Civista Bancshares - Q2 2023
July 28, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good afternoon. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements with respect to the future performance and financial condition of Civista Bancshares, Inc, that involve risk 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. 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 the most directly comparable GAAP measures. The press release, also available on the company's website, contains the financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today, as well as direct reconciliation of the GAAP to non-GAAP measures.
The call will be recorded and made available on Civista Bancshares' website at www.civb.com. At the conclusion of Mr. Shaffer's remarks, he and the Civista management team will take any questions you may have. Now, I'll turn the call over to Mr. Shaffer.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Good afternoon, this is Dennis G. Shaffer, President and CEO of Civista Bancshares, Inc. I would like to thank you for joining us for our second quarter 2023 earnings call. I'm joined today by Rich Dutton, SVP of the company and Chief Operating Officer of the bank, Chuck Parcher, SVP of the company and Chief Lending Officer of the bank, other members of our executive team.
This morning, we reported net income for the second quarter of $10 million or $0.64 per diluted share, which represents a 20.8% increase over our second quarter in 2022, and net income of $22.9 million or $1.45 per diluted share for the six months ended June 30, 2023, which represents a 41.8% increase over the first half of 2022's performance. Our margin, which was 3.99% year to date and 3.86% for the quarter, continues to drive our earnings. However, like the rest of the industry, our margin is under some pressure. Our yield on earning assets decreased by 9 basis points during the quarter to 5.31% and was 5.27% year to date.
The cost of our of funding our balance sheet increased by 36 basis points during the quarter to 1.51% and was 1.33% year to date. Let me provide some additional color around our deposit strategy. Late in the first quarter, with the uncertainty surrounding the bank failures, we went out and locked up funding to fortify our balance sheet. We filled an order for $141.5 million of nine-month brokered CDs paying 5.2% and $151 million of 12-month brokered CDs paying 5%. This replaced $92 million of maturing brokered CDs and provided additional liquidity to preserve our overnight borrowing capacity at the Federal Home Loan Bank. We felt this was extremely important given the bank failures in March.
Beginning in the first quarter, we also began raising interest rates primarily to our larger balance money market and time deposit customers to maintain balances. Excluding the increase in brokered deposits and increases in deposits related to our tax refund processing program, our deposit balances have declined just 2.3% from December. As a result, while our cost of deposits during the quarter increased from 49 basis points to 107 basis points, our cost of deposits, excluding brokered deposits, only increased 10 basis points during the quarter from 39 basis points to 49 basis points. Our cost of deposits, excluding brokered deposits, year to date, was 46 basis points. Our deposit beta, excluding brokered CDs, was 7 basis points over the last 12 months, and our cost of overall funding beta was 22 basis points over the last 12 months.
Our loan beta has been consistent over the 12-month cycle at 30 basis points. We will continue to monitor deposit flows and react accordingly, but we do not anticipate a similar increase in our funding costs going forward. Our earnings were also impacted by lower gains on sales of leases. This was primarily the result of internal changes made to our lease sales process in May, which were not fully implemented until the quarter end. We anticipate resuming the sale of our originations in the third quarter. For the quarter, we originated $36.6 million of loans and leases through VFG and sold $10.8 million for a gain of $256,800. We typically target the sale of 50% of our lease production.
Yesterday, we also announced a $0.01 per share increase in our quarterly dividend to $0.16 per share. This is a 6.7% increase in our dividend and represents a 25% dividend payout ratio based on our second quarter earnings. This is our second consecutive quarterly increase and reflects our confidence in our earnings. Our year-to-date earnings per share have increased 32.3% when compared to the same period a year ago. Our return on average assets was 1.12% for the quarter, compared to 1.47% for the linked quarter, and our return on average equity was 11.58% for the quarter, compared to 15.32% for the linked quarter.
Year to date, our return on assets was 1.29%, and our return on equity was 13.42%. During the quarter, non-interest income declined $1.9 million, or 17.3% in comparison to the linked quarter, and increased $3.5 million year-over-year. The primary driver of the decrease from our linked quarter was the timing of fees from our income tax refund processing program. Consistent with prior years, income from our tax program during the first quarter was $1.9 million, compared to $475,000 in the second quarter. We also received a $1.5 million bonus as part of the newly negotiated debit brand agreement we entered into during the first quarter, which was also included in other non-interest income.
