Kroll

Got it. I appreciate the color there. And one last one for me. You've managed expenses very well over the past few years.

So I'd be curious maybe an expense run rate expectation for the fourth quarter and just generally how you're thinking about balancing tech investments, potential hires and managing the expense growth rate in '27?

Jane Funk

Yes. I would expect fourth quarter to be similar to what we've been doing throughout this year. I think we're getting into some planning for 2027 and 2028.

And certainly, the tech area technology, some product stuff is where we'll be looking to see if and how much we want to increase spending there.

We know that there'll be some increase, but we haven't determined specifics yet, but we know that, that will be the area that's going to be most sensitive to increases that exceed, kind of, what we've had the last couple of years.

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Brendan Nosal with Hovde.

Brendan Nosal

Just wanted to circle back on a few things here. I think you folks said $550 million of fixed rate loans coming off at 4.5% over the next 12 months. Just, kind of, curious related to that, like where is new loan production coming on sheet at? Like what's like a blended average new loan yield?

David Nelson

High 6s.

Brendan Nosal

And then, kind of, on the other side of the sheet for, kind of, funding, can you just speak to the competitive environment for core deposits and perhaps more importantly, how that's changed since the Fed took rates higher in September?

Jane Funk

Yes. The competition has certainly heated back up quite a bit the last couple of months. So as soon as the market started responding to any indication of rate hikes, deposit competition and deposit pricing has been really intense.

So that's why we think our beta is going to be on the higher side and similar to what happened last time rates increased. So that's what we're focused on right now just as much as loans is sensitivity of deposits and both retaining and growing the deposit base.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time, which will conclude our Q&A. I will now turn the call back to Jane Funk for closing remarks.

Jane Funk

Yes. We just want to thank everybody for joining us today, and thank you for your interest in West Bank, and we'll talk again next quarter. Thank you.

Operator

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