BayFirst Financial Corp. (BAFN) Q1 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Also note that this call is being recorded on Friday, 2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tom Zernick, CEO. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, Sylvie. Good morning, and thank you for participating on our call today. Once again, with me is Robin Oliver, our President and Chief Operating Officer, and Scott McKim, our Chief Financial Officer. Today's call will include forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures. please refer to our cautionary statement on forward looking statements contained on page two of the investor presentation. We reported a net loss this quarter of $335,000 driven by a couple of challenges, most notably higher provision expense and higher write downs on our portfolio of loans measured at fair value. Businesses are experiencing slowing demand for products and services, along with the sustained higher interest rate environment and rising inflation, which has created stressed cash flows for many small businesses. In addition, past and present macroeconomic conditions are fueling uncertainty and concern among business owners across the nation, which resulted in lower loan demand than expected during the first quarter. We will elaborate more on this in a few minutes, But first I want to talk about some areas that are performing well in the first quarter and activities that set the stage for future growth. Our net interest margin improved again in the first quarter, an increase of 17 basis points to 3.77%. Fueling this improvement was growth in interest bearing and non-interest bearing checking account balances during the quarter, while we allowed some runoff and high rate CDs and promotional priced money market balances. Our business banking, healthcare banking, and treasury management teams are fully staffed and gaining ...