Heritage Financial Corporation

Hello, everyone. A warm welcome to the Heritage Financial Q3 2024 earnings call. My name is Emily and I'll be coordinating your call today. After the presentation, you will have the opportunity to ask any questions, which you can do so by pressing start or by the number one on your telephone keypads. I will now turn the call over to CEO Jeff Dool to begin. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Emily. Welcome and good morning to everyone who called in or those who may listen later. This is Jeff Duell, CEO of Heritage Financial. Attending with me are Brian McDonald, President and CFO, CEO of Heritage Bank, Don Hinson, Chief Financial Officer, and Tony Shelfant, Chief Credit Officer. Our third quarter earnings release went out this morning pre-market, and hopefully you have had the opportunity to review it prior to the call. We have also posted an updated third quarter investor presentation on the investor relations portion of our corporate website, which includes more detail on our deposits, loan portfolio, liquidity and credit quality. We will reference this presentation during the call. Please refer to the forward-looking statements in the press release. We're very pleased with our operating results for the third quarter, including strong loan growth, deposit growth, margin expansion, and the continued benefits from our expense management efforts. The increases in average earning assets and net interest margin resulted in improvement in net interest income. We are optimistic the combination of core balance sheet growth and prudent risk management will continue to benefit our core profitability. We will now move to Don, who will take a few minutes to cover our financial results.

Thank you, Jeff. I'll be reviewing some of the main drivers of our performance for Q3 as I walk through our financial results. Unless otherwise noted, all the prior period comparisons will be with the second quarter of 2024. Starting with the balance sheet, loan growth was strong again in Q3 with loan balances increasing $147 million for the quarter. Yields in the loan portfolio were 5.60%, which was eight basis points higher than Q2. Brian McDonald will have an update on loan production and yields in a few minutes. We are very pleased that we also had a strong quarter for deposit growth. Total deposits increased 193 million for the quarter, of which about 83 million was in non-interest-bearing deposits. Although there continues to be a change in the mix of interest-bearing deposits from non-maturity deposit balances to CDs, it is occurring at a much slower pace. the percentage of CDs to total deposits only increased to 16.5 percent from 16 percent at the end of Q2. And this is net of lowering our brokered CD balances by $10 million during the quarter. It is noteworthy that in Q4, we have 420 million of CDs maturing at an average cost of 4.56 percent. This represents almost half of our total CD balances, which we are expecting to reprice lower due to the decline in market rates. Due to the normal lag effect in the movement of non-maturity deposit costs after a Fed rate cut, we are not expecting the cost of these deposits to decrease much in Q4, as there continues to be strong competition for deposit dollars. Our cost of in-spring deposits was 2.02 percent for Q3, compared to 2.03 percent for the month of September. The spot rate for into spring deposits as of September 30 was 2.04%. Investment balances decreased 86 million, mostly due to a loss trade executed during the quarter. A loss of 6.9 million was recognized in the sale of 71 million of securities. These sales were part of our strategic repositioning of our balance sheet and proceeds from the sales were used for other balance sheet initiatives, such as the funding of higher yielding loans. It is estimated that the annual pre-tax income improvement from the loss trade is approximately $3 million, resulting in an earn-back period of about two years. In addition to providing funds for loan growth, a combination of investment sales and deposit growth also allowed us to pay down borrowings by $118 million in Q3. Of the remaining balance of $382 million at the end of the quarter, $64 million are overnight borrowings and another $148 million mature later in Q4. Moving on to the income statement, net interest income increased $1.8 million, which is 3.6% or 14% on an annualized basis. This improvement from the prior quarter was due to increases in both average earning assets and net interest margins. The net interest margin increased to 3.33% for Q3 from 3.29% in the prior quarter due to a combination of increased loan yields and reduced balances in higher-costing borrowings, partially offset by an increase in the cost of deposits. Please see page 27 of our investor presentation for more information on net interest income and net interest margin. We recognized provision for credit losses in the amount of $2.4 million during Q3 which is an increase from $1.3 million in the prior quarter. The provision expense was due to a combination of loan growth and a larger charge-off recognized in Q3. Tony will have additional information on this charge-off and other credit quality metrics in a few moments. Non-interest expense increased slightly from the prior quarter, but was $1.7 million lower than Q3 2023 levels. We continue to tightly manage FTE levels and other expenses in order to lower our overhead ratio, which decreased to 2.18% from 2.21% in the prior quarter and 2.25% in Q3 2023. And finally, moving on to capital, all of our regulatory capital ratios remain comfortably above well-capitalized thresholds, and our TC ratio was 9.1%, up from 8.9% in the prior quarter. Our strong capital ratios have allowed us to be active in lost trades on investments and the stock buybacks. During Q3, we repurchased 347,000 shares, or approximately 1% of outstanding shares, as part of our stock repurchase program at a weighted average cost of 2140, or 116% of September 30 tangible book value per share. We have 1.16 million shares available for repurchase under the current repurchase plan as of the end of Q3. I will now pass the call to Tony, who will have an update on our credit quality.

