Q4 2023 First Western Financial Inc Earnings Call

Presentation

Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the First Western Financial Q4 2023 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) Please be advised that today's call is being recorded. At this time I'll turn the call over to your host, Tony Rossi with Financial Profiles. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Valerie, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for First Western Financial's Fourth Quarter 2023 earnings call. Joining us from First Western's management team are Scott Wylie, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Julie Courkamp, Chief Operating Officer; and David Weber, Chief Financial Officer. We will use a slide presentation as part of our discussion this morning. If you have not done so already, please visit the Events and Presentations page of First Western's Investor Relations website to download a copy of the presentation.
Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that this conference call contains forward-looking statements with respect to the future performance and financial condition of First Western Financial that involve risks and uncertainties. Various factors could cause actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors are discussed in the Company's SEC filings, which are available on the company's website. I would also direct you to read the disclaimers in our earnings release and investor presentation. The Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. Additionally, management may refer to non-GAAP measures, which are intended to supplement but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAAP measures in the press release available on the website contains the financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today as well as the reconciliation of the GAAP to non-GAAP measures. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Scott.

Thanks, Tony, and good morning, everybody. As we enter 20 years' business and our sixth as a public company. We believe we're well-positioned for solid revenue and earnings gains in spite of the environmental challenges of 2023.
During the fourth quarter, we continued to execute on our strategic priorities, which included maintaining disciplined expense controls while focusing on new deposit relationships in order to increase our liquidity and put us in a better position to fund new loan production wins, loan demand increases as economic conditions improve. With our increased focus on deposit gathering, we had a 18% annualized growth in total deposits with increases in both noninterest-bearing and interest-bearing deposits and further lowered our loan to deposit ratio to achieve our year end target of 100% as we remain conservative in new loan production, which kept our total loans relatively flat during the quarter. As part of this effort, we made the strategic decision to add some short term higher-cost deposits. While this had a near-term impact on our net interest margin. We believed it was in the best interest, best long-term interest as it enables us to have the funding to add new client relationships that we believe we can expand over time and be highly profitable for the company, given the short-term nature of the deposits will be able to replace, we replace them with lower-cost funding sources as market conditions normalize interest rates decreased. Our provision for credit losses increased partially due to a reserve on individually analyzed loans we established for the relationship that we put on nonaccrual in the prior quarter. This provision resulted in a lower level of net interest income for the quarter, while we still had $4.1 million in pretax, pre-provision net income as we're going through the workout process for the relationships in nonperforming status, we received updated appraisals on the properties we have as collateral, which have all remained consistent with previous valuations, in some cases have increased. However, in a couple of cases, we also have as collateral receivables in business valuations that we now believe that might not be fully collectible. So we established a reserve and individually analyzed loans to reflect the possibility that we not may not fully collect on those receivables. Consistent with what we said last quarter, we expect it will take a few quarters for these loans to be resolved and with the sale of multiple properties we have as collateral all being on different timelines. The experience we have consistently through the history of First Western is it the strong underwriting criteria and collateral we have has ultimately resulted in minimal or no losses on these loans. As I indicated earlier, we continue to execute on our key strategic priorities, one of which was disciplined expense control. At the beginning of 2023, we indicated we expected non-interest expense to be in the range of $20 million to $21 million per quarter in 2023. We finished the year with non-interest expense well below this level at just over $18 million. This reflects our focus on improving efficiencies throughout the organization, reducing costs without impacting our business development capabilities or the level of service that we provide to our clients. We're continuing looking at all areas for opportunities to operate more efficiently which not only reduces expenses, but also offsets our investment in other areas such as our technology platform that we believe will help enhance the long-term value of our franchise.
Moving to slide 4, we generated net income of $0.3 million or $0.03 per diluted share in the fourth quarter. We also saw a small decline in our tangible book value per share during the quarter, which was due to an unfavorable shift in ALCI, resulting from a cash flow hedge on certain FHLB borrowings that decreased in value as interest rates declined. Nevertheless, our tangible book value has increased 143% since our pre IPO levels of June 2018 as shown in the later slides. Now I will turn the call over to Julie for some additional discussion of our balance sheet and Trust Investment Management trends. Julie?