Year-to-date, non-interest income increased $6.9 million or 52.3% in comparison to the prior year. The primary driver was $4.2 million in lease revenue and residual fees from the addition of VFG late in 2022. These fees are primarily made up of operation, operating lease payments and gains on the sale of equipment at the end of the lease term. Also included was the previously mentioned $1.5 million bonus we received as part of the debit brand agreement. Second quarter gains on the sale of mortgage loans were $615,000, which was consistent with our linked quarter. The year-to-date gain on the sale of mortgage loans was $1.2 million and represented a 17.4% decline from the previous year.
Wealth management revenues for the quarter were consistent with the linked quarter and declined slightly year to date compared to the prior year. While we anticipate that market uncertainty will continue for some time, we view the expansion of these services across our footprint as an opportunity to diversify and grow non-interest income. Non-interest expense for the quarter of $27.9 million was comparable to our linked quarter, as increases in FDIC assessments and software maintenance were mitigated by declines in compensation and professional fees. Year to date, non-interest expense increased $14.9 million or 36.7% over the prior year. Much of the increase is attributable to our acquisitions of Communica Bank and VFG in the third and fourth quarters of 2022.
Our compensation expense increased $5.9 million or 24.5% over the prior year. The bulk of the increase is due to $4.4 million in additional salaries, commissions, and benefits attributable to our new Communica Bank and BFG employees. The increase in depreciation is primarily due to our new leasing company. Equipment that is under an operating lease is owned and depreciated by Civista until the end of the lease term. Included in this year's professional fees is a $400,000 payment to a consultant that assisted in the negotiation of our new debit card agreement. The increase in amortization of our deposit-based intangible and marketing were also due to our 2022 acquisitions.
The increase in other non-interest expense was primarily due to growth in unfunded loan commitments and the related $264,000 provision required by our adoption of CECL during the first quarter. Our efficiency ratio was 67.9%, compared to 62.4% for the linked quarter and 65.1% year to date. Turning to the balance sheet. Year to date, our total loans have grown by $89.6 million, which includes $24.8 million of loans and leases originated by BFG. This represents an annualized rate of 7%. While non-owner-occupied CRE loans led the way, lease financing receivables were up due to lighter than anticipated sales. Residential real estate loans increased as we originated more of our on-balance sheet mortgage products, including our CRA, ARM, and construction products.
Commercial revolving lines of credit, currently at a 35% utilization rate, have not readvanced and are well below pre-pandemic balances. Along with our year-to-date loan production, our undrawn construction lines were $211.3 million at June 30th, adding to our confidence that we will grow our loan portfolio at a mid-single-digit rate over the balance of 2023. At June 30th, our loan-to-deposit ratio, excluding deposits related to our tax refund processing program, was 98%. On the funding side, total deposits increased $322.8 million or 12.3% since the beginning of the year. If we adjust for increases in broker deposits and tax program funding, our deposits declined just 2.3% year to date. We believe this illustrates the strong relationships we have with our commercial and retail customers.
Non-interest-bearing demand accounts continue to be a focus, making up 34.1% of our total deposits at June 30th. If we exclude Civista's own deposit accounts and those related to our tax program, 13.2% or $390.7 million of our deposits were uninsured by the FDIC at June 30th. Our cash and unpledged securities were $415.5 million at quarter end, which more than covered our uninsured deposits at June 30th. Other than the $378.2 million of public funds with various municipalities across our footprint, we had no concentration in deposits at June 30th. We continue to believe our low-cost deposit franchise is one of Civista's most valuable characteristics and contributes significantly to our peer-leading net interest margin and profitability.
We ended the quarter with our Tier 1 leverage ratio at 8.86%, which is deemed well capitalized for regulatory purposes. At June 30th, all of our $619.2 million in securities were classified as available for sale and had $63.1 million of unrealized losses associated with them. Our tangible common equity ratio improved to 6.16% at June 30th, 2023, compared to 5.83% at December 31st, 2022. Given the turmoil in the banking industry as we entered the quarter and our good fortune of being the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland's first safety and soundness exam after the failure of Silicon Valley and Signature Banks, we thought it prudent to hold off on the resumption of our stock repurchase program during the quarter.