Thank you, Don. During the quarter, we experienced total charge-offs of just under 2.7 million, with the majority tied to one owner-occupied CRE loan. The owner-occupant has ceased business operations and the final repayment of this loan will be dependent on the sale of the real estate collateral. It is worth noting that this loan was a known problem and has been actively managed by our special assets team since December of 2022. Modest recoveries of $112,000 led to net charge-offs of just over $2.5 million during the quarter. Through the first nine months of the year, we had just under $2.5 million in net charge-offs, representing 0.05% of total loans, which is very much in line with historical norms. By comparison, our average annual net charge-offs for the three-year period 2018 through 2020 represented just over 0.07 percent of average total loans. Non-accrual loans totaled 4.3 million, and we do not hold any OREO. This represents 0.09 percent of total loans and compares to 0.08 percent at the end of the second quarter. Overall non-accrual loans increased by $475,000 during the quarter. Most of the increase came from the previously mentioned owner-occupied CRE loan. This loan was placed on non-accrual status during the quarter and then partially charged off near quarter end. This increase was largely offset by the receipt of SBA guarantee funds on a different loan that fully repaid the outstanding balance of just over $1.6 million. Page 18 of the investor presentation reflects the stability in our non-accrual loans over the past two-plus years. Our non-performing loan totals increased modestly during the quarter, primarily due to our loans past due more than 90 days and still accruing. The majority of the $5.3 million in balances is attributed to one classified C&I relationship that is being activated

Hello, everyone. We apologize for the interruption. We will resume today's call momentarily. Hello, everyone. We apologize for the delay in today's call. Management have lost network connection briefly. We'll just regain our connection to them and your call will resume momentarily. Thank you for your patience. Thank you.

Thank you, Emily. Apologies to everyone on the call. This is Jeff. We lost network connectivity at our location. We're back on with our cell phones, hopefully with no more interruptions. We're going to go back to Tony's presentation. He was at the point we got cut off referencing page 18 of the investor deck for more information on non-accrual loans over the past two plus years. So with that reference, Tony, I'll hand it back to you and let you finish your presentation.

Great. Thanks, Jeff. Our non-performing loan totals increased modestly during the quarter due primarily to our loans past due more than 90 days and still accruing. The majority of the 5.3 million in balances is attributed to one classified C&I relationship that is being actively managed by our special assets team. The loans remain on accrual status as they are well secured and in the process of collection. Criticized loans, those rated special mention and substandard, totaled $171 million at quarter end, declining by $5 million or 2.9% during the quarter. While still higher than year end 2023, they have been stable at each quarter end in 2024. It is worth noting that loans in the more severe substandard category were down by just under 11 million during the quarter from a combination of payoffs, pay downs and upgrades. At 1.5% of total loans, substandard loans show stable trends when compared to the 1.6% reflected at year end 2022 and 2023. Despite the previously mentioned charge off, the credit quality of our office loan portfolio remains stable during the quarter. This loan segment represents 554 million or 11.8% of total loans and is split evenly between owner and non-owner occupied properties. The average loan size is $1 million. They are diversified by geographic location and we have little exposure to the core downtown markets. Criticized office loans are limited to just under 16 million or 2.9% of total office loans down from the 3.4 percent at the end of the prior quarter. Page 17 of the investor presentation provides more detailed information about our office loan portfolio. Overall, we are pleased that our credit quality remains strong at quarter end and believe this reflects our consistent and disciplined approach to credit underwriting and concentration management. I will now turn the call over to Brian for an update on loan production.

