Flushing Financial reports Q2 EPS 18c, consensus 18c

CEO John Buran said: “Our long-term success is derived from executing against the four focus areas we outlined in 2023. For the quarter, GAAP and Core NIM declined 1 and 3 bps, respectively. As loan originations were less than paydowns, we purchased adjustable-rate securities, which led to net interest income increasing 0.9% QoQ. We anticipate the loan pipeline, which increased approximately 88% QoQ, will help to stabilize NIM, which is our first area of focus. Our second area of focus is credit quality, which remains quite strong. At the end of the quarter, we had NPAs to total assets of 61 bps, criticized and classified loans to total loans of 113 bps, and net recoveries of 1 bp. We remain confident that our strong underwriting will continue to drive toward low loss content. The third area of focus is preserving strong liquidity and capital. The Company has over $3 billion of unused lines of credit available as of June 30, 2024, and notwithstanding the normal flows of certain deposit portfolios, average deposits increased 4% YoY and 2% QoQ. Capital ratios remained strong with a leverage ratio of 8.18%. Our last area of focus is bending the expense curve. GAAP and core noninterest expense each increased 6% in the first half of the year compared to the same period a year ago. We are making investments in the business in new lending staff and branches to improve profitability over the long term and expect expense growth in 2024 will be more in line with our historical growth rate of mid-single digits. While progress will not always be in a straight line, we remain confident that adherence to these four areas of focus will favorably impact the long-term profitability of the Company.”