第一银行 (FRBA) 2026年第三季度业绩电话会：息差扩大，2027年贷款目标上调lg...

第一银行（NASDAQ：FRBA）公布2026年第三季度盈利能力有所增强，得益于净息差扩大、贷款和存款增长以及运营效率提升。管理层还提高了季度股息，批准了一项新的股票回购计划，并提出了更高的2027年贷款增长目标。

要点速览

• 净利润为1220万美元，即每股摊薄收益0.49美元，摊薄每股收益较上一季度增加0.06美元（即12.5%）。平均资产回报率达到1.18%。
• 税收等效净息差环比扩大6个基点至3.74%，这得益于贷款收益率上升、严谨的存款定价以及资产负债表优化。
• 贷款增加5020万美元，年化增长约6%；同时存款增加4300万美元，年化增长约5%。
• 效率比率改善至52.4%（第二季度为54.5%）。非利息支出为2030万美元，相当于平均资产的1.97%。
• 董事会将季度股息提高了33%至每股0.12美元，并授权回购最多120万股，总金额最高达2400万美元，有效期至2027年9月。
• 管理层的目标是将2027年贷款增长设定为接近3亿美元，高于近年来的约2亿美元年度目标。

核心财务数据

业务与经营业绩

商业贷款驱动了资产负债表的增长。工商业贷款（C&I）、自用型商业地产贷款和建筑贷款引领了本季度的贷款扩张。工商业贷款占总贷款的22.5%，相比之下，一年前为21.9%。

第一银行本季度签约并发放了1.24亿美元的新贷款，同时贷款还清额放缓至5300万美元。包括自用商业地产在内的工商业贷款占新业务的65%（截至9月30日）。投资型房地产贷款约占30%，其余为消费贷款。

贷款管道中预计发放的资金达到3.63亿美元（截至9月30日），较3月和6月季末平均水平增长约12%。管理层表示，业务机会分布在区域贷款、SBA贷款、私募股权、资产担保贷款和投资型房地产领域。

融资金额调配措施包括偿还9000万美元的批发借款，减少4400万美元的经纪存款，并购买了约5700万美元的低风险投资证券，其收益率高于现金。

本季度平均无息存款增加了3200万美元，但期末余额下降了4870万美元（相比6月30日）。管理层将这一时点对比的减少部分归因于正常波动，同时指出定价压力上升。

信贷成本仍集中在 Business Express 业务。今年迄今约95%的坏账核销（在总额约850万美元的今年迄今核销额中）来自该组合，而 Business Express 之外的核销额接近于零。管理层报告称，10 月份新问题减少且逾期率有所改善。季末之后，第一银行还收到了一笔550万美元的还款（用于偿还一笔问题贷款），而一笔950万美元的老年住宅项目参贷份额，管理层预计将在第四季度晚些时候得到全额偿还。

管理层展望

管理层预计贷款和存款的增长将支撑净利息收入，并认为净息差能够保持稳定且具备潜在的上行空间。第一银行具有轻微的资产敏感性，有超过25%的资产会在美联储调整利率时立即重新定价。不过，管理层提醒称，较高的存款成本可能会抵消部分收益。

针对2027年，管理层计划将总贷款增长目标设定在接近3亿美元，相比之下，约2亿美元的年度目标为近年来的水平。更庞大的项目储备和新增的投资型房地产额度支撑了这一目标。

该公司的目标是将非利息费用占平均资产的比例从1.97%降至1.90%，在持续费用控制和资产增长的前提下，可能在2027年中期左右实现。从更长期来看，管理层表示1.80%至1.90%的区间是可以实现的，具体取决于投资机会。

First Bank预计其有效税率将保持在25%或以下。管理层还预计小企业管理局（SBA）贷款销售活动将支持更高的收益，不过预计短期内非利息收入总额不会发生重大变化。

