Fulton Financial Corporation

Welcome to the Fulton Financial second quarter 2025 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Matt Joswak, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thanks for joining us for Fulton Financial's conference call and webcast to discuss our earnings for the second quarter ending June 30, 2025. Your host for today's conference call is Kurt Myers, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Joining her is Rick Kramer, Chief Financial Officer. Our comments today will refer to the financial information and related slide presentation included with our earnings announcement, which we released yesterday afternoon. These documents can be found on our website at FULT.com by clicking on investor relations and then on news. The slides can also be found on the presentations page under investor relations on our website. On this call, representatives of Fulton may make forward-looking statements with respect to Fulton's financial condition, results of operations, and business. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors, and actual results could differ materially. Please refer to the Safe Harbor Statement on forward-looking statements in our earnings release and on slide two of today's presentation for additional information regarding these risks, uncertainties, and other factors. Fulton undertakes no obligation other than as required by law to update or revise any forward-looking statements. In discussing Fulton's performance, representatives of Fulton may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the supplemental financial information included with Fulton's earnings announcement released yesterday and slides 16 through 22 of today's presentation for reconciliation of those non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures. Now I'd like to turn the call over to your host, Kurt Myers.

Well, thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. For today's call, I'll be providing a few high-level comments as well as some operating highlights for the quarter. Then Rick will review our financial results in more detail and discuss updates to our 2025 operating guidance. After our prepared remarks, we'll be happy to take any questions you may have. We are pleased with our strong second quarter operating earnings. Our community banking strategy continues to attract and retain valuable customers. We are delivering great customer outcomes, which translate into strong results for our shareholders. We are also proud to reinvest in our communities, making a positive impact and changing lives for the better. This impact is made clear by the many stories in our corporate social responsibility report, which we released in June, and you can find on our investor relations website. So let me turn to the numbers. Operating earnings of $100.6 million, or $0.55 per share, represents a $0.03 linked quarter increase and a record for the company. These results demonstrate the impact of consistent positive operating leverage while maintaining a strong balance sheet. Total revenue increased linked quarter as we delivered growth in net interest income and fee income. Effective expense management continues to contribute nicely to our overall profitability as well. Combining those positive trends, our quarterly efficiency ratio was 57.1%, our operating return on average assets increased to 1.3%, and operating return on average tangible common equity increased to 16.26%. With these results, we were able to deliver our first $100 million operating net income quarter in company history. During the quarter, we were opportunistic and repurchased shares while growing tangible book value per share 9.5% on a linked quarter annualized basis. Our strong performance, disciplined approach to balance sheet management, diversified business model, and strong liquidity and capital positioned the company for continued success. Now let me provide a few more comments on the quarter. Total loans grew $150 million, or 2.5%, as originations were solid. This growth was more than offset the strategic runoff of our indirect auto portfolio and managed reductions in certain commercial loans. Based on our year-to-date performance and our origination trends, we continue to expect low single-digit loan growth for the year. Turning to deposits, we remain focused on balancing long-term deposit growth with prudent interest cost management. During the quarter, we saw a modest decline in balances, largely due to seasonal trends. Based on new customer acquisition and overall customer sentiment, we continue to be positioned for long-term deposit growth. Turning to the income statement, Revenue growth was driven by a strong non-interest margin and a solid linked quarter increase in non-interest income. All non-interest income categories grew linked quarter. Wealth management hit an all-time high in quarterly revenue. We're adding team members and continuing to grow our customer base. Commercial banking fees also hit an all-time high as customer activity continues to drive growth. Consumer banking and our residential mortgage business delivered solid linked quarter growth as well. Overall, our non-interest income businesses continue to make a consistent and meaningful contribution to overall revenue, and we have a solid strategy for continued growth. Lastly, let me touch on credit. Overall, we remain cautious given general economic and geopolitical uncertainty. However, we continue to see steady performance in our portfolio. Charge-offs and our provision expense were down one quarter. We experienced an uptick in non-accrual loans. However, these balances remain in line with recent periods. Overall, our coverage ratio remains appropriate given our cautious outlook. Now I'll turn the call over to Rick to discuss the details of our financial results and provide comments on our 2025 operating guidance in a little more detail.

