HTBK - Heritage Commerce: Strong Margin Growth To Drive Earnings This Year

• The net interest margin is highly sensitive to interest rate changes. Moreover, the excess cash presents an opportunity to improve the asset mix, thereby further expanding the margin.
• Strength in California’s labor market bodes well for loan growth.
• Provisioning for expected loan losses will likely normalize in the year ahead, partly because of higher interest rates.
• The December 2022 target price suggests a high upside from the current market price. Further, HTBK is offering a high dividend yield for a bank-holding company.

Earnings of Heritage Commerce Corp ( HTBK ) will likely continue to grow this year thanks to the rising interest-rate environment and a highly rate-sensitive net interest margin. Further, subdued loan growth will likely boost the bottom line. On the other hand, provision normalization amid headwinds will likely limit earnings growth. Overall, I'm expecting Heritage Commerce to report earnings of $0.89 per share for 2022, up 13.7% year-over-year. Compared to my last report on Heritage Commerce, I've tweaked upwards my earnings estimate mostly because I've increased my net interest margin estimate. The year-end target price suggests a high upside from the current market price. Based on the total expected return, I'm upgrading Heritage Commerce to a buy rating.

California's Economy To Play Pivotal Role In Loan Growth

After growing strongly through most of 2021, the loan portfolio declined by 2.1% during the first quarter of 2022. The portfolio will likely resume its upward trend in the remainder of 2022 thanks to certain economic factors. Heritage Commerce operates in California, with concentration in the San Francisco Bay area, where the job market has continued to go from strength to strength and has yet to show any signs of slowing. The state's unemployment rate is currently near multi-decade lows, as shown below. The labor market's strength bodes well for loan demand in the year ahead.

On the flip side, Heritage Commerce has an extremely large cash balance on its books, which raises questions over the management's ability to deploy it into loans. Further, the heightened interest rates are likely to dampen demand for credit products. Moreover, house prices in California have had a steeper growth in the last year than the national average, as seen below. The sharp rise in house prices, combined with high interest rates, can dampen the demand for residential mortgages.

Considering these factors, I'm expecting the loan book to increase by 1.7% by the end of December 2022 from the end of 2021. In my last report on Heritage Commerce, I projected loan growth of 5.1%. I've now reduced my loan estimate because of the poor performance in the first quarter and a deterioration in the loan growth outlook.

Meanwhile, deposits will likely grow mostly in line with loans for the last three quarters of 2022. The following table shows my balance sheet estimates.

In my last report in Heritage Commerce, I estimated earnings of $0.83 per share for 2022. I've tweaked up my earnings estimate mostly because I've revised upwards my net interest margin estimate.

Actual earnings may differ materially from estimates because of the risks and uncertainties related to inflation, and consequently the timing and magnitude of interest rate hikes. Further, the threat of a recession can increase the provisioning for expected loan losses beyond my expectation.

Upgrading To A Buy Rating

Heritage Commerce is offering a dividend yield of 4.7% at the current quarterly dividend rate of $0.13 per share. The earnings estimate and current dividend suggest a payout ratio of 58% for 2022, which is the same as the average from 2017 to 2019. Heritage Commerce has maintained its dividend at $0.13 per share since 2020. Given the payout ratio, now doesn't seem like a good time to return to the pre-pandemic trend of annual dividend hikes. Therefore, I'm expecting Heritage to maintain its dividend at $0.13 per share for the remainder of this year.

I'm using the historical price-to-tangible book ("P/TB") and price-to-earnings ("P/E") multiples to value Heritage Commerce. The stock has traded at an average P/TB ratio of 1.72 in the past, as shown below.

The stock has traded at an average P/E ratio of around 15.5x in the past, as shown below.

Equally weighting the target prices from the two valuation methods gives a combined target price of $13.1, which implies a 19.5% upside from the current market price. Adding the forward dividend yield gives a total expected return of 24.3%.

In my last report, I adopted a hold rating on Heritage Commerce. Since then, the stock price has plunged, leaving a good upside to the target price. Further, I have tweaked upwards my target price for December 2022, which has also increased the upside. Based on the total expected return, I'm upgrading Heritage Commerce to a buy rating.

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