Thanks, Tony. I'm going to provide detail on our third quarter loan production results, starting with our commercial lending group. For the quarter, our commercial teams closed 253 million in new loan commitments, up 16% from the 218 million last quarter, and up from the 217 million closed in the third quarter of 2023. Please refer to page 13 in the investor presentation for additional detail on new originated loans over the past five quarters. The commercial loan pipeline ended the third quarter at 491 million, up from 480 million last quarter, and up from the 291 million at the end of the third quarter of 2023. Loan demand picked up in the third quarter with new opportunities more than replacing a strong volume of closed new business. Competitive pressure has continued at an elevated level for both commercial real estate and commercial business loans. but increased activity levels by our bankers, along with the new teams we added over the past couple of years, are offsetting this pressure and driving the higher production and pipeline levels. Loan growth for the third quarter was very strong at 147 million, up from the 104.5 million of growth we achieved last quarter. The growth was driven by an increase in closed business across the footprint, both from existing and new customers. please see slides 14 and 16 of the investor presentation for further detail on the change in loans during the quarter. We previously communicated an expectation of higher construction loan payoffs in the second half of 2024 and moderating loan growth rates. It now looks like the majority of these payoffs will occur in early 2025, setting us up for a stronger than anticipated loan growth through year end. The deposit pipeline ended the quarter at 165 million compared to 231 million last quarter. The average balance on new accounts open during the quarter are estimated at 72 million compared to 77 million last quarter. Building on the momentum we saw in Q2, deposits grew by 193 million during the quarter. The growth was the result of new and expanded relationships, lower outflows of excess customer funds, moving to higher rate options elsewhere. and a return of seasonal trends. Moving to interest rates, our average third quarter interest rate for new commercial loans was 6.53%, which is down 35 basis points versus the 6.88% average for last quarter. The decline was due to index rates declining ahead of anticipated Fed actions. Loan spreads are holding in spite of competitive market conditions in the owner-occupied commercial real estate, non-owner-occupied commercial real estate, and commercial construction segments. In addition, the third quarter rate for all new loans was 6.59%, down 30 basis points from 6.89% last quarter. Before turning the call back to Jeff, I want to highlight the press release we issued yesterday afternoon, which denounced the hiring of Nick Bly as our new chief operating officer. Nick is joining from a much larger institution and bringing extensive leadership and banking experience to the team, including deep experience in operations and technology. Filling the chief operating officer position was one of our key staffing-related steps in support of the CEO succession plan we announced in June. We are pleased to have Nick join the executive team and believe he has a lot to offer Heritage as we continue to expand and grow. I will now turn the call back to Jeff.

Thank you, Brian. As I mentioned earlier, we're pleased with our solid performance in the third quarter. A big thanks to our team for their laser focus on loan and deposit growth, their emphasis on developing long-lasting C&I relationships, and for continuing to focus on expense containment. As Brian mentioned earlier, we are happy to have the new teams we brought on over the past couple of years, and we can see they are clearly contributing to the loan and deposit expansion we saw this quarter. We will continue to benefit from our solid risk management practices and our strong capital position as we move forward. Overall, we believe we're well positioned to navigate what is ahead and to take advantage of various opportunities to continue to grow the bank. With that said, Emily, we can now open up the line for any questions from the attendees.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question today, You can do so now by pressing start, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind or you feel like your question has already been answered, you can press start and then two to remove yourself from the queue. Our first question today comes from the line of Jeff Rulis with DA Davidson. Jeff, please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. Morning. Don, if I could circle back, Don, on the margin question. Appreciate, I think you said, about a $3 million benefit to the repositioning that took place. Could you just walk us through the margin impact? When did that repositioning take place and net that against Fed moves as we move into the fourth quarter, trying to get a sense for where you think we settle in?

