Ameris Bancorp (NASDAQ:ABCB) Q3 2019 Earnings Conference Call - Final Transcript

Good morning and welcome to the Ameris Bancorp Third Quarter 2019 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Nicole Stokes, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Ally. And thank you to all who have joined our call today. During the call, we will be referencing the press release and the financial highlights that are available on the Investor Relations section of our website at amerisbank.com. I'm joined today by Palmer Proctor, our CEO and Jon Edwards, our Chief Credit Officer. Palmer will begin with some opening general comments and then I will discuss the details of our financial results. Before we open up for Q&A.

Before we begin, I'll remind you that our comments may include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. The actual results could vary materially. We list some of the factors that might cause results to differ in our press release and in our SEC filings which are available on our website. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, early developments or otherwise, except as required by law.

Also during the call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures in reference to the Company's performance. You can see our reconciliation of these measures and GAAP financial measures in the appendix of our presentation.

And with that, I will turn it over to Palmer for opening comments.

Thank you, Nicole, and good morning to everyone who's joined our call today. I wanted to share a few highlights about the quarter and why we're excited about the rest of 2019. And then the opportunities we see coming into 2020.

For the quarter, we earned $68.5 million or $0.98 per diluted share on an adjusted basis. Which is up over 8% compared to the third quarter of last year. This represents a 1.57% return on average assets and 18.95% return on tangible equity.

Our efficiency ratio increased to just over 57%, which was expected as the cost saves from the Fidelity acquisition aren't fully realized yet, and we're still running two core systems until November of this year with the conversion.

For the year-to-date period. We earned $156.3 million or $2.85 per diluted share on an adjusted basis which is actually up 19% over 2018 results and this represents a year-to-date, return on assets of 1.55%, 7% [Phonetic] improvement from the same period last year.

We've been very pleased with our organic growth on both the loan and the deposit side. Our loan to deposit ratio has been very stable at 94% and if you exclude the Fidelity acquisition, our loans actually grew over $283 million or almost 13% annualized during the third quarter alone. So that leaves our year to date annualized loan growth at 13.75% for the year and our annualized non-interest bearing deposit growth at 13.58% for the year, which is pretty impressive.

Our loan production in the Banking segment was up 151%