Kroll Bond Rating Agency Affirms Ratings for Dime Community Bancshares, Inc.

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y., June 20, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dime Community Bancshares, Inc. (the “Company” or “Dime”) (NASDAQ: DCOM), the parent company of Dime Community Bank (the “Bank”), announced that Kroll Bond Rating Agency (“KBRA”) has affirmed all ratings of Dime Community Bancshares, Inc. and Dime Community Bank.

KBRA affirmed the Bank’s senior unsecured debt rating of “BBB+” and the Company’s senior unsecured debt rating of “BBB”. The Outlook for all long-term ratings is “Stable”.

According to the KBRA report:

• Dime's ratings are supported by the effective integration of its merger-of-equals transaction which has facilitated the increased scale and diversification of the Company's operating profile, including the leading market share position in Long Island among local banks
• Dime’s cycle- to-date deposit beta has been respectable relative to other local banks
• Dime maintains a very low expense base, with noninterest expenses to average assets of 1.40% as of Q1 2023; over the longer-term, KBRA believes that provides greater upside to the earnings potential in a more normalized interest rate environment
• KBRA also recognizes that the negative impact from AOCI has not been overly impactful to Dime's capital ratios, even when including marks on the HTM portfolio, given that Dime maintains a relatively smaller sized securities portfolio
• A substantial portion of the company’s investor CRE portfolio is comprised of rent-regulated multifamily loans throughout NYC that has reflected low loss content historically, which also displays conservative underwriting criteria
• Given that Dime has exhibited among the lowest credit losses through multiple economic cycles, including a cumulative NCO ratio of below 15 basis points since 2007, we believe that similar outperformance on the credit front is certainly possible
• KBRA also favorably views Dime’s strong performance throughout the volatile liquidity environment in Q1 2023, with core deposits growing. Moreover, the Company’s uninsured deposit balances are considered rather minimal at 28% of total when excluding collateralized deposits, and total available liquidity sources are ample, which cover nearly 2x those balances
• There are also potential tailwinds for core deposit levels over the next year as Dime has recently added seven new deposit focused groups in Q2 2023, which reflected strong core deposit levels at their prior institutions, notably higher level of non-interest bearing accounts

Kevin O’ Connor, Chief Executive Officer, stated, “We are pleased to receive an affirmation of our investment grade rating from KBRA.”

ABOUT DIME COMMUNITY BANCSHARES, INC.
Dime Community Bancshares, Inc. is the holding company for Dime Community Bank, a New York State-chartered trust company with over $13.8 billion in assets and the number one deposit market share among community banks on Greater Long Island ⁽¹⁾.

Dime Community Bancshares, Inc.
Investor Relations Contact:
Avinash Reddy
Senior Executive Vice President – Chief Financial Officer
Phone: 718-782-6200; Ext. 5909
Email: avinash.reddy@dime.com

⁽¹⁾ Aggregate deposit market share for Kings, Queens, Nassau & Suffolk counties for community banks with less than $20 billion in assets