Thank you, Kurt, and good morning. Unless I note otherwise, the quarterly comparisons I discuss are with the first quarter of 2025. Loan and deposit growth numbers I reference are annualized percentages on a linked quarter basis. Starting on slide four, operating earnings per diluted share was $0.55, or $100.6 million of operating net income available to common shareholders. Revenue growth, a stable balance sheet, and an increase in net interest margin offset a modest increase in operating expenses, driving positive operating leverage when compared to the year-ago period. Total end-of-period loans increased $150 million, or 2.5% during the quarter, primarily in our residential mortgage portfolio, home equity portfolio, and certain commercial categories. Deposits declined $191 million, or 2.9%, Growth of $120 million in money market balances and an increase of $89 million in wholesale channels were offset by seasonal declines in municipal balances of $135 million and non-interest-bearing balances of $98 million. Our non-interest-bearing balances ended the quarter at 20% of total deposits. We expect to see municipal balance inflows in line with historical trends in the third quarter. With these results, our loan-to-deposit ratio ended the quarter at 92%. As part of our ongoing balance sheet management, we added 117 million of securities to offset investment portfolio cash flows and to maintain our on-balance sheet liquidity. The weighted average coupon on new purchases this quarter was approximately 5.44%. These additions carried an effective duration of approximately 3.2 years. The impact of these balance sheet trends are shown on slide five. Net interest income on a non-FTE basis was $254.9 million, a $3.7 million increase linked quarter, while net interest margin increased four basis points to 3.47%. Loan yields remained steady at 5.86%, while fixed rate asset repricing represented a tailwind during the quarter Accretion interest attributable to the acquired Republic portfolio declined $1.7 million linked quarter to $11.4 million, offsetting most of that benefit. For the quarter, our average cost of total deposits decreased five basis points to 1.98%. Through the cycle, our total deposit beta has been 28%. We continue to identify opportunities and manage deposit costs with discipline and to be supportive of our overall balance sheet growth. As a reminder, we had 195 million of subordinated debt reset to floating rate in late March, repricing from a fixed 3.25% to approximately 6.6%. This security is SOFR-based and will float at 2.3% over three-month term SOFR. Turning to slide six, Non-interest income for the quarter was $69.1 million. The linked quarter increase was broad-based. When excluding the benefit from equity method investment adjustment of $2.7 million in the first quarter of 2025, fee income increased 7% linked quarter. Non-interest income as a percentage of total revenue remained at 21% during the second quarter. Moving to slide seven, non-interest expense on an operating basis was $187.6 million, an increase of $4.8 million linked quarter. As we indicated last quarter, we expected operating expenses to fall in the $190 to $195 million per quarter range for the remaining three quarters of 2025. While the second quarter was below that range, we are confirming the range for both the third and fourth quarters of 2025. When looking at our expense base, items excluded from operating expenses as listed on slide seven include $5.5 million of core deposit intangible amortization and a $270,000 benefit of other items. Turning to asset quality, provision expense declined approximately $5.3 million linked quarter to $8.6 million. As Kurt mentioned, modest loan growth combined with no material changes to our outlook contributed to lower provisioning linked quarter. Our allowance for credit losses to total loans ratio ended the period at 1.57%, and our ACL to non-performing loan coverage was 177%. Slide nine shows a snapshot of our capital base. As of June 30, we maintain a solid capital position that provides us with future balance sheet flexibility. During the quarter, we repurchased 522,000 shares at a weighted average price of $16.09. Including repurchases, internal capital generation added $55 million in total equity. AOCI ended the quarter flat at $272 million and our CET1 increased to 11.3%. On slide 10, we are updating our operating guidance for 2025. Considering more recent events and additional economic data, we have updated our rate forecast to now include two 25 basis point rate cuts in 2025, one in September and one in December. This is down from four assumed cuts previously. In addition to this macro assumption, we have made the following adjustments to our guidance. Increasing net interest income to a range of $1.5 billion to $1.25 billion. We are lowering provision expense to a range of $50 million to $70 million. There is no change to the fee income range remaining at $265 million to $280 million. We are lowering our operating expense to a range of $750 million to $765 million. We are increasing our effective tax rate to a range of 18.5 percent to 19.5 percent. And lastly, lowering our estimate of non-operating expenses from $14 to $10 million. And with that, we'll now turn the call over to our operator, Gigi, to open up for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Daniel Tamayo from Raymond James.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Good day. Maybe just starting on the expense guidance, you had a nice quarter, and you talked about kind of keeping the back half in that 190 to 195 range, and you lowered the overall 2025 range as well. I guess just curious how you see the pace in the back half of the year getting there. It's been a steep decline in the first quarter, and then there's been a little bit of a ramp since then implied in the back half of the year as well. So just curious if there's some help you could give us on geography and timing of the increase in the expenses in the back half.

