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Primis Financial Corp. delivered strong Q1 2026 results, with operating earnings per share rising 126% year-over-year to $0.33. The company’s net interest margin expanded to 3.43%, fueled by a strategic securities restructure and loan repricing. Loan growth was robust at 11.7%, driven by the Panacea and Mortgage Warehouse segments, the latter of which management expects to double in size over the next 12-18 months. Retail mortgage income also saw a significant boost, more than doubling its pretax contribution compared to the previous year. A key highlight was the company’s operating leverage, as core revenue grew by 34% against a mere 4% increase in operating expenses. Primis is aggressively implementing AI and digital core technologies to drive future efficiencies and maintain this leverage. Deposit growth was healthy at 8%, with a 19% surge in non-interest-bearing checking accounts, reducing reliance on high-cost funding. Despite some office real estate exposure, credit metrics remain strong with net charge-offs at 6 basis points. Management is targeting a 1% ROA by the end of 2026, supported by continued scaling of its high-performing mortgage and specialty lending verticals.

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Full Earnings Call Transcript — Q1 • 2026-04-24

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Colby, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome you to the Primis Financial Corp. First Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to Matthew Switzer. You may begin.
Matthew Switzer: Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Primis Financial Corp.'s 2026 First Quarter Webcast and Conference Call. Before we begin, please note that many of our comments during the call will be forward-looking statements, which involve risk and uncertainty. There are many factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results or other expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements. Further discussion of the company's risk factors and other important information regarding our forward-looking statements are part of our recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including our recently filed earnings release, which has also been posted to the Investor Relations section of our corporate site, primisbank.com. We undertake no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect changes in assumptions, the occurrence of unanticipated events or changes to future operating results over time. In addition, some of the financial measures that we may discuss this morning are non-GAAP financial measures. Our non-GAAP measure, relates to the most comparable GAAP measure, will be discussed when the non-GAAP measure is used [indiscernible] readily apparent. I will now turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Dennis Zember.
Dennis Zember: Thank you, Matt. Thank you for all of you that have joined our first quarter conference call. We're excited to report that in the first quarter, we earned $7.3 million or $0.30 per share which compares to $22.6 million and $0.92 per share in the same quarter of '25. And as I'm reading that, excited to report earnings shrinking that much. The fact of the matter is, on an operating basis, we earned $0.33 per share in the first quarter, which excluded a small tax adjustment related to 2025 results. And when you compare that to second quarter a year ago, it's up 126% operating earnings, where we reported $0.14 in the same quarter of '25. And Matt may mention this, but the first quarter of '25 included a substantial gain on the deconsolidation of Panacea, which is what I'm excluding. Our key operating ratio has obviously improved alongside that earnings number  I just gave you. On an operating basis, our ROA improved to 84 basis points compared to 40 basis points in the same quarter of '25. Driving that were a couple of items: margin, mostly; and as well as operating expense control. On net interest margin, our net interest margin benefited from the securities restructure as well as the mix of earning assets and climbed to 3.43% in the first quarter compared to $3.15 in the same quarter of '25. We continue to put up nice growth numbers that are manageable, but really distinguish us amongst our peer group. Loans ended at $3.4 billion, up 11.7% compared to the same quarter in '25. That excludes about $40 million or so that [indiscernible] that we moved into loans held for sale, related to a flow agreement with Panacea. So really, our growth was probably stronger than this. Deposit growth over the same period is really what you should look at. That came in at just better than 8% with very little of that from the digital platform, which is pretty steady state, at about $1 billion. The growth in checking accounts in our company was even more notable, with noninterest-bearing checking accounts growing to $541 million, which is almost 19% higher than where we were in '25. Checking accounts continue to be a more meaningful element of our deposit mix and were 15.9% of total deposits compared to just [ 14.2% ] in the first quarter '25. It's very important to note that weaker deposits in this strong fashion and never once felt pressured in our 4 bank or on our digital platform, to be more aggressive on rate. We're doing it with technology, with