Plumas Bancorp reports Q4 EPS $1.27 vs. $1.32 last year

Return on average assets was 1.88% during the twelve months ended December 31, 2023, up from 1.61% during 2022. Return on average equity increased to 23.4% for the twelve months ended December 31, 2023, up from 21.9% during 2022. Return on average assets was 1.87% during the three months ended December 31, 2023 and 1.88% during the three months ended December 31, 2022. Return on average equity decreased to 23.9% for the three months ended December 31, 2023, down from 27.9% during the fourth quarter of 2022. Reports tangible book value per common share $23.98. Reports CET1 ratio 15.7%. Andrew Ryback, CEO, stated, “As you know, the last year and a half has been a period of rapidly rising rates. This rising rate environment, coupled with another Fed policy, that of quantitative tightening, has resulted in reductions to the money supply and the impairment of banks to generate new deposits and fund new loans. In response, we have invested in retooling our lending system and processes for enhanced efficiency and decision making. This change will position us well for future loan growth. As for deposits, we remain disciplined in protecting our lower cost of funds but have offered Time deposit specials so that we can compete for new deposits. Rapidly rising rates have also put pressure on variable-rate borrowers, creating some elevated loan loss risk in the banking industry. At Plumas, however, we do not expect significant losses because criticized assets are being proactively addressed with advanced preparation of solutions and collaborative monitoring for potential challenges. Additionally, non-performing loans are well-collateralized. In the fourth quarter we terminated our indirect auto loan program. Ending this program, which was our lowest yielding loan segment, also improved our loan loss risk profile since this program had historically higher charge-off rates. Terminating this program also improved our consumer compliance risk profile. Another current industry challenge is that of margin compression. Fortunately, at Plumas, our extremely low cost of funds coupled with higher yielding loans has resulted in margin expansion rather than the more typical margin compression experienced by most banks. The higher rate environment presented some opportunities that we took advantage of during 2023. One of those opportunities involved harvesting a significant gain from an interest rate swap while locking in a lower cost borrowing. We also developed a sale leaseback strategy which we expect to implement in the first quarter of 2024 and which will provide an opportunity to restructure our investment portfolio by divesting lower yielding securities and replacing them with higher yielding securities. This possible restructuring of our investment portfolio has the potential to enhance the bank’s interest income streams for years to come. Looking forward, the Fed is signaling some rate decreases in the coming year which we anticipate will result in improved demand for loans. We also anticipate stabilization of deposit balances as clients may be less likely to self-fund with savings and more likely to borrow with rates declining. As the banking environment for community banks improves, we expect to continue to out-perform the industry and will explore avenues for strategic opportunities that align with our long-term growth objectives. We would like to thank our clients, communities, employees, and investors for their continued support which empowers Plumas Bank to be Here. FOR GOOD.”