Nicole Stokes
Thank you, Palmer. For the fourth quarter, we reported net income of $94.4 million or $1.37 per diluted share. We did incur a few onetime in nature items in the quarter. But excluding those small items, our adjusted net income was $95.1 million or $1.38 per diluted share. For the full year 2024, we reported net income of $358.7 million or $5.19 per diluted share.
On an adjusted basis, net income was $346.6 million or $5.02 per diluted share. That's about a 26% increase in year-over-year adjusted EPS.
Our full year adjusted ROA was 1.33%, and our full year adjusted ROTCE was 13.93%, both of which improved from our 2023 levels. And our PPNR ROA remained strong at 2.05% for the year. We continue to build capital in 2024 with ending tangible book value of $38.59 per share, which is a $4.95 or 14.7% increase from the $33.64 at the end of last year. The fourth quarter increase alone was $1.08, and also we increased our quarterly dividend 33% from $0.15 a share to $0.20 a share this quarter.
Our tangible common equity ratio increased to 10.59% at the end of the quarter compared to 10.24% at the end of last quarter and 9.64% at the end of last year. We did not repurchase any stock this quarter, but we did repurchase about $5 million in the full year of 2024, and our $100 million buyback authorization remains in place through October of '25.
Our net interest income increased $7.7 million this quarter. Our margin expanded 13 basis points to 3.64% from 3.51% last quarter. This expansion partially came from an inflow of public fund deposits that we used to reduce higher cost wholesale funding. That dynamic will be reversed when those public funds seasonally decline in the first half of the year. And also with the recent Fed cut rates, we've had great success lowering our deposit costs more than the decline in our loan yields, which benefited the margin.
We continue to be close to neutral on asset liability sensitivity.
On the capital side, during the quarter, we redeemed $105.8 million of sub debt. This redemption is going to save us about 1 to 2 basis points of margin in 2025 versus if we had kept it because the rate reset would have been about 300 basis points higher. Even with this redemption, our total risk-based capital was strong at 15.4%, which was about 90 basis points higher than it was last year.
During the fourth quarter, we recorded a $12.8 million provision for credit losses, increasing our coverage ratio to 1.63% of loans and improving to 313% of portfolio NPLs. Our total non-performing assets as a percentage of assets remain low at 47 basis points, and our charge-offs were stable again this quarter at 17 basis points compared to 15 basis points last quarter. And for the year, we were at 19 basis points.
Adjusted non-interest income increased $4 million this quarter, mostly in the gains on sale of SBA loans. Within our mortgage division, both mortgage volumes and our gain on sale grew in the quarter, and our gain on sale rebounded to 2.40% from 2.17% last quarter. We did a great job controlling expenses in the quarter.
When you look at it, our adjusted total revenue increased 9.8% annualized, while our expenses shrank 1.9%, giving us positive operating leverage where our adjusted efficiency ratio improved to 51.82% for the quarter. There was about a $700,000 decrease in adjusted non-interest expense, and it mostly came from lower data processing, advertising and marketing spend. For the year, our adjusted efficiency ratio was 53.88%, well within our targeted 52% to 55% range.
On the balance sheet side, we ended the quarter with total assets of $26.3 billion compared with $25.2 billion at the end of last year. And our average earning assets were up to $24.4 billion, up from $23.2 billion a year ago. Loan balances declined slightly during the quarter, reflecting the seasonality in our mortgage warehouse and premium finance businesses as well as accelerated average paydowns in our CRE book. However, the average balance of total loans during the quarter was roughly stable as higher loans held for sale offset the slightly down portfolio loans. Total loan production in the fourth quarter was $1.8 billion, the highest we've seen in the past two years, and many of these loans will fund in future quarters.
We strategically reduced our broker deposits by about $832 million and grew core deposits by $675 million or over 3% during the quarter. That growth included about $550 million of our cyclical municipal deposits that will run back out during early 2025. For the year 2024, deposits increased about $1 billion or almost 5%, while we reduced broker deposits by $340 million. Our non-interest-bearing deposits still represent a healthy 30% of total deposits, and our brokered CDs represent less than 5% of total deposits.
