First Bank Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

First Bank (NASDAQ:FRBA) held its first-quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.

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The full earnings call is available at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/949429318

Summary

FIRST BANK (Hamilton) reported earnings below expectations due to elevated credit costs in the small business portfolio and high loan payoff activity.

The company's net income for Q1 2026 was $7.6 million with a $0.30 EPS, and a 0.79% ROA.

Net interest margin declined by 5 basis points, impacted by reduced purchase accounting income and deposit competition.

Loan growth is anticipated to pick up as the company has achieved net loan growth of $50 million in April, with a strong pipeline.

Non-performing assets and criticized loans remain within historical norms, with strong allowance for credit losses providing a buffer.

Operating expenses were elevated due to seasonal factors, but the efficiency ratio remained below 60% for the 27th consecutive quarter.

FIRST BANK (Hamilton) maintains strong capital ratios and is prepared for share buybacks if opportunities arise.

Deposit growth is a priority, with competitive pricing strategies and new branches contributing positively.

The company has revamped its small business portfolio management to mitigate credit issues and anticipates improved performance.

Management expects stable net interest margin moving forward but notes potential pressure from deposit pricing.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Thank you for standing by. My name is Kate and I will be your conference operator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the First Bank earnings conference call for the first quarter of 2026. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press STAR followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press Star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Patrick Ryan, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Thank you. I'd like to welcome everyone today to First Bank's first quarter 2026 earnings call. I'm joined by Andrew Hipschman, our CFO, Darlene Gillespie, our Chief Retail Banking Officer and Peter Cahill, our Chief Lending Officer. Before we begin, Andrew will read the Safe Harbor Statement.

Andrew Hipschman (Chief Financial Officer)

The following discussion may contain forward looking statements concerning the financial condition, results of operations and business of First Bank. We caution that such statements are subject to a number of uncertainties and actual results could differ materially and therefore you should not place undue reliance on any forward looking statements we make. We may not update any forward looking statements we make today for future events or developments. Information about risks and uncertainties are described under Item 1A: Risk Factors in our Annual Report on Form 10K for the year ended December 31, 2025 filed with the FDIC. Pat, back to you.

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Thank you Andrew. Earnings came in below our expectations in the first quarter. Elevated credit costs in the credit scored small business portfolio were the primary drivers. We have taken very proactive stance regarding the management and cleanup of this portfolio. The product parameters and sales processes were revamped starting in the summer of 2025 and all known issues in the portfolio have either been charged off in full or specific reserves have been established. Elevated loan payoff activity also impacted earnings as Peter and Andrew will discuss Discuss Unusually high payoffs in the fourth quarter drove lower average balances during Q1 and that impacted the overall results. We're still working to make up for those elevated payoffs, but strong loan growth so far in April and healthy pipelines provide reason for optimism that we can still achieve our loan growth goals. The net interest margin was down slightly in the first quarter, partly driven by reduced purchase accounting accretion income and partly driven by heightened deposit competition. Overall credit quality seems to be holding in at manageable levels. Specifically, our levels of non performing assets and criticized loans remain at levels well within historical norms and peer averages. Furthermore, our strong allowance for credit losses and overall capital levels provide a strong buffer regarding overall core profitability. Profitability I believe we'll see a return to strong balance sheet growth as we move forward as payoffs normalize and in fact, through mid April, net loan growth was up $50 million, putting us pretty close to plan. The margin will obviously be dependent on the overall rate and competitive environment, but we expect it should remain at healthy levels moving forward and the first quarter. Expenses were somewhat elevated based on seasonal factors like payroll taxes and snow removal, and we expect they will remain relatively stable throughout the remainder of this year. Furthermore, our strong capital levels provide significant dry powder for share buybacks should attractive buying opportunities emerge. In summary, while the quarterly results were disappointing, we believe the elevated credit costs are isolated to the small business portfolio and profitability should return to stronger levels as we move forward in 2026. At this time I'd like to turn it over to Andrew to provide some additional detail on the financial results.

