Civista Bancshares, Inc.

Good day, and welcome to the Savista Bank Shares third quarter 2022 earnings call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode today. Should you need any assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by a zero on your telephone keypad. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements with respect to the future performance and financial condition of Savista Bank Shares, Inc. that involve risks and uncertainties. Various factors could cause actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors are discussed in the company's SEC filings, which are available on the company's website. The company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. Additionally, management may refer to non-GAAP measures, which are intended to supplement but not substitute the most directly comparable GAAP measures. The press release, also available on the company's website, contains the financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today, as well as the reconciliation of the gap-to-non-gap measures. This call will be recorded and made available on Savista Bank Share's website at www.civb.com. At the conclusion of Mr. Schaefer's remarks, he and the Savista management team will take any questions you may have. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Schaefer.

Good afternoon. This is Dennis Schaefer, President and CEO of Savista Bank Shares, and I would like to thank you for joining us for our third quarter 2022 earnings call. I am joined today by Rich Dutton, SVP of the company and Chief Operating Officer of the bank, Chuck Parcher, SVP of the company and Chief Lending Officer of the bank, and other members of our executive team. Let me start by noting several significant accomplishments or transactions that occurred during the third quarter. This morning, we reported net income of $11.1 million or 72 cents per diluted share for the third quarter of 2022 and net income of 27.3 million or $1.82 per diluted share for the nine months ending September 30th, 2022. This is a direct result of our continued focus on growing and diversifying our revenue streams and the disciplined approach that we take in managing the company. We closed our transaction with Communibank Corp on July 1st and completed the system's conversion over this past weekend. In addition to adding approximately $174 million of loans and $251 million of low-cost core deposits to our balance sheet, we are excited to introduce our new Northwest Ohio customers to the products and services that Savista has to offer. Loan growth across our footprint continues to be strong. Even after adjusting for the loans that came to us via Communibank, loans grew organically by $93 million, or 18%, on an annualized basis during the quarter. Due to our strong core funding and rising interest rates, our margin expanded by 60 basis points over the length quarter as new interest-earning assets were added at higher yields and existing loans repriced. Our deposit betas moved slower, and as a result, our funding costs only increased two basis points. Our return on average assets was 1.35 percent for the quarter, compared to 1 percent for the length quarter, and our return on average equity was 14.45 percent for the quarter, compared to 9.86 percent for the length quarter. Year to date, our return on assets was 1.14 percent, and our return on equity was 11.34 percent. We continue to be active in repurchasing common shares, During the quarter, we repurchased 286,611 shares. Year-to-date, we have repurchased 734,810 shares, or 4.9% of the outstanding shares, at December 31, 2021. Finally, we were excited to announce the acquisition of Vision Financial Group, a full-service business equipment leasing company and finance company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The transaction closed on October 1st. We believe the addition of a small-ticket commercial leasing company to the Savista family further expands our revenue streams. Now let's turn our attention to our income statement and our balance sheet. Net interest income increased $6.2 million last or 25.4% over the length quarter, and $6 million, or 24.6% year over year. Net interest income for the first nine months of 2022 increased $5.5 million, or 7.7% compared to 2021. The increase was primarily the result of our excellent organic loan growth throughout the year, the rising interest rate environment, and the acquisition of Communibank Corp this past quarter. This increase was particularly impressive given that there were significant PPP fees amortized into interest income in the prior year. As I stated, we are extremely pleased with our loan growth for the quarter, excluding PPP loans and the loans acquired via our Communibank transaction We were able to grow loans organically by $93 million, or 4.5% for the quarter, which is 18% on an annualized basis. At the end of the quarter, of the approximately $400 million in PPP loans we originated during 2020 and 2021, only $819,000 remained outstanding. Without question, this program was a success for our business customers and communities throughout our footprint. Our net interest margin was 4.03% for the quarter and 3.62% for the first nine months of 2022, respectively. Both measures reflect expansion over the comparable 2021 