风险与关注领域

• 随着近期利率上升，存款竞争有所加剧。管理层预计计息存款成本将上升，无息存款余额将继续承压。
• 收购会计增计预计将随着时间的推移而减少，从而对净息差构成逆风。
• Business Express仍是信贷损失的主要来源。管理层预计损失将有所趋缓，但表示改善的时间和节奏仍难以预测。
• 进一步加息可能会推迟新的商业地产项目，或导致借款人重新评估项目的经济效益，不过管理层在电话会议期间尚未观察到明显的萎缩迹象。
• 2027年的费用率和贷款增长目标取决于严格的成本控制以及商业贷款储备项目的成功转化。

分析师问答环节要点

在存款方面，管理层表示工商业（C&I）客户关系正在带来额外存款，同时公司正选择性地针对大额存单（CD）和流动性更强的产品开展零售促销。定价依然面临挑战，但公司预计具有吸引力的贷款利差将有助于抵消较高的资金成本。

在息差敏感性方面，管理层表示First Bank最初应受益于加息，因为资产中立即重新定价的比例高于负债。本季度末采取的资产负债表举措——包括减少高成本借款和经纪存款——也支持了管理层对息差保持稳定并可能存在上行空间的预期。

管理层指出，近期新发放贷款的定价普遍在6%高段至7%之间。新发放贷款的季度加权平均利率约为6.90%，其中大多数贷款的定价利差超过200个基点（高于五年期国债或联邦住房贷款银行基准）。

关于Business Express，管理层表示，自出现问题以来已实施更严格的承保与续约标准。管理层认为该业务板块能够恢复盈利，前提是年化信贷成本回归正常至约2%至3%。

财报电话会议完整文字实录

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完整财报电话会议逐字稿

管理层陈述

Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the First Bank Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Patrick Ryan, President and CEO. Patrick, please go ahead.

Patrick Ryan

Thank you. I'd like to welcome everyone today to First Bank's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. I am joined by Andrew Hibshman, our Chief Financial Officer; and Peter Cahill, our Chief Lending Officer. Before we begin, Andrew will read the safe harbor statement.

Andrew Hibshman

The following discussion may contain forward-looking statements concerning the financial condition, results of operations and business of First Bank. We caution that such statements are subject to a number of uncertainties, and actual results could differ materially. And therefore, you should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements we make. We may not update any forward-looking statements we make today for future events or developments. Information about risks and uncertainties are described under Item 1A Risk Factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, filed with the FDIC. Pat, back to you.

Patrick Ryan

Thanks, Andrew. In the third quarter, we saw continued improvement. Our balance sheet growth continued at a healthy pace, including loans, which were up $50 million during the quarter, and deposits, which increased $43 million during the quarter, leaving us ahead of plan for deposit growth so far this year. Our margin improved nicely to 3.74%, driving our return on average assets back up to 1.18%. Noninterest expense came in at $20.3 million, and our noninterest expense to average assets ratio came down to 1.97%, working towards our goal of 1.90%. Our pre-provision return on average assets came in at 1.79%, an increase of 8 basis points compared to the prior quarter. I wanted to highlight some additional strategic considerations before I turn it over to Andrew and Peter to provide some additional details.

First, I want to point out that our strong capital position gives us significant flexibility, and we intend to pull several levers to optimize our results moving forward. We started by announcing an increase to our quarterly dividend, moving it up to $0.12 per share, a 33% increase. We also announced our new buyback plan, which we intend to use to take advantage of market opportunities as we move forward through the end of this year and into next year. And we also see opportunities to leverage our capital for increased organic growth as our middle market commercial lending businesses gain momentum, and we have additional investor real estate capacity, which Peter will discuss later.

Some earnings tailwinds should help drive continued improved profitability. Specifically, we are modestly asset sensitive, which could help if rates move higher. We have a relatively small investment portfolio, which minimizes our risk for AOCI degradation if rates do move higher. Our expense containment initiatives should help drive efficiency even lower as we move forward. Improved growth rates will help drive efficiency and profitability, and our healthy level of ACL, coupled with improving credit metrics, should create opportunities as well. In summary, we think we're in a good position to finish the year strong and the prospects for even better profitability in 2027 look good. At this time, I'd like to turn it over to Andrew to discuss some additional details of our financial results. Andrew?