Yeah, thanks, Danny. Look, I think you're directionally right. While it's equal, I think the range of $190 and $195 should land below the midpoint of that. A little bit of timing just on day count alone, obviously, additional day. But recognize the magnitude of increase in 2Q had a lot to do with merit in the second quarter, which counted for a couple million dollars of the increase. So you don't have that kind of step up in terms 3Q and 4Q. I think what we're trying to do is provide a little bit of optionality for some initiatives that may start in the second half, which could increase a little bit, but I don't expect geographically, I guess, on the expense line to see any major outlier moves for the second half.

Okay. So if you end up kind of below that midpoint, then that points us to you know, I guess below the midpoint of the overall range for the year. Is that a fair way to think about it?

That's a fair way to think about it. You know, with the caveat of there are obviously we're leaving ourselves a little room to start certain projects in the second half, which could incur costs more immediately and move that up a little higher.

Okay. All right. Fair enough. Appreciate that, Keller. And then kind of a similar question on the fee income guidance. just assuming kind of a modest pace of increase in the back half gets us to kind of above the midpoint of the guidance that you guys have in there. It's been certainly a nice quarter, a nice year of growth on the wealth management side, but just want to make sure as we're working our way through the models that we're not missing any kind of one-time increases that you think may back off. Cash management looks like it was pretty strong in the second quarter. Card income bounced back, but Just as we look through the fee income side, if there's anything that you'd point us towards in terms of moving parts in the back half of the year.

Yeah, Danny, the second quarter was good across the board, as you mentioned, in fee income. You know, we look forward. We feel we have good strategies in place. As we look forward, if we get that kind of consistent outperformance in each category, we're going to trend to the top end. that range. If we hit any headwinds in any one of those business units, we would trend to the midpoint or low end of the range. We feel pretty good about the overall outlook there. And again, that's one of the outlook items that we did not change. So we think we are tracking as expected and are pretty happy about the quarter and the consistent performance in each of the fee income categories.

Great. All right, well, thanks for all the color. Appreciate it, guys.

You bet. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of David Bishop from Hovde Group.

Yeah, good morning, gentlemen. We did. Hey, just curious, Rick, maybe just to bring us up to speed on the status of the loan pipeline, just curious what you're seeing and hearing from... your relationship managers and your commercial clients if we're starting to see any impact from some of the uncertainty from tariff talk starting to impact pipeline and loan demand.

Thanks. Yeah, pipeline linked quarter is up. So we feel that that's encouraging in this environment. But again, we still have the pull-through rate being below historical norms as customers are cautious. about new projects. The more certainty we get in the marketplace, whether it's taxes or tariffs or all of the many things that you could point to, we're hoping that that pull-through rate increases and we get some tailwinds for loan growth linked quarter. We were pleased with our loan growth in the second quarter, and we're hoping that continues. But pipelines are up. And we're really monitoring pull-through rates. It really comes down to customers, you know, deciding to spend that money and move forward with that project.

Got it. And then a follow-up, you know, Kurt, maybe just remind us. Appetite for M&A here with, you know, Republic in the rear view mirror. Just curious where any sort of M&A focus might be sort of geographically and maybe size parameters. Thanks.

Yes, our M&A strategy remains the same. We will stick to that strategy as a reminder. We look at community banks in the $1 to $5 billion range, really the focal point for our strategy. They add to the company. We're predominantly focused on in-market, and we think those opportunities would be additive. And then we would look at bigger deals, but they're very... There's a few of them, so we monitor that. But our primary focus remains the same. I think the key message is, as usual, we will be disciplined in metrics and we'll be disciplined on strategy. Perfect. Thanks.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of David Conrad from KBW.