Andrew Hipschman (Chief Financial Officer)

Andrew thanks PAT. For the three months ended March 31, 2026, we recorded net income of 7.6 million or $0.30 per diluted share. This translates to a 0.79% return on average assets. Net interest income decreased 2.2 million compared to the fourth quarter primarily due to lower average loan balances which resulted from the limited growth during the current quarter coupled with the late quarter timing of payoffs in the linked fourth quarter. Additionally, the yield on average loans declined by 21 basis points which was partly related to the elevated level of prepayment fees in the linked fourth quarter. This outpaced the 15 basis point decline in interest bearing deposit costs and contributed to a 5 basis point decline in the net interest margin. I'll note that compared to last year's first quarter net interest income grew by 1.9 million or 6% and that was primarily driven by lower interest bearing deposit costs at 3.69%. We believe our first quarter net interest margin remained very strong and compares favorably to our peers. Looking ahead, we continue to manage a well balanced asset and liability position and and we anticipate stronger loan and deposit growth which should result in increased net interest income generation. Regardless of what happens with rates, we anticipate continued declines in our acquisition accounting accretion over the next several quarters and we are also seeing enhanced deposit pricing pressure as the market adjusts to the expectation that the effective fed funds rate will stay higher for longer. Offsetting some of that pressure is that we continue to replace the runoff of lower yielding assets with higher yielding loans. We expect these factors in aggregate to support a relatively stable margin with the potential for some pressure should the current flat yield curve environment persist. Net charge offs increased to 5 million for the first quarter from 1.7 million in the linked quarter. Almost exclusively related to our small business portfolio, this was the primary driver of increased credit loss expenses in the first quarter. Our allowance for credit losses to total loans increased 1 basis point to 1.39% from 1.38% at December 31st. With the recent increases in our allowance, our reserve coverage ratios are very strong. Non interest income grew to 2.4 million in the first quarter of 2026 compared to 2.3 million in the linked fourth quarter and 2 million in the first quarter of 2025. The slight increase in the current quarter primarily relates to higher earnings from some modest investments we have made in certain small business investment funds. Non interest expenses were 20.9 million for the first quarter compared to 17.1 million in Q4. The increase was primarily driven by $1.9 million gain on sale of an OREO asset which was booked as a contra expense in the fourth quarter excluding the impact of this non recurring item in Q4, non interest expense increased by 1.9 million primarily due to seasonal factors. Salary and benefits expense increased primarily due to typical first quarter increases related to merit salary adjustments, benefit cost increases and increased employment taxes connected to annual incentive payments. Occupancy and equipment expenses were impacted by annual rent increases along with the impact of higher maintenance costs given the harsh winter in our primary footprint. Looking ahead, we view our first quarter expense level as a reasonable overall run rate as we move forward. The first quarter marked our 27th consecutive quarter of operating with an efficiency ratio below 60%. This has positioned us as a top quartile performer among our peers on this metric and is a differentiating strength for First Bank. We expect to drive revenue growth during the rest of the year without needing to add to expenses which should move our efficiency ratio down over the next several quarters. Tax expenses total 2.3 million for the first quarter with an effective tax rate of 22.7%. This compares to 25.7% for Q4. First quarter taxes included the benefit of items related to stock compensation activity which historically has an outsized impact. During the first quarter, we anticipate our future effective tax rate will be approximately 24 to 25%. Our capital ratios remain strong. We executed a modest amount of share repurchases during the quarter and we could fully execute our approved $20 million buyback program and still maintain strong capital ratios for example, assuming 20 million in buybacks and a static balance sheet, our total risk based capital would be approximately 12.5%, well in excess of any regulatory minimums or internal policy limits. Going forward, we aim to continue driving shareholder value through a combination of core earnings, a stable cash dividend and share buybacks as applicable over time. At this time, I'll turn it over to Darlene Gillespie, our Chief Retail Banking Officer, for her remarks.

Darlene Gillespie (Chief Retail Banking Officer)

