First Business Financial Services, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the First Business Financial Services Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to First Business Financial Services, Inc. CEO, Corey Chambis. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. Today marks our first quarterly earnings call and we appreciate your time and interest in First Business Bank. Joining me today is our President and Chief Operating Officer, Dave Seiler, and our CFO, Brian Spielman. Today we'll discuss our financial performance, operational highlights, and strategic initiatives, followed by a Q&A session. I'd like to direct you to our third quarter earnings release and investor presentation, which are available through our website at ir.firstbusiness.bank. We encourage you to review these alongside our other investor materials. Before we begin, please note this call may include forward-looking statements and the company's actual results may differ materially from those indicated in any forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements are listed in earnings release and on the company's most recent annual report, Form 10-K, as may be supplemented from time to time in the company's other filings with the SEC, all of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference. There, you can also find information related to any non-GAAP financial measures we discuss on today's call. including reconciliations of such measures. We are pleased to report a very solid third quarter. Our operating model did what we built it to do and produced strong loan and deposit growth, a stable net interest margin, and outstanding asset quality, all of which contributed to healthy earnings on both a pre-tax, pre-provision basis and at the bottom line. Most importantly, we saw continued growth in tangible book value per share, There are some moving parts in the financials that Brian will walk through in a moment. Since this is our first earnings call, we wanted to take a few minutes to walk you through our model and our strategic plan, which is the driving force behind the consistent results we've been able to produce. I'll review our plan at the end of our remarks before opening it up to questions. Now I'll ask Dave Seiler to spend a few minutes on the activity we saw in our markets and products during the quarter. Dave? Thanks, Corey.