I am happy to report that we received our exam report earlier this month, and we were very pleased with the results. We continue to believe our stock is of value and anticipate resuming our repurchase program now that we have released earnings. Despite the uncertainties associated with the economy and the expense pressures our borrowers face, our credit quality is strong and our credit metrics remain stable. We did make a $861,000 provision during the quarter, which was primarily attributable to loan and lease growth. Our ratio of our allowance for loan losses to loans improved from 1.12% at December 31, 2022, to 1.33% at June 30, reflecting growth in our adoption of CECL during the first quarter.
Our allowance for loan losses to non-performing loans increased from 261.45% at December 31, 2022, to 327.05% at June 30. Although our margin compressed more than anticipated, we continue to generate strong earnings, and our margin remains healthy. We continue to see quality loan growth, solid opportunities across our footprint, and no material deterioration in our credit quality. Our focus continues to be on creating shareholder value, which is evidenced by the year-over-year increase in our earnings per share and the 2 increases in our quarterly dividend. Thank you for your attention this afternoon, we'll be happy to address any questions that you may have.
Operator (participant)
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question will come from Terry McEvoy with Stephens. You may now go ahead.
Terry McEvoy (Managing Director and Research Analyst)
Hi. Thanks. Good, good afternoon, everybody. Dennis, you, you talked about or reminded us of the deposit strategy late in the first quarter, and, and we definitely saw deposit costs come up in the second quarter. Could you just maybe run through your outlook for funding costs, deposit costs in the second half of this year and, and ultimately, and, and kind of think about how should we think about the net interest margin trends over the coming quarters as well?
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Yeah, I think, you know, we're not going to be adding a big slug of deposits like we added there with the broker deposits at, in, in late, late first quarter. You know, you know, that, that was a $300 million that's going to be with us now throughout the end of the year. I don't think the NIM, we don't expect the NIM. I think quarter, the quarterly NIM contracted about 25 basis points. We don't expect that big of a decline as we move forward throughout the remainder of the year. We're going to see some contraction, I think, but not that significant of a decline, and that's really where our miss was this quarter, was just with that, that slug of, of deposits.
you know, we, we think maybe, maybe half of that amount, maybe, you know, 10, 12 basis point margin compression, as we move forward is probably a little bit more reasonable, you know, you know, as we go throughout the year here.
Terry McEvoy (Managing Director and Research Analyst)
Thanks for that. Then, you know, last week, the larger Ohio-based banks on their calls talked about just optimizing their balance sheet and being more selective on lending, given new CRE capital rules. I guess I'm wondering, are you seeing a change in behavior in some of your larger competitors, and, and how are you positioned to, to take advantage of market share gains, should that continue?
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Yeah, Chuck, you want to give some color around the competition and stuff?
Charles A. Parcher (EVP and Chief Lending Officer)
Yeah, we've definitely seen some of the, the larger regionals kind of fall out of some of the deals from that perspective, Terry. You know, there's still a really competitive landscape out there from that perspective, especially some, some of the other community banks. Obviously, Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, they're, they're all really competitive markets right now. We do feel like, you know, we have the advantage of being still in the lending business, and being in the lending business gives the opportunity to ask for those deposits and try to peel those deposits out of those larger regional banks.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Terry, we are adding new relationships, so as we look to fund new loans, you know, that will be one way. You know, we, we fund them with these new deposits that we're getting in. We do have some of our securities portfolio turning over and can fund loans there. I do think from the lending side, we have also, you know, tried to push loan yields, and we're seeing that as loans renew and new loans that come on our books. We are pushing our, our loan spreads. We just think we can, we can do that in this environment, and our teams have been, you know, pretty effective at, at pushing those spreads. We, and quite frankly, with the yield curve so inverted, we have to push those spreads.
I'm surprised that, although, you know, we still see some outliers from some of the banks out there, and I'm surprised that not everyone is doing that at this point. Definitely some of the bigger players, I think, have pulled back a little bit.
Terry McEvoy (Managing Director and Research Analyst)
Great. Thanks for taking my questions.
Operator (participant)
Our next question will come from Nick Cucharale with Hovde. You may now go ahead.
