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Text: With me in the room today are Mike Price, President and CEO of First Commonwealth Financial Corporation; and Jim Reske, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
For that portion of the call, we will be joined by Jane Grebenc, Chief Revenue Officer and President of First Commonwealth Bank; and Brian Karrip, our Chief Credit Officer.
Today's call will also include non-GAAP financial measures.
Non-GAAP financial measures should be viewed in addition to and not as an alternative for our reported results prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
Jim Reske, our CFO will provide some detail around fourth quarter earnings in a moment, but first, I'd like to reflect on our progress in 2019 as a Company.
2019 marked the seventh straight year of growth in earnings per share since the current management team came together.
We ended 2019 with core earnings per share of $1.10, which represents 16% compound annual growth from 2012 starting point of $0.40 per share in core earnings.
In 2019, we produced $108 million of core net income, a net interest margin of 3.75%, and a core efficiency ratio of 56.9%.
The earnings capacity of First Commonwealth continues to grow.
Adjusted for securities gains in 2018, earnings per share grew by 6.8% in 2019, driven by year-over-year growth of $17.4 million in spread income and $4.7 million in fee income.
Our momentum as we enter 2020 is good, and I would highlight the following.
Loan growth of 7% in 2019 were 6% without the acquired loans associated with the 14 branch acquisitions we got from Santander and deposit growth of 13%, helped stabilize the margin at 3.73% in the fourth quarter and continued to meaningfully and granularly grow our company.
Corporate banking, mortgage, and indirect lending led the way with loan growth.
Total deposits grew to $6.7 billion with an average cost of 56 basis points.
Our deposit base is comprised of 25% non-interest-bearing DDA accounts and another 21% in checking now accounts at a relatively low cost of funds.
So, $3 billion or 46% of the deposit total is in transaction accounts, of which 56% are business accounts.
The culture of deposit gathering is strong.
As an aside, we required -- we acquired roughly $470 million in deposit balances in early September following the acquisition of the Central PA branches from Santander and as of December 31, 2019, had grown those deposits by $22 million.
Despite the quarter-over-quarter uptick in our provision expense, our credit metrics continue to strengthen as does the credit culture of our company.
Several key credit indicators were at either -- were either at or near historic lows for our Company.
For example, net charge-offs of 18 basis points, nonperforming loans to loans at 52 basis points and nonperforming assets to loans at 57 basis points with criticized loans also at an historic low for our Company.
The sharp decrease in special mention loans at $48 million in the fourth quarter is particularly encouraging.
Our ongoing focus on improving granularity, maintaining concentration discipline and increasing geographic diversity leaves the bank well positioned at this stage in the economic cycle.
Our noninterest income of $85.5 million also was an historic high for our Company and now comprises roughly 25% of our total revenue.
Interchange income and deposit fee income set internal records for our Company in the fourth quarter.
Excluding security gains, our average quarterly noninterest income was $21.4 million in 2019, up from $19.9 million per quarter in 2018 and an average of only $16 million per quarter in 2016.
Moreover, our mortgage, wealth, corporate banking and SBA and insurance businesses have become a meaningful part of our noninterest income momentum.
Additionally, our five acquisitions over the last four years have added precious new checking households.
Core efficiency of 56.9% in 2019, improved year-over-year despite the integration of the Santander branch acquisition and as the interest rate environment pressured margin.
That being said, we're ever mindful of the importance of operating leverage, not only in our forecasts and budgets, but also in our actual quarterly results and we pay close attention to that.
In short, the bank has a broader base of fee businesses.
And our two key businesses retail and corporate banking are getting better each year and now growing across geographies.
These same businesses are led by strong line of business leaders and coordinated through regional presidents who are focused on winning and fulfilling our mission in their respective communities.
Our credit metrics and balance sheet are stronger, even as we experienced a tougher external environment in 2019.
Fourth quarter core earnings per share came in at $0.27 per share.
The return on -- the core return average assets and the core efficiency ratio were 1.29% and 57.23%, respectively.
Major fourth quarter headwinds compared to the prior quarter, included additional $2.2 million in provision expense, bringing provision to $4.9 million and an additional $2.1 million in noninterest expense, bringing noninterest expense to $53.3 million.
Provision expense was impacted by strong loan growth, which added $1.2 million in provision expense compared to last quarter.
Noninterest expense remained well controlled overall, but was impacted by one-time professional fees, elevated hospitalization expense and a full quarter of expense associated with the acquired Santander branches.
The largest portion of the professional fee expense was associated with consulting fees, surrounding the renegotiation of a third-party contract that is expected to result in significant expense savings for the bank.
FDIC insurance expense was unchanged from last quarter because we used a $616,000 odd credit in the fourth quarter, we have $723,000 in credit remaining for 2020, which we expect to use up in the first half of the year.
Fourth quarter positives included a net interest margin of 3.73%, which when coupled with solid loan growth of 5.6% annualized, produced growth in net interest income to $69.2 million despite a challenging interest rate environment.
Additionally, noninterest income excluding securities gains, recorded a quarterly all-time high of $22.5 million.
A $1.3 million improvement in swap fee income more than offset a seasonal $900,000 decrease in mortgage fee income.
Interchange income of $5.9 million and deposit service charges of $5.1 million, both grew due to the 10% growth in our total customer base as a result of the successful completion of the acquisition of the Santander branches.
Our forward guidance remains essentially unchanged.
We continue to expect mid-single-digit loan growth in 2019 with deposit growth lagging slightly behind as the newly acquired deposits allow us to maintain discipline in deposit pricing.
The margin is expected to compress to the low 3.60s over the course of the year, consistent with our past guidance.
Our effective tax rate for the fourth quarter was 19.50%.
And with that, we'll take any questions you may have.

user
compname reports q4 earnings per share $0.27.
q4 earnings per share $0.27.
increases quarterly dividend by 10 percent.
corp quarterly net interest income $69.2 million versus $65.5 million.
corp - expect headwinds from lower interest rate environment going into 2020.

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