periods. Similarly, our margin expanded by 60 basis points over the length quarter from 3.43% to 4.03%. The yield on our earning assets increased by 48 basis points compared to the prior year quarter and increased by 63 basis points over the linked quarter as new loans are being originated at higher rates and loans already on our books reprice at higher rates. Our yield on earning assets for the first nine months of 2022 grew by 17 basis points compared to the same period in 2021, even though our 2021 loan yields were augmented by the accretion of $9.8 million in PPP interest and fees. Funding costs for the quarter ticked up by eight basis points over the prior year quarter, and year-to-date compared to the prior year increased by two basis points. In comparison to the linked quarter, our third quarter funding costs also ticked up by two basis points. During the quarter, non-interest income was consistent with the linked quarter at $5.7 million and declined $692,000 in comparison to the same quarter in the prior year. The primary driver of the decrease from our prior year quarter was a decline in gain on the sale of mortgage loans of $975,000, which were partially offset by a $366,000 increase in service charges. Third quarter gains on the sale of mortgage loans were $637,000, an increase of 11.2% from our late quarter as we returned to our more typical mortgage banking activity of financing new home purchases. You will recall that we recognized a $1.8 million gain on the sale of our Visa B-shares as part of our balance sheet restructuring in the second quarter of 2021, which contributed to the year-to-date decline. However, the primary driver of the decrease in our non-interest income was a $4.4 million decline in gains on the sale of mortgage loans. For the nine-month period, non-interest income declined $5.6 million, or 22.8%, in comparison to the prior year. Wealth management revenues were consistent comparing our third quarter to the linked quarter, as was our wealth management year-to-date revenue at $3.7 million compared to $3.6 million in the prior year. We continued to add new accounts, and our existing clients continued to make additions to their existing accounts, which helped us keep pace with the declines in the overall market. While we anticipate that market pressures will continue to be a headwind for some time, We view the expansion of these services across our entire footprint as an opportunity to diversify and grow non-interest income. Non-interest expense for the quarter was $22.6 million compared to our linked quarter of $20.4 million. $788,000 of the $2.2 million increase was the result of one-time deal costs associated with the Communibank transaction. Non-interest expense increased $2.5 million or 4.1% year-over-year as the prior year balance sheet restructuring costs were replaced by increases in compensation expense, professional fees, software maintenance expense, and non-recurring expenses related to our Communibank transaction. You may recall that during the second quarter of 2021, we incurred a $3.7 million prepayment penalty on our early termination of a FHLB long-term borrowing. Compensation expense increased $2.1 million, or 6%, over the prior year, primarily due to annual salary increases, which go into effect each year in April, and the addition of approximately 44 former Comunibank employees on July 1st. Professional fees increased $1.3 million, or 59.3%. primarily related to $839,000 in legal and investment banking fees related to our Communibank transaction. Total expenses related to the Communibank transaction were in line with our expectations in total $1.9 million through September 30th. Our efficiency ratio was 61.4% compared to 67% for the linked quarter and 64.4% year-to-date. If we had adjusted for one-time deal costs, our efficiency ratio for each of those periods would have been 59.7 percent, 66.1 percent, and 62.9 percent, respectively. Year-to-date, our total loans increased by $330.7 million, which includes the addition of $174.3 million of loans from Communibank and a $42.4 million reduction in PPP loans. Excluding the Communibank and PPP loans, our loan portfolio would have grown by $198.8 million or at an annualized basis of 13.6%. Making the adjustment for Communibank and PPP, our third quarter growth was $93 million or 18% on an annualized basis. Demand for commercial real estate in virtually every one of our markets continue to drive the majority of this increase. Along with our strong year-to-date loan production, our undrawn construction lines remain near an all-time high at $163.4 million at September 30th. While we believe the higher interest rate environment will inevitably slow the economy and loan growth, we are confident that even in the face of the anticipated headwinds, we will grow our loan portfolio at a high single-digit rate for the balance of 2022 and at a mid-single-digit growth rate into 2023. On the funding side, we experienced growth in every category except interest-bearing demand, with total deposits increasing $291.6 million, or 12.1%, since the beginning of the year. The addition of Communibank's low-cost core deposits accounted for $251 million of this increase. Non-interest-bearing demand accounts continue to be a focus and made up 37% of our total deposits at September 