Eagle Bancorp (EGBN) Risk Analysis

The Company accounts for goodwill and other intangible assets in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"), which, in general, requires that goodwill not be amortized, but rather that it be tested for impairment at least annually or upon the occurrence of a triggering event at the reporting unit level. Testing for impairment of goodwill involves the identification of the reporting unit and the estimation of fair value. The estimation of fair values involves a high degree of judgment and subjectivity in the assumptions used. Changes in the local and national economy, the federal and state legislative and regulatory environments for financial institutions, the stock market, interest rates and other external factors (such as natural disasters or significant world events) may occur from time to time, often with great unpredictability, and may materially impact the fair value of publicly traded financial institutions and could result in an impairment charge at a future date. In addition, our stock has been trading below book value since this first quarter of 2023, which increases the risk of an interim quantitative goodwill impairment test and potential for a related impairment charge. Refer to "Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates-Goodwill" under Item 7 for additional information.

Effective internal and disclosure controls are necessary for us to provide reliable financial reports and effectively prevent fraud and to operate successfully as a public company. If we cannot provide reliable financial reports or prevent fraud, our reputation, operating results or stock price could be adversely impacted. Any failure to maintain effective controls, to timely implement any necessary improvement to our internal and disclosure controls or to effect remediation of any material weakness or significant deficiency could, among other things, result in losses from fraud or error, harm our reputation or cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition or stock price. Management reviews and updates our systems of internal control and disclosure controls and procedures, as well as corporate governance policies and procedures, from time to time. Any system of controls is based in part on certain assumptions and can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurances that the objectives of the system are met. Any failure or circumvention of our controls and procedures or failure to comply with regulations related to controls and procedures could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our investment securities portfolio is classified as either "available-for-sale" securities, which are marked to market on a recurring basis and recorded at fair value with unrealized gains or losses reported in accumulated other comprehensive income, or "held-to-maturity" securities, which are recorded at amortized cost less any associated ACL. In pricing the investment securities available-for-sale portfolio, a variety of factors beyond our control may significantly influence the fair values of these securities. These factors include, but are not limited to, market conditions, instability in the credit markets, rating agency downgrades of the securities, lack of market pricing of the securities, defaults of the issuers of the securities and issuer impairments. Conditions within the market or with the security may result in unrealized losses that may have a negative impact on our financial condition. If such losses were realized in a sales transaction, that may have a negative impact on our results of operations and our regulatory capital ratios. Our investment securities portfolio as a whole is exposed to credit risk associated with rating agency downgrades and defaults or impairments of the issuers of those securities. We measure expected credit losses on our investment securities portfolio through our CECL estimate. Increases to the provision for credit losses would have a negative impact on our results of operations and regulatory capital ratios. Additionally, an insufficient CECL provision may result in additional losses that would also have an adverse impact on our results of operations. The investment securities portfolio's performance, including the existence of unrealized and unrecognized losses in the portfolio, also may create reputational risk for us, particularly in conjunction with the conditions of the banking industry generally, that could result in deposit outflows or reduced access to funding, or negatively impact our ability to attract and retain prospective customers.

At December 31, 2023, we had approximately $2.8 billion of deposits, or 31% of our total deposits, in excess of the maximum FDIC insurance coverage limits. Deposits make up a significant source of financing for our investment strategy and funding for our operations. Customers who have uninsured deposits with us could present a heightened risk of withdrawal. Additionally, clients could elect to use other non-deposit funding products, such as repurchase agreements, that may require us to pay higher interest and to provide securities as collateral for our repurchase obligation. If a significant portion of our deposits were withdrawn, as happened in 2023 and could happen again, we may need to rely more heavily on more expensive borrowings and other sources of funding to fund our business and meet withdrawal demands, adversely affecting our net interest margin. The occurrence of any of these events could materially and adversely affect our business, liquidity, funding mix, results of operations or financial condition. If we are unable to continue funding our assets through customer deposits or access capital markets on favorable terms or if we suffer an increase in our borrowing costs or otherwise fail to manage our liquidity effectively, our liquidity, net interest margin, financial results and condition may be materially adversely affected. In order to maintain appropriate levels of liquidity, we may need to, or be required to raise additional capital through the issuance of common stock, which could dilute the ownership of existing stockholders, or reduce or even eliminate our common stock dividend to preserve capital or to raise additional capital. The 2023 failures of Silicon Valley Bank ("SVB"), Signature Bank and First Republic have resulted and may continue to result in increased regulatory and supervisory focus on liquidity risk management, including with respect to uninsured deposits. Meeting supervisory expectations or any new regulatory requirements relating to liquidity risk management generally or uninsured deposits in particular could require us to seek to change our funding sources or the size and composition of our balance sheet, to incur higher expenses or to make other changes that adversely affect our net interest income and net interest margin.