We continue to anticipate 2025 loan and deposit growth in the mid-single digits and expect the deposit book growth will continue to be the governor on loan growth. I just want to close by reiterating how well positioned we are and how focused we are on a successful 2025.
And with that, I'm going to wrap the call back over to Wyatt and for any questions from the group.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Catherine Mealor, KBW.
Catherine Mealor
I want to start with the margin. The expansion was too great to see this quarter, the production of deposit cost was really impressive. So just wanted to see about your outlook for the margin this year? And Nicole, I know you're rate neutral. And so I guess, depending on what happens with rates, it feels like kind of a stable margin feels like the best way to model it, but you're coming from a higher level.
So just kind of curious how you're thinking about if there's any additional opportunities to actually increase the margin from here over the course of '25?
Nicole Stokes
Sure. So you're exactly right. At the end of last quarter or the call last quarter, I kind of guided, we were at 3.51% margin, and I guided listen anything above a 3.50%, we were pleased with. And we kind of saw 2 to 3 basis points maybe of some expansion. And then we come out with 14 basis points of expansion.
But what I want to emphasize is that focus on what caused that expansion. And 10 basis points of that expansion was really related to some things that are going to come back. So we had 7 basis points of that margin expansion that was coming from the deposit and the funding mix from those public funds coming in and paying off the wholesale. So as those public funds roll out and we go back into some broker, that 7 basis points is going to come back out of the margin.
And then we also had 3 basis points of what I call repricing lags, where we've repriced our deposits very quickly after the Fed cut and our loans are going to catch up to that. As soon as the Fed paused, we knew that our loans were going to catch up. So I feel like the 7 basis points from the funding side and the 3 basis points from those, what I'm calling repricing lags, are going to come back. So that would bring our margin back down to that 3.54% range, which is what I had guided last quarter.
So I'm going to take a 10-basis-point bump whenever I can. But I do think realistically, the margin coming in kind of in that 3.50%, 3.55% is consistent with our previous guidance and still what I'm guiding to. So again, 3.64% was elevated by about 10 basis points.
What I will say, though, on expansion going forward notice is -- or when you look at our production, when you look at our loan and deposit production, everything that we're putting on at this point is margin accretive. So depending upon if we can continue to grow deposits, we've been there, our bankers have been very, very successful on the deposit front. Also keeping that non-interest-bearing mix right at 30% has been very, very helpful.
But if you would ask me last year if we would be able to grow deposits like we did and maintain that 30%, we -- it would have been -- it was very tough, and we did it, our bankers stepped up and did it. So that has helped as well. So those are kind of the headwinds and tailwinds going into margin next year.
Catherine Mealor
Okay. That's helpful. So if we do in a model margin expansion, just start at 3.54%?
Nicole Stokes
Exactly. Yes.
Catherine Mealor
That's great. Okay. And then maybe over to fees, your SBA levels were very elevated this quarter, which was great. Just kind of curious what you're thinking about a run rate -- appropriate run rate for that going into next year also?
Nicole Stokes
Yes. So we're looking to model kind of fee income, excluding mortgage. So take mortgage out because they're at a little bit different growth rates. But fees are going to follow kind of our loan and deposit growth rate as well. So kind of in that 5% to 6%, 5% to 7% fee income increase.
Catherine Mealor
Right. And with this level -- with this level of fees, was there anything kind of would you say elevated this quarter just to be aware of? That probably said that were kind of pushed to this quarter, that just that we want to kind of run rate to pull out as we go into the first quarter?
Nicole Stokes
No, I appreciate that question because when you really look at kind of just GAAP non-interest income, remember, in the second quarter, we had the MSR sale gain, in the third quarter, we had the MSR sale gain. And then so it looks kind of flat for the fourth quarter, but we did have the -- if you take out the noise of those MSR sales, we did have the bump in the fourth quarter, and it really came from our SBA group. There was maybe a little bit of elevated there as some of the demand had built up, but I think that is a starting run rate is a good spot.
Operator
David Feaster, Raymond James.
David Feaster
I just wanted to start on the production side. It's great to hear, I mean, such a strong increase. How do you think about what drove that, right? Is it you gaining market share, just your team hit and stride? I know you guys have added some talent as well.