service, with people, with getting in front of us, focusing on commercial deposits and had real success. All of the energy and momentum on our fund sheet really starts at our core banking. There has never been a time since I came to Primis that our core bank has had this opportunity on both sides of the balance sheet. Honestly, we're winning business that several years ago, we just wouldn't have been in the running for or maybe even had a conversation about. Virtually nothing that we're doing to win this business has to do with rates or fees. We're leaning hard into our technology, our service, our people, our existing customers who are turning out to be amazing centers of influence for us. For so long, it felt like all we were doing here is working on our factory and stuff in the factory. But today's stuff is rolling off, that [indiscernible] line faster and faster. I'm very encouraged by what our people are accomplishing. Primis' warehouse has fully replaced life premium finance at this point , has been some well received in the marketplace. We finished the quarter with about $460 million outstanding. For a few days in the quarter, at the near the end of March, we credited $0.5 billion outstanding. This is before any [indiscernible], is before the busy [indiscernible] for retail mortgage. Importantly, warehouse is still producing important impressive yields and margins, efficiency ratios in the [ 20s ], the amount of scale and impact on our overall operating ratio in this business, it's not really something that's been fully banked or recognized in our current numbers. That's really -- they've been just scaling the business so quickly over the past year. But as we -- I believe we could probably double this business in the next 12 to 18 months. And I believe the incremental impact from that [indiscernible] is going to be very meaningful. Retail Mortgage had an absolute blowout for. [indiscernible] it was impacted by some Middle East activities and an impact on rates and fair value adjustments. And that's true. We might have reported $0.5 billion, looking at $0.5 billion more at that. But [indiscernible] pretax income in the Mortgage grew to $2.1 million in the first quarter compared to $766,000 same quarter a year ago. In the quarter, our earnings [indiscernible] up to 57 basis points on closed volume compared 46 in the same period a year ago. So on a profitability basis, we're up maybe 19%, 20% -- a little better than 20% on closed volume. Our recruiting pipeline has never been as strong, and we're consistently we double each month [indiscernible] flow volume, new files. So we have real [indiscernible] very positive about what the second half of the year would look like. Right now, we believe Primis Mortgage is on track to be a top 50 mortgage company nationwide in '26. And lastly, before I turn it over to Matt, I want to emphasize what's really proven [indiscernible] for us and our desire to build this into a top-performing bank. In our day-to-day here, we are [indiscernible] on growing checking accounts, like I mentioned earlier, to about 20% of total deposits. Secondly, we're determined to drive massive amounts of operating leverage from our consistent, reliable balance sheet growth [indiscernible] to decreasing OpEx. And I know I've been saying this for several quarters. And so as the quarter ended, I was pretty delighted, start playing with the numbers and see what I'm about to tell you here. If you look at the last year, first quarter of '25 from -- first quarter '25, all the way back to the first quarter of '24, we were reporting growth in core revenue of about $45 million -- excuse me, we were reporting core revenue of about $45.6 million, which is higher by 33.7%, call it, 34% over a year ago. Reported operating expenses straight off of [indiscernible] income statement, no adjustments, came in at $33.8 million, which is only 4% higher than the same time a year ago. That's 34% growth in revenue, only a 4% growth in OpEx. I had in my comments that [indiscernible] that we could do that for a couple of more years. But I refrain with Primis, so I tick that out. But this is an extraordinary level of operating leverage and really the driver of our results. Nobody approve things we've done in this area and that revenue may not be outpacing OpEx going forward. We had several strategy, of course, to continue getting this result. And one of those is AI. And I don't want to steal Matt's comment or his hard work on this. I know he's going to comment further on this. But any [indiscernible] is the same kind of opportunity and catalyst that you would expect me to report if we were doing M&A transactions. We already have all the tools we need for this. We expect hardly no additional investments except short, but -- except the deep training that we're going to give our staff to be effective with this. And we believe that in the year, we are going to be the undisputed leader amongst banks under $10 billion, using AI to drive operating results [indiscernible] sales efficiency, customer satisfaction experience and, importantly, fraud prevention. When you combine that with our work towards converting our core bank to a fully digital core, we are on the edge of being a uniquely positioned bank with technology that has figured out how to keep our [indiscernible]. With that, Matt, I'll turn it over to you.
