Avidbank Holdings Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call - IPO-funded portfolio reset drives margin lift but triggers Q3 GAAP loss

Eric, Conference Operator: Good morning. My name is Eric, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Avidbank Holdings, Inc. Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I’d like to introduce the presenters: Chairman and CEO Mark Mordell, Chief Financial Officer Patrick Oakes, and Chief Operating Officer Gina Tomas-Peterson. You may begin your conference.

Gina, Presenter/Introduction, Avidbank Holdings: Good morning. Thank you for joining us today for Avidbank Holdings, Inc. Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Before we begin, let me remind you that today’s call is being recorded and is available in the Investor Relations section of our website at avidbank.com, along with our earnings release and presentation materials. Today’s call contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. These statements are intended to be covered by the safe harbor provisions of the Federal Securities Law. For a list of factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations, please refer to our earnings release under the heading Forward Looking Statements, as well as the disclosures contained within our SEC filing. We will also reference non-GAAP financial measures alongside our discussion of GAAP results.

We encourage you to review the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations provided in our earnings release. With that, I’d like to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Mark Mordell.

Mark Mordell, Chairman and CEO, Avidbank Holdings: Thank you, Gina, and thank you all for attending our first public earnings call. Hopefully, we’ll get this right today. You know, our third quarter was certainly significant for us. It marked a milestone as we completed our initial public offering, as most people are aware, and netting approximately $61 million. The objectives of the IPO were multifaceted. It allowed us to restructure our securities portfolio that significantly enhances our profitability. It spread out our tightly shared ownership, along with 100% participation from our board, executive management, and our existing investors. We brought in approximately 40 new investors into being shareholders for Avidbank. It gives us better currency to trade, and it’s really put us on a platform to take this bank to the next level. We’re really excited about the enhanced footings that we have at this point. As I mentioned, this IPO closed on August 8, essentially mid-quarter.

Therefore, there’s a lot of moving parts and a lot of quote unquote "noise" on our income statement and our balance sheet for the quarter. Pat’s going to give more detail on that when he takes it over. Overall, from a core operations perspective, we had a solid Q3. We had loan growth of $46 million, or 10% on an annualized basis. Deposits grew by $72 million, or 15% on an annual basis. Both solid metrics for us going forward. Credit continues to hold up with 12 basis points. MPA is at 12 basis points, slightly up from Q2 due to one credit. Credit quality has always been a top concern for us, and we’re going forward. We’re just going to continue to focus on that. We’ve enjoyed a nice run of solid credit and are going to continue to actively manage those credits going forward.

I’d like to now just turn it over to Pat and let him highlight the financial highlights for the quarter and then open it up to questions after that.

Patrick Oakes, Chief Financial Officer, Avidbank Holdings: Hey, thanks, Mark. Good morning, everyone. Let me start by providing some details into the impact of our recent IPO and then the strategic repositioning of the investment portfolio we did. In August, we completed our IPO, as Mark mentioned, issuing just over 3 million shares at $23 per share, generating net proceeds of $61.3 million. During August and September, we sold $275 million in available for sale securities, realizing a pre-tax loss of $62.4 million, and we began the process of reinvesting a portion of those proceeds into new securities. During the quarter, we reinvested $163 million, primarily in mortgage-backed CMOs, with an average yield of 4.54%. Due to this loss on the security sale, we reported a GAAP net loss of $37.7 million for the third quarter. If you exclude this charge, adjusted net income was $6.7 million, or $0.72 per share.

We saw immediate benefits from this repositioning, with our margin expanding to 3.90%, up from 3.60% in Q2. Our adjusted ROA improved to 1.13% compared to 1% last quarter. The fourth quarter will include the full impact from the repositioning, leading to further improvements in profitability. This repositioning was an important step to improve our long-term profitability. The margin improvement was also supported by a 4 basis point decline in interest-bearing deposit costs and an 11 basis point decrease in total deposit costs, driven by a $58 million increase in average non-interest-bearing deposits. Deposit growth was not only strong but also high quality, with this meaningful increase in DDA balances. Since the Fed began cutting rates in 2024, our deposit beta has been approximately 59%, contributing to the margin expanding from 3.35% in the third quarter of 2024.

