Associated Banc-Corp

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to Associated Bancorp's second quarter 2026 earning conference call. My name is Alicia and I will be your operator today. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. We will be conducting a question and answer session at the end of the conference. Copies of the slides that will be referenced during today's call are available on the company's website at investor.associatedbank.com. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. As outlined on slide 2, during the course of the discussion today, management may make statements that constitute projections, expectations, beliefs, or similar forward-looking statements. Associated actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated or projected in such forward-looking statements. Additional detailed information concerning the important factors that could cause Associated's actual results to differ materially from the information discussed today is readily available on the SEC website in the risk factors section of Associated's most recent form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings. These factors are incorporated herein by reference. For reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the GAAP financial measures mentioned in this conference call, please refer to pages 28 through 31 on the slide presentation and to pages 10 and 11 of the press release financial tables. Following today's presentation, instructions will be given for the question and answer session. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Andy Harmening, President and CEO for opening remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you and good afternoon. Welcome to our second quarter earnings call. I'm Andy Harmening and as usual, I'm joined by Derek Meyer, our CFO, and Pat Ahern, our Chief Credit Officer. I'll start with some highlights from the quarter, and from there, Derek will cover income statement and capital trends, and Pat will provide a credit update. Midway through 2026, delivering sustainable, profitable, organic growth continues to be the primary focus for our company, and we've maintained momentum in several important ways. We are driving relationship growth, and particularly in commercial. Back in January, we set a target of 9% to 10% organic C&I loan growth for the year, and we've already hit that target as of June 30th, thanks to the addition of over $600 million in balances during the second quarter. We're also driving relationship deposit growth. Through the first half of 2026, our organic customer household growth has held above 2% on an annualized basis, trending ahead of the 2% target we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year. From June 30th of 2025 to June 30th of 2026, organic core customer deposits were up 6%, which is the strongest June to June growth we've seen in the last five years. As we look to the back half of 2026 and into 2027, we are well positioned to maintain our growth trajectory thanks to steady execution against our organic initiatives and the ongoing integration of American National Corporation. With respect to initiatives, Our hiring has progressed as planned, and we've been pleased with the initial results we've seen from several recent investments, including our expanded Kansas City CNI team, our new Dallas CNI office, our new franchise banking vertical, and key leadership hires in our private wealth business. We expect the impact from these investments to ramp up later this year and into 2027. With respect to American National, we've incorporated their balance sheet assessed the purchase accounting impacts and identified cost saves. As we work through the integration process, the team and the businesses have been as advertised, and it's becoming clear that we are positioned to drive organic growth momentum over time. Our next major milestone is systems and branch conversion, which we expect to take place in October of this year. As always, our intention is to grow in a disciplined way and maintaining our conservative approach on expenses, risk management and credit remain as the foundation of our strategy. We look forward to providing additional updates as associated growth journey along the way. With that, I'd like to walk through our Q2 financial highlights beginning on slide four. We reported gap EPS of 63 cents in Q2 or 73 cents after adjusting for $24 million of non-recurring costs recognized during the quarter through our acquisition of American National. With the addition of nearly $4 billion in American national loan balances during the quarter, total loans grew by 15% versus the prior quarter. Excluding the impact of American national, we saw organic loan growth of 3% or $940 million in Q2. The vast majority of this growth was driven by our commercial business, led by $644 million in organic CNI growth during the quarter. Total deposits and core customer deposits both grew by 12% in Q2 after adding over $4 billion in American national balances to our balance sheet. Excluding the impact of American national, total deposits decreased by 1% due to the normal seasonality we typically see in our portfolios in Q2. With that said, we saw organic core customer deposit growth of 6% or $1.7 billion from June 30th of last year through June 30th of this year. This was the strongest June to June growth we've seen since I arrived at the bank over five years ago. Moving to the income statement. Q2 net interest income of 370 million increased by 20% or $63 million versus the prior quarter following the addition of American National. Total non-interest income of 80 million increased by $5 million versus the prior quarter led by growth in wealth, service charges, and card-based fees. Total non-interest expense of $272 million increased by $53 million versus the prior quarter following the incorporation of American National. Our Q2 expenses also included $24 million in one-time expenses tied to the deal. Shifting to credit. Asset quality trends remained solid in Q2 as we absorbed American National's balance sheet. During the quarter, we booked $19 million in provision. Our ACLL ratio increased by two basis points. and we saw 23 million in charge-offs for the quarter. After excluding approximately $7 million in net charge-offs for a handful of credits inherited from American National, our charge-offs were largely in line with historical trends. On slide five, we provided an update to key transaction estimates we shared when we announced the American National deal in December of last year. And by and large, the transaction has come in as expected. While non-recurring merger expenses have come in slightly above expectations