Settle in for margin overall, you mean? Correct. Okay. So the trades took place in both August and September, so we didn't get even a half-quarter benefit there on that. But of course, some of the bigger impacts other than that are due to the loan growth and other things we have going on. I do think that overall, that I think that we hit the bottom of the NIM. I think that NIM is, we're optimistic of NIM expansion overall, but I think in Q4, it'll be pretty steady. Obviously we've got about 22% of our loans are floating. And so, you know, I think it's at 1.1 billion is going to reprice down 50 basis points, you know, subsequent to the, you know, September rate cuts. We didn't get that much factored into the loan yields, you know, for that. But we have other things that are, you know, going to be helping us this quarter also, including what I mentioned, the, you know, almost half our CD balances, you know, repricing. We'll continue to reprice down borrowings. And additionally, we'll be working on, you know, other deposit rates. Although, you know, as I mentioned, there continues to be a lot of you know, competition for deposits still, I think we'll be working on, uh, lowering at least some of the higher, um, rate balances that we've given over the last few years. Some. So I think that again, in Q4, uh, we may not see much of increase, but I'm optimistic as we get through to 2025 to see some, uh, expansion.

Got it. Uh, thanks Dylan. Um, and then on the, um, The pipeline, Brian, appreciate all the numbers you always provide there. I want to kind of frame up 25 expectations a bit. I know we're jumping out there, but with that construction delay payoff, does that moderate your view of 25 overall? I know you've got a lot of year left outside of just the start of the year, but... Any expectations you've put? I mean, obviously, I won't annualize the clip this quarter, but thinking about 25 and all the hires you've had seems active from my end.

Yeah. You know, mid to high single digits likely here in the fourth quarter, looking out to next year, The pipeline going into the fourth quarter, as I mentioned, is at $491 million, which is up $200 million over 2023, so that's really positive and going to drive obviously higher loan closings next year than at least where we started in 2024. If you look at page 16 of the investor deck, it's got the net advances contributing $142 million to the loan growth year to date. And a lot of this has been construction loan commitments that we came into the year with, and those are reflected on page 14. So if you look at available credit on page 14 of the deck, it was $355 million at the end of last year, and at the end of this quarter, it was $199. So what I'm saying is we've got a much stronger pipeline coming in, but lower construction commitments starting off the year. So We are expecting, you know, mid to high single digits next year, mostly dependent on what happens, you know, with the pipeline over the next couple quarters. But I will say September has been really strong, and then the pipeline has also been strong in October. So we're continuing to see that momentum at least so far in the fourth quarter.

Okay, thank you. And the last one. you know, you kind of take this either expenses or approach to next year. Jeff, the hires, I think you've indicated on this slide 11, you know, plans to add in Seattle and Boise. Where do we sit in terms of, you brought on a lot of folks, you know, I don't know if 25 is a year of just letting that grow and optimizing or it's, it remains very active on, um, additional, uh, bringing on additional talent. Um, just trying to frame up that netted against what is a pretty flattish expense run rate, uh, link quarter, um, trying to reassess where we are on a expense versus, uh, I guess staffing, um, That's okay.

Don probably has a couple of comments on run rate. But with regard to teams, you know, we always love the organic growth that we're seeing right now. Next best choice is team lift outs. There are, we believe there's potential opportunities out there. But, you know, we're also recognizing that, you know, it's a, it's a big bite or a, a big expense when we do lift out a team, particularly if it's of a certain size. And, um, it feels like we're, we're kind of coming out of the good side of the teams we have brought on and they're starting to contribute to the bottom line. I think you'll see us be very judicious about, um, any more teams in 25, uh, meaning they have to be very strategic and, you know, the, the quality of producing at a high level very quickly. we've sort of taken it on the chin a little bit over the last couple of years with the expense of those teams. But you can see now why we were happy to do that now that we're seeing it hit the bottom line. Don, maybe you want to talk a little bit about where we think we're going to see expenses going into 2025.

