Nicolet Bankshares reports Q1 EPS (61c) with items, consensus $1.67

Core banking operations earned $22M on growth in loans and wealth management fee revenue. Net income reflected non-core items and the related tax effect of each, including U.S. Treasury securities sale loss, expected loss on the Signature Bank sub debt investment merger-related expenses, Day 2 credit provision expense required under the CECL model, as well as gains/losses on other assets and investments. These non-core items negatively impacted earnings per diluted common share $2.06 for Q1 and 1c for Q4 of FY12, and positively impacted earnings EPS 6c for Q1 of FY22. "We made several moves during the first quarter that were consistent with our mindset toward long-term thinking. Our goal with these moves was to make Nicolet a stronger and more nimble organization going forward," said Mike Daniels, President and CEO of Nicolet. "The $500M in U.S. Treasuries that were going to remain on our balance sheet for another two years were depressing our net interest margin, which had a negative effect on our earnings. In early March, after weighing the decision and prior to the banking turmoil, management and the Board felt it was in the best long-term interest of shareholders to sell the securities, as it better positions Nicolet for immediate and, more importantly, future success in the form of higher earnings. Based on this move, and as we began to see during March, we expect our net interest margin to increase for at least the next few quarters. Additionally, a benefit of this decision provides for better financial transparency as the recent public macro market has cast a cloud over the banking sector, in particular held to maturity securities. The non-core moves we made in the Q1 position Nicolet to remain a highly focused community bank that is funded by local core deposits. We expect to quickly get back to our position of producing top quartile shareholder profitability metrics."