Thank you, Scott. Turning to slide 5 for a look at the trends in our loan portfolios, our total loans increased $12 million from the end of the prior quarter. The increase was driven by growth in our residential mortgage and CRE portfolios, which was partially offset by small declines in our other portfolios. We continue to be conservative and highly selective on our new loan production, focusing primarily on clients that also bring a full relationship inclusive of deposits and investment management to the bank. This resulted in new loan production being about half of what it was in the prior quarter, which, as Scott mentioned earlier, helped us to bring our loan to deposit ratio in line with our year-end target of 100% and much closer to our target historic target of 90% to 95%, which is a key near-term objective for the company and with the discipline we are maintaining in our pricing criteria, the average rate on new production increased 35 basis points from the prior quarter to 8.27% and with 8.43% in the month of December.
Moving to slide 6, we'll take a closer look at our deposit trends. Our total deposits increased by $109 million during the quarter, with increases in both non-interest bearing and interest bearing deposits. We continue to have success in new business development and added $118 million in new deposit relationships during the fourth quarter. Non-interest-bearing deposits increased $6.3 million during the fourth quarter, reversing the trend of clients moving money out of noninterest-bearing accounts into interest-bearing accounts in order to get a higher yield on their excess liquidity. And as Scott mentioned earlier, we made a strategic decision to add some short term, higher-cost deposits, which also contributed to the deposit growth in the quarter, but will be replaced with lower cost funding as market conditions normalize and interest rates decrease.
Turning to interest and investment management on slide 7, we had a $357 million increase in our assets under management in the fourth quarter, primarily due to market performance. We also had a $303 million in inflows from new and existing clients during the quarter. However, this was offset by account closures and withdrawals. The $646 million increase in AUM year over year was achieved in spite of a 10% fee increase we began implementing midyear. Now I'll turn the call over to David for further discussion of our financial results status. David?

Thank you, Julie. Good morning, everyone. Turning to slide 8, we'll look at our gross revenue. Our gross revenue declined 2.7% from the prior quarter, primarily due to an increase in deposit costs that reduced our net interest income. This was the smallest decline that we have seen over these past five quarters as the environmental headwinds have abated.
Turning to slide 9, we'll look at the trends in our net interest income and margin. Our net interest income decreased 2.6% due to a decline in our net interest margin. Our net interest margin decreased 9 basis points to 2.37%, driven by an increase in interest-bearing deposit costs, offset partially by an increase in yields on average earning assets. As Scott indicated, we made a strategic decision to add some short term higher cost deposits to increase our near term liquidity, which negatively impacted NIM in the fourth quarter. As market conditions normalize and interest rates decline, we will replace these deposits with lower cost funding that will be beneficial to our NIM.
Now turning to slide 10. Our noninterest income remained flat compared to the prior quarter. Net gain on mortgage loans was slightly lower, which reflects both the seasonal impact of lower mortgage demand in the fourth quarter as well as the higher rate environment. We had a slight decline in trust and investment management fees compared to the prior quarter. However, fees increased 8% year over year. These declines were partially offset by an increase in risk management and insurance fees, which are seasonally higher in the fourth quarter each year.
Now turning to slide 11 and our expenses. Our noninterest expense was relatively consistent with the prior quarter as we continue to focus on disciplined expense control a decline in our salaries and benefits expense in the fourth quarter, partially driven by the one-time acquisition related compensation expense that was recognized in the prior quarter was offset by small increases in most other line items. It is a challenging environment to forecast in. However, if we generate mid-teens revenue growth in 2024, we expect our noninterest expense to range from $19.5 million to $20.5 million per quarter. If we generate single digits revenue growth in 2024, we expect our non-interest expense to range from $18.5 million to $19.5 million per quarter.
Now turning to slide 12. We'll look at our asset quality on a broad basis. The loan portfolio continues to perform well as we had another quarter of minimal losses. This continues our 10-year history of near 0% credit losses. We had a slight increase in nonperforming loans, which was attributable to two credits placed on nonperforming status. In the quarter, we recorded a provision for credit losses of $3.9 million, which related to the reserve on individually analyzed loans that Scott discussed earlier, as well as reserves established for the two new credits that were placed on nonperforming status. The provision recorded this quarter, combined with the modest level of loan growth increased our level of allowance to adjusted loans by 18 basis points to 1.1% at December 31. Now I will turn it back to Scott. Scott?