Sure. We'll touch on Q4 first here. I do think we're going to see some increase in expenses in Q4. We've added a little bit to the builder banking team. And of course, we just announced the new chief operating officer in addition to overall increases in some vendor costs. So, you know, looking at maybe bumping up to around 40 million, you know, for Q3 and then Probably Q1 is always tough with additional payroll taxes, and then as we get further in the year, we have wage increases. So although our goal is to keep FTE levels flat, we do expect some increases in overall costs probably into the $41 million to $42 million range per quarter in 2025. Great. Thank you.

The next question comes from Matthew Clark with Piper Sandler. Matthew, please go ahead.

Hey, gentlemen. Good morning. Maybe first one for... Don, on those borrowings that are coming due this quarter, the $148 million, can you just remind us what the cost of those are and what your plans are to do with those, whether or not to pay them off or refinance them?

The weighted average rate on those is $540. And we haven't made any final decisions on what to do with those, whether we will just put them in overnight or we'll turn them out. We haven't made any final decisions. They're actually happening in, I think, November and I think early December. So we have a little bit of time yet to figure out. It will depend on probably what happens on even deposit growth this quarter and if we choose to do any more loss trades that will provide funds in addition to loan growth. So it will depend on those factors. But either way, the costs will be coming down quite a bit on those.

Yep. Okay. And then... Thanks for the spot rate on deposits, but what's your expectation for your deposit beta this easing cycle?

It's always a lag effect. I don't think we're going to... I think it could be similar to what we've experienced. Going up, we only had I think the final beta turned out to be about 30% right on it. So, um, you know, if, if we could possibly see that happen again, uh, but it will be always lag effect again, remember? So, um, I think we'll, again, we'll see some positive lowering of deposit costs as we get further into 2025, but I think it'll be kind of slow, slow coming at the beginning. Okay.

And then I think slide 28 looks like you have some tailwinds as it relates to your loan yields with new production and just the fixed and adjustable repricing opportunity. I know you mentioned 22% of the books floating, but how do you think, what are your thoughts on overall loan yields from here? I think they're up eight basis points this past quarter. I mean, do we, can we still expand loan yields through rate cuts, or do you feel like we'll kind of start to roll over at some point next year?

I think in Q4 we'll see a decline in loan yields as a result of the rate, you know, 50 basis points all at once. I think that, though, in general, I think we'll see increases. I mean, again, we're still putting on the – we price a lot off the five-year on all our, you know, real estate loans, and the five-year really is hung in there. As far as the rate goes, you know, we were putting loans on in the again, the low to mid sixes last quarter. I don't think there's any reason why we can't continue to do that. And as you see there, we're coming off a current rate of 560. So and the ones that are actually coming off that are adjustable, if you look on that slide, which is one of my favorite slides, by the way, is, you know, we're down the fours for the for the adjustable rate ones and even the fixed rate ones that are coming off. are you know around five you know four and a half five percent so over the next few quarters so it's it's very optimistic that way that what what gets replaced will be at higher rates and it will help protect it but um so as we get again into 25 i think we'll see um you know expansion of low yields and there will be a lot dependent on what happens uh with the fed what they do but In general, if the rates stayed flat, then we would expect expansion going into next year. After a Q4 compression on that.

Right. Got it.

Our next question comes from Eric Spexer with Raymond James. Eric, please go ahead.

Hey, everybody. This is Eric, dialing in for David. Thanks for taking the questions. A lot of my questions have been answered, but just wanted to touch on the securities portfolio. You continue to be opportunistic there. I'm just kind of curious your appetite for additional sales given the moving rates and expectations of further rate cuts. Do you expect to be more active as rates decline? I'm just curious, any thoughts there?