One reason we wanted to host an earnings call is to offer commentary on our markets and businesses and the dynamics driving our performance from a day-to-day business perspective. You saw in our press release that our loan and deposit growth has been solid. Loan balances grew approximately $286 million over the same period last year, up more than 10%, which is our long-term organic growth goal. Deposits grew $313 million, or nearly 12% from third quarter last year. This is a testament to our strong client relationships. We operate four distinct markets, South Central Wisconsin, Southeast Wisconsin, Northeast Wisconsin, and Kansas City. Each market operates under the guidance of a regional president. Consistent with our trends over the past several years, our South Central Wisconsin and Southeast Wisconsin markets led the way with strong loan growth during the quarter. In our Kansas City market, we are excited to have a new regional president in place. Since he joined us in April this year, we have been able to hire two new bankers and we are already seeing loan growth in the market. We are also pleased to have an internal successor as our new market president in our Northeast Wisconsin region, which is headquartered in Appleton, Wisconsin. You can see our CNI and CRE breakouts in the earnings release and investor presentation. I want to take a minute to answer a question that I know we'll get. Joe Piazza, As an active car lender, we are often asked about asset quality in our office portfolio. Joe Piazza, We simply don't have any areas of concern they're primarily due to the location of the properties loan structures and strength of the sponsors. Joe Piazza, On slide 36 of our investor presentation, you can see our office portfolio breakdown and you'll see that we have known on performing loans in the portfolio and almost 90% of our office credits have recourse. The properties we lend against are predominantly in suburban locations in strong markets, which have not experienced the vacancy issues that have plagued large downtown metropolitan areas. As part of our C&I offerings, we have niche lending areas that operate nationally. The product offerings that make up this part of our business contribute to our loan portfolio's diversification in terms of credit type and geography, as well as to the diversification of our revenue streams. All these niche C&I lending areas have specialized bankers with deep expertise, and they utilize specialized platforms to manage the portfolios. I have a few comments on several niche areas that were notable this quarter. Our small ticket vendor finance business continues to show nice growth at attractive spreads, and we recently hired two more experienced business developers. As previously disclosed, we continue to see weakness in the transportation sector of the equipment finance portfolio. We currently have 46 million of transportation loans in this portfolio, down from 61 million at the start of the year. This business stopped lending to the transportation sector in the first quarter of 2023, and the remaining transportation loans in the portfolio have an average remaining life of 35 months. Based on what we are seeing today with low spot rates for trucking and depressed equipment values, We expect the credit impact of this portfolio to be in line with the past several quarters for this foreseeable future. The non-transportation portion of the equipment finance portfolio has performed better than our expectations. Our accounts receivable financing or factoring business also showed nice growth in Q3. We have been able to generate good activity through our business development officers, several referral channels, and pay-per-click marketing efforts. Our floor plan financing business, which finances the purchase of automobiles for larger, financially strong used car dealerships, has shown the strongest growth among our niche CNI lending areas year to date. The credit performance of this business has been outstanding since its inception in 2020. Our SBA team generated gain on sale revenue of $460,000 during the quarter, which, although an increase over the two previous quarters, is still below our expectations. Dave Kuntz, Although gain amounts can vary quarter over quarter we expect gains to increase in future quarters. Dave Kuntz, reasons for optimism include that we hired a new leader for this team in March of 2023 who has rebuilt our sales team, which now stands at a business development officers. Dave Kuntz, With this expanded team, we are seeing our pipelines improve additionally our loan mixes changed, and we are now closing more loans that I have a construction component. these loans need to complete construction and fully fund before they are eligible for sale. We currently have over 19 million of closed loans in this category. One final note on our loan growth. The double digit growth we've been able to achieve is driven by our ability to main teams of quality bankers who outperform our competition by providing exceptional service and developing lasting relationships. Having the best teams allows us to maintain our underwriting standards and continue to grow faster than our competitors. It's highly competitive in our markets and we're winning clients who want the best partner to help them navigate the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. This is also evident in our deposit activity. Over the past two quarters, we have been successful in managing down some of the higher price deposits that we had due to individualized pricing in recent quarters. Mike Nygren, Despite that we grew core deposits more than 193 million or 9% from a year ago. Mike Nygren, Our pricing initiatives and commitment to high quality growth have supported our goal to maintain a stable net interest margin in the range of 360 to 365 basis points. Mike Nygren, we've accomplished this in a period of intense competition and we believe this speaks to the quality of our relationships. One more area I'd like to quickly draw your attention to is private wealth management. We grew private wealth assets under management and administration to 3.4 billion at the end of the quarter. This marked growth of 17% from the prior year, generating 3.3 million in fee income for the quarter, which was up 11% from the third quarter of last year. This business tends to fly under the radar of investors and analysts, but its importance to our model is certainly noteworthy. Private wealth management is a natural area of growth for us, given our business-only banking model and the overlapping business and personal needs of our clients. We believe this is a differentiated strength of our company for both clients and investors alike. Currently, the majority of our private wealth relationships are in the South Central market, and we see meaningful opportunities to expand this business into our other geographic markets. I'll wrap up and reiterate Corey's message that our bankers are hard at work executing our strategic initiatives motivated by incentives that are linked to our goals. They are delivering a superior client experience, driving loan and deposit growth, and upholding our asset quality. Now I'll hand it off to Brian.

