Amerant Bancorp Reports Third-Quarter 2026 Net Income of $25.7 Million

Amerant Bancorp (NYSE: AMTB ) reported third-quarter financial results on Friday. The transcript from the company's third-quarter earnings call has been provided below. This transcript is brought to you APIs. For real-time access to our entire catalog, please visit for a consultation.

View the webcast at Summary Amerant Bancorp reported a net income increase to $25.7 million, diluted earnings per share of $0.65 and a return on assets of 1%, driven by stronger net interest income and margin expansion. The company is progressing on four strategic initiatives: enhancing credit quality, improving operational efficiency, boosting client profitability and growing the bank's loan and deposit base. Amerant Bancorp's assets under management increased significantly by $77.9 million, reflecting growth in the wealth management business as a source of fee income.

The net interest margin improved to 3.77%, driven by higher interest income on loans and investment securities and a decrease in interest expenses. Total assets slightly decreased to $10.2 billion due to lower interest-bearing deposits, while total loans grew to $7.1 billion, primarily in single-family residential and commercial loans. The company completed a $50 million offering of 7% senior notes, enhancing liquidity and securing attractive long-term funding. Non-performing loans and criticized exposures decreased, indicating progress in credit quality improvement efforts.

Amerant Bancorp authorized a share repurchase program of up to $50 million through December 31, 2027, reflecting a strong capital position and commitment to returning shareholder value. Guidance for the fourth quarter includes expectations for loans to reach $7.3 billion and deposits to reach $8.5 billion, with a net interest margin between 3.65% and 3.70%. Full Transcript OPERATOR Greetings and welcome to the Amerant third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode.

A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. You may be placed into the question queue at any time by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero.

It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Laura Rossi, Executive Vice President, Head of Investor Relations. Laura, please go ahead. Laura Rossi Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review Amerant Bancorp's third quarter 2026 results.

On today's call are Carlos Yafiliola, our President and CEO, and Sharymar Calderón, our Chief Financial Officer. As we begin, please note that discussions on today's call contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Exchange Act. In addition, we will also refer to non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the Company's earnings release for a statement regarding forward-looking statements as well as for information and reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP measures.

I will now turn it over to our CEO, Carlos Yafiliola. Carlos Yafiliola Thank you, Laura. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Amerant third quarter 2026 results. This quarter represents another step forward in building a more profitable and resilient franchise.

Our net income increased to 25.7 million, or 65 cents per diluted share, and our return on assets reached 1%. That progress reflects stronger net interest income and margin expansion, disciplined expense management, continued balance sheet optimization, and improving credit quality. Just as importantly, we continue advancing the strategic priorities that are moving Amerant from stabilization towards sustainable growth.

Following our annual Board strategy session, our direction remains clear: deliver on our financial and credit quality commitments, continue simplifying our operating model, focus investment toward the market and capabilities where Amerant has a distinct competitive advantage, and deploy capital and resources toward the most attractive opportunities. In that context, I would like to update you on the evolution of our four strategic initiatives during the quarter. First, Transform Credit.

This initiative is about strengthening credit selection, portfolio monitoring, and the credit operating model to enable profitable growth with greater consistency and predictability and within established risk appetite. During the third quarter, the work completed earlier in the year began to show more clearly in our results. Non-performing loans continued to decline and classified balances also moved lower. We continue actively resolving criticized exposures while advancing workflow enhancements and automation of the credit approval process to improve data integrity, accountability, and consistency.

Aligning lending stakeholders. With the credit foundation strengthened, our focus is increasingly on pairing disciplined underwriting with growth in more granular and higher-quality relationships. Second, Operational Efficiency. This initiative is about simplifying how we operate, optimizing structural cost, increasing capacity, and creating a more scalable platform that can deliver consistent service and stronger returns.

We continue disciplined expense management while improving our earnings generation path. This resulted in a significant improvement in the efficiency ratio, narrowing the gap to the 60% we have been targeting. We are now moving from identifying opportunities to making clear decisions across the organization. This includes reviewing team structures, client coverage, and productivity of our channels while advancing in digitization and deploying practical AI use cases.

Third, Client Profitability. This initiative is about managing the full relationship return, not simply individual products, and directing our people and capital toward the clients and businesses where we can create the greatest value. During the quarter, we continue strengthening referral discipline and coordination across commercial banking, private banking, treasury management, and wealth management. Following the strategy session, we are taking this work further by assessing relationships based on profitability, aligning service models and pricing within client needs, and identifying targeted opportunities to cross-sell single-product relationships.

