Amerant Bancorp Inc. (AMTB) Q3 2026 earnings review
Amerant's profit and lending spreads rise, but Venezuelan deposits shrink
Amerant Bancorp, a Florida commercial bank with a large Venezuelan deposit base, hit its profitability goal early even as its main funding source shrank. Net interest income rose 10% from last quarter to $90 million as cheaper deposits and payoffs on bad loans lifted its lending spread, pushing return on assets to 1%. Chief executive Carlos Iafigliola raised the fourth-quarter margin forecast, while problem loans dropped on borrower payoffs.
| Net interest income | $90.5M +9.6% from last quarter (-3.9% from a year ago) |
|---|---|
| Net interest margin | 3.77% up from 3.52% last quarter (4Q26 plan: 3.65%–3.70%) |
| Return on average assets | 1.00% up from 0.84% last quarter |
| 4Q26 deposit outlook | Cut $600M now ~$8.5B, down from ~$9.1B |
⚖️ Verdict: 🟢 Bullish
The story got better because the bank proved it can earn a 1% return on assets and clear problem loans through borrower payoffs rather than costly sales. One caution: the surge in low-cost Venezuelan deposits reversed into a $97 million outflow, forcing Amerant to cut its year-end deposit plan by $600 million, while bond markdowns reduced tangible book value by 8%.
The question now is whether Venezuelan deposit inflows can resume to fund loan growth without raising deposit costs. Either the third-quarter outflow was a temporary pause in a growing international business, or the easy inflows from Venezuela's oil recovery have already peaked. Fourth-quarter deposit balances by country will settle it.
🐂 Bull Case
Wider Lending Spreads Lifted Return on Assets
"Stronger net interest income and disciplined expense management drove improved profitability, net interest margin expansion, and higher net income," chief executive Carlos Iafigliola said. Net interest margin (NIM), the lending spread a bank earns between its loans and its deposits, had shrunk for three quarters. In the third quarter it rebounded 0.25 percentage points to 3.77%, beating the 3.50% second-half plan.
Amerant collected $1.6 million of interest "from repayments of loans previously in nonaccrual status", which added 0.06 percentage points to the margin. Even without that windfall, the lending spread rose to 3.71% by our math, and the bank raised its fourth-quarter margin forecast to 3.65%–3.70%. That wider spread lifted return on average assets to 1.00%, hitting the fourth-quarter profitability goal one quarter early.
What to watch: fourth-quarter net interest margin against the 3.65%–3.70% outlook. Holding that range without extra interest from problem-loan payoffs would confirm that lower deposit costs are sticking.
Payoffs Cut Problem Loans and Lifted Reserves
Amerant has spent the past year cleaning up bad loans by selling them or pushing borrowers to refinance elsewhere. That effort gained speed this quarter without relying on discounted loan sales. Classified loans — those showing clear credit weaknesses — dropped 22.0% from last quarter to $213.0 million, and non-performing loans — those 90 days past due or no longer accruing interest — fell 12.6% to $149.5 million.
- Classified loan payoffs and paydowns: $80.3 million, offset by $24.2 million of new downgrades
- Non-performing loan payoffs and paydowns: $44.4 million, offset by $26.7 million of new downgrades
- Loan loss reserves as a share of non-performing loans: 63.5%, up from 50.0% last quarter
- Special mention loans (early-stage watch list): $120.7 million, up 10.0% from last quarter
The company said the drop in problem balances was "primarily attributable to payoffs during the quarter" rather than write-offs. Net charge-offs — loans written off as uncollectible — stayed low at 0.12% of average loans on an annual basis, while the bank added $9.3 million to its allowance for credit losses. Because reserves rose while bad loans shrank, reserve coverage improved by 13.5 percentage points.
What to watch: whether the $120.7 million of special mention loans move into classified status in the fourth quarter. A drop in both buckets at once would show that new credit problems have stopped forming.
