Home BancShares, Inc.

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Home Bank Shares Incorporated second quarter 2025 earnings call. The purpose of this call is to discuss the information and data provided in the quarterly earnings release issued after the market closed yesterday. The company presenters will begin with prepared remarks, then entertain questions. Please know that if you would like to ask a question during question and answer session, please press star then one on your touch-tone phone. If you decide you want to withdraw your question, please press star then two to remove yourself from the list. The company has asked me to remind everyone to refer to their cautionary notes regarding the forward-looking statements. You will find this note on page three of their form 10K filed with the SEC in February 2025. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode and this conference is being recorded. If you need operator assistance during the conference, please press star then zero. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Donna Townsall, Director of Investor Relations.

Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to our second quarter conference call. With me for today's discussion is our Chairman, John Allison, Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank, Kevin Hester, President and Chief Lending Officer, Brian Davis, our Chief Financial Officer, Chris Fulton, President of CCFG, and Scott Walter of Shore Premier Finance. Opening remarks today will be from our chairman, John Allison.

Thank you. Welcome, everyone. I want to thank you for joining today. Today is the 76th quarter that we've had the privilege to report to our shareholders since going public in June of 06. I have to say that we've come a long way since June of 06, and even a long way from the day in 1998 when my co-founder, Buddy Adcock, and myself made our original purchase of the $22 million Holly Grove Bank in Holly Grove, Arkansas. We've come from $22 million in total assets then to almost $23 billion now, from five employees then to 2,600 now, and from one small office in Holly Grove, Arkansas to 217 banking offices in five states, from a pre-tax There's a pre-tax now income of $400,000 then to an after-tax income of over $400 million now. And from our purchase price of $4.5 million in 1998 to today's New York Stock Exchange market cap of just short of $6 billion. I have to say that HomeBankShare's story is certainly one for the record books. Many of you have been with us and enjoyed this amazing ride through the years. and we're extremely appreciative of your long-term loyalty to what has turned into one of America's best and most profitable banks. For that money, thank you, and I thank you, and our 2,600 associates thank you. We have moved from one of the smallest, it was about 10,000 banks as I recall, to number 64 in total asset size, USY. But with our $5.9 billion New York Stock Exchange market cap, Our company ranks number 35 in the U.S. in market value. I said on the conference call last quarter that the second quarter would look a lot like the first quarter, and we were right on the button. However, this quarter was a little better with a record earnings of $118.4 million, or $0.60 earnings per share, producing a return on assets of $2.08. versus last quarter, $115.2 million in earnings producing and return on assets of $2.07. Pretty consistent, I'd say, in the quarter. Those were non-GAAP numbers, but I'll take them. The non-GAAP ROTCE, Return on Tangible Common Equity, was $18.26, and $17.68 GAAP, Return on Tangible Common Equity. Low-loss reserve remained strong at $186. Tier 1 capital continues to build at 15.6%, leverage raised over 13.4%, total risk-based capital of 19.3%. Over the past 12 months, we have grown tangible common equity by $1.36, or 11.25%, from 1208 to 1344, while at the same time, the company bought back over 3 million shares, equaling about $86 million worth of our common stock, and paid out about $150 million in dividends to our shareholders, all while continuing to grow Casual Common Equity. That performance displays the earnings power of your company. We continue to add more strength to our already-forteous balance sheet, and as we say, strength is no accident, and you never know when you're going to use it, and it's comforting to know that you have it. We've continued to be aggressive on stock buybacks, buying 1 million shares for both the first and the second quarter. That's 2 million shares so far this year. And we introduced for the first time the buyback yield. That's an incremental increase value for each individual shareholder based on the reduction in the number of shares. In addition to that, paying 20 cents per share for quarterly dividends to reward our shareholders. Over the last eight years, we have bought back $520 million of our stock, approximately 22 million shares, and an average value of $22.60, while at the same time, continue to grow Tangible Common Equity. Donna, it is what it is. So far, so good. Nice start to 2025, with already $233.6 million in non-GAAP earnings, and that certainly is a record income for this country. Last year at this time, I think we're around 201 in non-GAAP and 203 in GAAP. So for the first six months so far this year, we're up a little over 15%. I certainly can't ask for much more of these assets. We need to find something to buy that will be additive to our income. I was looking this year for about $450 million in the income, and next year I kind of had targeted half a billion. That just rings the bell with me. who used the term $500 million, half a billion, kind of rings a bell, for 26. But we need to acquire some more assets to get that done. We are presently looking at several opportunities, and we will pick the best of the line to keep the forward progress moving in a positive direction. The intention is to hopefully have an announcement before the next quarter's report. Back to you, Ms. Dobbin.

Okay. Thank you very much for a great report, and congratulations on a strong quarter. Our next report today will come from Stephen Sipton.