Darlene thanks Andrew and good morning everyone. Deposit growth of 25.1 million was modest during the quarter while we saw solid activity onboarding new relationships and expanding existing seasonal fluctuations and some expected outflows influence ending balances for the quarter. Average interest bearing deposit costs came down 15 basis points during the quarter and we benefited from the Federal Reserve rate cuts that occurred in the fourth quarter of 2025 as well as our continued proactive efforts to optimize and manage deposit pricing. Going forward, we may see some moderation in this benefit. As heightened industry competition continues to place pressure on deposit pricing, we remain focused on striking the appropriate balance between growth and cost discipline. Overall, we continue to execute effectively against our dual priorities of deepening relationships while prudently managing funding costs. In addition, targeted promotional pricing has proven successful in attracting new customers and importantly, retaining those relationships. Beyond the promotional period, our newly opened and relocated branches are doing well and meeting deposit growth expectations. Retention levels among customers impacted by branch consolidations have remained strong and associated attrition has tracked within our planned and budgeted expectations. This is a testament to the outstanding execution of our relationship bankers across our footprint. Looking ahead in 2026, deposit growth continues to be a priority in order to fund our expected loan growth in a profitable manner and to maintain a strong net interest margin. We intend to achieve this by maintaining a strong deposit funding pipeline, continuing to retain and grow existing relationships, and utilizing promotional pricing when prudent and necessary to win in this highly competitive market. Our teams are closing loans and adding full operating accounts, which is a key element of our growth and funding strategy. After a very active year of optimizing our branch network in 2025, we have minimal branch activity on the horizon in 2026. We will continue to be opportunistic where it makes sense to enhance the efficiency of our network, the convenience for our customers, and our potential exposure to new clients and in existing or adjacent markets. But right now our focus is on optimizing the growth and pricing of our deposit portfolio. We intend to keep working to achieve our goal of bringing our deposit costs closer to our peer bank median. At this time I'll turn it over to Peter Cahill, our Chief Lending Officer, for his remarks here.

Peter Cahill (Chief Lending Officer)

Thanks, Darlene. As Pat and Andrew described, our Q1 numbers reflected a slower quarter in terms of loan growth last year. As you know, despite average loan growth of 267 million, we finished with annual growth of 149 million or 4.7%. Much of that second half decline was due to loan payoffs in Q4 of 135 million, which far exceeded payoffs that averaged $50 million in each of the previous three quarters. Results this past quarter were impacted again by loan payoffs. We mentioned a good loan pipeline at year end and I think we had a pretty good quarter from the standpoint of converting that pipeline into new funded loans. Loans closed and funded in Q1 totaled 106 million, which equals the quarterly average for both 2024 and 2025. So not a slow quarter from the standpoint of new loans closing and funding. Payoffs in Q1 were 73 million, however higher than our average quarterly payments in each of in the past five years. Payoffs bank wide were made up of 59% investor real estate loans. Of all of the payoffs in the quarter, the same figure, 59%, stemmed from the underlying asset being sold and the balance of those payoffs were primarily from loans being refinanced out of the bank. As in previous quarters, new loans continued to be centered in CNI and owner occupied real estate. For the quarter, this category made up 50% of new loans with investor real estate loans comprising 40% and consumer lending 10%. We're seeing the same competition we've seen in previous quarters, primarily from the regional banks. In our market. We continue to get decent spreads in the 250 basis point range over FHLB. Some of the competition is pricing lower and we're also seeing banks loosening terms a bit by not requiring deposits or offering longer amortization schedules, etc. Fight the competition we are still seeing good things in our lending pipeline after closing and funding over $100 million in new loans. As I just described during the quarter, the pipeline at quarter end stood at what we call probable fundings of 383 million, up 15% from where it was at year end. The number of loans in the pipeline these are the number of individual loans at quarter end was up 9% over year end. Regarding the makeup of those loans, 65% are C&I loans compared to 61% at 1231. The impact of our solid pipeline, as Pat mentioned, has been seen already in Q2 in mid April, we hit loan growth for the year of close to $50 million, which is where we should have been a couple of weeks earlier at March 31. On the topic of asset quality, we've mentioned the softness we've been experiencing in the small business portfolio over the last couple of quarters. And Pat and Andrew both talked about the impact this past quarter. Last quarter I mentioned that we've turned over staffs in that area and significantly tightened credit parameters which as you would imagine has slowed production significantly. Delinquencies are no longer growing and we are very focused on providing attention to the relationships we have in that portfolio presently. Otherwise, delinquencies across all business lines were very manageable. At quarter end, the earnings release did mention that our increase in non performing loans was related primarily to the addition of a well secured single borrower commercial real estate credit totaling 9.5 million. I'll just add that this assisted living property shows current cash flows north of 1.8 times debt service coverage and a loan to value of 52%. So while it impacts our numbers presently, we expect a positive resolution there. In summary, while the payoffs we experienced resulted in a slow quarter as far as loan growth goes, we've seen pickup since then and we remain confident of our plan to grow the loan portfolio and by 200 million this year, all segments are expected to contribute to that growth. That concludes my remarks about lending. So I'll turn things back now to Pat for some final comments.