Thanks, Dave. I'll go a little deeper into our financial highlights for the third quarter. As Dave mentioned, our ability to produce net interest margin that is strong and stable compared to peers contributed to our solid performance. In addition to successfully managing rates on both sides of the balance sheet before and after the Fed's 50 basis point rate cut, we believe our differentiated match funding strategy and relatively neutral balance sheet sensitivity continues to set us apart in the industry. I want to provide a little more detail on our adjustment interest margin, which we also refer to as core margin. We distinguish between NIM and core margin because we recognize a significant and recurring but variable amount of interest income from items like prepayment fees and asset-based loan fees, which we refer to as fees in lieu of interest. By stripping these out from reported NIM, we believe our core margin reflects more accurate representation of our client-facing loan and deposit rate changes. Adjusted NIM for the third quarter is 351 compared to 347 in the link quarter. This compares to reported NIMA 364 in the third quarter and 365 in the late quarter. The majority of the adjusted NIM benefit in the quarter came from the loan portfolio. Additionally, our ability to start reducing deposit rates helped offset some temporary short-term wholesale funding costs. I'll note that since we are generally interest rate neutral, we wouldn't expect to see a meaningful change in our margin due to the recent and anticipated rate cuts by the Fed. Our long-term target for NIM is 360 to 365, so we are comfortable operating where we currently are, but expect we will see some movement as we diligently work to fund our loan growth, core deposits, and the current dynamic rate environment. For more insight into our approach to interest rate risk management, we've added slide 14 in our impressive presentation. You'll see that we've outlined our strategy and the components of our current balance sheet positioning. Now looking at income and expense, I point out that our diversified sources of fee revenue have built-in variability. I'll reiterate our long-standing position that we manage the positive long-term operating leverage, so we also manage the long-term growth in fee income. Quarter-to-quarter variances are generally smoothed over a longer horizon. There are a few moving parts to review this quarter. On uninsured income, as Dave discussed, SBA loan sale gains experienced growth and benefited from new leadership in the business that is beginning to deliver on production goals. We expect to see continued growth in these pipelines over time. Variability in slot fees and returns on SBIC mezzanine funds are expected and moved in opposite directions this quarter. Our slot fee income will continue to vary quarterly based on CRE activity, the rate environment, and client preference. SBIC mezzanine fee income is driven by interest income in the portfolio and unrealized and realized gains. While they experienced a stronger year in 2023 for realized gains, 2024 was slower and more reliant on interest income only as the funds continued to invest in new companies. We believe realized gains will pick up again in 2025 as existing funds mature and we invest in new funds. Our overall decline in expenses during the quarter was mainly driven by two items. The first was our bonus and profit sharing accrual, which was adjusted down by approximately $400,000 to reflect updated full-year performance expectations in relation to our internal targets. In addition, we capitalized a higher level of cost related to an internal software development project. This amounted to approximately $300,000. At our current expected level of incentives and after adding back these two adjustments, we anticipate overall compensation costs will stay at this approximate level for the rest of the year. We're pleased to report that we produced positive operating levers compared to the prior period, even after adjusting for these various compensation adjustments. Next, taxes. We utilize federal tax credit projects to improve the communities we serve and to lower our overall effective tax rate over time. The tax rate for the nine-month end of September 30th, 2024 was 16.8%, and in line with our expected full-year 2024 effective tax rate of 16% to 18%. This is, of course, subject to change based on the timing of tax credit projects. The effective tax rate is down from 21.4% for the same period in 2023 to the benefit of Wisconsin small business lending law. Given our tax credit pipeline and continued expectation of no Wisconsin state income tax liability, We believe our effective tax rate of 16% to 18% will continue in 2025. I'm happy to report our bottom line profitability metrics show positive trends, reflecting our strong execution and efficient use of capital. Return on average tangible common equity expanded, and tangible book value per share grew by 9.7% annualized from the late quarter and 12.5% from the prior quarter, in line with our 10% plus long-term goals. We also benefited from the issuance of $20 million in sub-debt near the end of the quarter, which boosted Tier 2 capital and increased our total capital ratio by 15 basis points, all else equal. This replaced $15 million of sub-debt we redeemed during the quarter to maintain full Tier 2 capital treatment. We feel good about our capital levels, and our stronger aims are generating capital to facilitate our expected organic growth. Now I'll hand it back over to Corey.