Commercial Lending Rebounded Alongside Purchased Mortgages
In the first half of the year, Amerant's loan growth came almost entirely from buying home mortgages rather than originating business loans. In the third quarter, total gross loans rose $207.8 million, or 3.0% from last quarter, to $7.07 billion. Unlike the prior quarter, commercial business loans held for investment jumped $169.1 million, or 11.4%, to $1.66 billion.
The concern has not disappeared because loan purchases still did most of the work. The Florida lender acquired $190.6 million of seasoned loans during the quarter as single-family home mortgages rose $205.5 million, while commercial real estate and financial-institution loans shrank. Stripping out the $190.6 million of acquired loans leaves just $17.2 million of net growth across the rest of the book by our math.
What to watch: fourth-quarter loan additions against the $227 million needed by our math to reach the $7.3 billion year-end plan. The annual filing will show how much of that fourth-quarter growth came from originating business loans rather than buying mortgages.
🐻 Bear Case
Venezuelan Deposit Outflows Forced an Outlook Cut
Low-cost deposits from Venezuelan customers have been Amerant's main funding driver, though relying on a single foreign country for nearly a third of its funding is also a major risk. Iafigliola said the bank "achieved a noninterest bearing deposit mix that better reflects the underlying strength of our deposit base" as zero-interest checking accounts rose to 25.2% of total deposits.
- Deposits from Venezuela: $2.40 billion, down $96.8 million (3.9%) from last quarter
- Total deposits: $8.25 billion, down $109.6 million (1.3%) from last quarter
- Fourth-quarter deposit outlook: cut to about $8.5 billion from about $9.1 billion
That mix shift lowered average deposit costs by 0.14 percentage points to 2.07%, but total funding went backward. After bringing in $486.4 million of Venezuelan deposits in the second quarter, the bank lost $96.8 million of them in the third, and US deposits fell another $100.1 million. Because the inflow stalled, Amerant cut its year-end deposit target by $600 million while still saying fourth-quarter growth will be "primarily driven by low-cost international deposit growth".
What to watch: fourth-quarter Venezuelan deposit balances in the year-end release. Adding the $254 million of total deposits implied by the new outlook requires Venezuelan inflows to resume after this quarter's outflow.
Bond Losses Cut Equity and Slowed Buybacks
Amerant has returned capital through share buybacks and a $0.09 quarterly dividend, but deploying earlier deposit inflows into fixed-rate mortgage bonds left its balance sheet exposed to interest rates. In the third quarter, unrealized bond losses after tax — paper losses on available-for-sale securities — jumped from $23.7 million to $118.9 million as the average duration of the bond portfolio stretched from 4.7 years to 5.8 years.
Those bond markdowns cut stockholders' equity by $73.6 million to $840.8 million. Tangible book value per share — net worth per share excluding intangible assets — fell 8.1% from last quarter to $20.94, and the tangible common equity ratio dropped 0.65 percentage points to 8.04%. Management slowed buybacks from $16.1 million last quarter to $2.0 million, paying $28.47 per share, or 1.36 times tangible book value.
What to watch: accumulated other comprehensive loss (unrealized bond losses) in the fourth-quarter balance sheet. Amerant estimates only a 21% recovery in those paper losses over the next year if interest rates stay flat.
Property Gains Masked Higher Staff Costs
Cutting overhead is a central pillar of Amerant's turnaround, and the efficiency ratio — noninterest expense as a percentage of total revenue — improved by 6.3 percentage points from a year ago to 63.5%. That improvement came from other operating expenses (overhead outside payroll), which fell by 8.8 percentage points of revenue from a year ago, while salaries and employee benefits rose by 2.4 percentage points of revenue.
Compared with last quarter, however, cost cuts stalled. Noninterest expense rose $0.2 million to $69.1 million only because $1.3 million of income from foreclosed real estate offset a $1.4 million increase in salaries and a $2.2 million rise in professional fees. Excluding foreclosed property gains, expenses were $70.4 million by our math, and the company raised its fourth-quarter expense forecast from $66–$67 million to about $68 million.