As of September 30, 48% of our loan portfolio is floating rate, with approximately 13% of these loans at their floor rate. Our liquidity position remains strong. With the IPO proceeds and deposit growth, we fully repaid all short-term borrowings, including brokered CDs. Our non-interest expense rose to $13.5 million, an increase of $869,000 from the previous quarter. This did include approximately $300,000 in one-time IPO-related expenses. The additional increase in expenses was primarily driven by higher compensation expense and lower capitalized loan origination costs. As Mark mentioned, credit quality remains strong. Non-performance was just 14 basis points. Criticized loans declined to 148 basis points, down from 187 basis points in Q2. Capital ratio has improved meaningfully, with consolidated total risk-based capital rising to 13.48%, up from 12.76% in Q2, reflecting the strong strength of our balance sheet post-IPO. With that, I’ll turn it back over to Mark.

Mark Mordell, Chairman and CEO, Avidbank Holdings: Thanks, Pat. A lot of people on the call know us pretty well, so I think at this point, it’s fun to hear what’s on your mind, and we’re open for any questions at this point.

Eric, Conference Operator: At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Andrew Terrell with Stephens. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning.

Mark Mordell, Chairman and CEO, Avidbank Holdings: Good morning, Matt.

Hey, maybe just to start, thank you guys for hosting this call. I appreciate it. Maybe just to start, just on the margin, you know, as you guys mentioned, lots of moving pieces in the quarter, and we only got kind of a partial quarter impact from the securities restructure and some of the higher cost funding pay down. I’m just hoping maybe you could help us out a little bit with what the kind of fully loaded margin is post those actions, either, you know, in the month of September or how the margin’s kind of trending in the fourth quarter so far. It seems like it should go above 4%, but I just want to kind of check in, see if you had expectations there.

Yeah, no, you know, it obviously should go well above 4%. If you kind of just back out all the IPO-related activities, we kind of estimate the margin was just from the core margin expanding to about $370. If you add in all the impact of restructuring this bond portfolio, it’ll be well over 4%. I’m not sure if I want to disclose what it was in September because that’s kind of a one-time month, but you know, it should be $410 plus at this point, maybe even higher than that, depending on how things shake out.

Perfect. Okay. I did also want to ask, it feels like or looks like you guys got a little more asset-sensitive post-restructure. We’re obviously looking at a few more cuts, potentially, or a couple more cuts in 4Q and maybe some in 2026. Your thoughts on kind of go forward margin? Do you feel like 4% plus is achievable, acknowledging we’ve got maybe a few more cuts in the curve than previously expected?

Yes, obviously, especially at quarter end, I think you’ll see in our 10Q, we’re going to show ourselves more asset-sensitive. A big piece of that is because we’re sitting on a lot of cash at this point. As we reinvest some of that cash, that will take some of that down, but we are going to be more asset-sensitive because we also have more DDA now. I would think at minus 100, we at this point, as of 9/30, net interest income would drop about 4%. That’s not significant, even with all the cash that we have. I think it’s manageable at this point. I don’t think there’s much we need to do, but I think that margin will still stay at a good, reasonable level.

Okay. I also wanted to ask on the floors. You give the disclosure, I think it’s 13% of floating rate loans that are at floor rates right now. I was just wondering if you guys had any kind of schedule, how material those floors become, you know, if we do get another 25, 50, 100 basis points of rate cuts, just any color on how the floors pick up as a percentage of the total floating?

Yeah. I can give you a little bit of detail on that, but you need to also realize that at some point, at another 25 basis points, another $40 million hits that, another 25 basis points, it’s close to $100 million. As rates get lower, we get more and more clients hit the floors. We know at some point we’re going to hear back from these clients and how sustainable are some of these floors. We may lose some of them as rates go to offset some of the clients hitting those floors. We’ll get a benefit, but I’ll be curious to see how much that benefit is as rates decrease. It definitely helps. If they go further south, it won’t be a one-to-one.

Got it. Okay. I’ll step back. Thank you for taking the questions, and congrats on the IPO this quarter.

Eric, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Clark with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone. On the deposit cost side, your beta, at least interest bearings, have been running cycle to date around 59%. What are your thoughts with the additional rate cuts that are potentially coming? Your ability to kind of mitigate some of that asset sensitivity, you think you can kind of maintain a beta in that 55-60% range through the cycle? I’m sure it’ll get more difficult with more rate cuts, but just wanted to get your thoughts there.

