Coral Gables' Amerant Posts $25.7 Million Profit as Net Interest Margin Widens to 3.77%

CORAL GABLES — South Florida’s publicly traded community banks have spent the past year cleaning up balance sheets and defending deposit costs. Amerant Bancorp just turned in a quarter that suggests the cleanup is starting to show up in the earnings line.

The Coral Gables holding company reported third-quarter 2026 net income of $25.7 million, or $0.65 per diluted share, on Oct. 22. That was up from $21.0 million, or $0.53 per share, in the second quarter. Total assets stood at $10.2 billion. Amerant Bank operates 23 banking centers, 21 of them in South Florida and two in Tampa, according to the company.

Margin and Loan Growth Did the Work

Net interest income rose to $90.5 million from $82.6 million a quarter earlier, a 9.6% increase. Net interest margin widened to 3.77% from 3.52%. Management noted that the margin included $1.6 million of additional interest from repayments of loans that had been in nonaccrual status, so not every basis point is repeatable, but the directional story still helps.

Gross loans, including loans held for sale, climbed to $7.1 billion, up $207.8 million or 3.0% from the prior quarter. Average loan yields ticked up to 6.35% from 6.22%, while the average cost of total deposits fell to 2.07% from 2.21%. Pre-tax, pre-provision net revenue, a non-GAAP measure the bank highlights, rose 24.6% to $39.7 million.

“Our third quarter results reflect meaningful progress in building a more profitable and resilient franchise,” President and CEO Carlos Iafigliola said in the earnings release. “Stronger net interest income and disciplined expense management drove improved profitability, net interest margin expansion, and higher net income.”

Asset Quality Keeps Improving

Credit remains the subplot every Miami banker watches. Non-performing assets fell to $159.5 million from $186.6 million, a 14.5% drop. Classified loans declined 22.0% to $213.0 million, and non-performing loans fell 12.6% to $149.5 million. Management attributed most of that improvement to payoffs during the quarter.

The allowance for credit losses rose to $94.8 million from $85.5 million, and the provision for credit losses was $6.2 million, up from $4.8 million. Special mention loans increased 10.0% to $120.7 million on downgrades, a reminder that the cleanup is not finished even as the headline non-performers shrink.

Capital Moves and a Dividend

Amerant also stayed active on the capital front. On Sept. 17 it completed a registered offering of $50 million of 7.00% senior notes due 2031. During the quarter it repurchased 70,592 shares of Class A common stock for about $2.0 million. On Oct. 21 the board declared a $0.09 per share cash dividend payable Nov. 27 to shareholders of record Nov. 13.

Return on average assets improved to 1.00% from 0.84%, and return on average equity rose to 11.29% from 9.23%. The efficiency ratio tightened to 63.51% from 68.37%.

Why It Matters for Miami

Amerant is one of the few remaining mid-size banks still headquartered in Coral Gables and still pitching relationship banking to South Florida’s closely held businesses, international families and professional firms. When its margin expands and problem loans shrink, local borrowers get a healthier counterpart at the table for commercial real estate, owner-occupied loans and private banking.

Assets under management and custody rose to $3.45 billion, up 2.3% from the prior quarter, a quiet signal that the wealth franchise is still gathering relationships even as the bank reshapes its loan book. Noninterest expense was essentially flat at $69.1 million, which helped the efficiency ratio tighten even while the bank added to its credit reserves.

The risk is familiar. Deposit betas, commercial real estate concentrations and the durability of those nonaccrual recoveries will decide whether the third-quarter jump is a new baseline or a good quarter. Special mention loans moving the other direction are a reminder that credit work is not finished. For now, the Coral Gables bank has given investors and customers a cleaner scorecard than it carried into the summer, and a $0.09 dividend that keeps capital returning while the franchise rebuilds returns.