Hi, good morning. Good morning. I just want to talk a little bit about the deposits and the outlook there. This quarter, you saw about three bps increase in savings, but really good growth and able to push down really expensive broker deposits. Just wondering as you kind of look at the NIM outlook, kind of your ability to continue to remix the deposits.

Yeah, thanks, David. I think there's a couple things to consider when it comes to the cost. Obviously, we do have some seasonality in our portfolio driven by the municipal kind of inflows and outflows, and you know, at times to offset that, we do utilize some more wholesale methods and more costly methods in short term. So that obviously has a mitigating effect on lower cost. You know, I think we still kind of, you know, there's this still, as rates stay higher, this drift that is occurring in non-interest bearing. So that's a trend on mix you're kind of consistently fighting. But You know, we are seeing, I think, increased competition across the board for deposits more recently. And, you know, candidly, our desire is to fund all of our future loan growth with customer deposits. So that may amplify a little bit. So, you know, our betas are slowing. It may be too early to say there's a trough in deposit costs, but I think we're closer to the bottom barring any future rate cuts.

Got it. Thanks. And then on the NII guide, I guess it feels like if you held things flat here for a couple quarters, you'd be, you know, kind of the midpoint, you know, above the midpoint and towards the higher end. So just maybe some comments on, you know, the exit rate of this year. And, you know, I think, you know, you have two cuts in, but the December cut probably doesn't matter too much. So maybe just some thoughts on the exit rate of NII. Yeah.

Yeah, look, I think obviously what I just mentioned on the funding side is a little bit of a headwind. I think we fully recognize the tailwind from the fixed-rate asset repricing. What I would say there is, though, you know, there are also competitive pressures that ebb and flow at any given time, which can impact yields and spreads. So, you know, it's – it's a tough business and spreads are not always expanding. So I think you'll see a natural, assuming no Fed moves, you see this kind of steady state, modest growth in NAI from here on out. But obviously, there's lots of things from the macro that can change that.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Brees from Stevens Inc. Good morning.

I was hoping we could go back to the pipeline for just a second, maybe discuss the components. More recently, we've seen growth in the form of commercial real estate and resi. Historically, I know Fulton has been more of a C&I-focused company. tight bank. So I wanted to get a sense for what we might see in terms of near-term loan growth. And then secondly, you know, Rick, you had mentioned spreads are not always constant. What are you seeing for new loan spreads? Are you seeing competition kind of erode spreads in the hunt for growth? Matt, I'll first respond just on growth and strategy. You know, we're very committed to diversified loan book. I think it's served us well over time. So we're looking to grow each category as appropriate from a risk standpoint. Quarter to quarter, that ebbs and flows based on where loan originations are and opportunities are. You mentioned C&I loan growth. We are focused on C&I loan growth. It's a good business for us and drives Treasury and a lot of our other business lines, so strategically C&I is really important. C&I customers, it's very competitive right now, and it also is where they're dealing most with tariffs and costs and uncertainty. So, you know, we're looking at each segment, trying to grow that prudently and responsibly. And we think we have opportunities in each. You know, we have market disruption. We've got good pipelines. So I think we can grow each category, but you're going to see quarter to quarter, maybe even year to year, our ability to grow certain segments more than others. But again, the strategic focus is to grow each segment appropriately.

Maybe Matt, I'll just comment quickly on spreads. I think what I would say is spreads are still healthy and overall yields are still healthy. But when we go back maybe to the third, fourth quarter of last year, you probably were seeing new origination spreads, and we were in the seven plus. And so over time, that was probably unsustainable in certain categories. So you're seeing, I think, quarter-over-quarter compression on new origination yields of around an eighth to a quarter, depending on what portfolios you're looking at. Now, that is a little bit choppy, and this is probably more normalized, but you know, recognizing that just industry pressure and competitive pressure puts overall pressure on that for everybody.

Okay. And Rick, you'd also mentioned, and it's in the release too, but accretable yield step down. Should we use this 11.4 million as a new starting point? And maybe you could just help us out for the new trend. Is it, you know, down and to the right? What does the accretable yield look like, you know, three, four quarters from now?