Thanks, David. Turning to slide 13, we provided an update on our strong track record of value creation for shareholders. This slide shows our trend in tangible book value per share since our IPO in 2018 and the factors that have contributed to our consistent ability to drive growth in tangible book value per share as we've executed well in the plan that we communicated at the time of our IPO following our fourth quarter performance, we've increased our tangible book value per share by 143% since our IPO, which includes the 56% decrease we had due to the adoption of CECL at the beginning of 2023. And the fourth quarter included negative impact due to the unfavorable shift in AOCI resulting from the cash flow hedge on certain FHLB borrowings we mentioned earlier. We're very proud of this track record of value creation and believe that we're well positioned, continue creating additional value for our shareholders in the future.
Turning to slide 14, I'll wrap up with some comments about our outlook and priorities for 2024. There remains a high degree of uncertainty regarding the economic conditions we'll see in 2024, but we believe we're well positioned to perform well in any economic scenario that emerges this year. Our strong balance sheet and conservative underwriting criteria should enable us to effectively manage through an economic downturn as we have throughout our history.
I'd like to reemphasize the point I made earlier. While we may see an increase in problem loans and nonaccrual loans in an economic downturn. Historically, this has not resulted in a meaningful level of loss due to the strong collateral we require in our underwriting. And we would also expect to continue to have a level of net charge-offs as well below the level experienced by the broader banking industry in a material economic downturn.
Or recession, should the Fed managed to keep us out of recession in effect, a soft landing for the economy. Our business development capabilities and unique value proposition will enable us to take advantage of strengthening economic conditions and an increase in loan demand. At this point, with economic conditions remaining uncertain at the start of the year, we'll continue to prioritize prudent risk management and conservative underwriting criteria, which should result in a modest level of near term loan growth. But we have the ability to be nimble and quickly respond to changing market conditions and should economic conditions improve and loan demand increase, we would expect to see a higher level of loan growth at that point.
As we look to our markets, we believe the competitive environment has become more favorable for us, as many banks have had a pullback from loan production due to capital constraints, funding challenges and or credit concerns, we're able to maintain our disciplined pricing criteria and still add new relationships with fewer banks being as aggressive in pricing and structure in order to win business.
As we see recent quarters, as we've indicated deposit gathering is going to remain a top priority with an increased focus on targeting deposit rich industries like nonprofits and D&O and homeowner associations. We have a good deal of expertise in both of those areas throughout the Company that we're now leveraging to a greater extent to add new clients that are good sources of low-cost deposits. Most importantly, our focus will remain in our core business and our core clients. These type of clients provide good opportunities to expand relationships over time as they typically want and need the various products and services that we provide and they typically result in very low levels of credit losses. This is where we built our franchise on and there are lots of still there's still lots of room to grow by focusing on these types of clients. While 2024 will be a difficult year to forward forecast, we do see a number of catalysts that should contribute to earnings growth this year. Our core revenue sources of loan yields, deposit costs, PTM fees and mortgages has survived the strains of 2023 and seem likely to have upside in 2024. We have good momentum in business development that should lead to continued growth in our client roster and balance sheet. We have a liability sensitive balance sheet and a good deal of deposits indexed to Fed funds. So when we see expansion in our we should see expansion in our net income net interest margins as market conditions normalize in interest rates declining.
We also continue to be disciplined in our expense management while we continue to get the benefit from leverage leveraging past investments in technology, talent and office expansion in the past year or so. We've also made many process improvements throughout the organization that should lead to enhanced efficiencies as we continue to add scale. We believe these catalysts should result in a higher level of earnings this year, even with a modest level of balance sheet growth and as always, will continue to operate the company with a long-term perspective, the strength of the franchise and the balance sheet we've already built. We believe we can continue to capitalize on the attractive markets that we operate in to consistently add new clients realize more operating leverage as we increase scale, generate profitable growth and further enhance the value of our franchise in the future as we grow earnings and create value for shareholders to improve currency we'll have from higher stock price will enable us to execute on additional M&A transactions that we believe will enhance shareholder value. Just as our past transactions have done with us, we're happy to take your questions. So Valerie, go ahead and open up the call, please.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Brett Rabatin, Hovde Group.