Thank you, Brian. As promised, I want to report on our strategic plan for 2024 to 2028, which is well underway. If you're new to FBIZ, understanding our strategic plan and the process that shapes it provides important insight into our success. We take strategic planning very seriously. We operate a five-year plan and we spend a full year developing each plan. We kicked off our current plan in January of this year. You can see our strategies and the goals we use as a measure of success on slide seven and eight of our investor presentation. Our overriding objective is to foster innovative and engaged team members who develop deep client relationships and deliver exceptional results for all stakeholders. This isn't just lip service. We have specific strategies and tactics in place to accomplish this. These include initiatives to protect and strengthen our culture. While our culture has always been a strength and a differentiator, Given the increasing geographic spread and remote nature of our team, we want to double down on our efforts. Some things we are doing to promote a strong, inclusive, and solutions-oriented culture include sharing departmental best practices for leading remote and hybrid work teams and providing additional manager training on how to model and coach to our culture. We measure our progress through anonymous third-party surveys to determine employee engagement, manager effectiveness, and belonging scores, and we expect exceptional results. This goes hand in hand with our continued focus on future ready talent. We need to retain and continuously invest in the development of our top notch team. And we want to attract the best talent around to enable our ambitious organic growth plans. To do this, we are focused on the future, asking ourselves, what does the workplace of the future require for success? AI training is an example of something we're doing to improve our workplace preparedness for tomorrow. Employee education and training have always been a focus. But we believe the pace of change of technology advancement will make this even more critical, and enabling our employees to effectively use AI tools can be a competitive advantage. Of course, we are in the business of banking, so a big focus for us is growing core deposits. Those of you familiar with FBIC know we have a unique approach to funding. We don't operate a consumer business or branches. Instead, we develop deep business and private wealth relationships, drawing in deposits that are extremely sticky. as was proven in 2023 with our success in deposit retention and growth following the bank failures of early 2023. We aim to continue growing client source deposits through a company-wide focus, adding treasury management talent, and by utilizing incentive programs to reward deposit growth more than loan growth. Improving operational efficiency and excellence is another important goal for us. Digital transformation and technology utilization are priorities, And we are leveraging our talent by using robotic process automation and AI to enhance our productivity and client experience. As an example, we think robotic process automation is a game changer in terms of efficiently scaling for future growth. Recently, we brought our RPA efforts in-house by hiring our own team, including a manager and two developers. In addition, we have recently implemented automated financial statement spreading software to improve credit analysis efficiency. We believe these strategies will help us achieve our financial goals. We aim to produce tangible book value growth of 10% or more per year, along with return on average tangible common equity of 15% or more by 2028. We believe this will deliver on our ultimate goal to generate total shareholder returns that exceed our peer group median, a target we overachieved for the five years ended 2023. I want to note that our growth model works because of our deeply knowledgeable business experts who truly understand our clients' business needs. This allows us to form deep, long-term relationships with these clients, which is evidenced by our net promoter score of 78, which is over twice the industry average. As a result of these relationships, the average tenure of our 50 largest depositors is approximately 15 years. I'll offer a related anecdote. These banker client relationships are deep in more ways than you might realize. You probably saw our 8K in late September announcing the completion of a $20 million sub debt placement with certain accredited investors. These investors were our own private wealth clients who know us well and jumped at the opportunity to buy our debt, saving us considerable transaction costs by fully funding the placement. Our clients are our entrepreneurial partners. Finally, I'll reiterate that our match funding strategy and growth model are doing the work they were designed to do, bringing stability to the areas where it is needed, like net interest margin, and bringing growth in key areas, including loans, deposits, and top line revenue. We have long been a 10% per year grower and we intend to continue that trend. I want to thank you for taking time to join us today. We're happy to take your questions now.

That concludes today's prepared remarks and we will now open the floor for your questions. If you would like to ask a question, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If at any point you find your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. Once again, that is star 1 to ask a question and star 2 to remove yourself. We will pause for just a moment to allow our questions to queue. We'll hear first from Jeff Rulis with DA Davidson. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good afternoon, guys. Hi, Jeff. Nice work on the call so far. Question on the margin. Brian, do you have a September average for the margin? No, we don't have that. We don't disclose that. Okay. I guess the follow-on is looking at the cost of funds.

uh slide 45 um you know still increasing but but showed some deceleration i guess any any visibility on the peak there and the opportunity that you see on on funding costs yeah i think we've been proactive in our efforts to um reduce deposit costs like i said we did some before um the 50 base point rate cut ended more after and we'll continue to evaluate those rates as we get closer to presumably another rate cut. And we think given our relationships, we have opportunity to continue moving those down in line with the asset side of our balance sheet. And then given the neutrality of our balance sheet, feel pretty comfortable continuing to operate in that 365 range.

