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Text: Joe will do a deeper dive on Q4.
So I'll start with a couple of brief observations and then comment on 2020 as a whole.
Fourth quarter earnings and operating performance were just fine, no surprises, it was about as we expected.
Our operating earnings were up a few pennies over the last year's fourth quarter and $0.01 better than Q3, so modest forward progress.
Loan growth was slightly negative in the quarter, in fact being typical but deposits just continued to grow, similar to others and were up $100 million for the quarter.
Asset quality continues to be very good.
We did report a spike in NPAs because of a policy judgment around deferrals that Joe will explain further.
2020 as a whole was certainly a challenging year, however, operating earnings were only up $0.05, or 1.5% in 2019, and hence like that much better than we were expecting earlier in the year.
There are a lot of moving parts in the reconciliation between years during the pandemic, there was a significant negative impact from the decline in our core margin and our retail banking revenues, which we were able to offset in a number of other ways principally operating expense reductions and performance of our nonbanking businesses, all of which had a tremendous year.
The pre-tax operating earnings of our benefits business was up 11%.
Wealth was up 13%, and insurance was up 16%.
The value with a diversified revenue model is readily apparent in 2020.
From an operational perspective, it was an extremely productive year, despite the challenges of the pandemic.
We developed and implemented several new digital products and platforms, we consolidated 13 branches and we closed on the acquisition of Steuben Trust in the second quarter.
Though I'm relatively pleased with 2020 overall and our forward progress, the pandemic is notwithstanding.
Looking ahead to 2021, our focus will be on effectively countering ongoing margin pressure, improving organic performance, continued growth and investment in our nonbanking businesses and a continuation of our investment in digital and rationalization of analog.
I also expect the strength of our earnings, balance sheet and capital generation will serve us well going forward as we continue to evaluate high value strategic opportunities across our businesses for the benefit of our shareholders.
As Mark noted, the earnings results for the fourth quarter of 2020 were very solid, especially in light of the economic challenges of the industry headwinds we faced throughout the year.
The Company recorded $0.86 in fully diluted GAAP earnings per share for the fourth quarter.
Excluding acquisition expenses, acquisition-related provision for credit losses, unrealized gain on equity securities and gain on debt extinguishment net of tax effect, fully diluted operating earnings per share were $0.85 for the quarter.
These results matched third quarter 2020 results and were $0.02 per share higher than the fourth quarter of 2019 fully diluted operating earnings per share of $0.83.
The Company recorded total revenues of $150.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, an increase of $0.8 million or 0.5% from the prior year's fourth quarter.
The increase in total revenues between the periods was driven by an increase in net interest income, higher noninterest revenues in the Company's financial services businesses, and a gain on debt extinguishment, offset in part by a decrease in banking related noninterest revenues.
Total revenues were down $2 million or 1.3% from the linked third quarter, driven largely by a $428 million decrease in mortgage banking revenues as the Company pivoted from selling its secondary market eligible residential mortgage loans in the third quarter to holding them for its loan portfolio in the fourth quarter.
The Company recorded net interest income of $93.4 million in the fourth quarter, up $0.7 million or 0.7% over the fourth quarter of 2019.
The increase was driven by a $2.28 billion or 22.7% increase in average earning assets between the periods offset in part by 66 basis point decrease in net interest margin.
The Company's fully tax equivalent net interest margin was 3.05% in the fourth quarter of 2020 as compared to 3.71% in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Net interest income increased $0.5 million or 0.5% over the linked third quarter while net interest margin was down 7 basis points.
During the fourth quarter, the Company recorded $3.5 million of PPP related interest income as compared to $3 million of PPP related interest income in the third quarter of 2020.
At December 31, 2020 remaining net deferred fees associated with the 2020 PPP originations were $9 million, the majority of which the Company expects to realize for interest income in 2021.
Noninterest revenues were up $0.1 million or 0.1% between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the fourth quarter of 2020.
Employee benefit services revenues were up $1.7 million or 7%, from $25 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 to $26.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, driven by increases in plan administration, record keeping revenues and employee benefit trust revenues.
Wealth management and insurance services revenues were also up $1 million or 7.3% over the same periods.
These increases were partially offset by a $2 million or 11.2% decrease in deposit service and other banking fees, due to lower deposit-related activities fees including overdraft occurrences.
We reported $0.9 million loss on mortgage banking activities in the fourth quarter of 2020 as compared to a $0.2 million gain during the fourth quarter of 2019, resulting in a $1.1 million decrease between the periods due to the change in the Company's mortgage banking strategy as noted previously.
Finally, during the fourth quarter of 2020, we redeemed $10 million of subordinated notes acquired in connection with the 2019 acquisition of Kinderhook Bank Corp.
, and recorded $0.4 million gain on debt extinguishment.
The Company reported a $3.1 million net benefit in the provision for credit losses during the fourth quarter of 2020.
This compares to a $2.9 million provision for credit losses during the fourth quarter of 2019.