Andrew Hibshman

Thanks, Pat. For the 3 months ended September 30, 2026, we recorded net income of $12.2 million or $0.49 per diluted share, which translates to 1.18% return on average assets. Strong net interest income growth and continued operating discipline drove improvement to our bottom line with diluted earnings per share increasing $0.06 or about 12.5% on a linked quarter basis. Net interest income increased $2 million or 5.6% compared to the linked quarter and increased $1.2 million or 3.4% compared to the third quarter of last year. Compared to the linked quarter, net interest income increased primarily due to growth in average earning assets, higher loan yields, disciplined deposit pricing and continued balance sheet optimization.

Loan yields increased 15 basis points linked quarter to 6.48%, while our total cost of deposits increased only 5 basis points to 2.47% -- as a result, our tax equivalent net interest margin expanded 6 basis points to 3.74%. We continue to expect acquisition accounting accretion to decline over time and the competitive environment for deposits remains challenging. These are margin headwinds. However, we have also -- we also continue to see opportunities to grow higher-yielding commercial relationships and optimize our funding and balance sheet mix. We successfully put that strategy into action this quarter by using excess liquidity to pay down $90 million in wholesale borrowings. We've reduced brokered deposits by $44 million and purchased approximately $57 million of low-risk investment securities, offering higher yields than cash.

With these changes, we still have a well-balanced asset and liability position, and we believe continued loan and deposit growth should support net interest income growth regardless of what happens with rates. We're pleased with our loan and deposit growth during the quarter. Loans grew $50.2 million or approximately 6% annualized, led by C&I, owner-occupied commercial real estate and construction lending. Our high-yielding C&I portfolio grew to comprise 22.5% of total loans at the end of Q3 compared to 21.9% a year ago. Credit costs and metrics were generally stable during the quarter. Provision expense was $2.2 million, essentially unchanged from the linked quarter. We did see slightly higher net charge-offs of $1.9 million compared to $1.6 million in the second quarter, and those charge-offs again primarily reflect activity in our Business Express portfolio. This portfolio continues to run down, and we expect any future losses will moderate from recent quarters. We are not seeing any meaningful signs of stress in our other loan segments.

Nonperforming assets rose slightly to $35.7 million during the quarter. However, since quarter end, NPAs have been reduced, and we have seen improvement in some early credit indicators, such as slightly lower delinquencies in our Business Express portfolio so far in October. Our allowance for credit losses remains essentially stable at 1.37% of total loans and represented approximately 132% of nonperforming loans. We believe our reserve coverage ratio remains strong. Our loan growth was supported by another strong quarter of deposit generation with total deposits increasing $43 million or approximately 5% annualized. Continuing to grow deposits while controlling our overall cost of deposits and improving our overall funding profile is a primary focus for us.

During the quarter, we continued to onboard new relationships while expanding existing client relationships. Total deposits increased $43 million or $87 million if you exclude the $44 million decline in brokered deposits, and our cost of deposits rose by just 5 basis points. We saw a point-to-point decline in noninterest-bearing deposits of $48.7 million from June 30 through September 30. However, average noninterest-bearing deposits increased $32 million during the quarter. Some of the point-to-point decline was due to normal fluctuations. However, we are seeing increased pricing pressure with the recent run-up in rates, and we expect this will have an impact on our cost of interest-bearing deposits and put pressure on our noninterest-bearing balances. We remain focused on striking the appropriate balance between growth and pricing discipline. Our teams are incented to generate core profitably based relationship-based deposits, and we expect our efforts will continue to generate meaningful opportunities across our footprint.