Hey, good morning, everyone would address wanted just to start off on on credit and Tom, you talked a little bit about the $3.9 million that you added this quarter was, you know, can you talk a little bit about some more kind of what led to those moving to non-accrual and just anything you're seeing in any particular industries?

You're asking about the credit, you're asking about the credit trends across the platform?

I'm just asking those two loans that I think are $3.9 million. Just what led to those of you unable to?

Yeah, sure. So one was a relatively small commercial loan and the other was a construction loan that has substantial equity in it in the recent valuation collateral showed it was well in excess of the loan. Both of those were downgraded for very specific reasons related to the borrowers. They aren't indicative of broader trends that we're seeing in the portfolio. This is reflective of what we've seen throughout our history, which is you don't sometimes loans go into nonperforming status and they rarely results in a meaningful level of Lawson due to our underwriting standards and our strong collateral and the multiple sources of repayment that we require.

Okay. And then on the the four loans that you moved to non-accrual last quarter that are related for $42 million. You know, how much how much of the $3.9 million provision was specifically related to those? And then any any color on how much of that relationship? I know there's a commercial owner, commercial, owner-occupied commercial real estate loan or residential mortgage. I think a personal line of credit, how much would be, but not powered by real estate.

I think a starting point on that has to be that that relationship is currently the subject of ongoing litigation, which is out in the public realm through the courts. And because of that, we shouldn't provide any additional detail.
I think specifically on the question of the reserve this quarter we put up it was substantially related to that relationship. And we think that the provision that we recorded is prudent and conservative based on everything we know, as of now, we do continue to believe we had them at have adequate collateral. And I mentioned that we've been working on updated appraisals and all the appraisals have held up, including some that have increased significantly to a couple of case.

Okay, yeah. Other litigation lessened somewhat unusual. And then maybe just for clarity on the margin and kind of the pace from here. Are you up reference that you use some shorter term funding sources this quarter, um, can you maybe talk about just how you see the margin progressing in '24. And then just for if the Feds cutting '25, 100 basis points, what rate cuts would mean to the margin as you see it?

Yes, let me take a stab at that, David, and then if you want to jump in and provide more breadth you want more of just asked, but you know, as I look at NAM as a starting point and look for a general kind of trend and a bottoming out, I would tell you our last three months we're apples to apples [250 October, 235 November, 260 December, we were anticipating 233 for January, and that seems to be about where we are 235 in February and 243 in February. And March are kind of our internal forecasts again], who knows, as we talked about several times in our comments overall, the bank is liability-sensitive. We historically have tried to operate with a balanced balance sheet from an Alcoa perspective. But right now, we are significantly liability sensitive. And so, you know, our estimate in the sort of unprecedented conditions that we're in today is a 25 basis point decline would produce something like $1 million annualized and earnings improvement rep revenue and earnings improvement. So those would be kind of the two data points I would point to from what we think we know today that. David?

Yeah, I totally get ahead and start.

Okay. That's really helpful. Yeah, that's really helpful on I've got other questions, but I'll hop back in queue. Thanks so much.

Yeah, thank you.

Operator

Brady Gailey, KBW.

Thanks. Good morning, guys.

Morning, Brady.

One more just on the reserve build, I mean, as you know, taking the reserve up 18 basis points in a quarter is pretty notable. It sounds like that's driven by, you know, ACE a specific reserve on this credit that where litigation is involved. Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay. I know you don't want to talk much about it, just the facts on it, how big it is that loan and what type of loan is that where the litigation is involved?

The relationship which includes a number of loans, is a total of $53 million, and we participated out $11 million of that. So on our books, $42 million.

Okay. And the composition of those loans is what?

The composition of the loans?

Yeah, the other, the several loans that make up the $42 million that's on your balance sheet, are those C&I CRE.

They are commercial loans that are secured with all that real estate collateral that we've talked about in the past.