I don't think we'll be any more active than we've been. Again, I think we took a $7 million loss pretty much last quarter. We fluctuated between two and seven. I mean, I think in the beginning of the year, we did a couple quarters in a row where we did like $10 million losses. I don't necessarily see us going that high again, but I think anywhere between two and seven could happen again. It will just be quarter-by-quarter decisions on kind of where we're at, again, where the rates are at, how we feel it can help us, what the earn-back periods are. And so we kind of make those decisions on a quarter-by-quarter basis just to see how it will help us going forward. So it wouldn't surprise me if we do more of those. It certainly, I think, improves if the rate environment is improved.

helps us to do that then we'll certainly do it to help future profitability yeah and then just asking on loan growth it's good to hear that pipelines improved and kind of that mid to high single digit pace of growth for uh next year just curious kind of how pipeline is in the um how the pricing is in the pipeline, how the complexion of the pipeline is shaping up. And then just in the past, you supplemented growth with some pool purchases. Just curious, do you expect to continue that approach, or do you have plenty of organic growth?

Brian, you want to take that?

Sure, yeah. Eric Sprann. We do have plenty of organic growth at this point, but would consider a mortgage pool purchase potentially next year if we're not hitting the numbers. You know, page 13 of the investor deck at the bottom segment has detail on the mix of new loan commitments, and CNI has been our highest category. for the last four quarters and continues to make up the bulk of the pipeline. We have seen fewer non-owner construction and non-owner deals this year, although we're seeing a little bit of an uptick in volume since the Fed cut rates. So we would expect a similar mix to what you see on slide 13. On the pricing side, Don covered this in his response just a minute ago. But I would just add, we saw the five-year FHLB index decline about 90 basis points during the third quarter. And that was a big driver behind the drop in rates on new loans during the quarter. you know, total loans fell about 30 basis points. And we've already seen the five-year federal home loan bank index move up 50 basis points in Q4. So our spreads are holding in there. It's just been the index that's moved. And then of course, you know, prime moved down, but we're more heavily influenced by the federal home loan bank index, primarily because a lot of the new commercial customers we bring on and the lines, they tend to have a lot of unutilized balances. And the numbers we quote are based on, you know, outstanding balances.

Yeah, that's great, Tyler. And then just one last question for me, and then I'll step back. I just wanted to touch on capital priorities. Obviously, you continue to be active repurchasing stocks. Curious how you think about continued repurchases here. And I know M&A is talked about being on pause maybe until next year. Just curious how conversations are trending there and how you think about M&A and capital priorities, rather.

I'll let Don talk about capital, but on the M&A side, it's pretty much the same as it has been. You know, conversations continue as a means to keep in touch with Targets we're interested in were pretty much embedded in the industry, and we're connected to everybody. So I think if one of the organizations that we really like and think would be a good strategic fit decides to do something, I'm fairly certain that we'll get a call and have the opportunity to react to that. In the meantime, I think we need to continue to focus on improving our financial picture so our currency improves and we're in a better position to buy when the time comes. Don, how about your comments on capital?

Yeah, we continue to, again, monitor our capital positions and the needs as opposed to growth. I guess one point is the fact that we don't see our overall balance sheet growing a lot as we might restructure our balance sheet some for less borrowings, you know, maybe even less brokered CDs over time. So maybe we grow core deposits We grow loans, but necessarily the balance sheet won't grow that much. So I think that lends it to with our stock price as it was last quarter. It made it attractive to do buybacks. We'll just have to monitor the stock price and other needs for capital. But again, it wouldn't surprise me if we were involved to the same extent, probably not more than we did last quarter, but we could do as much as we did last quarter.

The next question comes from Andrew Terrell with Stevens. Andrew, please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Morning. Hey, just a quick one for me on just deposit costs. I appreciate the color around some of the CD maturities in the quarter. I think you said 456 was the kind of coming up rate. Just how does that compare to what your pricing is new CDs at in the market today, kind of so far in the fourth quarter?

Andrew, I don't have a lot of information from the fourth quarter yet. I will say that September, I think our price was around $440-ish. And then that was before the rate cut. We've actually cut our CD rates since then. So I would expect that they could possibly reprice 20, 25 basis points lower, depending on obviously the term, but that's an estimate of what could happen on those CDs, but that remains to be seen. If some of them were really great shoppers, they might go elsewhere over time, but we'll see.