The net benefit recorded the provision for credit losses was driven by several factors, including a $2 million reversal of a previously recorded allowance for credit losses on a purchase credit deteriorated loan, a significant improvement in the economic outlook and a substantial decrease in loans under COVID-19 related forbearance agreements, offset in part by anticipated increases in nonperforming assets and the related specific impairment reserves on those nonperforming assets.
For comparative purposes, the Company recorded $1.9 million in the provision for credit losses during the third quarter of 2020, $9.8 million in the second quarter of 2020, including $3.2 million of acquisition related provision for credit losses due to the acquisition of Steuben and $5.6 million of provision for credit losses during the first quarter of 2020.
During the first two quarters of 2020, financial conditions deteriorated rapidly as state and local governments shutdown a substantial portion of the business activities in the Company's markets and unemployment levels spiked.
These conditions drove the Company to build its allowance for credit losses during the first quarter, first two quarters of 2020 to account for the expected life of loan losses in the loan portfolio.
During the third quarter, the economic outlook remained unclear as markets were uncertain as to the efficacy, approval and rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.
With a greater than anticipated decline in actual unemployment levels as well as the Federal government's approval of COVID-19 vaccine and Congress' recent approval of the additional Federal stimulus funding, the near term economic forecast improved driving a net release the allowance for credit losses during the fourth quarter.
The Company reported loan net charge-offs of $1.3 million or 7 basis points annualized during the fourth quarter of 2020, comparatively low net charge-offs in the fourth quarter of 2019 of $2.4 million or 14 basis points annualized.
On a full-year basis, the Company reported net charge-offs of $5 million or 7 basis points of average loans outstanding.
This compares to $7.8 million or 12 basis points of net charge-offs for 2019.
The Company recorded $94.6 million of total operating expenses in the fourth quarter of 2020 exclusive of $0.4 million of acquisition related expenses.
This compares to total operating expenses of $94.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 exclusive of $0.8 million of acquisition related expenses.
The year-over-year $0.2 million, or 0.2% increase in operating expenses, exclusive of acquisition related expenses was attributable to a $1.7 million or 2.9% increase in salaries and employee benefits, a $1.5 million or 13.5% increase in data processing and communications expenses, offset in part by a $2.5 million or 19.4% decrease in other expenses, and a $0.4 million or 11% decrease in the amortization of intangible assets.
The increase in salaries and employee benefits was driven by merit-related increases in employee wages and a net increase in full-time equivalent employees between the periods, due to both the Steuben acquisition in the second quarter of 2020 and other factors, but were partially offset by lower employee benefit expenses primarily associated with the decrease in employee medical expenses due to reduced provider utilization.
The increase in data processing and communication expenses were due to the Steuben acquisition and the implementation of new customer facing digital technologies and back office workflow systems.
Other expenses were down through the general decrease in the level of business activities and the result of -- as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, including travel and entertainment, marketing and business development expenses.
Comparatively, the Company recorded $93.2 million of total operating expenses in the linked quarter -- linked third quarter of 2020, exclusive of $3 million of litigation accrual expenses and $0.8 million of acquisition related expenses.
The Company closed the fourth quarter of 2020 with total assets of $13.93 billion.
This was up $85.8 million, or 0.6% in the third quarter, up $2.52 billion or 22.1% from a year earlier.
Similarly, average interest earning assets for the fourth quarter of $12.31 billion was up $356.8 million or 3% to the linked third quarter of 2020 up $2.28 billion or 22.7% to one year prior.
A very large increase in total assets and average interest earning assets over the prior 12 months was driven by the second quarter 2020 acquisition of Steuben Trust Corporation, the large inflows of government stimulus-related funding of PPP originations.
Ending loans at December 31, 2020 were $7.42 billion, up $525.4 million or 7.6% from one year prior, due to the Steuben acquisition and the origination of PPP loans.
Ending loans, however, were down $42.7 million from 0.6% from the end of the linked third quarter to -- to a decline in business activity in the Company's markets due to seasonal factors with COVID-19 pandemic and PPP forgiveness.
During the quarter, the Company's PPP loan balances decreased $36.5 million or 7.2%, or $507.2 million at September 30, 2020 to $470.7 million at December 31, 2020.
During the fourth quarter, the Company's average investment securities book balances increased $636.9 million or 20.2% from $3.15 billion in the third quarter to $3.78 billion during the fourth quarter due to the purchase of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities during the quarter.
Average cash equivalents decreased $227 million or 17%, or $1.3 billion during the third quarter to $1.08 billion during the fourth quarter.
During the fourth quarter, the Company purchased $1.02 billion of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities at a weighted average market yield of 1.38%.
The purchases were made to stabilize near term net interest income and hedge interest rate risk against a sustained low interest rate environment.
The Company's average total deposits were up $275.9 million or 2.5% on a linked quarter basis and up $2.1 billion or 23.2% over the fourth quarter of 2019.