The customers that you approached, was that more so the exception price?

uh folks that sort of understood that as you on the way up you adjusted and and now re-approaching them or uh was it pretty broad-based in terms of um lowering it was it was a combination of both there was a broad-based approach across the whole portfolio and then also um a little bit more uh surgical approach on the exception rate rated uh individually priced clients um that we know we have strong relationships with and could have those conversations

James Meeker- got it thanks a quick one on the on the expense side, I think you've talked about the comp line reverting in the other portion that is there any offset in that it looks like the SBA recourse provision. James Meeker- Any thought on that maybe. James Meeker- Lowering going forward is that a pretty good run rate.

James Meeker- yeah I think that's more of a. non-recurring one-off that's tied to some methodology that we have in place for our SBA lending, and we don't expect that to be recurring at that level.

Okay. And then just the last one, Corey. Looking at slide 15, you talk about some of those strategic initiatives. I guess, if you could, what are Which of those are maybe easier acquired than built out, if you handpick any ones that jump out to you?

What slide are you on, Joe?

Slide 15 of the initiatives going forward in terms of, you know, what do you think?

Yeah. Yeah. I would say... One that's well in motion is robotic process automation because we mentioned that we brought the team in-house to do that, but we were already working on that prior with an outsourced consultant. So we've been playing in this space for about a year plus now. So we have, I think it's three bots in place and in two different areas. So that one is, uh, I want to say easier, but it's, it's already in motion. And so it's just a function of continuing to find the, the highest and best paybacks on those and, and tick them off with it's really been great internally. The staff has embraced it. And I think our, I believe our treasury management team came to our, our technology folks and said we have like 12 use cases or something like that and we're like well we only have one team let's uh we get we we gotta parse this out uh in an orderly fashion so so that one i feel really good about um at the the cni lending that just continues to go that's been a role that we've been on and um you know that it's always a challenge with our model on deposits but we keep doing it um year after year so that will be forever a focus of ours.

Okay. Thanks, Corey. I'll step back. Thank you.

Next, we'll hear from Daniel Cameo with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Yeah, maybe just one on the lending side. I know you guys reiterated your double-digit loan growth guidance, but just curious if, If you had any insight on kind of where you're seeing specific demand right now and kind of how we're thinking about what the mix could look like as we go into the next few quarters.

Yeah, I'll probably kick that over to Dave, Danny. But I guess big picture, I would say, you know, mix probably more of the same as what we've seen. but specific between different pieces of what we do. Dave, you want to touch on that?

Sure. I think, you know, if you think about our niche CNI businesses, I think we've seen really nice demand and pipelines in our accounts receivable finance area. So I'd expect some nice growth there. Our vendor finance area is also seeing some nice demand. We had a fair amount of real estate growth, CRE growth this quarter. A lot of that I believe was from construction loans funding up. We haven't added as many new CRE loans, I'd say in the past six months due to interest rates. So, you know, if I would guess, I would say CNI might outpace CRE loans, you know, in the coming quarters. And in terms of markets, We still see really nice growth in our southeast Wisconsin market, which is headquartered in Milwaukee. And I'd expect that to continue.

Great. Thanks for all that color, Dave and Corey. And then maybe just a follow-up on the credit side. You know, you guys did a good job of laying out the pressure on the market. over-the-road trucking or the transportation, but just curious kind of how you're thinking about overall net charge-offs in the next few quarters. I think you said similar pressure from the transportation side, but curious how you think that translates in terms of overall net charge-offs in your turn.

Yeah, I think it probably stays the same as to what we've been seeing lately. As we mentioned a few quarters ago, we knew as that transportation piece, our methodology is time-based in terms of reserving for those. So we were building the reserve for a while, and then it started to flow through to the charge-offs eventually when it hit a certain point in time. And now we've been seeing that for the last couple quarters.

Okay, great. And I apologize if this was in the release or if you mentioned it, but the specific reserves that you called out, what were those related to?

Equipment finance, small ticket transportation portfolio, and maybe a little bit SBA, but it's primarily equipment finance, small ticket.

Okay. All right. Got it. All right. That's all I had. Thanks for taking my questions. Yeah. Thanks, Adam.

Next, we'll hear from Nathan Race with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, good afternoon and thanks for hosting the call. Question question on the margin outlook going forward. You know, I appreciate that you guys are still expected to maintain the margin within the provided range, but just given you know the magnitude of the Fed rate cut last month and just you know the outlook for at least a couple more rate excuse me rate cuts. before your end. Just curious how you're thinking about the near-term margin trajectory, just going back to the earlier question around deposit cost reductions and what you have repricing in the loan portfolio.

Yeah, I think I'll just reiterate. I think we believe we're comfortable and confident in our ability to match the asset repricing side of the balance sheet on our existing book of business. The qualifier statement we've always been making is the competition and deposit growth. We know we value deposit volume, I'll say, more than we do the rate if it's competitive. And so we'll continue to grow the balance sheet on the deposit side. And so that's where I think we'll see the pressure, if any, that would cause us to come out of that 360 to 365 range temporarily. But over the long term, we think given the match funding, we still have the ability to manage to that along with especially finance C&I, higher C&I lending percentage of our loan portfolio. So...

Okay, that's helpful. Thanks for that, Brian. And then, you know, just think about operating leverage for next year. You know, obviously you guys are on pace to post pretty strong growth in pre-tax, pre-provision earnings this year. Just curious how you're thinking about kind of the magnitude of the increase in pre-tax, pre-provision earnings next year with hopefully, you know, some moderation in upward deposit cost pressures, if not relief.

Yeah, we think about it in terms of our balance sheet growth. Again, just kind of reiterating it on the margin side of our ability to stabilize that and be stable there. We feel confident we can grow 10%. And then so if we're growing balance sheet 10%, revenue 10%, and driving some modest positive operating leverage, we feel confident in our ability to continue to drive that PPNR at a similar rate.

Yeah, and Nate, as you know, the biggest thing on the expense side is comp. And fortunately, a lot of the technology initiatives that we've been putting in place for the last several years across the company allow us to not have to add 10% headcount when we're growing 10% top line revenue. And I don't know what the exact numbers are, but they're well less than that. It's like 5% or so in terms of headcount, maybe up only like 10 from a year ago. So being able to add, we'll still be adding people, but not at a 10% clip. So if we can do that and wage increases aren't, you know, they've mitigated back down to reasonable numbers. And so, you know, that's really the key in and generating that positive operating leverage, which we think is real differentiator for us in terms of profitability and driving continued improvement and, you know, bottom line and in our efficiency ratio.

One thing that I would add on that in terms of the revenue side, we are seeing a little bit of a softer fee income year as we've spoken to. And so we have, you know, we're feeling very confident about our SBA pipelines, like we said. as well as what has typically been our recurring but variable items in SBIC MES fund income. We're optimistic about that as they start to realize gains in the portfolio, and that's a strategy of ours to expand some of that investment as well. So we feel like some of these recurring but historically variable fee income lines will begin to pick up and start to stabilize and show some more consistency, which we think really adds value to our PPE and our story.

Yeah, for sure. That's helpful. Yeah. And speaking of income, you know, I was surprised that wealth management fees came down a little bit versus 2Q despite AUM increasing quarter over quarter. Any call you can shed on that and just kind of how you're thinking about wealth management growth into next year, assuming, you know, relatively stable equity markets.

Yep. Yep. Q2 had some, I'll say, annual fees in there, some tax processing related fees that we'll typically see around that time of year. And so it wasn't unexpected to us, but that came down a little bit. But to your point, strong asset center management growth in the quarter, which we feel will be realized here with a pickup in fee income in the fourth quarter and going forward.

Yeah, and Nate, in there, that That one, obviously you'd think there's just a lockstep correlation between assets under management and fee levels, and it's not. And a little bit of that is if you smooth it out and you looked at a longer time period, it would be. But quarter to quarter, it's not because there's a little bit of lag in how we charge. And so quarter end asset levels are the basis for fee income for the next quarter. So depending upon where you were the previous quarter, can affect that current quarter being down compared to where you ended at the end of the quarter. So those two things can get off in a quarter, but they will smooth out over a couple quarter time period.

Got it. That makes sense. I appreciate all the color.

Thanks, guys.

Our next question will come from the line of Damon DeMonte with KBW. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Hope you're all doing well today. A lot of good questions have been asked and answered, but I'm just kind of curious on the outlook for the reserve level. You know, Corey, your comments, I believe, I believe it was Corey, about how you kind of build the reserves, you know, for the transportation sector in anticipation of them eventually being charged off down the road. So as we look at the reserve at, you know, call it 116 this quarter, like how much padding do you have built in there? Like what would be a more normalized reserve level once you've kind of worked through those problem loans?

Yeah. Thanks, Damon. You know, our take on that is that we have some elevated small ticket finance reserves, like you said, that we feel a little taper and and moderate over time, along with then some credit normalization at some point, right? So we're really operating on the environment where we're reserved now is a good place to be, and absent any broader macro events that would flow through the quantitative components of the model, that'll kind of stay in that area for the foreseeable future.

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. And then with regards to expenses, how does it relate to the investments in the AI training and the robotic process automation? Is that kind of an ongoing expense that you guys deal with every quarter or is there kind of an upfront cost to get it going and then you don't really have to continue to invest in that?

So that's a good question. And part of what we were talking about and what happened in this quarter is that decrease in compensation was we have a much larger software development project going on related to a loan origination system. And so that's what's causing that increase in capitalized expense. But going forward, as we finish that project, because we have our software developers on staff, our RPA developers on staff, we'll continue to have modules that we'll add to, maintenance that we'll do. So we'll continue to capitalize on these compensation expenses through the software development. And so we'll have, instead of outsourced software development licensing costs, we'll have just a slight moderate increase in computer software amortization over time as we continue to build out those systems and get the benefits of the operating efficiency. Got it. Okay.

So just to put a finer point on that, Damon, Besides the little bit of additional capitalization, which was unique to this quarter, it's really a run rate thing. It's baked in. Those folks were on staff and will continue to be.

Got it. Okay, great. I appreciate that, Collar. That's all that I had. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Damon. Thanks, Damon.

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, that is star one. If you would like to signal for a question, we'll hear now from Brian Martin with Jamie. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Brian. Hey, Brian. I guess just one back to the margin. I guess as you guys think about, you know, kind of right now you're kind of at the upper end of the range, just kind of the, you know, the sub debt, it was done this quarter, and then as far as just kind of maybe what could take, you know, I guess my thought was maybe you guys are looking to shift maybe to a little bit more of a liability-sensitive balance sheet, but I guess is that not something you guys are looking to do just kind of where we're at in the cycle, or is just staying neutral and kind of what you've outlined in terms of kind of the range, how to best think about it.

Yeah, I think your first point about being at the higher end of the range is accurate. We got there a little faster than we thought we would. And again, there's probably some basis points there from competitive pressures that still stay within that range. But I would say we don't really try not to think about or bet on rates. And so we like the neutrality of that because who's to say, right, that there could be a pause or a rate hike. And so we try to stay neutral. We try to stay in a position where we can maintain a stable margin. And so I think at the 930, because some various variable funding that came on, we have a slight asset sensitive balance sheet. That'll flip to liability sensitive here throughout the rest of the year to get closer to what the markets think is another rate cut. And so we like the ability of staying really balanced here. but we can be nimble and we really just value the stability of the value of that as far as stability.

Gotcha. And as far as what could actually take it above or below that range, I mean, I think you said the competitive side on the deposits could drift it a bit below the, you know, maybe the lower end of the range. And as far as on the flip side, I guess if you're going to get outside the range on the upside, you know, where do you see the potential there? To move outside of the band.

The upside would be, you know, our C&I lending mix. And so some of those niche areas such as asset-based lending, you know, as a softer economy presents more opportunities for asset-based lending. And those are much higher yields, opportunities for more prepayment fees, asset-based loan fees. So if we have more outsized opportunity there, I see that as an opportunity to increase margin. And that goes for some of the other niche areas in our C&I business as well.

Okay and those niches today are you know what a low 20s in terms of percentage wise what they are of the of the total is that kind of where you want to maintain them or is that something you're looking to kind of shift up or shift down from where we're at?