Yep. Okay. I appreciate it. And maybe just Jeff, you talked about, you know, on the M&A front, if there's kind of an organization that you guys think highly of and respect and would be interested in, decide to do something, you'll kind of get a call. And that makes a lot of sense. So just curious if you could kind of define that a little bit in terms of, you know, where are you most focused in size, geography-wise, from an M&A standpoint today? Okay.

Yeah, if you reference slide nine, which many of you have seen many times, I think our sweet spot is the middle group, the 500 to a billion in assets. I mean, we can go lower for the right, you know, organization or go higher if the opportunity presents, which seems more remote. And I think you will see us preferably augmenting our footprint along the I-5, you know, we're pretty well set from Vancouver to Bellingham. I think we could fill in, you know, Portland South. That would be helpful to us and obviously would not object to an opportunity to expand our position in Idaho. I think we've done quite well with the Boise team getting started. They're, they're performing at a very high level. And, you know, the argument can be made, you can bank Idaho from Boise, but, you know, the team will also benefit from having more of a presence in the state with various locations. So I guess in the end, summary would be flesh out our position in Oregon along I-5 and expand opportunistically in Idaho. It's not to say we wouldn't consider something in Washington. It would just have to be a good strategic fit and a pretty short thing.

Yep. Okay. Makes sense. Thank you all for taking the questions. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Kelly Motta with KBWE. Please go ahead, Kelly.

Hi. Thank you so much for the question. You know, most might have been asked and answered, Just at a high level, considering the pace of your, you know, loan growth, you're at $7 billion in assets. I'm wondering if you started to do some work around $10 billion in assets and if, you know, any thoughts on, you know, your potential rate of growth as you, you know, start to edge closer to that in the upcoming years.

Yeah, it's a good question. We... a year or so ago, one of our initiatives was to lay out a plan for what we needed to do to prepare to cross $10 billion. We did a fair amount of work on that framework, but ultimately set it aside for other strategic initiatives because it didn't appear that our growth rate was going to get us there anytime soon. I think it's probably fair to say that unless a large acquisition presents itself. And that seems pretty remote, given what I know about the industry in our markets. It would probably take two or three acquisitions to get us there quickly. And I think you'll see us probably just growing at a rate that matches, you know, our deposit and loans and how that's impacting our balance sheet. And You know, if you're thinking in that mid single digit range, it will, you know, if you just do the math, it's several years away if we don't do an acquisition. And it's probably a few years away if we do.

So we think we have time.

Yeah, we have time to prepare, Kelly, and we know what we need to do. And we're making incremental changes in the background because There are certain things we can do now that are not super costly, and I think as soon as we feel like things are going to start ramping, we will get underway and get the framework built.

Great. That's helpful. And then with just balance sheet management, you've really grown into your deposit base especially the last couple of quarters with the really strong loan growth and the security sales helping to incrementally fund some of that. You're now in the low 80s, kind of approaching where you were prior to deposit balances ballooning in COVID. Wondering, as you look ahead, is that mid-80% loan-to-deposit ratio still the right way to think about and optimize way for you guys to manage the bank or, you know, obviously it takes time to move that around. But I'm just wondering as we kind of think in the year or two ahead, how we should be managing that.

It's a good question. We spend a lot of time, you know, reviewing our risk profile, which includes a factor around loan deposit ratio. Yes, we're happy to see it getting back into the low 80s. I think we would be comfortable having it get into the high 80s, but probably not much more than that. And I think that that's something that we'll manage as we go through the next year. I would also say to you that I think we have been under levered for a while. And I think we realize that we need to leverage the balance sheet to hit the kind of numbers we think we should be hitting, and that's going to have to drive that number up a bit.

Got it. That's helpful. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. We have no further questions, and so I'll turn the call back to Jeff for closing remarks.

Thank you all for your questions. Thank you for being patient with us while we got our connectivity squared away. That's the wrap for our quarterly earnings call. We thank you for your time and your support, your interest, and we'll hope to be talking with many of you in the weeks to come. Thank you and goodbye.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. This concludes our call. You may now disconnect your lines.