30th. As we continue to attract operating accounts of our business and municipal customers. Even in light of the uncertainties associated with the economy, we have not seen any real deterioration in our customers' financial positions across our footprint. While we did make a $300,000 provision during the quarter, it was attributable to growth in our loan portfolio rather than economic stress. In addition, we have realized $132,000 in net recoveries year-to-date. The ratio of our allowance for loan losses to loans at September 30th declined slightly from December 2021 from 1.33% to 1.19%, as did our allowance for loan losses to non-performing loans, which was 476.2% at September 30th compared to 496.1% at the end of 2021. I would note that if we include the credit mark of $2.8 million associated with the Communibank's loans, our ratio of allowance for loan losses to loans would have been 1.31% at the end of the quarter. We continue to be on track to adopt the new CECL allowance requirements beginning in 2023. The higher interest rate environment and the pressure it has had on the bond market resulted in a $78.8 million decline from December 31st, 2021 to September 30th in other comprehensive income related to our investment portfolio. As a result, we ended the quarter with a tangible common equity ratio of 6.05% compared to 9.25% at December 31st, 2021. Despite this decline, our Tier 1 capital ratio at September 30th was 9.32 percent, which is well above what is deemed well capitalized for regulatory purposes. So, VISTA continues to create capital through earnings, and our overall goal remains to have adequate capital to support organic growth and potential acquisitions. Two important parts of our capital management strategy continue to be the payment of dividends and share repurchases. We continue to believe our stock is a value, During the quarter, we repurchased 286,661 shares of common stock for $6.1 million for an average price of $21.33 per share. Year to date, we have repurchased 734,810 shares or 4.9% of our shares that were outstanding at December 31st, 2021. We have an authorization of approximately $6.2 million remaining in our current repurchase program. Savista understands the opportunities growth brings to our customers, employees, and shareholders. Many of our employees were involved with the planning and execution of our recent conversion, and I could not be more pleased with the way they continued to manage their daily responsibilities. It has been a summer of much planning and even more work, and to see the way the conversion came together this past weekend reinforces my pride in our team. As I indicated earlier, we closed our transaction with Vision Financial Group Inc. on October 3rd. Vision is an equipment leasing and finance company with over 30 years of history based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that brings a new revenue stream to Savista. While not exclusively, they do focus on six industry sectors, propane, recycling and waste management, environmental, additive manufacturing, construction, and non-destructive testing. I've said on previous calls that each transaction must be a cultural fit. I am confident, after our extensive due diligence process, that both organizations drive results by building strong customer relationships and by providing a superior customer experience. Deal highlights include the consideration mix was 84% or $28.6 million cash and 16% or $5.25 million stock. We expected the deal to be immediately accretive, ramping up from being 6.4% accretive in year one to being 15.1% accretive in year two as Vision leverages our low-cost funding to transition into a bank-funded model. The deal has a 3.8-year tangible book value earned back. Our employees will continue to work toward the successful integration over the fourth quarter, and we look forward to leveraging both of our client bases to grow our commercial loan and leasing businesses. In summary, we are pleased with another quarter of excellent earnings, continued loan growth, and solid credit quality. Despite the volatile interest rates, the economic uncertainties, and inflationary pressures we are all facing, We remain optimistic. Businesses and consumers across our footprint continue to have strong balance sheets. Our loan pipelines are solid. We successfully integrated Communibank into the Savista family and are well on our way to the same successful integration of Vision Financial Group. Thank you for your attention this afternoon, and now we'll be happy to address any questions that you may have.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. And our first question here will come from Terry McEvoy with Stevens. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, guys. Hi, Terry. Maybe start with a couple questions on vision, if I could. First off, is that included in your loan growth outlook for, I guess, the remainder of this year and next year? And then just as a follow-up there, can you help me understand the balance sheet impact as you kind of build loans? Where would you expect that portfolio to be at the end of next year? Any reserving that would be connected with that? And I guess the last piece is the expense side. just so we can kind of back into that accretion that was discussed earlier on the call.