Okay. All right. And then, Scott, I heard you say you're expecting a modest level of loan growth this year? I mean, should we interpret that low single digit or could it be better than that?

Let me check my crystal ball here, but I can take that you know, for us, we don't think 2023. We're hoping that 2020 was not another 2023. So you know, we have historically found lots of opportunities to grow our types of loans with our types of clients across our 19 offices. And, you know, I think that will be the future for us. I'm not sure if that's plays out entirely in 2024, one of the things we were thinking about in 2023, we hit a 114 basis point loan deposit ratio in October of 2022. And it is really hard to grow loans when you're not sure you know, where your deposit growth is going to come from the support that and so a lot of our thinking in 2023 was let's grow low deposits. I mean back to you'll get our loan-to-deposit ratio down where we have historically run it which is kind of 90% to 95%. And I think what we've talked about on these calls is we would like to get that down to 100% by year end 2023, which we did. So I think we were in a little bit of a chicken-and-egg problem in 2023 where you're saying you're not really going to grow loans if we don't have the deposits to support it in house. And so let's focus on getting deposits in house.
The other side of that, though, in the past I've seen, you know, if you kind of shut off the loan spigot, it's hard to turn it back on. So we've tried to be mindful of that with our relationship bankers and you'll support loan requests for loans that do fit well into our credit approach and our strategy and our type of client and whatnot. So So long way around saying we're planning on kind of mid single digit loan growth in 2024 because we don't know and you know for us that drives a guesstimate of mid teen revenue growth and if we can do what David was saying in terms of managing our operating expenses, which is if we grow mid-teen revenue growth, then maybe $20 million or so in operating expenses per quarter, if we did, you know, mid single digit revenue growth, maybe $19 million a quarter in operating expense. I mean, that's kind of how we're thinking about it, Brady and I know that's not a very satisfying answer, but that's I think the best you can do given the environment we're in now.

I understand. That's very helpful. Thank you, guys.

Operator

Adam Butler, Piper Sandler.

Hey, good morning, everybody. This is Adam on for Matthew Clark. If I could just touch touch on the deposit side. First, you guys had nice deposit growth during the quarter and looks like the majority of it was based on time deposit growth. I was just curious if you could touch on the nature of that growth and the maturity of those deposits and what you put them on it?

Yes, Adam, just before we address it as there's one more point, I'd like to make about Brady's question, which I think was obvious, but in case it was. And I would just I'll follow through and make the point. I think that the more important measure for me of all those things I said is what is the run rate EPS and what's happening there? And I think our core EPS run rate would improve and significantly with those conditions I described the 15%-ish revenue growth and the expense growth we talked about and gets us by the end of the year into a earnings position well above where we were in '22 and '23 on a run-rate basis. I just think that's an important conclusion Brady of what you specifically asked about. So I'm sorry to take a detour there, Adam, but but let's go to your question about and deposits. And I think that the increase that we put on in deposit fourth quarter, some of them were non-interest bearing. We actually grew DDAs, I think, for the first time in a year. So that felt good of the CDs, I think we added about $49 million in three-month deposits, $45 million in six-month deposits, and $7 million in nine-month deposits during Q4. So those would roll over grocery are going to roll off over the course of the year and give us the opportunity to reprice those as we talked about, either because rates are falling, interest markets are normalizing and we talked about that several times in our comments because historically we have been able to grow core deposits with clients pretty effectively, for example, as we've tripled the balance sheet since our IPO. And I just think that 2023 was this abnormal environment that I don't think it's going to continue forever may continue some into 2024, but I don't think it's going to continue forever. So I do expect we'll have the opportunity to repay and refinance those higher-cost deposits as they roll off in '24.

Okay. I appreciate the color there. And I failed to mention the increase in and bearing. But I was I was getting there was it was nice to see that, too. And I was just going just looking at overall deposit flows, given your guide for potentially mid-single-digit loan growth that you thinking kind of the same in deposit growth and keeping that loan to deposit near that 100% range or has that guidance changed on your end? Thanks.

No, I think we would like to see it trend over time back to our historic numbers in the low to mid 90s. That's where we feel comfortable. I would tell you another data point that helps the argument are, you know, our hope that we've bottomed out on NIM is our spot rate for deposits. Yeah, 3.31% was a December 31, I mean, was of 3.31%. So we're seeing that increase of moderate as we go through the fourth quarter.

Yeah, great. That's great to see. those were those are my questions. I appreciate the time. Thanks.

Good. Yeah, thank you, Adam.

Operator

Bill Dezellem, Tieton Capital Management.

Thank you. So two questions. First of all, relative to a comment that you made in the press release, are you seeing an increase in loan demand now or since there was a press release simply trying to relay that you are ready and when that does happen?

Yes, I'm not sure, Bill. I think our loan demand definitely came down from our type of borrowers when rates spiked and I think people have come back some. And so in that sense, it's probably improved. Our pipelines at the end of Q4 are actually down from the end of Q3. But I think some of that is this kind of pressure we put on our relationship bankers to focus on deposits over straight up loans. I also think that, um, we saw, let's say, a year ago and probably six months ago banks doing kind of unreasonable loan terms and rates. And I would say we see a lot less of that now, although in January, we have heard a couple of anecdotes about your kind of pricing that we would never do. And I assume that some of these banks that are looking to grow in our markets that are assuming that we're going to see big Fed rate cuts and rates come down and that they're lower loan pricing. That makes sense but you have this is there a number of dynamics in place there.
My underlying conclusion from all of that is we have tiny market share in all of our markets and we're in a lot of really attractive growth markets. And so I think to the extent we want to grow loans, we're going to be able to grow loans. And I think some number in the mid single digits. You know, it seems very achievable to me for this year.

Okay. That's helpful. And maybe you may have just answered my follow-up question. You had is, as you think about running the bank and that you probably have seen your loan pipeline decrease really because of the directive or initiatives that you had in place to focus on deposits. Does that lead you to change anything in terms of of the direction that you're asking bankers to go? Or are you still in the same holding pattern than maybe you would have been last quarter?

No, I felt like we were in a little bit of a chicken-and-egg problem in Q3 where you know, we're telling our bankers to focus on relationships that bring deposits and loans, but don't lead with loans. And frankly, a lot of times the ratio, if you want, you do lead with loans and you bring deposits with it. And so by getting our loan-deposit ratio down to 100, I feel like that frees us up out of the chicken-and-egg problem if we can go out and focus on the kind of relationships that we want. I would tell you also though, I feel like and this second half of the year '23 gave us an opportunity to really talk to our people about our type of client and focusing on those kind of people that we can really do a range of services for I mean, I was in a new business call last week where we met with this couple that had a business in. And now if they're just going to benefit from all the different things we do and if you look at our top 10 clients in any office, it's the same story in every one of them where they have six or eight or 10 products with us and so I think just really helping our people focus on our type of client with our types of credits and our types of relationships that include, you know, deposits, loan, treasury management, risk management planning, trust, investment management, succession planning, all that kind of stuff. And that's what we're really good at. And that's, I think where we've had the operating refocus people and I think that will benefit us in 2024. I think that that will be a good thing for us.

Great. Thank you, Scott, and I am going to ask one question relative to the larger borrower that that went bad last in the Q3, you mentioned that you put a provision in place on some of those loans. So my question is if you were to have more success, say if you took a took a loan over and sold it at a premium, that would also apply to the offset these other loans that you may come in a bit under. Is that correct? Or is there again and I guess secondarily, is there any cross and reciprocity between the loans as collateral that that comes into play that that could make your reserving or provisioning conservative that way?

Yeah. You know what the litigation I want to be really careful what we say here. But if the question is are the loans, Clark cross-collateralized, the answer to that is yes.

Great. I'll leave it at that and keep it easy for you. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Bill.

Operator

Brett Rabatin, Hovde Group.

Hey, just a couple of follow-ups. I guess first, if I hear correct on the on the expenses, if you have mid-teen revenue growth guidance is $19.5 million to $20.5 million and if it's single digits and it's $18.5 million to $19.5 million on a quarterly pace, that was that were those the right numbers, correct?

Correct, yeah.

Okay. And does that kind of mean that the difference would be kind of the bonus or incentive comp folks we get for hitting certain targets or what the can you talk maybe a little bit more about that differentiation.

The vast majority of it is incentive comp accrual related, yeah.

Okay. And then, Scott, as I think about mortgage, you know, obviously it's tough to know what rates do, but it feels like people are getting more used to higher mortgage rates. And so I was just thinking about the mortgage production from here and potential revenue in '24. I know it's I know it's tough to predict, but no, I would assume that we'd see a meaningful pickup in activity and income related to that as we get into the second quarter. Is that fair or do you see kind of the challenges remaining for production and overall revenue for that piece of the business?

We come in every morning and I hope for an uptick and you know, it's targeted for December and January, which are slow months, but you want to address that Julie?

Yeah, like I kind of stay where hoping for an upturn for planning for an uptick, but it will continue to be challenging regardless in addition to the rate environment that the supply is still kind of low in our core markets as well, we're working very hard to find new production avenues. So no new MLOs. We've been adding those over the course of the last couple of quarters, have some good ones in the pipeline. That's another way we're looking at or the major way we're looking at increasing our production. But I think the per se, it could be a bit of a challenge for the next several months and then are hoping for seasonality coming into the spring and summer months as well as a rate environment, improvement in consumer sentiment, frankly, and changing a little bit to give us a little bit of a base into the summer and fall months.

Yeah, we're seeing house prices flat to coming down in our higher end markets, and we're seeing you have the time on market extend. So all that stuff sounds like late cycle recovery potential in Europe, we see rates come down and of course, you know, mortgage rates are generally tied more to the bond values that we've seen over the last six months and Fed funds. So you could imagine a better year this year for mortgages than what we saw last year, which was pretty hideous.

And then I would tell you we continue to rationalize expenses in that area as much as possible and home share resources and to the things that we can do to keep managing expenses as we've learned from other people out to other areas that sort of thing, but trying to cut our production capability.

Okay. And maybe just one last one in your prepared commentary, Scott, you talked about M&A and I guess I was I am a little surprised just kind of given where the stock is it would seem like that the maybe tougher Act, I kind of thought you might talk more about maybe share repurchases and M&A, but any additional color around M&A? And just are you having discussions with folks, what would what do you think is the outlook for you guys from an M&A perspective? I know you've been acquisitive in the past.

Yeah. So you know, what works well for us is core shifts that lead to partnerships. And so the fact that our stock is at 80% or so of tangible book value. I mean, we don't believe that it makes sense. And that's not really where it's going to be with the $33, 1.5 years ago. So I do think if we can show demonstrate some of the things we've been talking about on this call today that there is some upside there. And then yes, the core chips are proceeding that would give us the currency that we would want to do an M&A. But we're not we're always looking and we're opportunistic. We're working on relationships, but we're going to be conservative and disciplined Your comment is absolutely right. We're not going to do anything with our stock at 18. I don't think and nine or 17 or is now up and doesn't mean we shouldn't keep working on it.

Okay. Fair enough. Appreciate all the color. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to Scott Wylie for any closing remarks.

Yeah. Thank you again, Valerie. I'd just like to wrap up with some overall comments from our conversation today. Our focus on client relationships got us through 2023 with positive earnings with deposit growth, loan growth increased tangible book value per share. In spite of the seasonal negative impact on tangible book value, we reduced our operating expenses, we reduced our loan to deposit ratio from a peak of 114% down to in 2022, down to just over 100% at year end. Our NIM appears to have bottomed out. Our AUM showed some nice growth. Our capital ratios improved and our increased NPLs should work out in 2024 as we continued our 40 quarter streak of essentially 0% charge offs last year. 2023 behind us and entering our 20th year in 2024. Here we opened the doors, yes, March 17 of from 2004. And we're cautiously optimistic about our ability to grow revenues and therefore, earnings nicely in 2024 and beyond. We have feel that relatively modest asset growth with improved margins and improved fees can once again deliver the kind of strong operating leverage that we've seen since our 2018 IPO. I really appreciate everybody taking the time to dial in and speak with us this morning. We sure appreciate the support for First Western. Have a great day.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.