Total average deposits in the fourth quarter were $11.21 billion as compared to $9.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019.
The Company's capital reserves remain strong in the fourth quarter, the Company's net tangible equity to net tangible assets ratio was 9.92% at December 31, 2020.
This was down from 10.01% at the end of 2019, but consistent with the end of the linked third quarter.
The Company's Tier 1 leverage ratio was 10.16% at December 31, 2020 which remained over 2 times the well capitalized regulatory standard of 5%.
The Company has an abundance of liquidity resources and extremely -- and is extremely well positioned to fund future loan growth, the combination of the Company's cash, cash equivalents and borrowing availability to the Federal Reserve Bank, borrowing capacity at the Federal Home Loan Bank and [indecipherable] available for sale of investment securities portfolio provides the Company with over $5.25 billion of immediately available sources of liquidity.
From a credit risk and lending perspective, the Company continues to closely monitor the activities of its COVID-19 effective borrowers and loss mitigation strategies on a case by case basis, including but not limited to the extension of forbearance arrangements.
At December 31, 2020, 74 borrowers representing $66.5 million and less than 1% of total loans outstanding remained in COVID related forbearance.
This compares to 216 borrowers representing $192.7 million or 2.6% of loans outstanding were active under COVID related forbearance at September 30,2020 and 3,699 borrowers representing $704.1 million or 9.4% of loans outstanding at June 30, 2020.
Although these trends are favorable, nonperforming loans increased in the fourth quarter to $76.9 million or 1.04% of loans outstanding, up $44.6 million from the linked third quarter and up $52.6 million from the fourth quarter of 2019.
During the fourth quarter, the Company determined that borrowers that were granted loan payment deferrals under forbearance beyond 180 days would be classified as non-accrual loans unless they could demonstrate current repayment capacity or sufficient cash reserves to service their pre-forbearance payment obligation.
The substantial majority of these borrowers operate in the hotel sector, including several that operate near the Canadian border, which have been additionally impacted by restrictions like cross border travel.
This specifically identified reserves held against the Company's nonperforming loans of $3.9 million at December 31, 2020, $3 million of which was attributed to a single nonperforming hotel loan.
As mentioned in prior earnings calls, the weighted average estimate of loans valued in the Company's hospitality loan portfolio prior to the onset of COVID was approximately 55%.
We continue to believe that the ultimate losses recognized in the current nonperforming hotel loans will be well contained in the pre-COVID cash flow of these properties, the financial strength of the operators that we have historically planned and the low loan to values on these assets.
At December 31, 2020, the level of loans 30 to 89 days delinquent were fairly consistent with pre-COVID levels, loans 30 to 89 days delinquent, totaled $34.8 million or 0.47% of loans outstanding at December 31, 2020.
This compares to loans 30 to 89 days delinquent $40.9 million or 0.59% one year prior to $26.6 million, to 0.36% at the end of the linked third quarter.
Net charge-offs on loans were low at $1.3 million or 7 basis points annualized in the fourth quarter, and $5 million or 7 basis points for the full year of 2020.
The Company's allowance for credit losses decreased from $65 million, a 0.87% of total loans outstanding at September 30, 2020 to $60.9 million or 0.82% of total loans outstanding at December 31, 2020.
The net $4.1 million of the lease of allowance for credit losses was driven by an improving economic outlook, a substantial decrease in loans forbearance, and a $2 million reversal of a previously recorded allowance for credit losses and the purchase credit deteriorated loan, which is paid off during the fourth quarter.
At December 31, 2020, the allowance for credit losses of $60.9 million represent over 12 times the Company's trailing 12 months net charge-offs.
Operationally, we will continue to adapt to changing market conditions.
We remain very focused on asset quality and credit loss mitigation.
We anticipate assisting the substantial majority of the Company's 2020 first draw of PPP borrowers' forgiveness requests throughout 2021, and granting new second draw of PPP loans and advances.
Although, we began to redeploy portions of our cash equivalents, balances into investment securities during the fourth quarter to increase interest income on a going forward basis and providing hedge against the sustained low interest rate environment, we also expect net interest margin pressures to persist to remain well below historical levels.
Furthermore, we anticipate the deposit levels to remain elevated for most of 2021 -- for 2021 especially with potentially more federal stimulus on the horizon.
Accordingly, we will look to deploy additional overnight cash equivalents into higher yielding earning assets.
Fortunately, the Company's diversified non-interest revenue stream to represent approximately 38% of the Company's total revenues in 2020 remains strong and anticipate to mitigate continued pressure on net interest margin.
And in addition, the Company's managed -- management teams are actively implementing various earnings improvement initiatives including revenue enhancements and cost cutting -- cost cutting measures that favorably impact future earnings.

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q4 earnings per share $0.86.
q4 revenue $150.6 million versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $150.8 million.
q4 operating earnings per share $0.85.
recorded net interest income of $93.4 million in q4 of 2020.

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