Or are you seeing a shift in demand? Just kind of curious, what do you think is driving that increase in origination activity?
H. Proctor
I think it's just a reflection of consumer sentiment. There's a lot more optimism out there. I think more clarity in some folks' minds. I think getting post-election, hopefully provide a little bit of clarity for folks, but a lot of our -- especially our commercial customers, in particular, I think, are feeling more optimistic as they look out. So -- and that's reflected, obviously, in that fourth quarter production.
So I feel good about that run rate and I feel good as we look out in our growth markets. So as I've always said, we're pretty blessed to be where we are in these high-growth markets, and we're starting to see that optimism reflect that.
But we have done a good job on the hiring front. So that would be incremental volume on top of what we have already generated. So when I look out across really all the verticals with the exception of mortgage, just driven by the rate environment more so. We -- which could potentially be a tailwind for us, depending on what happens with rates on the 10-year, but we feel pretty optimistic about the outlook.
David Feaster
Okay. That's helpful. And then, I mean, to that point, I mean how do you think about the pace of growth? It sounds like optimism is improving. We got incremental production.
Obviously, we had some elevated payoffs this quarter. How do you think about growth as we look out to 2025?
H. Proctor
Well, in our situation, we're pretty conservative, as you know. And so we're focused more on controlled growth. I do not think that -- until we kind of get moving forward in this new environment, we'll figure out where that goes. But the nice thing is we're positioned to accelerate it or to maintain what we've got. So -- and then the nice thing, too, is about diversification within our balance sheet is having the ability to optimize margin versus just driving growth for the sake of growth.
So when you look at asset mix or duration risk and profiles, we're able -- that's really what we focused on the last two years, especially in an environment where the yield curve was inverted.
So I think as we look out, given the different levers that we can pull, we feel pretty bullish about our ability to deliver on -- especially on our EPS growth.
David Feaster
That's great. And then on the other side of it, right, I mean, Nicole, you alluded to the strength in the expense control that you guys have done. We've got pretty good visibility into the revenue growth, right, just given the accelerating loan growth and some stability in the margin to potential expansion because everything is pretty accretive. I'm just curious, how do you think about expense growth next year? Is there opportunity to potentially bring forward some expenses as you continue to invest?
I mean, we got the new hires that we talked about. I'm just curious, how you think about expenses and your ability to drive positive operating leverage in 2025?
Nicole Stokes
No, it's a great point. So I think when you look at kind of consensus expenses, I think for the year, they look very reasonable right now. I think they're in about a 4.5% to 5% increase. I think they're a little bit light in the first quarter. I think when we always have some cyclical payroll that comes in the first quarter with everybody resetting FICA and 401(k) matches and all that.
So I think the first quarter, when I look at consensus, might be a little bit light. But I think for the year, 4.5% to 5% growth in expenses is exactly spot on for consensus. I think just the first quarter, we need to shift a little bit into the first quarter and out of kind of the third and fourth quarter. But I think the year to date is right.
H. Proctor
And David, one of the things that we do that may be different from others, I don't know. But we hired 24 bankers, for instance, commercial bankers, this year, this past year. And we also called 24 bankers. And I think the mistake a lot of folks make is bringing on additional production folks to compensate for deficiencies or lack of production from others. And all you do is just add that to your run rate on your expense side.
We've always been pretty consequential. And so we brought in 24, and we eliminated 24.
And when you kind of have that approach to things, it allows us to keep the expenses under control from an overhead standpoint. And from a production standpoint, more importantly.
Operator
Russell Gunther, Stephens.
Russell Gunther
Can we spend a minute on the mortgage banking gain on sale outlook for 2025, what you guys are thinking about both from a production and margin perspective?
Nicole Stokes
Yes. So we're -- we went from 2.17% to 2.40%. We're kind of guiding in that 2.25% to 2.40% just based on what we're seeing and what we're seeing with demand right now. Of course, that's very market dependent. But based on what we're seeing today, kind of looking at a first, second quarter, somewhere in that 2.25% to 2.40%, so kind of hovering about where it is today.
Russell Gunther
Okay. Perfect. And then just last one for me, switching gears here to the capital deployment front. Obviously, carry excess capital and reserves. You mentioned what you have left on the buyback.