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Thanks, Peter. At this point I'd like to open it up for the Q and A.

OPERATOR

Time. I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q and A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Justin Crowley with Piper. Sandra. Your line is open.

Justin Crowley (Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler)

Hey, good morning everyone. Good morning, Justin. You know, first I was just wondering if you could spend just a little more time on the small business portfolio that I know we've discussed a lot, you know, just a little more on what's been driving the weakness there and what gets you to a point, you know, now where you're comfortable that that any further negative impact in that book should be contained, which is some of the actions taken over the past couple quarters.

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, the short answer, Justin, is there's no one factor. Certainly. I think we've seen plenty of data in the market that, you know, small businesses have been, you know, feeling some stress given the volatility in the overall economy. And so certainly, I guess in general economic factors within a small business portfolio. Right. Obviously these are companies by definition that have a smaller revenue base and therefore just less of a cushion to absorb things like, you know, volatility and margins, loss of a big customer, etc. On top of that, you know, some of it, we believe was tied to, you know, folks being a little more aggressive than we would have liked on the overall marketing of the product. It is a credit score product. It is one that we've been using for, you know, six or seven years now. So it wasn't a brand new solution, but certainly we were looking to grow and scale that business over the last couple years. And I think some folks, in an effort to try to build that, we're moving beyond kind of the core tenants of our relationship banking model. So we've revamped those processes, we've tightened up the parameters and as Peter mentioned, you know, sort of new production has slowed down significantly and you know, we're tracking the data closely. When we see issues, when we have significant delinquency, we're moving quickly to, you know, take care of those loans either through charge off or specific reserve. And as Peter mentioned, as we looked at some of the delinquency trends, you know, it feels like things are, are starting to settle down there. Obviously, time will tell, but, you know, definitely feeling like that initial surge is past us. And you know, given the changes we make, we've made over the last nine months, we think, you know, the results moving forward should be significantly better. Exactly what better means. Obviously time will tell, but again, it's a relatively small portfolio. It's down under 100 million at this point. And given the steps we've taken to address the known issues, you know, we think we're definitely getting past the uptick and you know, we think we'll see some better performance out of that portfolio moving forward.

Justin Crowley (Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler)

Okay, and then just to clarify that, you know, the stress you're seeing, it's not coming from the SBA product, it's coming outside of that program and you know, smaller dollar type loans, is that accurate?

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Correct. These are, you know, smaller ticket, you know, couple hundred thousand lines of credit term loans that are not necessarily SBA related. So it's. Yeah, it's not an SBA specific situation.

Justin Crowley (Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler)

Okay. And you said it was about $100 million. You know, just looking to put some, some more numbers around it. Do you have, you know, what, the reserves against that portfolio, you know, where those stand and then just, you know, sense of you know, where charge off rates, you know, what you've experienced in that book specifically so far.

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Yeah, if you look at over, you know, obviously if you looked at the quarter, right, the $5 million number was, you know, almost exclusively related to that portfolio. I think over a 12 month period, you know, the number was probably closer to 9 million. But if you sort of scroll back further, again, this isn't a brand new product. It was one that we've been using for a while. That is, you know, felt like the scoring became a little less predictable. Some of it might have been related to some of the cash infusions from COVID We can't really say for sure. But you know, prior to that the performance was actually really good. We had very minimal charge off. So, you know, if you look at it at a point in time, the numbers look really high. We spread it out over, you know, you know, two or three year period. You're probably looking at, you know, maybe 2 to 3% a year over, over that time frame. So, you know, again, higher than, higher than we'd like. And obviously as a result we made the changes to the, the underwriting and the sales process to, to slow that production down. But you know, what we're, what we have in the portfolio now is folks that have been with us for a while, folks that, you know, have been paying as agreed that haven't been showing delinquency issues. And so again, we think the performance moving forward should be, should be significantly better. Pat. Justin, I'll just quickly add. So we have about $2 million of specific reserves allocated to known problems. And we've obviously also made some adjustments in our allowance calculation to put some money away for unknown problems. But right now it's 2 million of specific reserves for identified specific loans. And we've adjusted some of the other factors within our calculation to put some more money away to address some potential issues going forward.

Justin Crowley (Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler)

Okay, so does that get you north of sort of like a 3% reserve in that book?