Mark Mordell, Chairman and CEO, Avidbank Holdings: Yeah. We model a 50% beta, and obviously, we’ve been able to beat that, which has helped, especially with the loan floors that we have. I’m hoping the next few we can keep that 50% plus beta. You’re right. As rates continue to move down, it’s going to get more and more difficult. It feels like at least the next one or two rate cuts, hopefully, we can keep that somewhere close to that 59% beta.

Okay. Great. Do you have the spot rate on deposit costs at the end of September, just to give us accountability?

Yeah. At 9/30, interest bearing was $336 million.

Okay. Great. On the deposit growth this quarter, nice increase in non-interest bearing. Could you give us some color on where that came from and where your venture deposits stand at the end of September? I think they were $754 million at the end of June.

Yeah, the venture and fund finance together was $798 million or so.

Great. In terms of the pipeline for loans and deposits going forward, I assume you’re sticking to the kind of double-digit loan and deposit growth guidance, but just wanted to get a sense for how the pipelines look.

The pipelines on both loans and deposits look strong. We have typically been a second-half company. If you look historically over years, and Q4s have been always pretty strong for us. What we’re seeing going into Q4 looks real solid. I mean, very optimistic. We should have a solid quarter.

Okay. Just a nitpicky question. The small uptick in non-performers this quarter, just if you could describe the type of credit it is and whether or not the reserve build was related to that, or was that just more macro-driven?

The uptick in NPAs was one credit. Venture client, it’s $1.4 million, if I’m not mistaken. Those kind of credits are kind of binary, so we took a full reserve on it. That’s one of the reasons for the uptick in the ACL.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Eric, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Gary Tenner with DA Davidson. Please go ahead.

Mark Mordell, Chairman and CEO, Avidbank Holdings: Thanks. Good morning. I wanted to ask about kind of longer-term balance sheet management. Pat, you kind of alluded to it a bit, you know, that you might be, you know, you may continue to deploy some of that cash. Just as you’re thinking about the securities portfolio, the size as it is today versus pre-IPO, where would you like to manage that to as a percentage of assets or earning assets over time? Yeah. No, it’ll be a smaller percentage of earning assets, I would think. We don’t need as big of a portfolio. It’s hard to say, right? It depends on deposit growth and loan growth and everything else. I think that probably 10% on the small side, maybe 15% on the large side. You’ll probably see us add some additional securities here in the fourth quarter, maybe that’s $50 million or so, $75 million.

It won’t be a significant amount. Get us at that 10% number. We’ll go from there.

Okay. Great. Follow up on the kind of loan pipeline question. The growth this quarter was pretty broad across the different lending segments. Where are you seeing, as you look at the pipeline fourth quarter and maybe even early into 2026, from what you’re hearing, where are you seeing kind of the opportunity set that is out there for you from a segment perspective?

Fund finance and real estate are having a significant year this year, and it seems that the CRE has been, there’s a strong pipeline there. Excuse me. Also, venture doesn’t have a whole lot of outs, although they’re doing business because we’re primarily early stage. I think the significant growth on the loan side is going to come from fund finance, CRE, and specialty in ABL, so sponsor and asset-based lending. They have pretty robust pipelines going into Q4.

How is the pricing competition developing in those segments, Mark?

It seems that a lot of banks are having a hard time growing. There are some larger banks, you know, from a commercial real estate perspective, going down into the fives. Pricing is an issue, and it’s competitive. I think the transactional sponsor finance and fund finance, you know, the competition is pretty stiff. Most of everything we’re doing is prime plus. I think it’s balanced. One of the big impediments we’ve had this year in terms of growth is this is probably the biggest year that we’ve ever had of construction loan payoffs. We have an excess of like $130 million, $140 million this year of construction payoffs. That portfolio is going to take a while to build back up again. We don’t view construction as a growth animal for us. We just like that $250 million plus or minus because it’s a great earner for us.

This year, there was a pretty good landslide of construction payoffs.

Do you think the second quarter, $205 million on construction, is the bottom, and the third quarter was up a few million? Do you think the mid-part of this year was effectively the bottom in that portfolio?

I think the majority of the proverbial pig is through the python at this point. We’ll still have payoffs because it’s going to happen, but not the amount and the size that have paid off in 2024 thus far.

Great. Thanks very much.

Eric, Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Timothy Coffey with Janney. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. Morning, everybody.

Mark Mordell, Chairman and CEO, Avidbank Holdings: Morning, Tim.

As we look at the loan or deposit ratio, was your anticipation that it would kind of stay in that mid-90% going forward? You know.