Looking ahead, our commercial deposit pipelines remain healthy, and we are using select promos to drive new personal customers to the bank. While we expect heightened industry competition will pressure deposit pricing, we believe our diversified funding base positions us well to support future loan growth while prudently managing funding costs. Noninterest income was $2 million for the third quarter of 2026 compared to $2.1 million in the linked second quarter. We are seeing a nice pipeline of SBA loan sale activity, which should lead to increased gains on loan sales. However, noninterest income continues to be a small portion of our revenue, and we do not expect to see any material changes in the short term. Noninterest expense was $20.3 million for the third quarter, modestly higher than the second quarter and primarily attributable to salaries and employee benefits. The increase in salaries and benefits was primarily driven by 1 additional day during the quarter, increased staff due to our summer intern program and a slight increase in incentive comp due to the stronger performance in Q3.

Despite the increase, we continue to demonstrate favorable operating leverage. Our efficiency ratio improved to 52.4% from 54.5% in the second quarter and marked our 29th consecutive quarter operating below 60%. We believe our efficiency continues to be a significant differentiator for our franchise. We remain highly focused on expense management and have demonstrated a track record of disciplined cost control. Tax expense totaled $4.0 million during the quarter with an effective tax rate of approximately 25%. Consistent with our prior guidance, we continue to anticipate being able to keep our effective tax rate at or below 25%. Our capital ratios remained strong, and capital generation was another highlight of the quarter. Tangible book value per share increased to $16.59 from $16.27 at June 30, representing an annual growth of nearly 8%.

Consistent with our confidence in earnings performance and capital generation, our Board approved a 33% increase in the quarterly dividend. We also received final regulatory approval for a new share repurchase program, authorizing the repurchase of up to 1.2 million shares with an aggregate value of up to $24 million, which will run through September 2027. Our disciplined capital management strategies, including maintaining a relatively modest dividend compared to peers, executing measured stock buybacks and emphasizing more profitable growth has positioned us with significant capital optionality. Going forward, we expect to continue driving shareholder value through a combination of strong asset and core earnings growth, a healthy cash dividend and opportunistic share repurchases. At this time, I'll turn it over to Peter Cahill, our Chief Lending Officer, for his remarks. Peter?

Peter Cahill

Thanks, Andrew. As Pat and Andrew mentioned, we had a good quarter in lending, where loans were up $50 million, which is right on our growth plan for the year. We continue to see good new business. New loans closed and funded during the quarter totaled $124 million, and we had the benefit in the third quarter of a more normalized level of loan payoffs. We had $53 million of loan payoffs this quarter, which is below the average we had in the first half of the year. Final period-end numbers are also impacted by regular principal amortization and fluctuations in line of credit usage.

As the earnings release shows, investor real estate loans, a major part of our business, declined a bit in Q3. We've described in previous meetings that we've been focusing on C&I growth, believing that's where the deposits are and that those types of loans experience less turnover. We saw some good growth in C&I again this quarter, led by our regional banking teams as well as our specialized lending groups. Through September 30, C&I loans, including owner-occupied real estate loans, made up 65% of our new business.

Investor real estate made up around 30%, and the balance was in consumer lending. Regarding business in the pipeline, our new loans pipeline looks good. We look at probable funding on a loan-by-loan basis. And at September 30, probable funding stood at $363 million. For comparison, levels in March and June were $326 million and $323 million, respectively. So we're up about 12% from the average of those 2 quarter ends. This, we hope, will lead to a solid fourth quarter and good beginning to 2027.

Looking at asset quality, I don't have a lot to add to what's been mentioned. Issues coming out of Business Express have slowed, but we're building some optimism there. We've referenced previously a couple of larger problem real estate loans. Some good news on those, although it came post quarter end, Andrew referenced it. Just after the end of the quarter, we received a $5.5 million paydown on one of them. If you recalculated our criticized classified ratio, it would have brought that down to about 2.24%. That's below the average for the past 8 quarters, which is around 240 basis points. Then the other problem real estate loan that we've mentioned briefly in the past, a $9.5 million participation in a loan for a senior living facility, we've learned that an agreement has been accepted by the court and all indications are that, that loan will be paid in full later in the fourth quarter. So we're very happy to hear that as well.

Looking forward, we're doing our best to convert our loan pipeline into new business. We're still focused on meeting the loan growth goal for this year. Beyond the fourth quarter, the business opportunities we're seeing are spread throughout all of our banking units. The regional lending team should continue to do very well. We made a significant addition to our leadership team in the Pennsylvania region, which we hope will drive growth going forward. After a slow start to the year, our SBA team has built a nice pipeline.

