Item 1A. Risk Factors
ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS
The disclosures below supplement the risk factors previously disclosed under Item 1A. of the Company’s 2019 Annual Report on Form 10–K.
The COVID–19 pandemic has adversely impacted our business and financial results, and the ultimate impact will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted, including the scope and duration of the pandemic and actions taken by governmental authorities in response to the pandemic.
The COVID–19 pandemic is creating extensive disruptions to the global economy and to the lives of individuals throughout the world. Governments, businesses, and the public are taking unprecedented actions to contain the spread of COVID–19 and to mitigate its effects, including quarantines, travel bans, shelter-in-place orders, closures of businesses and schools, fiscal stimulus, and legislation designed to deliver monetary aid and other relief. While the scope, duration, and full effects of COVID–19 are rapidly evolving and not fully known, the pandemic and related efforts to contain it have disrupted global economic activity, adversely affected the functioning of financial markets, impacted interest rates, increased economic and market uncertainty, and disrupted trade and supply chains. If these effects continue for a prolonged period or result in sustained economic stress or recession, many of the risk factors identified in our Form 10–K could be exacerbated and such effects could have a material adverse impact on us in a number of ways related to credit, collateral, customer demand, funding operations, interest rate risk, human capital and self–insurance, as described in more detail below.
• Credit Risk – Our risks of timely loan repayment and the value of collateral supporting the loans are affected by the strength of our borrower’s business. Concern about the spread of COVID–19 has caused and is likely to continue to cause business shutdowns, limitations on commercial activity and financial transactions, labor shortages, supply chain interruptions, increased unemployment and commercial property vacancy rates, reduced profitability and ability for property owners to make mortgage payments, and overall economic and financial market instability, all of which may cause our customers to be unable to make scheduled loan payments. If the effects of COVID–19 result in widespread and sustained repayment shortfalls on loans in our portfolio, we could incur significant delinquencies, foreclosures and credit losses, particularly if the available collateral is insufficient to cover our exposure. The future effects of COVID–19 on economic activity could negatively affect the collateral values associated with our existing loans, the ability to liquidate the real estate collateral securing our residential and commercial real estate loans, our ability to maintain loan origination volume and to obtain additional financing, the future demand for or profitability of our lending services, and the financial condition and credit risk of our customers. Further, in the event of delinquencies, regulatory changes and policies designed to protect borrowers may slow or prevent us from making our business decisions or may result in a delay in our taking certain remediation actions, such as foreclosure. In addition, we have unfunded commitments to extend credit to customers. During a challenging economic environment like now, our customers are more dependent on our credit commitments and increased borrowings under these commitments could adversely impact our liquidity. Furthermore, in an effort to support our communities during the pandemic, we are participating in the Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) under the CARES Act whereby loans to small businesses are made and those loans are subject to the regulatory requirements that would require forbearance of loan payments for a specified time or that would limit our ability to pursue all available remedies in the event of a loan default. If the borrower under the PPP loan fails to qualify for loan forgiveness, we are at the heightened risk of holding these loans at unfavorable interest rates as compared to the loans to customers that we would have otherwise extended.
• Strategic Risk – Our success may be affected by a variety of external factors that may affect the price or marketability of our products and services, changes in interest rates that may increase our funding costs, reduced demand for our financial products due to economic conditions and the various responses of governmental and nongovernmental authorities. In recent weeks, the COVID–19 pandemic has significantly increased economic uncertainty and has led to disruption and volatility in the global capital markets. Furthermore, many of the governmental actions have been directed toward curtailing household and business activity to contain COVID–19.
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HORIZON BANCORP, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES
Part II – Other Information
These actions have been rapidly expanding in scope and intensity. For example, in many of our markets, local governments have acted to temporarily close or restrict the operations of most businesses. The future effects of COVID–19 on economic activity could negatively affect the future banking products we provide, including a decline in originating of loans.
• Operational Risk – Current and future restrictions on our workforce’s access to our facilities could limit our ability to meet customer servicing expectations and have a material adverse effect on our operations and financial results. We rely on business processes and branch activity that largely depend on people and technology, including access to information technology systems as well as information, applications, payment systems and other services provided by third parties. In response to COVID–19, we have modified our business practices with a portion of our employees working remotely from other locations and their homes to have our operations uninterrupted as much as possible. Further, technology in employees’ homes may not be as robust as in our offices and could cause the networks, information systems, applications, and other tools available to employees to be more limited or less reliable than in our offices. The continuation of these work–from–home measures also introduces additional operational risk, including increased cybersecurity risk. These cyber risks include greater phishing, malware, and other cybersecurity attacks, vulnerability to disruptions of our information technology infrastructure and telecommunications systems for remote operations, increased risk of unauthorized dissemination of confidential information, limited ability to restore the systems in the event of a systems failure or interruption, greater risk of a security breach resulting in destruction or misuse of valuable information, and potential impairment of our ability to perform critical functions, including wiring funds, all of which could expose us to risks of data or financial loss, litigation and liability and could seriously disrupt our operations and the operations of any impacted customers.
Moreover, we rely on many third parties in our business operations, including the appraiser of the real property collateral, vendors that supply essential services such as loan servicers, providers of financial information, systems and analytical tools and providers of electronic payment and settlement systems, and local and federal government agencies, offices, and courthouses. In light of the developing measures responding to the pandemic, many of these entities may limit the availability and access of their services. For example, loan origination could be delayed due to the limited availability of real estate appraisers for the collateral. Loan closings could be delayed related to reductions in available staff in recording offices or the closing of courthouses in certain counties, which slows the process for title work, mortgage and UCC filings in those counties. If the third–party service providers continue to have limited capacities for a prolonged period or if additional limitations or potential disruptions in these services materialize, it may negatively affect our operations and financial results.
• Interest Rate Risk – Our net interest income, lending activities, deposits and profitability could be negatively affected by volatility in interest rates caused by uncertainties stemming from COVID–19. In March 2020, the Federal Reserve lowered the target range for the federal funds rate to a range from 0 to 0.25 percent, citing concerns about the impact of COVID–19 on markets and stress in the energy sector. A prolonged period of extremely volatile and unstable market conditions would likely increase our funding costs and negatively affect market risk mitigation strategies. Higher income volatility from changes in interest rates and spreads to benchmark indices could cause a loss of future net interest income and a decrease in current fair market values of our assets. Fluctuations in interest rates will impact both the level of income and expense recorded on most of our assets and liabilities and the market value of all interest earning assets and interest bearing liabilities, which in turn could have a material adverse effect on our net income, operating results, or financial condition.
In addition, the United States Government and its related entities are incurring unprecedented debt levels in support of the United States Economy. This level of debt may not be sustainable, may cause inflationary pressures and increases risks to fund the balance sheet if international investors elect to no longer purchase United States Treasuries.
Because there have been no recent global pandemics that resulted in similar global impact, we do not yet know the full extent of COVID–19’s effects on our business, operations, or the global economy as a whole. Any future development will be highly uncertain and cannot be predicted, including the scope and duration of the pandemic, the effectiveness of our work from home arrangements, third party providers’ ability to support our operation, and any actions taken by governmental authorities and other third parties in response to the pandemic. The uncertain future development of this crisis could materially and adversely affect our business, operations, operating results, financial condition, liquidity or capital levels.
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