I personally would still like to drive that down and get to a stabilized, you know, plus or minus 90%. Given where we’re going, I think the 95% number is a pretty good number for us. Given our planned growth for next year, I don’t think, unless something significant happens on the liability side of the balance sheet, it gets down. It may get down a couple of basis points or a couple of percentage points, but I think something around 95% is probably okay for us at this point.

Okay. Sounds good. Pat, what’s a good expense number next quarter? Is the run rate closer to $13 million?

If you take out the one-time expenses of $300,000, yeah, that’s probably a good run rate, that low $13 million-ish. That’s how I would think about it, probably.

Okay. I had a couple of market-related questions for you both. About a year ago, we started seeing customer outflows from, you know, the old First Republic franchise. I’m wondering, is that still occurring?

Yes, is the short answer. I think a lot of those folks are still trying to find homes, and there’s not really a bank to replicate what they had at First Republic Bank. There is a significant amount of frustration out there. Those clients are recalibrating their expectations. We picked up a fair amount of personal banking from our existing business clients because of the service and the attention. They’re not getting the other things they liked, which is the lowest, you know, low mortgage rates and high interest rates on deposits. There is still a lot of turmoil that’s out there. With Comerica getting purchased, that’s going to create additional turmoil out there that’s going to be opportunistic for us, both from a client perspective as well as a talent perspective.

Okay. Just related to the First Republic Bank piece, is that kind of outflows included in your growth outlooks?

We don’t segment it to that extent, Tim. I think we just see that there is opportunity, and there’s a lot of movement or inquiries by former First Republic Bank clients.

Okay. I guess I was just trying to ask you whether or not you saw that as kind of a bonus to what you see as your line of sight on the pipeline, which it sounds like you kind of do.

I think it’s just in the mix, and it’s a portion of the mix as we try and evaluate all opportunities out there.

Okay. You brought up Comerica, right? They’re about to go through some stuff. Is there anything on the venture banking side that they do that you like?

There’s nothing they do that we like. I mean, we compete against them every now and again. We are focused significantly on the earlier-stage investing. It’s not anything that they do that’s special that we want to take advantage of. I just think there’s going to be one less player that’s going to be out there that’s not going to be at full strength. That’s going to cause some people looking around a little bit more, both from a client perspective as well as from a talent perspective.

Okay. Great. Incredibly helpful. Thanks. Those are my questions.

Eric, Conference Operator: As a reminder, if you’d like to ask a question at this time, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Ross Haberman with RLH Investments. Please go ahead.

Morning, guys. Thanks for taking the call. Just a quick question for you, Mark. On the new money you brought in, are you making adjustments to the size of the loans you’re doing now with the new capital? Are you doing any sort of participation?

Thank you. Bye now.

Mark Mordell, Chairman and CEO, Avidbank Holdings: As far as the new capital goes, yeah, of course, it does raise our legal lending limit. Our balance sheet has not grown significantly over the last couple of years due to the turmoil in the industry and the liquidity, I don’t want to say crunch that we had in 2023, but we had to obviously strengthen our balance sheet back to where it needs to be. We’re a firm believer in building portfolios. When you consider a $2 billion loan portfolio, we don’t want to do a lot of $25 million and north deals just because of downgrade risk and overall credit risk. We’re still focused primarily in that $25 million and under level, even though our legal lending limits are much higher.

We will be opportunistic, keeping credits that have been with us a while, and we will go higher on those because we know those credits well, and we don’t feel the risk is anything greater. Not until we grow our balance sheet significantly will we start doing larger deals. That’s one of our biggest challenges for the verticals in which we’re competing, is our balance sheet size. We’ve been doing a pretty good job of it over the years and of participating out a portion of it to keep clients. I don’t see a bunch of movement in the overall portfolio management doing a lot of larger deals. As far as participations go, we will do some participations primarily on the fund finance side. I think we have about $70 million that are out there in terms of syndications. That’s a pretty good yield with very low risk.

We’ll do those to solidify ourselves in the venture community as well as deploy capital with acceptable risk for a higher yield.

Okay, thank you very much.

Eric, Conference Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to the presenters.

Mark Mordell, Chairman and CEO, Avidbank Holdings: This is our first public earnings call. We appreciate everybody showing up and your interest and your confidence. If there’s further follow-up you need, obviously, feel free to reach out to us and contact us.

Eric, Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s call. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect.