Premier Financial reports Q4 core EPS 56c, consensus 58c

“In the fourth quarter, we saw a continuation of performance improvement on many topics outlined in our third quarter release,” said Gary Small, President and CEO of Premier. “Positive elements include purposefully moderate loan growth, excellent deposit growth, strong wealth management revenue growth, deliberate cost containment, and a decline in non-performing assets. Total loans grew 4.3% in 2023 with full year commercial loan growth totaling 4.2%. We remain focused on servicing existing clients and are well positioned to expand our new business outreach efforts in the upcoming year. We are pleased with our trend in customer deposit gathering over the past two quarters that delivered growth of $220 million, or 6.7% annualized growth. Over the same period, non-interest bearing deposit balances stabilized with annualized growth of 2.3%.”