Matthew Switzer: Thank you, Dennis. As a reminder, a discussion of our financial results can be found in our press release and investor presentation, located on our website and in our 8-K filed with the SEC. Beginning with the balance sheet. Gross loans held for investment increased approximately 14% annualized from December 31 to March 31, led by growth in Panacea and Mortgage Warehouse. Average earning assets increased 6% annualized in the first quarter, with a slower growth rate versus period end growth due to the ramp in mortgage route later in the period. Average deposits were up 4% annualized in the quarter, while average noninterest-bearing deposits were up 7% from year-end. Net interest income was approximately $32 million, a substantial improvement from $26 million a year ago. Our net interest margin in the first quarter was 3.43%, up from [ 3.2% ] last quarter and 3.15% in the year ago period. And we have expectations for further margin expansion as we progress through 2026. We completed a reduction of $27 million of subordinated debt at the end of January, so that was only partially reflected in the quarter. We also have approximately $400 million of loans repricing in the second half of 2026 and early '27 with a weighted average yield of 4.81% that will add to loan yields. [indiscernible] core bank hosted posits remains very active at 159 basis points for the quarter, flat from the fourth quarter. Cost of total deposits was 223 basis points in Q1, down 3 basis points each quarter. Our focus on growing NIB deposits is a key part of our strategy to continue driving funding costs lower. Our provision this quarter was $1.5 million, partially driven by growth in the loan portfolio described above. Approximately $0.7 million of the provision was due to specific reserving on impaired loans, while another $0.4 million on the activities in the consumer portfolio. Core net charge-offs remained low at 6 basis points in the first quarter of 2026. Noninterest income was $13.6 million in the quarter versus $12.8 million in the fourth quarter after adjusting for the sale-leaseback gain, investment portfolio restructuring and Panacea loan pool sale in the fourth quarter. Mortgage revenue was solid in Q1 at $10.8 million versus $10 million in the fourth quarter and would have been even better in the first quarter, if not for the impact of market volatility late in the quarter. Year-over-year, Retail Mortgage production was 122% higher in the first quarter of '26 versus the first quarter of '25, showing strong momentum as we head into the busy homebuying season. Also included in that production was $26 million of attractive construction to permanent loans in the first quarter, up from $4 million in the first quarter last year. On the expense side, when you exclude Mortgage and Primis division volatility and nonrecurring items, our core expenses were $22 million in the first quarter versus $20.8 million a year ago. Absent the increased occupancy expense from our recent sale leaseback transaction, core expenses on this basis would have actually been down year-over-year. We've been focused on controlling expenses to maximize operating leverage and feel like we are in a good spot on that front so far in 2026. I would also like to take a moment to briefly touch on how we are thinking about AI. As mentioned in the earnings release, we have canvassed the bank looking for opportunities to deploy AI tools to reduce repetitive and time-consuming tasks and generate efficiencies. Our first pass has identified hundreds of hours of opportunity and there is almost certainly more that can be found as we start tackling these projects. We view this as a key part of our strategy to keep expense growth to a minimum, while maximizing operating leverage. Equally as excited from where I sit, our in-house talent in this area, combined with the robust tools built into our existing products such as Microsoft CoPilot should allow us to get the vast majority of efficiencies without expensive consultants. In summary, we are excited to report a solid first quarter in line with our expectations and believe we are still on track to hit our profitability goal in '26. With that, operator, we can now open the line for Q&A.
Operator: [Operator Instructions]  And your first question comes from Woody Lay with KBW.
Wood Lay: Wanted to start on Mortgage. And as you mentioned, it was a blowout quarter in what's typically a seasonally weaker quarter. We're now entering the stronger quarters ahead. What are your expectations for production in the near term? And then also in the Mortgage expenses, was there additional hiring that was done in 1Q '26 or elevated legal expenses, anything that sort of prop that up?
Matthew Switzer: Nothing unusual on the expense side.