Yeah Brian we're about 25 percent which was that had been our goal in our last strategic plan to move that from 16 at the beginning of that plan to 25 and we got there and we're we're kind of stabilized there right now we'd like to see that inch up a little bit more that would be great But it's a little bit of taking what the market gives you. We're not going to ever stretch on credit in any of the segments that we do. As you know, we like to play in the higher credit quality end of the spectrum for any of those business lines. So as I think we mentioned, ABL, SFA's lending has been soft as banks have not been squeezing deals out over the last couple of years. And that's one of the places where we get a little bit more accounts receivable finance. The receivables factoring business, that's a place that we get a little higher yields to. So, you know, that would be where we could see a little bit more.

Gotcha. Okay. So that's helpful. And then maybe I just missed what you guys said on the compensation line. But the compensation line, I heard the, you know, what had dropped through this quarter was, is your expectation for 4Q that it was stable towards that or it's going to return to where it was? In terms of, uh, the fourth quarter outlook.

Yeah. So we had the two adjustments in Q3, the total of $700,000. So you add those back and we feel like that's a good place, a good run rate for, for Q4, um, to jump off of.

Okay. So that's around 16, Brian, is that what that ballpark, what that was? Yeah. Ballpark.

I think for 15.2 plus 700,000, I think you have back.

Okay, and then just remind me kind of with your business model and the hiring and whatnot. I mean, just a normal, you know, as you kind of look into 25 in terms of what to expect in terms of growth and that comp line, you know, what's kind of a normal, you know, as far as budgeting goes, how do you guys think about that, you know, given the model?

Yeah, I would say if we look back at recent history, I think, Brian, you'd find that we've added maybe 5% in the headcount number. And then our annual merit increases that we do at year end, they were inflated in the last couple of years with inflation. But historically, those have been in the 3%, 3.5% kind of range. And then there's some other adjustments. But if you think about something like that, if it is 5%, another 3, 3.5%, and another half a percent or something of adjustments that have to happen through the year, market adjustments, those kinds of things, that puts you in the higher single digits, mid to high single digit range. And I think that's where we feel very confident in our ability to drive operating leverage, because if we can deliver the 10% plus growth, which we have pretty consistently, as you know, that gives us that gap to the high single digits on the comp side, which is the biggest piece of expenses.

TAB, Mark McIntyre:" gotcha nope Okay, that makes sense, and then just the last one for me was the you talked about some of the volatility on those fee income lines and just kind of the outlook near term and then a little bit longer term. TAB, Mark McIntyre:" You know, it sounds like the mess funds, which is, you know, a pretty decent component and swings around a little bit your expectation is that. TAB, Mark McIntyre:" You know 23 was low 24 is high and then 20 is 23 was low 24 or 24 was low 23 was high and. The outlook for next year is probably somewhere in between. If you get some recovery, is that how to think about, you know, what 25 looks like in terms of those fees that, you know, by quarter?

Yeah, we see 25 from the SBIC fee income being a lot similar to 23. We're just seeing a lot of opportunities for realizations in the portfolio based on where they are in their life cycle and talking about where that's at.

Yeah, this quarter was probably one of the lowest points we've had ever. So no adjustments. They changed, as you might remember, Brian, previous to this year, there was about revaluations on their portfolio, which would then flow through only twice a year. This year that started to be monthly, excuse me, quarterly, they would look at valuation. So that smoothed that out a little bit, but there just really wasn't any of that. It was basically just, you know, the interest income on the coupon that they earn this quarter. So that was probably a low point.

Got you. Yeah, I mean, the outlook seems pretty positive with both SBA and the MES coming back next year. And so at least the stage looks to be set for some pretty good momentum. So that's all I had, guys. So thanks for hosting the call, and congrats on putting it together.

Thanks, Brian. Appreciate it.

As there are no further questions in queue at this time, I'd like to turn the floor back over to Corey Chambers for any additional or closing comments.

That concludes our Q&A session. We appreciate your time and interest in First Business Bank, and we look forward to sharing our progress next quarter. Thank you and have a great weekend.

Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at this time.