What to watch: fourth-quarter noninterest expense excluding foreclosed property gains. Reaching the company's 60% efficiency goal requires underlying overhead to fall rather than rely on property sales.
Risks this quarter didn't answer
Several standing operational and regulatory items received no update in the third-quarter earnings release or presentation.
- Debit-card fee limits above $10 billion in assets: total assets ended at $10.21 billion, staying above the $10 billion regulatory threshold that triggers fee caps in the second half of 2027.
- Long-term 2027–2028 profitability goals: management again omitted the 55%–58% efficiency target stated last year, citing only the 60% goal.
- Subsidiary wind-downs: the release did not confirm whether the Cayman bank dissolution scheduled for October 7 or the mortgage unit closure are complete.
- Loan production vs purchases: the full quarterly filing is needed to see exact residential and syndicated loan purchases.
💲 Other KPIs
Total debt rose 7.6% from last quarter by our math as Amerant issued $50.0 million of 7.00% senior notes due 2031 on September 17 ($48.4 million carrying value) and increased Federal Home Loan Bank advances by $12.4 million to $715.0 million. The new 7.00% notes add about $3.5 million of annual interest expense.
Client wealth assets held in custody or managed by the bank — which sit off the balance sheet and earn fee income — grew $77.9 million, or 2.3% from last quarter, and 8.8% from a year ago. That growth lifted quarterly brokerage, advisory and fiduciary fees by 15.0% from a year ago to $5.7 million.
Weighted average diluted shares fell 0.2% from last quarter and 5.6% from a year ago, down by 2.3 million shares over the past year. Heavy buybacks in the first half of 2026 shrank the share base, so third-quarter profit per share rose 85.7% from a year ago on a 74.3% rise in net income.
🔮 Guidance
Unchanged. The bank still plans for total loans to reach about $7.3 billion by the end of the fourth quarter. By our math, that leaves $227 million of net loan additions for the fourth quarter (up 3.2% from the third quarter and 9.0% from a year ago), slightly faster than the $208 million added in the third quarter.
Cut. The fourth-quarter target dropped by $600 million after third-quarter deposits shrank by $110 million to $8.25 billion. By our math, the new plan requires $254 million of net deposit inflows in the fourth quarter (up 3.1% from the third quarter and 9.2% from a year ago), which the company says will come from international accounts.
Raised. Management lifted its fourth-quarter lending spread forecast by about 0.18 percentage points at the middle of the range from its prior second-half view of 3.50%. The new 3.675% middle of the range sits 0.095 percentage points below the third quarter's 3.77% result, reflecting the absence of the third quarter's one-off loan interest recoveries.
Raised (higher cost). The fourth-quarter overhead target moved up by $1.5 million from the middle of last quarter's $66–$67 million range, returning to the $68 million target set in the first quarter. Across four quarters of updates for the fourth quarter of 2026, the middle of the range has moved +$0.5M, -$1.5M, and +$1.5M, while management still aims to "make progress toward a target efficiency ratio of approximately 60%".
❓ Key Questions
Why did Venezuelan deposits shrink by $97 million?
Deposits from Venezuelan customers fell 3.9% this quarter after surging $486 million in the second quarter, forcing a $600 million cut to the year-end deposit outlook. Investors need to know whether large institutional depositors withdrew funds or if account openings slowed.
How much of Q3 loan growth was purchased?
The earnings release notes $190.6 million of acquired loans under the new accounting rule, nearly matching the $207.8 million increase in total gross loans. Management did not disclose the split between purchased home mortgages, syndicated loans, and direct commercial originations.
What caused the $95 million jump in bond losses?
After-tax unrealized losses on available-for-sale securities nearly quintupled from $23.7 million to $118.9 million as the portfolio's effective duration lengthened from 4.7 years to 5.8 years, even as the bond book shrank by $383 million.
Why did the fourth-quarter expense plan rise to $68M?
Last quarter management lowered its fourth-quarter expense target to $66–$67 million on new cost savings, but this quarter it raised the target back to $68 million after third-quarter salaries rose $1.4 million and legal and consulting fees rose $2.2 million.