Bank OZK Reports First Quarter 2022 Earnings

April 21, 2022 in Corporate News

We are pleased to report our results for the first quarter of 2022.  Highlights include:

  • Net Income.  Our $128.0 million of net income and $1.02 diluted earnings per common share for the quarter just ended provided a strong start for 2022.
  • Quarterly Origination Volume.  Our Real Estate Specialties Group (“RESG”) posted its second consecutive quarter of record originations with $3.14 billion of loans originated during the quarter just ended.  This contributed to the $1.33 billion increase in our unfunded loan commitments during the quarter to a record $14.95 billion at March 31, 2022.
  • Net Interest Income.  Our net interest income for the quarter was $249.3 million, which was our second highest quarterly net interest income ever, only behind our exceptionally strong results in the 4th quarter of 2021.  In the quarter just ended, our core spread, which is how we describe the difference between our yield on non-purchased loans and our cost of interest bearing deposits (“COIBD”) was 5.14% and our net interest margin was 4.24%.
  • Asset Quality.  Our focus on asset quality was again evident, as reflected in our annualized net charge-off ratios for the quarter just ended of 0.08% for non-purchased loans and -0.01% for total loans.  Our March 31, 2022 ratios of nonperforming non-purchased loans to total non-purchased loans and nonperforming assets to total assets[1] were just 0.21% and 0.16%, respectively.
  • Efficiency Ratio. Our efficiency ratio for the quarter was 38.2%, which is among the best in the industry.
  • Stock Repurchases & Dividend Growth.  During the quarter just ended, we repurchased 2.9 million shares of our common stock for a total of $131.6 million.  We recently increased the quarterly dividend on our common stock for the 47th consecutive quarter.
  • Multiple Options for Increasing Shareholder Value. Our combination of strong earnings and robust capital gives us great optionality to increase shareholder value.  Options for deploying our excess capital include organic loan growth, adding new business lines, continuing to increase the dividend on our common stock, financially attractive acquisitions for cash or some combination of cash and stock, and stock repurchases.

George Gleason, Chairman and CEO Comment in Earnings Release

“We are pleased to report our excellent results for the first quarter of 2022.  Our results were highlighted by our second consecutive quarter of record RESG loan originations, reflecting the importance of organic growth in our long-term strategy.  Our strong capital and liquidity, disciplined credit culture and outstanding team have us well positioned for the future.”

Full Report and Management Comments

Bank OZK’s Earnings Release and Management Comments for the 1st Quarter 2022 are available here.

 

[1] Excludes purchased loans, except for their inclusion in total assets.