It's not included in any of our numbers for the remainder of the year, Terry. And then I think your second was the balance sheet impact.

We would see most of that balance sheet impact, obviously, in the C&I portion of our lending side. I'm not sure. I know Rich is looking for it right now. I'm not sure we've actually modeled out yet from that perspective what the provision, et cetera, would be yet.

Terry, it kind of came together, and we've been trying to do this conversion. And I'd be less than honest with you if I said we had good expense numbers for the fourth quarter. We'll get those out to you. We'll do it for everybody. We'll issue an 8K that's got that number in it. But I don't have a good – run rate for the fourth quarter that's got the vision numbers in it.

Okay. I appreciate that. And then on the deposit costs, what are your thoughts on deposit costs going forward? You've done a great job holding them low. And have you raised deposit rates here in the month of October?

Yeah, we look for the deposit beta, I think, to increase. Obviously, it was virtually nothing in the third quarter. We are feeling a little bit of pressure, but We still think that we'll have some margin expansion in the fourth quarter here. We have raised deposit rates slightly, and we'll continue to watch that. But, you know, there is pressure on deposit rates right now. That deposit beta is going to be a little bit bigger than it was this past quarter. We know that. But we do think that we'll continue to have some margin expansion as rates rise here in the fourth quarter.

Hey, Terry, this is Rich. We've consistently kind of modeled that 13 basis point beta on our non-maturing deposits, and that's still what our model tells us. I mean, we've done a pretty good job, like you alluded to, at kind of holding the line. And like Dennis said, we've kind of approached a number of our larger depositors, a lot of municipalities, kind of on a one-on-one and negotiated deals. I mean, I think we're feeling pressure for sure, and we're taking care of kind of one-on-one as we go forward. But There may be a time in the next quarter or so where we might have to do some across-the-board, not big increases, but certainly wider-ranging increases.

Yeah, the strength of our franchise is this strong core deposit base that we have, and you definitely see it in times like this. I think you saw it in these third-quarter results. I think you'll continue to see it, and I'll continue to say that I think that's what will separate the high-performing banks from one another, the banks that have this strong core deposit base. And as I mentioned in my comments, we have 37% non-interest-bearing deposit accounts.

Maybe I'll squeeze one last one. Maybe just talk about the Toledo market now that that conversion has occurred. And as part of the conversion, I should ask the question, have you had any loss of customers or key employees since that deal is closed? Thanks, guys. No.

No, we've not lost any employees, and we've really not lost any accounts. Balances were pretty flat in that third quarter, both on a deposit and on the loan side. I think they were fairly flat. We are integrating them in now. Chuck's working on hiring. You know, we had in our original budget, just our budget alone, to add a person for that area. So I'll let Chuck comment a little bit further on maybe some of the personnel and stuff.

Yeah, we're working on right now hiring what I would call a market exec. As Dennis mentioned, we did not lose anybody to competition per se of any substance. You know, from the personnel perspective, we did have one of their senior lenders retire recently. decided to retire at the time of conversion. So we're looking to replace him. We're looking to name a head and actually looking for another lender as well. So I feel like we'll get that entire group built out by the end of the year.

And remember, Terry, Chuck's background was Toledo. That's where he was born. That's where he spent most of his banking career. So, you know, he's got a lot of contacts there, not only with customers, but with other bankers in the market.

Thanks for the reminder, and thanks for all the information.

You bet.

Our next question here will come from Tim Switzer with KBW. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon. I'm on Facebook. Thanks for taking my question.

Sure, Tim.

My first question is on the loan guide for, you know, a slight deceleration from high single to mid-single digits next year. And is that, you know, assuming some sort of weakness in the economy from here or, you know... Tim, I'll tell you what.

We're having a hard time hearing you or understanding you. I don't know if you're... It sounds a little muffled. Yeah. I don't know if that's just our end or...

I'm sorry, is this better?

Not better, not better. Okay, sorry.

I didn't want to lean any closer to these guys. I don't want you to do that for me. But, yeah, my question was on the loan guide. You know, a little bit of deceleration from high single to mid single digits in 23. Is that assuming some weakness in the economy, just given, you know, the impact of Fed tightening and the recent trends we've seen? And then, you know, like let's say the economy kind of holds up. Is there upside to maintain the high single digits?

Yeah, I think, Tim, this is Chuck. I think there is upside if it does hold up. You know, we're pretty clear, we feel pretty clear based on our pipeline right now through, you know, through November and probably into December. You know, then it becomes a little hazy as we look out past that. You know, we've normally been, from a budget perspective, a mid to high single digit planter. and that's kind of what we're starting to build our plans around. But if the economy does hold up, I would say, yes, we'll be looking at that higher single-digit to lower double-digit piece going forward.

Tim, I would add, and we're new to leasing, but those projections, we are just starting to kind of get our arms around what the leasing division and the impact that will have on our loan and lease putting is going forward, too.

Right, and to be clear, that mid-single-digit rate in 23 does not include vision, right? Correct. Okay, all right. And then do you guys have – I'm sorry if I missed it. Do you guys have what the impact of purchase accounting was on NII this quarter? I'm sure it wasn't big, but just trying to get a handle on it.