and fair value marks were impacted by the shift in rates, the credit mark was in line and our expected cost saves have increased from 25% of American National's expense base to approximately 30%. Taken together, our expected earned back has held firm at 2.25 years. We remain on track for the systems and branch conversion expected to take place in October. Shifting to slide six, we highlight our quarterly loan trends through Q2. As mentioned previously, our second quarter close were impacted by the addition of nearly $4 billion of American national balances that were added to our balance sheet as of April 1st. With the addition of American national, total loans grew by 15% or $4.7 billion on a spot basis relative to Q1. Excluding the impact of American national, total period end loans grew by 3% or $940 million organically. Organic growth was led by CNI, which grew $640 million, or 5% during the quarter. We also saw organic CRE balances increased by $251 million as production outpaced payoffs again in Q2. We continue to expect elevated payoffs in the back half of the year. As outlined on slide 7, our results over the first half of the year reflect continued growth momentum. This is particularly true with respect to the growth we've seen in our commercial business, which is a reflection of both the investments we've made in the business over the past five years and incremental tailwinds expected from our latest wave of investments in 2026. Throughout the past five years, we bolstered our leadership team with top talent, increased RMs by nearly 50% and expanded our capabilities to grow commercial relationships. After posting over $500 million growth in CNI in Q1, We delivered another $644 million of organic growth in Q2. Taken together, we've grown organic CNI loans by nearly $1.2 billion, or 10% through June 30th, effectively hitting our original four-year growth target within the first six months of the year. We expect these prior investments to sustain our growth momentum in the coming quarters, but we also intend to sustain our growth in 2027 and beyond. With that in mind, We remain focused on expanding our capabilities and hiring talented bankers to deepen relationships and take share in major metro markets. After launching a new CNI office in Kansas City last year and seeing promising initial results, we doubled the size of the team earlier this year. And based on the successful model we deployed in Kansas City, we also officially launched a new CNI office in Dallas with the hiring of respected market leader Brandon White in May. We're rounding out our team as we speak. and we're bullish about the commercial opportunity in the state of Texas. And finally, our new franchise banking team led by industry veteran Sean Cord has already started to book deals after just launching the business in April. For the combined company, we now expect period end total loan growth of 18% to 20% in 2026 and continue to expect C&I loan growth of 20% to 22%. as compared to associated standalone results for the year ended December 31st, 2025. Moving to slide eight, our Q2 deposit balances grew by 12% due in large part by the addition of over 4 billion in deposits from American National. Excluding these balances, period end deposits decreased by 1% versus the prior quarter, largely driven by the seasonality we typically see in our deposit base during the second quarter each year. With that being said, slide nine shows a clearer view of the organic growth story within our deposit base, excluding the impacts of American national or short-term seasonality. As we've discussed previously, we have spent five years building out our capabilities to fund our loan growth sustainably over time, primarily with relationship-focused customer deposits, and those efforts are paying off. On the consumer side, We've made significant investments to modernize our digital banking experience, enhance our product set, improve our marketing acquisition capabilities, and develop a successful mass affluent program. We've enhanced our ability to attract, deepen, and retain customer relationships to grow our customer base organically in a way this company hasn't seen before. Year-to-date through June 30th, we've grown primary checking households by 2.4% on an annualized basis. the strongest growth rate we've seen since we began tracking over a decade ago. And in commercial, we've not only grown our RM base by nearly 50%, but we've also sharpened our focus on deepening relationships across the team. In addition to loans, we're driving other business, including deposit growth, TM, capital markets, and HSA. As an example, our treasury management and HSA businesses are both growing double digits year over year. We've also officially completed the tech upgrades necessary for our deposit-focused HOA and title company vertical, which we expect to be a meaningful driver of commercial deposit growth going forward. As we continue to attract and deepen relationships across the bank, that presents a natural opportunity to develop a stronger pipeline into private wealth business, particularly in major metro markets where we're under-penetrated. to better facilitate the connectivity of our teams across the footprint and at the local level. We've added several talented executives to our private wealth leadership team, including our new director of private banking for major metro markets, Lisa Buto, in the Twin Cities, and another executive in the Twin Cities, Ken Lachance. And finally, the integration of American National is proceeding as expected. We're confident that this partnership will provide opportunities to deepen relationships with existing customers. while also providing growth opportunities in attractive markets like Omaha and the Twin Cities. Taken together, these efforts have helped us build a sustainable deposit gathering engine that is having a real impact on our financial results. From June 30th of last year to June 30th of this year, we posted organic core customer deposit growth of 6% compared to 4% the previous year and 2% the year before that. Going forward, we're confident in our ability to drive sustainable core customer deposit growth thanks to best-in-class consumer value proposition, household growth momentum supported by increased marketing acquisition, spend in growth markets, and significant enhancements to our commercial deposit gathering capabilities. We continue to expect 2026 period end total deposit growth of 17% to 19%, and period end core customer deposit growth of 19% to 21%. as compared to associated standalone results for the year ended December 31st, 2025. With that, I'll pass it to Derek to discuss our income statement and capital needs.