Our liquidity could be adversely affected by any inability to access the debt or equity capital markets, liquidity or volatility in those capital markets, the decrease in value of eligible collateral or increased collateral requirements (including as a result of credit concerns for short-term borrowing), changes to our relationships with our funding providers based on real or perceived changes in our risk profile, prolonged federal government shutdowns or changes in regulations. Additionally, our liquidity may be negatively impacted by the unwillingness or inability of the Federal Reserve to act as lender of last resort. Our ability to raise additional financing depends on conditions in the capital markets, economic conditions and a number of other factors, including investor perceptions regarding the banking industry, market conditions and governmental activities and on our financial condition and performance. Accordingly, we may be unable to raise additional financing if needed or on acceptable terms.

Timely access to liquidity is essential to our business, and being able to meet obligations as they come due and pay deposits when they are withdrawn is critical to ongoing operations. If we are unable to meet our payment obligations on a daily basis, we may be subject to being placed into receivership, regardless of our capital levels. Our primary sources of liquidity consist of cash and cash balances due from correspondent banks, excess reserves at the Federal Reserve, loan repayments, federal funds sold and other short-term investments, maturities and monetization of investment securities, cash provided by operating activities and new core deposits into the Bank. Our ability to obtain or liquidate these primary sources of liquidity may be impacted by adverse economic conditions resulting from dynamic, complex, and other foreseen and unforeseen inter-related factors and events in the economic environment. If we were to rely on sales proceeds from the sale of investment securities within our portfolio in order to satisfy our obligations, we may be adversely impacted by our ability to transact and settle such sales. Sales of investment securities in an unrealized loss position would negatively affect our earnings and regulatory capital. In addition, in order to monetize our "held-to-maturity" securities, we expect to rely on pledging those securities for secured funding, and our liquidity may be impaired if we are unable to timely pledge those or any other securities due to a lack of available funding, operational impediments or otherwise. Our industry is susceptible to the negative impact of limited access to short-term and/or long-term sources of funds, which could result in a liquidity shortfall and/or impact our liquidity coverage ratio and could have an adverse effect on our operations, financial condition and earnings.

A significant portion of our loan portfolio consists of loans secured by real estate. We rely upon independent appraisers at the time of origination to estimate the value of such real estate. Appraisals are only estimates of value, and the soundness of those estimates may be affected by volatility in the real estate market or other changes in market conditions. In addition, the independent appraisers may make mistakes of fact or judgment, which adversely affect the reliability of their appraisals. In addition, events occurring after the initial appraisal may cause the value of the real estate to increase or decrease. For example, since 2020 and in light of the prevalence of hybrid work arrangements and associated lower occupancy rates, the value of commercial real estate secured by office properties has generally declined. As a result of any of these factors, the real estate securing some of our loans may be more or less valuable than anticipated at the time the loans were made. If a default occurs on a loan secured by real estate that is less valuable than originally estimated, we may not be able to recover the outstanding balance of the loan and will suffer a loss.

Under guidance adopted by the federal banking agencies, banks that have concentrations in construction, land development or commercial real estate loans (other than loans for majority owner occupied properties) are expected to maintain higher levels of risk management policies and processes and, potentially, higher levels of capital. We may be required to maintain higher levels of capital than we would otherwise be expected to maintain as a result of our levels of construction, development and commercial real estate loans.