This is where the music starts while we're looking through our notes. Hold on one second. Four basis points.

Four basis points. Okay. Great. Thank you. And then I know it's been, you know, it's kind of tough to guess where the NIM is going to head, but more generally, do you think at some point in 23, probably like middle of 23, once we've had a lot of the asset repricing finished, deposit betas will still be catching up. So, you know, is there, is there a scenario where we start to see a little bit of NIM compression and, you know, second half of 23, just, driven by the deposit betas. And I know the leasing portfolio growth can maybe offset that, but forgetting that part.

Right. And this is Rich again. Historically, we've done a pretty good job of being disciplined in repricing our deposits. Certainly, if the Fed kind of levels things out after another increase or two, logic would say that deposits would creep up a little bit. But again, we're just talking basis points. Again, with such a huge portion of our funding, 37% of our deposits, non-interest bearing, and 91% of those deposits are basically in low-cost deposits.

So they're in personal savings or business checking and personal checking. So we don't have a heavy reliance on CDs, so I think we'll have less impact. But I think once the rates slow down and And, you know, I don't know if we'll see margin, you know, significant margin compression, but it'll certainly flatten out quite a bit.

Right, okay. That makes sense. The other point that we would want to make is of those non-interest-bearing deposits, 70% of them, I don't have my numbers.

71% of those are business accounts.

Yeah, so those are operating lines that really aren't interest rate sensitive, if you will. I mean, our lenders... And I don't credit them often, but our lenders do a great job of gathering deposits when they gather loans. We really do a good job of, I mean, we don't do transactions, Tim. We're a relationship bank, like Dennis alluded to during his comments. And that's, again, I think that pays dividends when rates start to move. I think, again, we'll see some compression when the music stops, but it's not going to be significant.

Okay, that's helpful. And the last question I had, have you guys been running like a parallel CECL accounting, and do you know what the impact will be next quarter or have any idea? Go ahead, Paul.

This is Paul Stark. We've been running in parallel for a couple of quarters now, and based on the numbers today, I don't think we're going to see a huge change, but I would say that a lot of that's going to depend on what happens over the next three or four months.

If I could just interject for one second before Paul Miss speaks, we're going to adopt CECL on January 1st, so it's not going to be the next quarter. It'll be Q1 at the end of the year.

I think basically the question I always get is, is a model going to make a significant impact? I would say overall no. But we're far from the point where we can start saying, hey, here's what the number's going to be.

Okay.

Awesome.

I appreciate it. That's all for me. Thanks, Tim.

Our next question will come from Nick Coturale with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone.

How are you?

Hey, Nick. Hi, Nick. Can you help us think about the cost savings from the community bank deal and how much you expect to extract out of the run rate in future periods, just especially given the recent systems conversion?

Yeah. We had 35% cost saves modeled, 75% of them in, you know, really this year. I think 25% of them were next year, Nick. So we've realized most of those, you know, most of those cost saves will take place, a lot of them in compensation and employee compensation. Because remember, the four most senior people at the bank basically have retired. and that was a lot of that compensation expense. So this, unlike a lot of the acquisitions that we've done, we recognized that almost immediately. Those people did stay on to help us through this conversion period and stuff, but we'll start recognizing those almost immediately now.

Nick, we'll get you some better numbers, but if you take the one-time costs out of Q3, the conversion costs, our non-interest expense was about $20,000. and I would say that's probably a good proxy X vision for Q4, and we'll get you a better number. I apologize. I'm usually better than this, and I just don't have it.

No, no apology necessary. Thanks, Rich. And lastly, I just wanted to touch on capital return and the active share buyback. So in light of your current tangible common equity and further anticipated dilution from the vision deal, Can you give us some color on your appetite for continued repurchase?

Yeah, I think we still think that's a great way to deploy capital. We've kind of paused a little bit here. We've kind of just paused a little bit. I think we're thinking about that. We want to see how these numbers shake out with the vision stuff. We see how they've shaken out now with HCB. So we're being very mindful of that. as we move forward. We are creating capital with our earnings, and, you know, our earnings are, you know, stronger than they've ever been. And so I think that's a plus. And we are, as things roll out, you know, we think this is somewhat temporary, you know, get past this next, this fourth quarter, if these rate increases slow down, because we are replacing things, maturing in the portfolio with higher yielding assets and stuff. So we do think that trend will eventually reverse. So those are our thoughts, I guess, around that.