Private equity and asset-based lending are both looking at a lot of new business. And in the investor real estate area, more opportunities are being reviewed than they've looked at in past quarters.

With the actions we've taken in targeting C&I relationships, our investor real estate to capital ratio is down well below where it's been in previous years. And we think that creates an opportunity to accelerate loan growth heading into next year. So as a result of what we're seeing throughout the business units, as we think about 2027, we're setting our sights on total loan growth that's up from the $200 million annual number that we've targeted the past couple of years to a targeted growth rate closer to $300 million. So based on all this, I'm pretty optimistic about finishing the year strong and about 2027 as well. That covers it for a lending review, and I'll turn things now back to Pat for final comments. Pat?

Patrick Ryan

Thanks, Peter, and thanks, Andrew, for that additional info. And at this point, I'll turn it back to the operator to open up for Q&A.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Bader Hijleh with Piper Sandler.

分析师问答

Bader Hijleh

This is Bader on for Justin. I just wanted to start out on the deposit side of things. That's been a positive story so far this year. So maybe if you guys could talk about how you're thinking about maybe deposits continuing to keep pace to fund loan growth. And then maybe your thoughts on the level of competition on the deposit side as well.

Patrick Ryan

Yes. I'll hit a couple of highlights and turn it over to Andrew. I think the short answer, obviously, is we continue to grow in our C&I book. We're doing, I think, a good job of making sure we're getting a lot of additional relationship deposits. There's also significant fluctuation in that book. So it becomes a little bit tricky to predict quarter-to-quarter, but the underlying trends there certainly seem positive. So that's been good news. And obviously, we still play in the retail space on the deposit side. And from time to time as needed, we'll get competitive with a market rate on a CD or money market. So we continue to look for opportunities to grow in that segment as well. And Andrew, why don't you jump in and talk a little bit about what you've been working on with the retail teams.

Andrew Hibshman

Yes. Just to hit on the pricing pressure, there it's definitely accelerated, obviously, with the run-up in rates over the last month or so, deposit pricing pressure has continued to be stiff. But we're used to that. I mean the markets we're in, we're always dealing with a lot of pricing pressure. We've got some promos we recently rolled out to generate some loan -- deposit growth in the CD market. We're also doing some targeted marketing in some certain industries with like a more liquid promo. That's not a marketed promo, but something we're out letting our teams use to sell. So we're definitely going to see some pressure. Pricing is tough. But on the flip side of that, we're, I think, seeing some good opportunities on the loan side and the spreads are pretty good there. So I do expect that deposit pricing is going to be tough and it's going to move higher, but we think we can offset that in the loan book. And I'm really expecting to see a stable margin. Hopefully, we can see some slight improvement in the margin going forward.

Bader Hijleh

That's helpful. And then just switching gears to the margin. Are you guys able to quantify your comment on the asset repricing benefit you guys have left? And then to the extent to which that -- those floating rate exposures you guys have to mitigate any pressure like you said, on the funding side?

Patrick Ryan

Yes. Well, the good news, we've got 25% plus of our assets that reprice immediately when the Fed moves. Now obviously, there's some giveback there depending on what you need to do on the deposit side, but we have a much smaller percentage of our liabilities that will reprice automatically. And so that gives us time to move slowly and really gauge the market and see where they are. Now over time, you end up having to give some of that back, but you don't need to do it right away. So the short-term benefits are real. But Andrew, if you want to jump in and talk a little more about kind of where you see the margin going? I know it's hard to predict because it's dependent on competition, but anything you want to add there?

Andrew Hibshman

Yes. I think Pat hit it well. I mean, day 1, when the Fed makes a rate change, we see positives, right? We have more assets that reprice immediately. And then on the deposit side, we've been really trying to hold the line as much as we can. But there's obviously a lot of areas where we need to move higher. We are slightly asset sensitive. So just running models. If rates go higher, we do better. So a lot of positive tailwinds we have there from a margin standpoint. But again, I mean, the deposit thing, sometimes you got to take what the market gives you. So there's going to be some added pressure there. But we've historically maintained a very balanced asset-liability position.