Dennis Zember: I think what -- I think we probably -- I think maybe when you came into the year thinking we might have -- we closed $1.2 billion last year. but had a lot of momentum in the fourth quarter. I thought we'd probably have like a $1.6 billion, $1.7 billion mortgage company. And then through the first quarter, felt like it was a little higher, maybe $1.8 billion, maybe even $2 billion. But we -- I feel like we're probably still maybe around [ 100 ]. I mean we're going to -- April is very strong sort of reflecting what we thought. I think for the -- I said we're probably still somewhere in the $1.8 billion range on close volume. And I think what was important is as we've been growing, what's important is like we were at 46 basis points a year ago. We're at 57 basis points now on closed volume. What's impacting that is obviously a lot more scale on the fixed expenses as we get closer to $2 billion. A lot more focus on Matt mentioned construction [indiscernible]. We have a base construction term focus here that's honestly very centered on government for getting higher yields there. And really, we've been building that for the last year. These are probably 6 to 9 months.deals, and so that's starting to flow. So what's important, I think, is that we think we're going to do [ $1.8 ] billion or so this year as things look right now and maybe trend somewhere closer to probably a touch over 60 basis points. We -- the Middle East event probably hit us for a few basis points, 5 or 6 basis points, on profitability. So we might have been overseas had we not had a fair value [indiscernible]. That's going to happen in Mortgage, [indiscernible]
Wood Lay: Yes. That's helpful color. And then maybe shifting over to the net interest margin outlook, Matt, you noted some of the loan repricing tailwinds through the remainder of the year, growth is expected to remain strong. You're going to have to fund that growth. Do you think you can continue to post strong growth and see margin expansion? Or will it be -- are we looking more at flat margin with the incremental growth?
Matthew Switzer: I think we'll see a little bit more margin expansion because of the debt payoff, I mentioned, and we also had a little bit of a drag in the margin quarter from moving those loans to held for sale. We reversed some deferred costs that ran through the margin. It was only like 1  basis point. So we'll see some march expansion next quarter and a little -- and then probably inch up from there. I mean I would not expect margin to hit 3.6%. But would we hit high 3.4s to 3.5% as we go through the year, most likely.
Wood Lay: Got it. And then maybe just last for me on the credit. I appreciate the comments on pay downs of those 90-day past due on past -- subsequent to quarter end. But just on some of those larger relationships that are still on NPA, any update on those and when we could see possible resolution?
Dennis Zember: [indiscernible], you asked that, Matt, looks trade like you answer that one. I mean there's 2 bills real estate -- commercial real estate deals office. And  both had pretty good quarters on new leases. So I mean -- I think it's trending positive there. I think the -- 2 things are trending positive. One, there is more leasing activity. Sales cycle on new leases in an office part like this is longer than we want it to be, but still, the fact that they're talking to a lot of folks and that there's pathway is positive. The second is cap rates are improving, and they're not falling like we'd like them to, but they are improving. And so I think [indiscernible] goes by, we're a little safer on their current. So they're not -- these are not -- I mean it could change any time. But right now, they're things are trending more positive there. Does that answer your question?
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Russell Gunther with Stephens. Inc.
Russell Elliott Gunther: I wanted to start -- maybe just a quick follow-up on the margin commentary. I appreciate the directional guide, but maybe some of the underpinning assumptions. It would be helpful to get a sense for kind of where new commercial loan origination yields are today? And then, Matt, within the guide, how are you thinking about deposit costs for years? Is there room to move those lower? Or is there kind of a flat to upward bias within your margin expectations? .