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Yeah, probably. I mean, again, within the allowance models, the, you know, the small business is part of the overall CNI, but you can see the overall allowance is up at, you know, 137, which is, you know, obviously a very healthy level relative to where we've been, relative to where the industry is. So, you know, we certainly think there's significant money set aside to deal with, with potential issues. And listen, we're charging everything off in full. There will be some recoveries here. We're not, you know, factoring that into the numbers, but you know, we, we think that, you know, we put a lot of money aside to make sure we're protected here.

Justin Crowley (Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler)

Got it. I guess the shipping years just, you know, on the comment that the NIM should hold relatively stable here and you know, that's kind of been the messaging, I was wondering if you could detail a little of what's embedded in that just in the way of new loan yields, where those are coming on at versus what's rolling off the portfolio. And then just if you have just a sense of the volume of repricing opportunity as we get through the year.

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Yeah, I can address part of that. And Peter, you can jump in obviously on the new loan yields with some of the volatility in the markets, you know, treasury, treasury yields moving higher. I think you've put loan pricing, you know, well, in the 6 to 6.5% range, higher, depending on, you know, asset class, product type, things like that. And then in terms of Andrew, the repricing and the modeling, if you want to provide some of the details there.

Andrew Hipschman (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, so we still have a good chunk without getting into a ton of specifics of loans that are repricing off of loans that were originated five years ago, obviously in a significantly lower interest rate environment. So we have, we have a lot of loan activity that's repricing into, like I said, a couple hundred basis points higher in some instances. So again, I think we believe that that repricing is going to offset some of the, the Purchase Accounting Accretion declines that those declines we expect to be a little bit more muted than they were over the last couple quarters. I believe Purchase accounting accretion was 1.2 million in the first quarter. It was 2.6, I believe, last year. So that'll continue to come down, but probably only 100,000 to a couple hundred thousand dollars a quarter going forward. So that'll continue to have a negative pull on the margin. But again, I do think that we continue to see enough loans repricing higher that should offset most of those declines. And then obviously it'll be very dependent on what we can do on the deposit pricing side. Whether we need to price up to bring in new money to fund the loan growth that we expect is the big wild card there. But again, I think we feel fairly confident that we can maintain a fairly stable margin with I think a lean towards maybe some pressure depending on deposit pricing over the next several months.

Justin Crowley (Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler)

Okay. And then do you just have just, you know, what floating rate exposure is in the loan book?

Andrew Hipschman (Chief Financial Officer)

It's still, it's still about 25% of the portfolio. It fluctuates a little bit. We have that number has moved a little higher over the last couple years because we've been doing more CNI and shorter term stuff than we had been doing in the past. But it's still about a quarter quarter or about 25% of the portfolio. It's gone. I think it was closer to 20 maybe a couple years ago and now it's between 25 and 30. But around 25% is still, is still the right number.

Justin Crowley (Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler)

Okay. And so would that all reprice immediately or you know, how much of a lag is there in that? And then you know, is there any protection in the way of interest rate floors?

Andrew Hipschman (Chief Financial Officer)

I don't have the details on the floors, but yes there is some protection there. Most of it would pre price either right away or like the next month. We still do have some interest rate swaps in place that are protecting us a little bit on some of these things, but not much, especially as rates move lower. Some of those would move lower, but it's pretty much right away for the 25%. There are some floors, but I don't believe most of the loans or at the floors. Obviously if we see some bigger rate cuts, the floors become more relevant than like a quarter point adjustment by the Fed.

Justin Crowley (Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler)

Okay, that's helpful. And then just you know, on expenses, you know, you called out some of the seasonally higher occupancy costs inflating the number in the period. But you know, as we look at the comp line, you know, something a good way to think about that level moving forward. I know you mentioned some higher payroll taxes. Just kind of curious if you know, that's a decent run rate or if there's, you know, how much should flow back out. Just as we think about, you know,

Andrew Hipschman (Chief Financial Officer)

the forward trajectory here. Yeah, the first quarter is a pretty, pretty reasonable expectation. It could move a little bit down because of that. Salary increases in March. So you don't have the full impact of those salary increases in the first quarter. So I think the run rate in Q1 is probably pretty close to where we'd see things going forward because some of the one time items will get offset by the increases in the salary line item that would happen late in the quarter. But I don't anticipate there being any significant increases to that number going forward. So I think again I think as we mentioned, I think in most cases of the expense line items, I think a fairly stable run rate going forward over the next several quarters Is, is kind of where we're seeing things.

