Alerus Financial reports Q2 EPS 31c, consensus 36c

CEO Katie Lorenson said, “We continued to see improvement in our underlying core business during the second quarter of 2024. Overall revenues grew 8% sequentially from the prior quarter as both our spread based and fee based revenues grew at a similar rate. A continued rebound in our net interest margin coupled with strong balance sheet growth in loans and deposits, including noninterest bearing deposits, propelled our spread income higher. Fee based revenues benefitted from an improvement in both asset based and non-market based fees from our wealth and retirement businesses. In addition, operating leverage improved with continued prudent expense management, which drove overall expenses down slightly during the quarter. These strong core underlying trends led to sequential improvement of over 48% in pre-provision net revenue from the prior quarter. Provision expense for the quarter was $4.5 million which was driven by loan growth and moving one previously identified commercial real estate loan to nonperforming. Overall classified asset levels improved during the quarter and credit quality is strong relative to historical standards. Reserve and capital levels remain robust with an allowance of 1.31% to total loans, CET1 ratio of 11.67%, while tangible book value per common share grew more than 8% over the past year.”