West Bancorporation, Inc. (NASDAQ:WTBA) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
West Bancorporation, Inc. (NASDAQ:WTBA) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript October 26, 2023
West Bancorporation, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.35, expectations were $0.31.
Operator: Hello. My name is Chris and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the West Bancorporation, Inc. Q3 Earnings Call. 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. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Jane Funk, Chief Financial Officer, you may begin.
Jane Funk: All right, thank you. We just want to welcome everybody today to our earnings call and thank you for your interest in our company. I'm Jane Funk, the CFO. I have with me Dave Nelson, our CEO; Harlee Olafson, Chief Risk Officer; Brad Winterbottom, our Bank President; and Brad Peters, our Minnesota Group President. During today's conference call, we may make projections or other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding future events or future financial performance of the Company. We caution that such statements are predictions and that actual results may differ materially. Please see the forward-looking statement disclosures in our 2023 third quarter earnings release for more information about risks and uncertainties which may affect us.
The information we will provide today is accurate as of September 30, 2023, and we undertake no duty to update the information. And now I'll turn it over to Dave Nelson our CEO.
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David Nelson: Thank you, Jane and welcome everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We appreciate your interest in our Company. Our third quarter went as we expected and you'll hear more from us about our credit quality, our growth and our margin. Our credit quality remained incredibly strong with essentially no problem loans nor even any past due loans. In terms of growth, the Fed action appears to be working in terms of reducing demand for loan growth, but the communities we serve are doing fine. Year-to-date loan growth is about 4% and we have a good loan and deposit pipeline. Our situation on margin is similar to others. We have been paying up on deposits and perhaps we are now at or near the peak. During 2020 and 2021 when our industry was flooded with liquidity from the federal deficit spending, we used that liquidity to make loans and investments mostly based upon a five-year duration.
Therefore, these assets will reprice to prevailing market rates during 2025 and 2026. We expect our temporary margin compression to continue into 2024 and improve with increasing velocity during 2025 and 2026. We have declared a dividend of $0.25 per share with the payment date of November 22, to shareholders of record as of November 8. I will now turn the call over to our Chief Risk Officer, Mr. Harlee Olafson for his comments.
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