Justin Crowley (Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler)

Okay. And then just maybe on the broader topic of expenses, you know, maybe a higher level question here as well, but just a lot of talk on, on managing expense levels. And so just wondering, you know, how you balance that against further investment and, you know, where you think you stand, you know, particularly on the technology side as you're seeing more rapid AI adoption. You know, a lot of banks experimenting with different use cases, trying to be fast followers. So just any thoughts on how you're implementing that to the extent that you are?

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Yeah, I'd say it's a combination of, you know, working internally with folks who are, you know, sort of our, you know, our first movers in terms of we've got a full team that's sort of doing testing. They have access to the more advanced tools, developing use cases. I think, you know, as those use cases roll out, there will almost certainly be some tech cost associated with them, but in many cases there should also be corresponding savings. And so there may be a situation where the tech spend might increase a bit, but we also would envision some other expenses coming down. Certainly in conversations with our primary technology providers, they're looking at embedding AI tools into products and services we're already using. You know, we have in most cases, fixed price contracts there, so we don't expect that will drive significantly higher costs in the short run. What it might mean moving forward, as, you know, the, the quality or value add of the tools they embed are more noticeable. Could that drive, you know, some pricing power on their part? Perhaps, but I guess the short answer is, you know, we will be looking to make strategic incremental investments based on use cases that we uncover, but it's not something that we expect would be huge additional dollars. Right. We're not, we're not spending time on R and D and coding and the types of things that the big guys are doing to try to, to try to get a step ahead. But obviously, as you said, we want to be ready to move quickly, which is why we've developed the working groups and the use cases and the testing parameters and the sandbox safety parameters so that we can really start using some of these AI tools in a safe way.

Justin Crowley (Equity Analyst at Piper Sandler)

So, so. Okay, great. I appreciate the color. I'll leave it there. Thanks so much.

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

All right, thanks.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of David Bishop with HD Group. Your line is open.

David Bishop (Equity Analyst at HD Group)

Hey, good morning, guys. Morning, David. Hey, hey, hey, Pat, I think you mentioned in the preamble, you know, the, you know, you still sit in a very enviable, tangible and regulatory capital position. Just maybe your view of excess capital, maybe how aggressive you can, you can be in terms of addressing the, the buyback on any sort of, you know, pullback in the share price?

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Yeah, I mean, listen, we have a buyback, approved buyback in place. There's plenty of availability within the plan. Obviously slower growth in the quarter isn't the goal, but you know, the pay, the pay downs during fourth quarter and first quarter led to some significant additional capital appreciation during the last half year. So the short answer is I think we've got strong capital levels to put to work if it makes sense. So.

David Bishop (Equity Analyst at HD Group)

Got it. And then just in terms of holistically, you know, the, maybe the revamping of the small business, you know, group there, you know, you've got the other specialized business units. Do you guys continue to see, you know, good opportunity to grow there, any stress you're seeing in any of those segments like private equity or ABL and just, you know, appetite to continue to grow those segments?

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Yeah, no, I think those segments are doing well and you know, we talk about them together as sort of niche businesses, but they're really very different businesses. Right. You're talking about a credit scored, you know, product that's supposed to be scalable, but it's supposed to be light touch, which is very different than, you know, the detailed, thorough, traditional underwriting that we're doing on the ABL and the private equity side. And so the short answer is I think those other groups are performing well. And, and we think again without, you know, we try to take a very measured, methodical approach. We're not looking to bet the farm on any one of these individual segments, but we think each of them could grow reasonably over the next couple years and continue to contribute to overall profitability and diversification of the portfolio.

David Bishop (Equity Analyst at HD Group)

Got it. And as a follow up, I think Peter may have mentioned the one larger commercial real estate credit, assisted living, any sort of, you know, color, more details you could add there in terms of, you know, ultimate resolution and you know, the near term outlook for that credit.

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Yeah, so we're, we're a participant with a larger bank on that. So we're sort of taking our, you know, our cues from them. But again, all the data regarding our specific borrower, which is part of a much larger corporate entity that's going through restructuring, you know, points to the fact that, you know, we're in a very strong position. But obviously when you've got a corporate restructuring, things kind of get put on hold while that restructuring gets sorted out. But again, given the underlying strength of the asset from a cash flow and LTV perspective, you know, we have every reason to believe we're going to be fine there, but the timing of when that sort of comes off the books will be driven by, you know, how long it takes to work through that corporate restructuring process. So we certainly think and hope it would be gone by the end of the year, but it's hard to be a little more specific than that.