Nick Cucharale (Director, Equity Research)
Good afternoon, everyone. How are you today?
Charles A. Parcher (EVP and Chief Lending Officer)
Hey, Nick.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Good, hi, Nick.
Nick Cucharale (Director, Equity Research)
Just a question on expenses. Can you help us think about your expectations in the near term, and if you have any sizable initiatives on the horizon?
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
Hey, Nick, this is Rich. I don't know if we've got any sizable initiatives on the horizon. I think, the, the run rate that we're kind of projecting for the balance of the year is probably $28 million each of the next two quarters. I don't think there's anything new in there. I'm trying to think what the big things in expense were, this quarter. I don't know that there's anything significant, Nick.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Yeah, the FDIC assessment had gone up. I think that was a pretty good jump. I think that was up maybe $400 or $202, $300.
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
Right, that-
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Software expense was, was up slightly. Those are just things I think we're adding. You know, the software expense, I think we absorbed, you know, just different, we've gone to more data analytics when we evaluate CRA and fair lending and stuff. That's cost us a little bit more, you know, money. Like Rich said, we don't have really any huge initiatives that should impact the expenses as we move forward for, through, throughout the rest of the year.
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
I don't know if we talked about it on the last call, Nick, but we did, and it wasn't a significant move, but we made some reductions in loan, operating, staff, kind of in reaction to the kind of falloff in mortgage lending. Again, not big numbers, but, but certainly, I guess the point is that we're continuing to look at, at everything that makes sense to look at going forward.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Yeah, absorb some of those increases that we see.
Nick Cucharale (Director, Equity Research)
That's very helpful. At the halfway point of the year, pretty solid loan growth so far. Can you help us think about the size of your pipelines and how that may translate into a full year growth rate?
Charles A. Parcher (EVP and Chief Lending Officer)
Nick, it's Chuck. Pipelines still are pretty consistent. I would say they may be down slightly from last year, but, you know, really feel good about, you know, where we're sitting at mid-year. Dennis mentioned in his comments that we've got $211 million of construction availability looking into the second year. $50 million, a little over $50 million of that is, is the increase in our single-family construction program, that we seem like we're doing a lot more real estate construction, but the other $150 million is, is out there in the commercial side. We feel like we've got some good tailwinds coming into the second half, and, you know, I still would say we're in that mid-single digit growth, you know, range looking forward.
Just a follow-up on the, on the construction. Is most of that in Columbus?
I don't have a breakdown of, of, of all the different metropolitan areas, but I can tell you a, a nice-sized chunk of it is in construction. We've had tremendous, especially on the multifamily side, tremendous appetite there for, for multifamily. They can't build enough units fast enough to house everybody that's either moving into town or getting ready to work in or on the Intel and other large projects in that city.
Nick Cucharale (Director, Equity Research)
Great. Thank you for the color, and thank you for taking my questions.
Charles A. Parcher (EVP and Chief Lending Officer)
You bet, Nick.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Thanks, Nick.
Operator (participant)
Our next question will come from Timothy Switzer with KBW. You may now go ahead.
Timothy Switzer (VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Hey, Tim.
Charles A. Parcher (EVP and Chief Lending Officer)
Yeah.
Timothy Switzer (VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
The, the first one I had, just real quick, do you guys have the purchase accounting accretion impact to NII or the NIM?
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
I do. We do. Was it 8 basis points? I'm going from memory. My memory was correct, 8 basis points.
Timothy Switzer (VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Great. Thank you.
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
Then again, Tim.
Timothy Switzer (VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
I, I, I had a follow-up on the talk about some of the larger banks pulling back from lending. Has, has that opened you to maybe any opportunities to finding some new talent at all? Do you think that's something that could happen down the road if the banks continue in this position?
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Yeah, I think, you know, we, you know, back when we had the Great Recession, we added talent in this organization, and we, you know, I think anytime there's disruption or there's big, you know, the big banks pull back, I think that does give us opportunity to add talent throughout the organization, both on the, you know, production and support side. We continue to look for opportunities. If we think that, we, you know, it would add revenue, we definitely would, would look at that. You know, right now it's a little bit more challenging just because, you know, you're, you're pretty well loaned up, so you got to figure out how you're going to fund them.