I think last quarter, you talked about increased clarity around the election might provide a catalyst to accelerate that. So how are you guys thinking about balancing what sounds like a very strong organic growth trajectory with the buyback lever and potentially acquisitions?
H. Proctor
Well, the -- first and foremost, would be the organic growth and funding the organic growth. I would tell you, buybacks right now would probably take a backseat to that. And then obviously, as opportunities come back -- come up, we'll take a look at them. But we are, as you know, very strategic in how we look at M&A and very different. And we don't like M&A just for the sake of just accumulating assets.
It's got to be more strategic in nature. So if you were trying to prioritize, I would tell you, organic growth will come first. Then maybe some selective M&A in there, but it would have to be very selective. And then buybacks, in that order.
Russell Gunther
I appreciate that, Palmer. And maybe just a follow-up. You guys have been very clear on the M&A front. It would take something special and strategic. And could you just give us a sense of the characteristics of what that would look like to Ameris, maybe from a size and geographic perspective?
H. Proctor
Yes. Our approach there has not changed. So obviously, Southeastern in nature. It could be something that could provide. We love, as you know, core funding.
To be something with a strong core deposit base. It could be a bank that provides additional support for a business line that we're in, more on the core bank side, less on the non-core bank side in terms of furthering initiative there, whether it was on commercial C&I, that could be of interest to us. And then it would have to be something that's a cultural fit. So those are kind of the boxes that would need to check for us.
Operator
Christopher Marinac, Janney Montgomery Scott.
Christopher Marinac
I wanted to talk about the reserve. And Palmer, we've had a couple of quarters in a row of very low criticized and classified loans. I'm curious if the reserve build is just for loan growth? Or is there any anticipation that you might see just some backing up of the criticized numbers over time?
Doug Strange
Chris, this is Doug. The model drives our CECL reserve. And so it's really just a function of that more so than anything. We lay out our indices that influence our CECL model on slide 16. And then obviously, you bake in your economic forecast for that quarter, and that produces our reserve need.
Christopher Marinac
Got it. So at the end of the day, you're performing better than the model on losses for sure, which is perfectly fine. I mean, you'll continue to grow into that as you have external growth?
Doug Strange
That's true because CECL's life of loans. So through a life of a loan, you can experience ups and downs. So -- but you're correct.
Christopher Marinac
Okay. And then perhaps asking M&A from another angle, Palmer, what's the opportunity to simply acquire businesses that aren't banks or teams of people? Do you see any more of that than what you've done in the last few years?
H. Proctor
Well, I think right now, as an industry, more of the chatter is obviously bank to bank as opposed to banks to non-bank. But that doesn't mean there aren't some unique opportunities out there. I think the challenge of a lot of the non-banks is from a funding perspective, how are you going to fund it if they don't have any core funding. So given the importance of that and given our desire to hold on to our core funding and not watch that diminish, that would probably take a backseat to bank M&A, traditional bank M&A.
Operator
Manuel Navas, D.A. Davidson.
Manuel Navas
On the NIM, could you go into a little bit more detail on what you're bringing on that's accretive, the types of loan yields you're bringing on, that production that's accretive to NIM going forward?
Nicole Stokes
Sure. So from a loan production perspective for the quarter, our total company was right at 7%, and that's kind of split up. The bank is kind of coming in around 8%. Premium finance is spot on that, right at 7%. Mortgage is a little bit lower at 6.5%-ish.
So kind of that all-in blended rate for the company was about 7%. And then when you look at deposit production for the quarter, our blended total book came in at about 2.42% of new production. That's including the interest-bearing, that's compared to a book of 2.12%. So it's coming on a little bit higher than our average book.
And then our -- just on the interest-bearing deposits, our production was about 3.25%, and that's compared to a total book of right about 3%. So our coming on production is running about 25 to 30 basis points higher than our total average book. But then when you compare that to coming on loan production of 7%, you can see where that accretion -- everything that we're putting on is accretable to margin.
It's coming in at a wire spread. It's coming in about a 3.75% spread versus a 3.50% spread. The real question is whether we can continue to grow the non-interest-bearing at the pace that we're growing. Our bankers have just done a phenomenal job there.