Terrific. Thank you very much. Appreciate you taking my questions.

Thank you, Nick. As a reminder, if you have a question, you may press star then one to join the queue. Our next question here will come from Manuel Navas with DA Davidson. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon. Hi, Manuel. Hey, so going back to the NIM discussion, can you just remind me, have you kind of firmed up yet what type of yields you're going to pursue on the vision transaction? I think you were modeling 8% to 9%. Is that right?

Yeah, 8% was what we modeled on the vision transaction. Rates have risen since then, you know, so, you know, we should – We should be putting on things a little higher than that number, but it just depends on the mix that they'll be able to generate. We do think they'll be a little bit more competitive and going after some of these larger corporation lease deals. That was one of the things I think they found us attractive. Those rates are higher than our loan rates, but they're not, you know, if we're lending it at six and a quarter today, they may be lending or leasing that at 7% or seven and a quarter on those, you know, those higher, those larger deals and stuff. So, Chuck, do you have any color more you want to add there?

No, you know, I'm comfortable with the 8% number that we put out there. You know, our capital and our pricing structure gives them, what I would say is, if you said their average customer was a three-rated customer in the past, it gives them a little bit of an opportunity to bid on some higher quality credit leases, which, you know, let's say a two-rated credit, which will give them the opportunity to maybe come off that 8% number. But I would say, in general, that 8% number looking forward, as Dennis said, was a good number to look as you're modeling forward.

It seems like there's still a lot to work through, but I wanted to bring that back to the NIM discussion. How high can you peak out? Because a lot of folks we talked to were talking about a peak NIM in the first half of next year, but you're going to still be adding vision assets at a much higher accretive to the loan book clip. Could you still see the NIM rising past um, through the, through the rest of next year.

But potentially, you know, we're working through right now too, just to try to figure out, you know, how much we want to hold, how much we want to sell, you know, so you'll probably see some more gain on gain on sale type, um, numbers looking forward into, into next year. Um, you know, that's some of the stuff that we're still working through on a mixed perspective to, to try to decide, you know, how much we're going to hold, you know, a lot of that will depend on, you know, how our, uh, Loan-to-deposit ratio kind of increases over that time period, but... Yeah, so we'll watch that.

I mean, you know, we modeled about retaining 50 and selling 50. Well, you know, but some of that's going to depend on where those loan-to-deposit ratios shake out. Currently, we're about 89% loan-to-deposit. So, you know, we got plenty of run room right now, which I think will be very beneficial. Vision is on pace to do $120 million to $130 million in loans or leases this year. I think we've modeled close to about $155 million or so. So, you know, if we retain half of those, there's $75 million or so that perhaps goes on or should go on at higher yields. So that will definitely be a benefit for us. And that's one of the reasons we like the deals. You know, we not only want to diversify our revenue streams, but, you know, we're picking up, you know, a revenue stream that we think is a little bit higher yielding than what we have out there today.

And it's also, the other part we really like about it is the synergy that it has within our organization. We've already seen in the first couple of weeks, you know, quite a few referrals going back and forth, and we really think that, especially in our C&I customer base, It's a way to bring in a leasing company instead of them jumping to one of our competitive banks that has leasing right now that may end up us losing the customer long term. So the synergies are great within this deal.

And we didn't model any of those synergies into our base model. So we didn't, you know, that would all be, you know, that's all lift for us.

Okay. That's really helpful. And just confirm, I think it's come up, but your loan guidance for next year does not include vision yet. Correct. And then, okay. With how well you've kept in deposit costs, is there any update to like the through the cycle deposit beta there, or is that kind of, you're still assuming the same rough percentage?

Well, I think, again, the We do anticipate margin expansion. The deposit beta will be more than it was the third quarter because it was virtually nothing. So it will be slightly more. But, again, I just look back to the 16, 17, 18 time period before rates had fallen. Our margin was 55 to 60 basis points better than our peer bank's. as margins, as rates started to fall, our peers caught up a little bit to us. We were still 15 to 20 base points because we had less room for improvement. Now as they're going back up, we feel we've proven that we were disciplined before. We're going to stay disciplined again. We think that our margin is going to remain much healthier than some of our peer banks. Just what we've done in the past, and then we're back in that cycle with rising rates.