Our liquidity, funding mix, competitive position, business, results of operations and financial condition depend to a great extent on our net interest margin, i.e., the difference between the interest yields we receive on loans, securities and other interest bearing assets and the interest rates we pay on interest bearing deposits and other liabilities. Net interest margin is affected by changes in market interest rates, because different types of assets and liabilities may react differently, and at different times, to market interest rate changes. When interest bearing liabilities mature or re-price more quickly than interest earning assets in a period, an increase in market rates of interest could reduce net interest income, possibly materially. Similarly, when interest earning assets mature or re-price more quickly than interest bearing liabilities, falling interest rates could reduce net interest income, possibly materially. Fluctuations in interest rates have a direct impact on our credit spreads and the cost of our funding. Changes in our credit spreads and funding costs are market driven and may be influenced by market perceptions of our creditworthiness, including changes in our credit ratings or changes in broader financial market and macroeconomic conditions. Changes to interest rates, our credit spreads and funding costs occur continuously and may be unpredictable and highly volatile. Developments affecting other banking institutions or the banking sector generally can also have a significant effect on our funding costs. We may also experience net interest margin compression as a result of offering higher than expected deposit rates in order to attract and maintain deposits. These rates are highly sensitive to many factors beyond our control, including competition, general economic conditions and monetary and fiscal policies of various governmental and regulatory authorities, including the FRB. We attempt to manage our risk from changes in market interest rates by adjusting the rates, maturity, re-pricing, and balances of the different types of interest earning assets and interest bearing liabilities, but interest rate risk management techniques are not exact. As a result, a rapid increase or decrease in interest rates could have an adverse effect on our net interest margin and results of operations. The Company employs an earnings simulation model (immediate parallel shifts along the yield curve) on a quarterly basis to monitor its interest rate sensitivity and risk and to model its balance sheet cash flows and the related income statement effects in different interest rate scenarios. As such, the Company's analysis, assuming a static balance sheet, decreases of approximately (0.4)% and (0.9)%, respectively, in projected net interest income and net income over a twelve month period resulting from an instantaneous 100 basis point increase in rates across the yield curve. Conversely, assuming a static balance sheet, we expect decreases of approximately 3.0% and 8.4%, respectively, in projected net interest income and net income over a twelve month period resulting from an instantaneous 100 basis point decrease in rates across the yield curve. In addition, if interest rates continue to rise or stay elevated, we may continue to experience deposit outflows. The results of our interest rate sensitivity simulation model depend upon a number of assumptions, which may not prove to be accurate. There can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully manage our interest rate risk. Fluctuations in inflation rates may also have a number of adverse effects on the Bank and the Company. For example, material increases in inflation rates would likely result in an increase in personnel and other operational costs and an increase in salary and wage expenses, which comprise the Bank's most significant non-interest expense category. Long periods of high inflation also result in higher interest rates, which will increase the Bank's deposit costs and overall cost of funds. Higher interest rates will also reduce the value of the Bank's investment portfolio holdings, and if such reductions are significant, they may materially limit our ability to meet future liquidity shortfalls by selling investments without realizing substantial losses. Higher interest rates can also adversely affect the creditworthiness of the Bank's borrowers, and the commercial real estate loan portfolio is particularly sensitive to a higher interest rate environment. These and other indirect impacts of inflation on the Bank and the Company could significantly adversely affect the Bank's and the Company's earnings and capital in both the short term and long term.

While no single depositor represented more than 10% of total deposits at December 31, 2023, our ten largest depositors not associated with brokered pass-through relationships represented approximately 22% of total deposits. This high concentration of depositors presents a risk to our liquidity if one or more of these depositors decides to change its relationship with us and to withdraw all or a significant portion of its deposits. If such an event occurs, we may need to seek out alternative sources of funding that may not be on the same terms as the deposits being replaced, including at potentially higher rates, which could negatively impact our net interest margin and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects. If we are unable to source alternative sources of funding at attractive rates or at all, we could be required to sell or otherwise monetize securities from our investment securities portfolio, which could have similar adverse consequences.