Manuel Navas
I appreciate that. You talked about the lag where loan yields might still reprice a bit from the last rate cut. Is there a good amount -- are you kind of done on the deposit side with cutting deposit costs on the December cut? You're implying that there's more on the loan side than the deposit side. Could you just go into detail on that a bit more?
Nicole Stokes
Sure. Yes. So on our deposit side, our treasury teams, our operations teams, they've done a great job of, we are ready to go the day after the Fed cuts. So we've been able to kind of get ahead of that and be aggressive. Our betas have been on the down has been a little bit better with these first two cuts.
And some of that is market driven as well. So we've gotten ahead of the curve there. And then we knew that as soon as the Fed cut that we were going to have -- I'm sorry, as soon as the Fed stopped cutting, that eventually those loans were going to reprice. The lag of the loans were going to start repricing down. So that's been -- that's kind of where I mean that we've been aggressive on the deposits and which has been great.
And then -- but we know that we've got about $8 billion of loans that are going to reprice in the next year. The good news is that they're -- the weighted average on that. So even though it looks like there's -- some of that is like the premium finance production that's already been pricing, even though it's a fixed rate loan, it's behaving like a variable rate. So the average rate of those is a little less than 7.5% and our current production is 7%. So when you think about that, I think we're spot on where we should be with what repricing, if that all came down 50 basis points from that 7.40% down to 7%, that would kind of be in line with what you're seeing with the recent Fed cut.
So I don't think we have any outlier there. I think it's just a natural progression of being able to be faster on the downside on the deposits than the loan side. And then you also -- we have some of our bond portfolio. We had some payoffs in the fourth quarter, and then we have some more payoffs coming in or some maturities coming in June. So we've been able to grow our bond portfolio at these higher rates.
And so that's been helpful as well.
Manuel Navas
I appreciate that. In the muni flows, so the expectation with the muni flows might come back out in the first quarter just on seasonality. Is that that's going to be somewhat replaced by brokered and borrowings? Is that the right way to think about it?
Nicole Stokes
That's right. And so we always have our balance sheet. We always say that our balance sheet kind of bulges at the end of the year, which we appreciate those customers where we get in the public fund. And so that typically flows back out in the first quarter. That's about $500 million.
So when that flows back out, and so we purposely -- kind of looking at third quarter, second and third quarter funding, we keep all of our funding short. But all of our funding right now is very short. All of our brokered CDs are very short. So they will reprice. We've got about $800 million of brokered right at 4.5%.
And so they will reprice down all in the first quarter.
Operator
Russell Gunther, Stephens.
Russell Gunther
Nicole, I just wanted to piggyback on Manuel's question, and I appreciate the color on sort of where deposit production costs were coming on during the quarter. Could you kind of tie that together for us and give us a sense for where the spot deposit costs are shaking out?
Nicole Stokes
Yes. And I'm a little bit leery to do that, why I gave the quarter because some of that is skewed a little bit by some of that public fund. So are -- kind of right -- you basically are asking for December spot costs?
Russell Gunther
It would be helpful, if possible. Would be helpful if possible.
Nicole Stokes
Yes. So for our spot cost December, they were right around 2%. But again, that's skewed. I don't -- I want to make sure I'm very clear that that's skewed with some public funds. And also with some of our -- we had a tremendous amount of non-interest-bearing growth that came in December.
So I'd really rather if you kind of look at where a third quarter to fourth quarter average, we were able to drop from about 2.75% down to about a 2.40% for the quarter, so about 30 basis points down, which is good, and we like that trend. But kind of our December growth that really, we saw that biggest change was in CDs where we saw our CD production in December about 25 basis points less than the quarterly average.
Operator
This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Palmer Proctor for any closing remarks.
H. Proctor
Thank you, Wyatt, and I want to thank all of our teammates for another incredible year. I look at how we're set up for 2025, which gives me a lot of optimism, is obviously our premier financial performance but also our stable asset quality, our capital build and our revenue growth opportunities. We really appreciate your participation in today's call, and we thank you all for your time and your interest in Ameris Bank.
Operator
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