Fourth, Grow the Bank. This initiative is about growing loans, deposits, assets under management, and fee income in the markets and businesses where Amerant has differentiated capabilities while remaining aligned with our risk appetite and return objectives. We are focused on building scale in priority verticals and client segments including more granular C&I, residential lending, practice finance, logistics and wholesale, asset-based and supply chain finance, and selected CRE opportunities with experienced sponsors. We will also continue to use our syndication capacity to manage larger new and existing exposures.

Our international business remains a distinctive source of low-cost funding and an important platform for relationship growth. We remain focused on deepening wallet share across international clients through wealth, treasury management, and specialized personal and commercial lending solutions. As we continue to optimize our deposit mix by reducing higher-cost deposits and selectively exiting non-profitable single-product relationships, the overall quality and economics of our deposit franchise will continue to strengthen.

With this in mind, we have migrated certain low-cost interest-bearing balances to DDAs, which improve our ratio of noninterest-bearing deposits to total deposits without any impact to the retention of these accounts in our domestic markets. We are prioritizing Florida, where our brand, market position, and client relationships give us a clear right to win, and refining our branch and coverage model to support profitable growth. Taken together, these initiatives are producing measurable progress. Return on assets reached our target 1%, return on equity improved, net interest margin expanded, and capital remained strong.

These results are creating a new baseline for our company and reinforce our confidence that Amerant is moving in the right direction. Our strong capital position also provides us with the flexibility to continue returning value to shareholders. Accordingly, on October 21, our Board authorized a share repurchase program for up to 50 million through December 31, 2027. Our priorities remain the same: disciplined loan growth, continued credit improvement, greater operating efficiency, deeper and more profitable client relationships, and thoughtful capital allocation.

We have more work ahead, but we enter the final quarter of the year with a stronger foundation, clear choices, and growing momentum. With that strategic context, I will turn it to Shari to walk through the quarter's financial results in more detail. Sharymar Calder3n, CPA Thank you, Carlos, and good morning, everyone. Let's turn to Slide 4, where you will see our balance sheet highlights.

Total assets were $10.2 billion as of the end of the third quarter, a decrease from $10.3 billion as of the end of the second quarter. The decrease was primarily driven by lower interest-bearing deposits. Cash and cash equivalents were $361.5 million, up by $60.3 million compared to $301.1 million in the second quarter, reflecting higher liquidity balances during the quarter. Total investment securities were $2.2 billion, down by $382.8 million compared to $2.6 billion in the previous quarter.

This was primarily driven by lower debt securities available for sale. Total gross loans were $7.1 billion, up by $207.8 million compared to $6.9 billion in the second quarter. Growth was driven primarily by increases in single-family residential and commercial loans. These were partially offset by decreases in CRE loans to non-depository financial institutions as well as owner-occupied loans.

Additionally, elevated payoffs partially offset loan production, including several repayments that also contributed to improved asset quality. On the deposit side, total deposits were $8.2 billion, down by $109.6 million compared to $8.4 billion in the second quarter, primarily driven by decreases in interest-bearing demand deposits as well as savings and money market deposits. These were partially offset by increases in noninterest-bearing demand deposits and time deposits. Also relevant for this quarter, on September 17, 2026, the company completed a registered offering of $50 million of 7% senior notes due in 2031.

The offering added attractive long-term funding in a rising rate environment while also enhancing liquidity at the holding company. We are pleased to report that our assets under management increased $77.9 million to $3.45 billion in the third quarter, driven primarily by net new assets of $76.5 million. This is a strong result that reflects the growing momentum in our wealth management business, which we continue to view as an increasingly important source of fee income. During the quarter, we made meaningful progress by onboarding new talent and deepening cross-sell activity with commercial clients, both of which contributed to our growth.

This reinforces our conviction that this business can play a significant and expanding role in diversifying our income stream over time. Our relationship-first model and the depth of our domestic and international client base position us well to capture that opportunity, and we remain excited about deepening advisory relationships across both markets. Let's turn to Slide 5, looking at the income statement. Diluted earnings per share for the third quarter were $0.65 per share compared to $0.53 per share in the second quarter.

Net interest income was $90.5 million, up $7.9 million from $82.6 million in the second quarter. The increase was primarily driven by higher interest income on loans and investment securities combined with lower total interest expense on deposits and FHLB advances due to lower average balances and average rates. Net interest margin was 3.77% compared to 3.52% in the second quarter. The increase reflected a lower cost of funds from noninterest-bearing deposits and shorter-term advances we took during the quarter, as well as benefits from additional interest on loan repayments previously in nonaccrual status that was recorded during the quarter.