David Bishop (Equity Analyst at HD Group)

Got it. Then final question. You know, obviously a lot of discussion about, you know, deposit pricing competition across the metro New Jersey, New York markets. Obviously very competitive. Just curious, Pat or Andrew, if you had the spot rate of deposits or margin at the end of the quarter and maybe sort of the marginal cost of deposits, you know, so far through April. Thanks.

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Yeah, sure, Andrew, you probably have the March deposit cost number. Maybe that's the best place to start. Certainly for incremental dollars, you know, we're seeing pressure, like if you want to try to raise some money out in the CD market, you know, that might have been a 350 rate three, six months ago, and now it's moving closer to 375 or even higher. I'm sure you've seen the, the cost move higher on the, on the brokered and wholesale side. And so those markets are kind of moving in lockstep. But Andrew, if you've got more specific data around, kind of what the March deposit level looked like.

Andrew Hipschman (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, I think obviously we had a rate cut in December and a couple other rate cuts earlier in the quarter. So that trickled into the first quarter. We saw the big benefit of that hit in January. Pricing has stayed relatively stable. When you look at kind of the deposit, overall deposit cost, January, February, March. So I think relatively stable. Obviously, like Pat said, there's a little bit of pressure now with us trying to bring in some additional money and the pricing has gotten a little bit more competitive with the treasury yields moving a little bit. But I do think deposit pricing should remain relatively stable compared to the first quarter with maybe a little bit of pressure, as we saw a little bit of pressure starting in March. And I do think that we're going to have to continue to be competitive into the second quarter.

David Bishop (Equity Analyst at HD Group)

Got it. Appreciate the color.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of Jake Sivilho with DA Davidson. Your line is open.

Jake Sivilho (Equity Analyst at DA Davidson)

Hey, good morning. You talked about, on the compensation expense side, you talked about some of the moving parts associated with that. Is any of that competition related or opportunistic? Hiring?

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Yeah, I mean, listen, I think regarding opportunistic hiring that's sort of always happening, but I don't think there was anything in particular I would point to in Q1 to say that was, that was a driver. Again, I think it was really more a function of, you know, what we see as kind of seasonal items that I don't want to call them non recurring because they happen every season, but they're non recurring for the remainder of the year. And I think that was kind of the driver of the elevated numbers in Q1.

Jake Sivilho (Equity Analyst at DA Davidson)

Okay, understood.

Andrew Hipschman (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, Jake, I would just add that we're, I mean, I think the market is still competitive where we are finding people, but we haven't seen a ton of extra pressure. Like salary increases were pretty standard this year. So overall it was more standard stuff and some seasonal items in Q1, but nothing outside of normal or outsized salary increases or anything this year. And we don't expect that we're going to have to be more competitive than normal to continue to drive in good, bring good people into the bank.

Jake Sivilho (Equity Analyst at DA Davidson)

That's fair. Thanks, Andrew. And then just one more for me. You pointed to the kind of $50

Peter Cahill (Chief Lending Officer)

million net loan growth number in the first couple weeks of April. Does that kind of follow the similar 50, 40, 10 split that you referenced earlier?

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Yeah, I think year to date growth has been pretty consistent with kind of the portfolio, you know, that exists today. In any given quarter or month you could have a particular larger loan that might sway the particular numbers one way or the other. But I don't know. Peter, was there anything that jumped out at you if you looked at year to date growth that was sort of an outlier from kind of the overall portfolio composition?

Peter Cahill (Chief Lending Officer)

No, I'd say it fits right in. I do cite, I mean, because it's more recent. I know a couple of a chunkier loans since 331 were in that CNI owner occupied category. So it's not, that was not the case where we, you know, closed and funded a couple of investor real estate loans to help the numbers or anything like that. It's been kind of more of what we've been chasing for previous years.

Jake Sivilho (Equity Analyst at DA Davidson)

Okay, great. Thank you

OPERATOR

again. If you would like to ask a question, press Star one on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the call back over to Patrick Ryan for closing remarks.

Patrick Ryan (President and CEO)

Okay, well thank you everybody, we appreciate your time today and we'll look forward to regrouping with folks once we get through the second quarter here. Thanks everyone.

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