With the yield curve so inverted, I think it does make it a little bit more challenging for that. That, that's, you know, we view that as opportunity in particular, when it comes to adding staff.
Paul J. Stark (SVP and Chief Credit Officer)
Yeah, we're also seeing, Tim, this is Chuck, some talent start to float our direction, at least make some inquiries on the residential mortgage side. As, as you know, as the market gets tighter a little bit, a lot of times the mortgage brokers, they don't have the same array of products to be able to sell. So we're starting to see that surface. We've got a few openings that we're trying to fill. It looks like we'll be able to do that with some larger producers than what we had on, you know, in our staff previously.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
That really doesn't cost us anything because those are commission-based.
Paul J. Stark (SVP and Chief Credit Officer)
Right
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
positions. you know, generally, once they add, originations, they're, they're generally paying for themselves.
Timothy Switzer (VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Right. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Can you guys give us a quick update on the credit outlook? I think last quarter, you guys were talking about everything seems fine in your major metro areas, but any updates you can provide on, like, the CRE and office exposure? I think you said it was, like, 4%-5% of loans.
Paul J. Stark (SVP and Chief Credit Officer)
Yeah, this, this is Paul Stark. We, we, I, I would say that the outlook hasn't changed significantly. I think, you know, obviously, we're watching the office market. We're, we're diving into kind of the makeup of it, but the vast majority of our of our office space is more in the, in the, in the outlying communities as opposed to the urban centers. I think we only have three or four properties that are actually, you know, kind of in the center of, of, of, let's say, Cleveland. Overall, they've been performing very well. You know, occupancy remains high. You know, the only thing you don't really know yet is, is, you know, what's going to happen in a few years when, when the leases are up.
We don't have-- I think only about 15% of our leases or our, or our, our properties are going to have maturities in the next 2 years. Really haven't seen anything in the landscape. Residential stays pretty solid. I know that there's stress out there, but, but our numbers are good, pretty consistent quarter to quarter. Right now, we don't see any real dark areas that make us change that perspective. It's hard, it's hard work staying on top of it, but right now I'm not seeing anything.
Tim, our portfolio is pretty diversified. When you look at the CRE buckets between multifamily, industrial, retail, office, it's pretty diversified, so no real concentration in those areas.
Timothy Switzer (VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Yeah, nothing too surprising there. Do you have what percentage of total loans is the office book?
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
We do. This is Rich right now. Pure office, I guess, is, just under 6%, 5.8, and then we've got another, less than 1% of, healthcare.
Paul J. Stark (SVP and Chief Credit Officer)
Medical office.
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
Medical offices, yeah.
Timothy Switzer (VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Less than 1% is healthcare?
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
Yes. Well, maybe I'm looking at the wrong number. It's 1.2%.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
1.2%.
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
I highlighted the wrong number.
Timothy Switzer (VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
That, that's great. Thank, thank you, guys. That's all for me.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Thanks, Tim.
Operator (participant)
Our next question will come from Manuel Navas with D.A. Davidson & Co. You may now go ahead.
Paul J. Stark (SVP and Chief Credit Officer)
Hey, good afternoon. With your new outlook, just clarify, do you think that, that it kind of troughs in the fourth quarter? Can you kind of just add a little color there?
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
This is Rich Dutton, Manuel, and, yeah, I guess it depends on what the Fed does, but I think kind of like what Dennis Shaffer said, I think in terms of big chunks of funding, you know, the, the, the moves that we made at the end of the first quarter are in place and will stay in place. If you look at our deposit funding, even though we feel like we were aggressive in the first and second quarters, the non-brokered cost of our deposits only went up 10 basis points this quarter. If we assume similar moves from the Fed in the second or the third and fourth quarters, those would be the kind of moves that you might see on the deposit side. Again, our loan betas have been pretty consistent over the cycle.
It has been 9, 9 basis points of expansion, or not 9, 30, 30 basis points of expansion in each of those quarters. Barring anything crazy happening, and, and crazy things happen, but barring anything crazy happening, yeah, I, I would say that that's a fair statement that, you know, probably a trough toward the end of the year.
