Primis Financial Corp Gives Update As To Mid-Quarter Q1 Of 2023 Results

Author: Happy Mohamed | March 13, 2023 09:20am

Primis Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:FRST) ("Primis" or the "Company"), and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Primis Bank (the "Bank"), today reported several mid-quarter results associated driven by various deposit growth strategies.

Speaking about the Company's balance sheet strength, Dennis J. Zember, Jr., President and CEO commented, "Given the turbulence we have witnessed over the past week, I think it is important to update the investment community on certain of our results through the first quarter of 2023. Between concerted efforts to maintain and grow relationships at the core bank and the increasing popularity of the mobile banking platform attracting new customers, we have grown core deposits in the first quarter of 2023 by approximately $908 million through March 9, 2023. This outstanding result has allowed our bank to become 97% core customer funded, with no wholesale borrowings and only $100 million of short-term brokered deposits. As a result, our loan to deposit ratio has dropped to 83% from 108% at December 31, 2022. Currently we have approximately $600 million of cash (after retiring $325 million of maturing FHLB borrowings) on our balance sheet compared to only $244 million of investment securities, only 5% of which are classified as held-to-maturity. Lastly, we have approximately $855 million of borrowing capacity from various institutions, including the FHLB."

The Company's mobile platform, which augments its core community bank, has opened approximately 10,600 new accounts since the full launch in the fourth quarter of 2022 with total current balances (as of March 9, 2023) of approximately $921 million and, importantly, this quarter-to-date growth has been without any incremental personnel or system expense. The customers are from all 50 states, have an average age of 51 years, and carry an average balance of $87,100. Only 23% of the balances on the mobile platform are over $250,000.

Mr. Zember continued, "Our success with these profitable and safe deposit strategies has provided our bank with some of the best liquidity ratios in the industry. Our customer base is diversified by state (in all 50 states), between consumer and commercial and amongst various deposit types. We have zero exposure to crypto-oriented loans or deposits and no exposure to venture capital sponsored businesses. Lastly, our average balances per customer are low, at approximately $44,000 per account and we continue to see meaningful deposit inflows on a daily basis."

Posted In: FRST