Thanks, Andy. I'll start with yield trends on slide 10. In Q2, we saw the yields on most earning asset categories increase following the addition of American National to our balance sheet. Of note, the yield on our auto portfolio increased by 38 basis points, reflecting the impact from deferred loan cost and fee adjustments tied to the acquisition of American National. We also saw quarterly investment yields increased by five basis points following our repositioning of American National Securities portfolio earlier in the quarter. Within that transaction, we sold their securities portfolio with a book value of approximately $1 billion and reinvested the same amount at a yield of approximately 4.6%. Overall, the yield on total earning assets increased by 12 basis points during the quarter, while the rate on total interest bearing liabilities decreased by one basis point. Net free funds expanded by two basis points versus the prior quarter. Moving to slide 11, second quarter net interest income of 370 million increased 63 million versus the prior quarter and increased 70 million versus Q2 of 2025 after adding American National to our balance sheet. Our net interest margin increased 14 basis points to 3.17% for the quarter. On the right hand side of the slide, we've included a table disaggregating several key impacts to our NII and margin following the addition of American National. The net accretion impacts from purchase accounting and adjustments for deferred loan costs and fees combined to drive a six basis point improvement in our Q2 margin. After assessing the balance sheet and income statement impacts from the acquisition of American National, we now expect the total 2026 net interest income to grow by 19 to 21% as compared to associated standalone results for the year ended December 31st, 2025. Slide 12 provides a reminder of the steps we've taken to put ourselves in a more neutral interest rate position. We're maintaining repricing flexibility by keeping our funding obligations short. We're protecting our variable rate loan portfolio by maintaining received fixed SWOT balances of approximately 2.45 billion. And we built a $4 billion fixed rate auto book with low prepayment risk. An up 100 ramp scenario now represents a 1.9% impact to our NII as of Q2, while a down 100 scenario now represents a 1.2% impact. We expect to maintain this relatively neutral position going forward. Moving to slide 13, total investment security balances grew to $10.2 billion in Q2 following the acquisition of American National and repositioning of their securities book early in the quarter. Our securities plus cash to total assets ratio finished at 23.3% as of Q2. We continue to target a range of between 22 and 24% for the year. Slide 14 shows a detailed view of quarterly non-interest income trends. Total non-interest income of 80 million in Q2 was up 5 million from the prior quarter and 13 million versus Q2 of 2025. This increase was driven in part by our acquisition of American National, but we also saw healthy growth in our legacy wealth management and capital markets businesses. American National has not historically focused on these areas and we view them as opportunities for our combined company as we get through conversion and into 2027. In 2026, we continue to expect total non-interest income growth of 8% to 10% as compared to associated standalone results for the year ended December 31st, 2025. Moving to slide 15, total non-interest expenses of $272 million increased by $53 million versus the prior quarter following the acquisition of American National, along with the addition of $24 million in non-recurring costs recognized in connection with the acquisition. Most of the non-recurring costs year-to-date have landed in the personnel and legal and professional categories. After adjusting for these non-recurring expenses during the quarter, our efficiency ratio decreased to 52.9%. As we move forward, we will continue to invest in the growth of our franchise, but we're anchored on delivering positive operating leverage. After incorporating the impact of American National Acquisition, including the non-recurring costs incurred as part of the acquisition, we now expect non-interest expense to grow by 20% to 21% in 2026 as compared to associated standalone results for the year ended December 31st, 2025. On slide 16, our CET1 ratio finished at 10.47% in Q2. This figure was flat from the prior quarter, but up 27 basis points relative to Q2 in 2025. Our TCE ratio remained flat from the prior quarter and up 21 basis points from Q2 of 2025 at 8.27%. Our tangible book value per share finished at 22.15, down slightly from the prior quarter, but up $1.31 relative to Q2 of 2025. I'll now hand it over to Chief Credit Officer Pat Ahern to provide an update on asset quality.