Paul J. Stark (SVP and Chief Credit Officer)
It's interesting you talked about loan yields. I was kind of wondering, they didn't move that much, this past quarter. I would have thought it seemed like maybe more the production was end of quarter. I would think if keeping on leases, those are usually higher yielding. Just kind of was wondering why loan yields didn't rise even more. I think it's a couple of factors on that, Manuel. The first one was we had a couple of large payoffs in the month of May, April, end of April, early May.
went down a little bit, so a lot of the production did come in the, in the back half of the quarter, especially in, in mid to late June. I think the other thing that, that caused it not to expand quite as much, we talked about a little bit earlier, but our mortgage on the mortgage lending side, we did a little bit more on balance sheet versus saleable product. Obviously, mortgage, mortgage lending rates are, to the consumer, are a little bit lower than the commercial rates. We had some growth in that area that, that made it come down a little bit. All in all, we're, we're happy where we're going.
Our trend line and our production piece of it continues to up slope, and we feel like that, that those rates will continue to rise, you know, looking into the Q. I don't have a great crystal ball as far as what those will go to, but we seem to be pinching them up on a production piece, you know, probably 10 to 15 basis points a month lately as far as new originations.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
I think Chuck hit it right on the head, the, the, the payoffs early in the quarter and then the portfolio residential loans, those yields are not as high, and that mixes, you know, we're portfolio a little bit more right now because people are buying the ARM products as opposed to the fixed-rate products, and those ARM residential rates are a little bit lower.
Charles A. Parcher (EVP and Chief Lending Officer)
I, I don't even think the payoffs were negative. The payoffs were both positive. We had one of our, one of our really good customers sold his business for a nice piece of change. Then we also had a large industrial building that went to the CMBS market.
Manuel Navas (SVP and Equity Research Analyst)
What are your, like, your new commercial yields?
Charles A. Parcher (EVP and Chief Lending Officer)
Well, I would tell you, you know, everything starts pretty much with at the lowest of 7 and working up from there. I would tell you, new production probably in that, if, if you're doing a 3 year or maybe even a 5, somewhere between 7.25% and 7.75%, we're, we're seeing some people choose with their, with their thought process, with rates declining. You know, we're probably in that SOFR plus 275 range as far as on some floating on the new floating originations from that side of it.
Manuel Navas (SVP and Equity Research Analyst)
If I jump over to the deposit side, I understand that, you know, the broker came on early in the quarter. You gave some nice stats of deposit costs ex brokered. From here, what are your thoughts on just deposit cost increases from here?
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Well, I think, I think they're going to stabilize a little bit. I mean, again, I don't think we'll see the big, you know, NIM contraction that we had in this second quarter. They are under pressure, but we, we, we are holding on to more of our deposits today. I think we're just a little closer on that. You know, we have no deposit rates starting with a 5, you know. There's a lot of banks that do have that. We found that, you know, our highest rate right now is 4.5%. We found as we've gotten a little bit closer to that, you know, before we were trying to hold it in the 3s and, you know, we were seeing some deposit runoff in the first couple of months of the year. We got a little bit more aggressive.
Right now, we're at the 4.5%. We're meeting every, every other week with our deposits. We're not seeing that runoff. We feel that we do have this strong core deposit franchise. We do feel that our customers are pretty loyal. We've never chased the rate shopper before, where we've gone out and, and, and advertised, you know, you know, the highest rate in social media or the newspapers. That's not our customer.
Our customer is coming to us, and they're asking what alternatives they have, and we're telling them, "Hey, we got, you know, a 4.5-month CD, you know, 7-month CD special." They are taking some of that money from some of the lower interest-bearing accounts and non-interest-bearing accounts and putting that money to use, but they're not leaving to some of our competitors that are paying 5.25%, 5.5%. We feel we just have to stay close in that, in the game. Some of it depends on what the competitors are doing, but we do feel there is value to this corporate deposit franchise that we have, and which helps us maintain some of those customers.
Manuel Navas (SVP and Equity Research Analyst)
I, I appreciate that. In, in, in fees, you, you said you're keeping-- you kept leases this quarter. Do, do you feel like there's going to be an extra backlog of lease sales next quarter?
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
No. No, probably not. We'll probably, you know, because what happens is rates move, it makes it harder to sell those loans because the.