Yeah, I think 11 to 12 million is a reasonable range, assuming some level of prepayments. Obviously, we are, you know, there is an estimate there in terms of prepayment speeds. If you had no prepayments, that number would be closer to, you know, 10 and a half to high 10 million.

And then last one for me, you bought back some stock this quarter. You still have, I think, around 100, 125 million repurchase authorization. I noticed that that authorization also includes preferreds and sub-debt. You've mentioned sub-debt is now floating or a portion is now floating. Curious if there's an appetite, one, for additional common repurchases or alternative forms of capital repurchase, including that sub-debt. What circumstances would you kind of execute on those? Yeah, so the overall capital planning strategy is the same. We want to support organic growth. You know, we'd really like organic growth to continue to, to growth rates continue to improve. So that's always the, you know, first use capital. And then any corporate initiatives that we would want to invest in, and then we would get to buybacks. And we look at those opportunistically. We had some opportunity in the second quarter. You know, we use about $10 million of that, so we have $115 million remaining for stock buybacks or other uses. So, we are evaluating that as we move forward. It really depends on outlook and overall capital and balance sheet strategy.

Great. That's all I had. Thanks for taking my questions. Thanks, Matt.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Manuel Navas from DA Davidson.

Hey, how would you describe the consumer pipelines? That was pretty strong this quarter. Is that still going to have some seasonality or carry over into the third quarter? And with the pipelines building on commercial, are you going to see a handoff in better growth there in the back half of the year? Just kind of talk about those dynamics, please.

Yeah, so there's definitely some seasonal effect on the consumer business. The second quarter is good home buying opportunity projects, consumer projects for driving the home equity. We referenced both of those categories growing nicely in the second quarter. So there is some seasonality of the business, but You know, all of those underlying businesses were focused on attracting customers, adding new customers, and driving business organically. So I think there's base level of growth in each of those businesses, and then it'll be either more significant or lower quarter to quarter based on seasonality. We really didn't see anything specific in the second quarter that would be an anomaly. You know, that was good, solid second quarter consumer growth.

is kind of shifting over to pretty strong performance in fees and OPEC. Could you kind of map out if any of that outperformance has been kind of driven by the Fulton First initiative?

On the fee side, we talked about it a little bit before. It was a good quarter for us. We grew in each category. We feel we have just good underlying strategies there. There are some Fulton First initiatives that um you know we're focused on uh accelerating growth over over time it's hard to separate those from from core business but um you know as we move forward the the growth related um initiatives for full first will show up in in accelerating growth rates in certain categories there's really not anything specific first to that that growth rate that we would call out. It's just really managing those businesses in a way that our long-term growth trajectory is higher than expected. On the expense side?

Yeah, on the expense side, it was about, you know, we're about $8.5 million in net realized benefit from Fulton First in 2Q. So, you know, still remain well on track, obviously, just annualizing that number well ahead of our original $25 million net save for 2025. So, you know, I don't, I wouldn't necessarily say that the program in total has grown. I think a lot of that is just getting pulled forward in 2025 versus 26.

That's helpful. Any, you talked about credit trends being very solid. There was a little bit of tick up in NPLs, I think in construction. Any color there? Just kind of, and any broader comments on credit?

Yeah, most of that increase in commercial construction, most of that was one project. It's a mixed-use project, predominantly multifamily, but mixed-use project. We feel we have it appropriately reserved. It's an identified issue that we've been working on. So we already have it reserved for and are working towards resolution. But what you see there is just that migration from classified, criticized to non-accrual for the quarter. So to identify the issue, we're working through to resolution. Then the second part of your question, just more broadly in credit, you know, metrics have remained stable. We feel good about the credit performance, but we remain cautious. There's just a lot of moving parts in the marketplace, a lot of factors that consumers and businesses are dealing with. But At this point, the portfolio has been very resilient, and credit metrics are holding strong, but we still do have a cautious outlook just based on the overall environment.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate the comments. Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back over to Kurt Myers for closing remarks.

Well, thank you again for joining us today. We hope you'll be able to be with us when we discuss third quarter results in October. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.