Provision for credit losses was $6.2 million compared to $4.8 million in the second quarter, reflecting higher specific reserves in the commercial portfolio, partially offset by lower collectively evaluated reserves driven by changes in portfolio composition and macroeconomic assumptions. Noninterest income was $18.3 million, up by $177,000 from $18.2 million. This increase was primarily driven by higher deposit and service fees and higher gains on the early extinguishment of FHLB advances. These were partially offset by lower loan-level derivative income and lower other noninterest income.

During the quarter, noninterest expense was $69.1 million, up by $221,000, or 3%, from $68.9 million in the second quarter. The increase in noninterest expense was primarily driven by higher professional fees and higher salaries and employee benefits. These were partially offset by a decrease of $1.9 million in advertising expenses, as well as an increase of $1.1 million in OREO income. Pretax, pre-provision net revenue reached $39.7 million, which is the highest quarterly result recorded since 4Q22, compared to $31.9 million in the second quarter of this year.

This increase was primarily driven by higher net interest income and noninterest income, partially offset by the increase in noninterest expense. You can also see that ROA and ROE this quarter were 1% and 11.29%, which are the highest quarterly results reported since 3Q22 and 4Q21, respectively, compared to 0.84% and 9.23%, respectively, in the prior quarter. Our efficiency ratio was 63.51% compared to 68.37% in the second quarter. The improvement reflected stronger revenue and stable operating expenses as cost-saving initiatives offset higher personnel and professional fees.

Turning now to Slide 6 to discuss our capital metrics. Our CET1 increased to 12.07% from 11.94% in the prior quarter, mainly driven by higher net income during the quarter while partially offset by $3.6 million in shareholder dividends and $2 million in share repurchases. Tangible common equity declined during the quarter, primarily driven by unrealized losses in the available-for-sale investment portfolio. Market yields rose by more than 100 basis points, well beyond the single Federal Reserve rate increase, as markets priced in additional tightening.

The decline in TCE was partially offset by higher earnings and lower share repurchases. Importantly, the valuation of the AFS portfolio has significantly improved compared to quarter-end as market rates have dropped since quarter-end. We paid a cash dividend of $0.09 per share of common stock on August 28, 2026, and our Board of Directors just approved a quarterly dividend of $0.09 per share payable on November 27 of this year. During the third quarter, we repurchased approximately 70,592 shares at a weighted average price of $28.47 per share compared to tangible book value per share of $20.94 as of September 30, 2026.

This represented 1.36 times tangible book value and 1.32 times book value. On Slide 7, we show our well-diversified deposit mix along with the composition of our loan portfolio. Total deposits for the quarter were $8.2 billion, down $109.6 million, or 1.3%, compared to $8.4 billion in the previous quarter. The decrease was primarily driven by lower balances from large domestic commercial fund providers and was partially offset by higher balances in private banking deposits.

International deposits were stable, with a slight decline of $9.5 million, or 0.3%, from the previous quarter. Also, as part of our strategic diversification efforts, while deposits from customers domiciled in Venezuela decreased $96.8 million, or 3.9%, deposits from countries other than Venezuela increased $87.3 million, or 12%, a testament to the value of our international customer relationships. In terms of deposit mix, brokered deposits remained mostly stable quarter over quarter at $497.4 million. Core deposits decreased by $125.8 million, or 2%, driven by decreases in higher-cost interest-bearing demand, savings, and money market deposits.

As Carlos mentioned, noninterest-bearing demand deposits increased as we continued optimizing our deposit base. During the quarter, we migrated approximately $270 million in low-cost interest-bearing deposits to noninterest-bearing demand deposits without affecting client retention. This migration provides a clearer view of the strength of our noninterest-bearing deposit base and the underlying value of these stable relationships. Total loans were $7.1 billion, up $207.8 million, or 3%, compared to $6.9 billion in the second quarter.

As mentioned earlier, this increase was driven by increases in single-family residential and commercial loans. These were partially offset by decreases in CRE loans to financial institutions as well as owner-occupied loans. As a reminder, we use our international funding to support domestic loan growth, as we don't currently take credit risk outside of the U.S. Next, on Slide 8, you can see the evolution of our net interest income.

NII increased $7.9 million from the prior quarter to $90.5 million in 3Q. This increase was primarily driven by higher interest income on loans and investment securities combined with lower total interest expense on deposits and FHLB advances due to lower average balances and rates. Net interest margin was 3.77% compared to 3.52% in the second quarter.