Manuel Navas (SVP and Equity Research Analyst)
Okay.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
the gain on sale, you know, that decreases, it makes it harder. We're probably not going to go back and try to capture some of those just going forward. We'll just keep those, additional loans kind of on the balance sheet. They're, you know, their, their interest rate yields are good on those, I think we just, you know, pick that back up here this quarter.
Manuel Navas (SVP and Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, I, I appreciate it. Is there just a ballpark fee run rate then?
Charles A. Parcher (EVP and Chief Lending Officer)
Gosh, I don't know. Let me think about that. I, I mean, I guess I would add to what Dennis said, we had some personnel changes at the leasing company. As, as we integrate those guys in, that was part of maybe the slowdown in sales for the second quarter. I think we've...
... it is what for sales? I'm trying to back into a gain number for you. I, I, you know, I don't-- it's probably dangerous for me to do that. Let me, let me think about it, and I'll, I'll get back to all you guys. How about that?
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Okay. Thank you very much. I'll step back and thank you.
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
Oh.
Operator (participant)
Again, if you have a question, please press Star, then one. Our next question will come from Daniel Cardenas with Janney. You may now go ahead.
Daniel Cardenas (Director and Research Analyst)
Hey, good afternoon, guys.
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
Hey, Daniel.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Hi, Dan.
Daniel Cardenas (Director and Research Analyst)
Just, just a couple questions here. The, the, the runoff that we saw on the securities portfolio, was that, was that, anticipated and planned? I mean, we've seen some runoff here the last couple quarters in a row. Should we expect to see a continued reduction in, in your overall securities book throughout the second half of the year?
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
I would say yes. Again, if you'll recall, not... I, I guess early last year, when we kind of took some of our excess liquidity and bought some short-term securities, those were all kept at the bank. As those mature, we are letting them run off and use that to fund loan growth. Those pretty much run through the middle of next year, and then we're kind of done with that. We typically-- most of our securities are in our investment subsidiary, and there are tax reasons not to bring those back if we don't have to, so those are the last ones we'll bring back. We'll, we'll continue to reinvest those. You're right.
I mean, the runoff that you've seen was, just a, a, a kind of redeployment of the liquidity that we had early last year and then putting it to the market.
Daniel Cardenas (Director and Research Analyst)
Excellent. Then, and then, with, some of the noise that we've kind of seen in, in, in the leasing side, are, are you still kind of sticking to your guidance in terms of, where this, where this book of business could be by the end of the year, or does that get, truncated somewhat?
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
I think we're, we're sticking pretty much to the guidance. I mean, we're still... The leasing business picks up. You know, it's new to us, but we're told that it picks up, you know, it's, it's pretty heavy in the fourth quarter, and it picks up that second half of the year. I think we're still probably picking up the, you know, sticking to the guidance that we provided earlier.
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
Yeah, I mean, they had about $27 million of originations in Q1. They had $36 million or $37 million of production in Q2. That's in line with kind of what we, we thought. Like Dennis said, we're, we're new to this. I think, also like Dennis said, I think what we guided to earlier on is kind of what we think is going to happen. That's our best guess. How about that?
Daniel Cardenas (Director and Research Analyst)
Sounds, sounds good. Last question for me: how, how should I be thinking about your, your tax rate here in, in, the second half of the year?
Richard J. Dutton (SVP and COO)
I mean, it's always been pretty good, right? I think our effective tax rate for the quarter was, what? 14%. Again, we, we kind of... That's probably, I'd put 15% or 16% in there. You can't see it, but they're nodding their head at me, so that must be the right number.
Daniel Cardenas (Director and Research Analyst)
All right, great. That's, that's it for me. I'll step back. Thanks, guys.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Thanks, Dan.
Operator (participant)
There are no further questions. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Dennis Schaefer for any closing remarks.
Dennis G. Shaffer (President and CEO)
Well, in closing, I just want to thank everyone for joining and those that participated in today's call. The interest rate environment continues to be a challenge. However, our earnings remain strong, and our margins remain healthy. I remain optimistic that our low-cost core deposit franchise will continue to produce superior results. I look forward to talking to you all in a few months to share our third quarter results. Thank you very much.
Operator (participant)
The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.