We're still in a very similar place than we've been since I've been here over the last 10 years. But we are slightly asset sensitive right now. So as rates move higher, it should be at least a slight benefit, but we'll see how the deposit market shapes up. And we also did some things, as I mentioned, late in the quarter, we paid off some borrow -- higher cost borrowings. We did some reallocation of some cash into investments, right, towards the end of the quarter when rates moved higher, and we let some brokered money roll off the balance sheet as well. So a lot of positive things going on. I think we can confidently say that we can -- we should be able to maintain a stable margin with some upside.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of David Bishop with Hovde Group. Our next question comes from the line of Jake Civiello with D.A. Davidson.

Parker Wittmann

This is Parker Wittmann on for Jake Civiello this morning. I just had one quick question on credit here for you regarding the Business Express portfolio. And apologies if I missed this during the prepared remarks, but any chance you could size up the kind of remaining exposure within the portfolio for runoff and kind of when you expect impacts on net charge-offs, provisioning to be a little bit less meaningful?

Patrick Ryan

Yes, sure. Obviously, it's hard to predict the future. But as Peter mentioned, we're seeing a slowdown in new issues emerging. We're seeing some improvements on the delinquency side. So I don't know that we have a definitive answer, but I think we feel comfortable saying that things are getting better, and we think they will continue to incrementally get better. Obviously, we're probably 18 months out from when we first noticed some challenges there, and we started making significant changes to how we were analyzing, how we were sourcing and onboarding. And so I would tell you that anything new that's been originated, which hasn't been much, has been done according to much tighter standards. Everything that gets renewed is getting done at much tighter standards.

And so again, it's a portfolio given the yields that we don't expect the credit cost to be 0. But if we can get it back down to a more reasonable sort of 2%, even 3% annualized, I think we'll be back to generating profitability out of that segment. And the good news is when you look at charge-offs year-to-date, I think the total might be something around $8.5 million and 95% of that was in the Business Express portfolio, which obviously we're not happy about. But the good news is the non-Business Express charge-offs year-to-date are close to 0. So we're seeing real strong performance throughout the remainder of the portfolio, which is a positive.

And as we mentioned, we had some good news come sort of right after the end of the third quarter, but significant paydown on a nonperformer and a criticized loan that was showing improved performance and got upgraded. And so kind of across the bank, we're seeing some reasons for optimism on credit and Business Express is slowly getting better. But I think as we showed this quarter, even with having to do some additional charge-offs, still able to earn some reasonable returns.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of David Bishop with Hovde Group.

David Bishop

Can you guys hear me?

Patrick Ryan

Yes, we got you now, Dave.

David Bishop

Perfect. Apologies. I don't know what happened before. Pat, you mentioned before the reduction in the operating expense to average asset ratios getting closer to your 190 target. Is that something you guys are looking to improve upon as you move into '27 and beyond? Just curious if you have any longer-term targets for that ratio?

Patrick Ryan

Well, I think the goal throughout '27 is to get to the 190. We hope it doesn't take us until Q4 to get there. But I think through incremental efforts we've made to contain costs, to reduce costs to slow the growth and that obviously hits the numerator. And while we're concurrently looking to show some decent growth, that hits the denominator. And so we think getting to that 190 at some point sort of during the middle of '27 is possible. Obviously, both things need to happen, right? We've got to slow the expense -- continue to slow the expenses and see the asset growth. But we have reason to believe we can achieve both those goals. And we did a lot of analysis looking back at that ratio over time.