Matthew Switzer: I'll start with the last piece. I think on the deposit side, it's probably flat, up or down a couple of basis points, but not -- I don't expect any substantial moves in the cost deposits in the near term. On the production side, we're -- in the core bank, probably [indiscernible]
Dennis Zember: Yes, we're probably regularly 5 years. And we're still probably all in, we're probably close to 5-year [ 275]. [indiscernible] Mortgage warehouses probably with phase is probably 1 month so for plus [ 315 ], [ 320]. Panacea is outstanding. I mean they are -- I mean they really -- I mean, the niche that they've established for themselves, their marketing, their profile, the opportunity to do business with them is reflected in the pricing, I think the rates they're getting on their production is exceptional to. They're probably 5-year treasury plus [indiscernible] on that kind of credit. On funding, Matt and I regularly debate this. I mean we could -- across the bank right now, I feel like we could probably take digital down 25 or 30 basis points, probably not lose that much. We can probably take the core bank down 5 or 10, it's already very low. But there some savings that we could get on the deposit side. The problem is it puts us in a place where we're not very strong on the on the growth side. And again, we're not leaning into rate on digital or anything else, but we also don't want to not be competitive. And right now, when we're looking at Panacea, Panacea could do $200 million for us this year. Warehouse could grow $300 million, $400 million. The core bank is the best [indiscernible]. That could be a couple of hundred million. We just don't want to get in a position -- I mean we don't want to go hardest 30 basis points of deposit cost and then just rely on home loan bank advances. That's -- we don't want to be that bank.
Russell Elliott Gunther: I appreciate the color there. And Dennis, kind of took my next question in terms of how that loan growth shake out from a vertical perspective. So I appreciate that. Maybe I would then switch gears to the expense front. How are you guys thinking about directionally the overall expense base inclusive if we could, of the kind of mortgage banking vertical as well?
Matthew Switzer: Inclusive of -- that was kind of hard to split out unfortunately because it's so tied to volume. I mean -- as you know, it's going to be an almost direct percentage of whatever their bill volumes going to be in the next quarter. I mean, I like to think of Mortgages net noninterest income and noninterest expense for the year. Now that doesn't include like spread income, which we also included our profitability. I mean, it's probably going to net us $5 million or $6 million for the year, so you can kind of back in to take your whatever -- your assumption is in noninterest [indiscernible] number mortgage and kind of back into expense from there? . Otherwise, when we kind of and then past volatility to it as well. So we're really focused on that more expense number, which is around $22 million. I think I think we'll stay in that kind of $22 million to $23 million range for the year.
Russell Elliott Gunther: Okay. Understood. I appreciate it, Matt. And then just last one for me guys, would be an update on your kind of ROA glide path, like you mentioned in your remarks, I would expect to hit your targets, which I think are 1% ROA by the end of the year. What aspirations do you guys have from there and sort of a time line to achieve?
Matthew Switzer: [indiscernible] do something.
Dennis Zember: No, please. move the gold again. I can take . [indiscernible].
Russell Elliott Gunther: I understand. Yes, I get that.
Dennis Zember: Yes. I mean -- I mean 1% is a good [indiscernible] we've not consistently been there, but 1% is not going to I mean, given our growth rate, that problem -- our growth rates and our dividends, that will probably keep the bank capital levels flat. But I mean we want to build book, we want to build capital ratios. We want to position ourselves to be strategic. And so we've got to be higher than that. I think mortgage at scale, I've said it's 57 basis points. Mortgage at scale probably is another 20% higher than that. That's going to be a big deal in the ROA. That's probably another 10 basis points for the ROA. Warehouse is probably going to add another 10 basis points once it gets to scale. The AI thing that Matt is working on and our rest of our bank, I mean, over time, I mean we're not looking at that if  [indiscernible] is something that's going to reduce headcount. What it's going to do is take the experts we have and just make them be able to manage twice as much. And that's we can magnify that when we have growth rates like we have. We know -- I know I'm going to need these staff is, these staff return. I mean admirationally, we are be given these lines of business, on top of our core bank, we ought to be [ 125 ] or better and probably looking at more ROTCE to be something that we get there 15%. I think your 15% ROTCE, you kind of can control your feature. People don't like your stock and you can just buy it back. If they do like your stock, then you can do other strategic things. But really, until you get to that point, you're -- all you do is working to get to that point. [indiscernible].
Matthew Switzer: That's good.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Christopher Marinac with Brean Capital Research.