Okay, that's great. That's great. I appreciate the comments.

Our next question is a follow-up from Terry McEvoy with Stevens. Please go ahead.

I think just one more. I figured that the TV keeps telling me we're in a recession, so I should ask a credit quality question. When I look at your CRE portfolio, which is over a billion dollars, have you stress tested for higher interest rates as those loans mature? And then within the CRE, maybe talk about what you're seeing in office, retail, hotels, or anything else that you're watching closely. Thanks.

All right, I'll start it first. This is Paul. So I think, you know, we do have a significant amount of CRE out there, and we have been stressing this as we go. You know, when COVID hit, we really started monitoring these things even more completely than we did in the past. So we're looking at, you know, in the construction deals, we're looking at the interest reserves, make sure that they're on top of that. We're making sure that, you know, getting more frequent financials as we go. We really haven't seen much deterioration in this at all. In fact, we've seen all the hotels, all the criticized that we had built up over COVID have really been upgraded since that time. And, you know, there may be probably a little bit more of a leisure mix than business, but they are all returned to pre-COVID revenues. So from that standpoint, we feel pretty good about it. I don't think we're going to open the door and start doing a lot of them. But clearly, I think that the concern we had at the time is gone. I think as we go forward, you know, office, you know, that's still the big question mark, what's going to happen there, although the vacancy rates have not significantly deteriorated in our markets.

Yeah, I would say, Terry, you know, looking across, at least from the sales side or the sales perspective, you know, our markets have been really stable. As Paul mentioned, we're watching office, but we're not seeing any deterioration in office. You know, Columbus, you know, from a growth perspective, Columbus with the Intel announcement and the university, et cetera, you know, that market continues to develop very strongly. We've had great growth so far this year in both Cleveland and in the Cincinnati metro areas. So we feel really good about our markets. We're not seeing much decline, you know, and knock on wood, hopefully that, you know, that continues into next year.

And we've always stressed our rates, Terry. I mean, even when rates were low, we did 100, 200, 300, you know, up environment. So we do stress those. I think we have, you know, we do a pretty good job of looking at how liquid our borrowers and co-borrowers are. You know, we look at leverage. We look at cap rates. Cap rates have been historically low. So when we're looking at a deal and we say, geez, this is a you know, 65% loan-to-value based on the, you know, what the appraisal's coming in at. Well, if that cap rate was, you know, 5.5%, you know, we're like, well, what is it at 6.5%, okay? Instead of 65.5%, it's 74% or something. We want to know that as we go in, and I think we do a pretty good job in the underwriting, and that's why I feel pretty good if we do go into a recession because not only us, but I think all banks have have really beefed up the way they underwrite credits and stuff. And just to remind you, we don't have a lot of office. We have about 5.5% in hotels, about 6% in office, and we don't have any tall office buildings, big downtown office buildings. Most of ours are either single-story office buildings or couple-story office buildings and stuff. And those right now, the The occupancies are really good with those. But we are doing a very good job of, I think, stressing rates and stressing cap rates and some of the other underwriting and cash.

Well, not only in the underwriting, as he said, but also we do kind of a bottom-up, top-down of our existing portfolio after the fact. So I haven't really seen anything jump out that we're really concerned about. But there's a lot of noise out there from the standpoint of increased costs. But nothing has really hit so far.

Yeah, and I guess one last, I guess, thing that I watch relatively closely, Terry, is, you know, what's our outstandings on revolving lines of credit? And, you know, obviously almost all of our commercial revolving lines of credit got paid way down during all of the governmental stimulus money that came in. You know, we used to run closer to 50%, 60% on those revolving lines. You know, we're running right now. in the mid to low 30s. I think at quarter end, I think we were 36%. It actually went down a little bit even when we brought Henry County in. I think the last I looked a couple days ago was about 33%. So, you know, we're not seeing any stress on our, what I would call our core corporate customers to be drawing on their lines of credit.

Great. Appreciate all that. Thanks again. Thanks, Eric.

Thank you. With no remaining questions, we will conclude our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Dennis Schaefer for any closing remarks.

Thank you. In closing, I just want to thank everyone for joining and those who participated in today's call. Again, we are extremely pleased with our third quarter results. I do believe that our strong, low-cost core deposit base positions us well as we move forward. I look forward to talking to all of you in a few months to share our year end results. So thank you for your time today.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.