I think sort of pre-COVID, we were operating before we launched some of our new kind of niche commercial businesses in the 180 range. We obviously had some expense increase through the Malvern acquisition and the addition of these new business units. And I think as those business units scale up and we continue to take out costs where we can, longer term, could we get back to the 180? It's certainly possible, Dave. We've been there before, but I think our goal is to get to the 190, and then we'll see where we are. And obviously, it depends on new investment opportunities, right? Getting down to the lower level is good news from a short-term performance perspective. But may also be an indicator that there hadn't been new opportunities that looked like quality investments. So I think living for us, if we can live between the 180 and the 190 and continue to look for little niche growth opportunities, that's probably where we want to be.

David Bishop

Got it. Appreciate that color. And then I don't know if Peter or Andy, any sense in terms of what new loan origination yields were this quarter versus roll-off? And is the third quarter average yield number, the 15 basis point increase, a good number sort of to model a go-forward yield on?

Peter Cahill

Well, Andrew may be -- it will come up with the number, but we continue to price most of our loans at a spread over the 5-year treasury or FHLB, and we're getting spreads north of 200 basis points. So we're pretty consistent there. It's really an exception to the rule when we dip below that spread. Andrew, do you have the numbers handy on what the quarterly average -- weighted average might have been on new business?

Andrew Hibshman

I'll bring it up, give me one more second. But yes, I mean, I think just to add some just high-level commentary on that as I'm pulling it up. Yes, I mean, I think the third quarter, we saw a 15 basis point increase in loan yields and the Fed increased rates on September 18, I think it was. So I think that's a reasonable kind of baseline bottom for where loan yields are going to go as we move forward. Obviously, we're not -- not everything is repricing. But as Pat mentioned, we have a pretty big chunk. A lot of that -- over 25% now is kind of liquid -- more liquid assets, but we have a chunk of loans that are going to move higher immediately when the Fed moves. So yes, we should see nice improvement in loan yields into the fourth quarter, and I'll pull up the origination rates in the second.

Patrick Ryan

Dave, I can tell you going off memory that it depends on the mix, but looking at the last couple of months and just the new originations, I think the average for one of the months was close to 7.25%. One of them might have been down in the sort of 6.75% range. But that's also dependent on what types of loans got originated in those months. So certainly, there's the full quarter benefit of everything that repriced during the quarter that will flow through into Q4. And as Peter said, the market now for most new business is in the high 6s or 7s. And so we think there's still good opportunities to make a good spread there.

Andrew Hibshman

Yes. So just to put some exact numbers on that, the weighted average spread for the quarter was about 6.90%.

David Bishop

6.90%. And then just curious, with the backup in rates, notwithstanding what happened, I guess, yesterday, have you seen the gear sort of lock up or slow on the commercial real estate front there as projects maybe require more equity or tougher to debt service coverage? Just curious what you're hearing from your folks on the ground.

Patrick Ryan

Yes. Listen, I think when you see a big change, like we saw yesterday, that can cause people to try to get back to the table to renegotiate if there's still wiggle room on a deal that's sort of in process. But I don't think it's really gumming up the general traditional like I had a 5-year loan that came due, I got to refinance and roll it over. You're going to do it -- you're going to try to get the best rate you can, but you're not going to not refinance it and it may slow things down a little bit and new projects that haven't come out of the ground yet, people might sharpen their pencil and make sure the projects still make sense. But the short answer is we have not seen a significant pullback or slowdown based on what's happened over the last month or 2. But if they move again, is that a potential risk? Yes, certainly, it is.

David Bishop

Got it. I appreciate that color. And I guess one final for me. I guess I maybe missed the announcement on the new market President, the new leader. Any color you can provide there in terms of his background, et cetera?

Patrick Ryan

Yes. No, we're excited. Dan Cuneo joined the team, I think, about 1.5 months ago, and Dan's got a breadth of experience at community banks and regional banks, all within that Southern Jersey, Southeastern PA market. And so we're excited. We think he's going to be a great addition, and we're looking forward to seeing a rev up on the growth side with him helping to lead the team there.

Operator

We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Patrick Ryan, President and CEO, for closing remarks.

Patrick Ryan

Okay. Thanks, everyone. We appreciate your time today. Appreciate your interest in First Bank, and we look forward to regrouping with everybody once we get through the end of fourth quarter. Thanks, everyone.

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

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