Christopher Marinac: Dennis, the last couple of days, banks have talked about the competitiveness of digital deposits being more expensive than the brokered funds. And I'm curious what you think about that. It seems that you're in a much better place. You've been doing the digital banking much longer. And I'm just curious kind of how you look at that? And is that digital area going to grow less as a result of the rate environment?
Dennis Zember: [indiscernible] you asked that question. I remember speaking on a panel somewhere, and I was talking about how we had these 25,000 or 30,000 digital customers all across the country. That have never been in the branch, probably never seen one of our bankers do. And I was talking about how that we sometimes produce their social media or we -- we communicated with them, we find out that they have a dog of [indiscernible]. And we will do things that are very community bankers. We will send up some slag a dog collar band, or we'll reach out to when we're in -- I've gone to see customers when I'm in [indiscernible]. I found additional customers was out there and went and had breakfast with them. The reason that -- I'm not going to sit here and say that these deposits are more expensive. Honestly, they should be. We have 25,000 or more digital customers that were banking with 6 people. So they should be more comfortable -- I mean more expensive. There are very little cost associated with it. But we have separated them from being just straight rate driven by being community bankers. The same thing that we do in bank to make our customers not be solidly right focused. We're doing that on the digital platform. I'm not going to sit here and say that we're the only people that are doing that, but I will tell you that we're probably more effective at that than our competition. And we've been doing that for now for 3 years since we've got the real big slug of deposits in here. Our average digital customer has -- average digital customer is probably down 150 basis points from where their peak was. The average digital customer has been here probably more than 30 months, closer to 36. Their average age is over 50. Average deposits probably appreciate $30,000, $40,000. They have the cell phone numbers of the fingers that work them. Everybody has talked to a banker. I mean it's just things like that, that have separated these customers from being solely rate-focused. Now I would tell you, in the core, the core base cost of deposits is probably $180 million $175 million -- $159 million. I mean, the digital is sitting there at like $375 million or so. Like I said, we could probably push that down 25% or 30%. So let's just say we could get them to [ 3.5 ]. So yes, it's obviously more expensive. But it's growing at that level. And yes, I don't know, I don't want to ramble about it. But I'm very proud. I'm very proud of how our bankers pushed a community bank attitude and approach on to these 25,000 customers, and that's paid off. Chris outside very long and ratable answer.
Christopher Marinac: That is okay. My other question just goes back to the mortgage business. As you continue to thrive in mortgage, both in terms of production and gains plus the mortgage warehouse, -- is there a natural cap that will happen to how much of that business you want for the whole company? Will the bank just grow or route and kind of naturally cap how much mortgage will be down the road?
Dennis Zember: See, that's the kind of thing you don't worry about when you're starting. Matt and I check all the time that we are claim to fame is that we find problems and we face some set they create new problems. I mean mortgage really should not be. We don't want to be a mortgage company here. We want to run an amazing mortgage company, but we don't want to be a mortgage company. It really probably should be more than 20% of our bottom line. No question about it. I mean, some of it is we have a dynamic team in mortgage and autonomy leader. And we have that for the core bank as well, too, in [indiscernible], but I mean the core bank, we're a little we don't -- we're still not fascinating with CRE. We're doing it, but that's not our hallmark. We're in some nongrowth, really fast growth areas in the core bank. So over time, where we've got to find a way probably to grow the core bank faster so that Mortgage, Warehouse, Panacea, all of those stay as tape to the bank and not the whole story. I mean we're not -- we don't want to change the growth profile or the growth dynamics. I mean our core bank is -- what our core bank right now is doing is amazing. And I don't want to step on the gas any harder and get a different kind of business. Some strategy will open up to us. We've not been in an M&A strategy or a position to do that, maybe that will open up one day. And that's probably the catalyst we need to build on the core bank and let these other items that we do are so good and just run so well a complement to that.
Operator: Thank you. And there are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Dennis Zember for any closing remarks.
Dennis Zember: Thank you all for joining our first quarter conference call. If you have any questions, Matt and I are a happy to get on phone with you. Otherwise, have a good weekend, and we'll talk to you soon.
Operator: This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.