Thanks, Donna. As Johnny mentioned, the second quarter was another strong performance by Home and Centennial Bank. Highlighted by strong revenue and stable core expense trends, we were able to produce an adjusted return on assets of 2.02% and an adjusted efficiency ratio of 42.01%. The reported net interest margin came in at 4.44%. in line with prior quarter, even with a lower level of event income. The core margin excluding event income was 4.43% versus 4.42% in Q1, and is up 20 basis points from the same period one year ago. I'm encouraged to see the trajectory of the margin in June as we enter the second half of the year. Deposits ended slightly lower in Q2, down 53 million, as a result of seasonal tax payments that occurred in April, but we were pleased to see balances grow in both May and June. As we observed the deposit activity early in the quarter, we hated to see the money go out, but we are comforted to know that we have core customers that are doing well, making money, and operating in dynamic growing states like Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, and Florida. In our other business lines, the trust wealth management and mortgage divisions continue to improve and show meaningful additions to the bottom line. I'd like to thank our regional division presidents and all of our bankers on another great quarter. With that, I'll turn it back over to you.

Thank you, Steven. Next, we will hear from Kevin Hester on the lending portfolio.

Thanks Donna. We continue to achieve recoveries from the charges taken in the fourth quarter cleanup. This quarter, we recovered a total of $2 million, and we remain on track to achieve the expected $30 million in total recoveries over time. One large non-accrual loan from that group remains very close to being resolved in a positive manner, but that resolution will have to wait another quarter. In addition, the multifamily construction in the north part of the DFW Metroplex is complete, and we will begin leasing activities this month. Asset quality metrics were mixed, but none of the changes were material in either direction. The slight increase in NPLs was primarily due to a large yacht for which we are in the middle of the arrest process. We have possession of the vessel, which is in very good condition. We expect a full payoff on this loan once we exit the arrest process. Solid loan growth split evenly between CCSG and the community bank complete the results of another impressive quarter. Donna, I'll give it back to you.

Thank you, Kevin. And now, Chris Poulton will provide an update on CCFG.

Thank you, Donna, and good afternoon. An uptick in originations for Q2 led to portfolio growth for CCFG. For the quarter, we closed approximately $500 million in new commitments, which brought our year-to-date total to just over $800 million, which compares favorably to prior years. The portfolio grew by about $122 million during the quarter, taking our total over $1.8 billion and putting us in plus territory for year-to-date as well. Our unfunded commitments, approximately $1 billion, which has been fairly consistent over the past year. As we look forward, we may see an uptick in playoffs during Q3, but ultimately we expect the portfolio to be stable to up over time. Donna, that concludes my brief update from CCFG.

Thank you, Chris. Johnny, before we go to Q&A, do you have any additional comments?

Well, I feel like we need to have a slurpee. I haven't had a slurpee in a while. We've had two record quarters back-to-back.

I agree. Let's see if anybody in the crowd wants to send us a GoFundMe this time. GoFundMe and slurpee.

Who did that?

I believe that was Michael Rose.

I believe it was Michael Rose.

Challenge extended.

Well, it was a great start to the year. The first six months are outstanding, so I'm pretty pleased with what's going on. And I suspect that the third quarter will be about like the first and second quarters. We've kind of had to wind our back, had a little extra income in both the first and the second quarters, and we got a shot at having some extra income in the third quarter here, too, so. Hopefully we'll continue to keep it strong until we find something else. We need to find something that makes sense for us that's in our marketplace or close to our marketplace that we can be added to the EPS of this company. So anyway, we're working on that, and I guess we're ready for Q&A.

Thank you. For our Q&A, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. And when preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. First question comes from Steven Scootin with Piper Sandler. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Steven Scootin Hey, good afternoon, everyone. I wanted to start around loan growth. Another really nice quarter, both CCFG here and the community bank. And year to date, this seems like the best organic loan growth you guys had in really as long as I can remember. And so I'm just wondering what you're seeing from your customer base, if there's been kind of an increase in aggressiveness to drive that new loan growth or really what might be driving the success there.

Hey, Steven, this is Kevin. I mean, Johnny says we take what the market gives us, I wouldn't say that we're more aggressive. I would say that we've got some markets in which there's still some really good things happening and our folks are hitting on all cylinders in some of those markets. It is tough. We've got some competition that I think has loaned into the rate cuts that have not occurred yet and tried to Rich D' reach out and maybe lock some of that in for a little bit so that's made it a challenge really across our footprint all of our Presidents are talking about that so that's a challenge, but. Rich D' We just had some you know we're in a lot of really good markets and, including what Chris does with his group we just got a lot of good markets to loan in and we're that's why we're here, so while we're in those markets.

Rich D' We had long committee yesterday and we had a. almost $100 million project, a couple of $30 million projects. It was a pretty good loan committee. If there wasn't many loans, it was a lot of big loans here. We've been working on for some time and they just come to fruition. So we're seeing that, but the rest of the market may force us down at some point in time because they're already writing it. They didn't chase us on the way up, but they're leading on the way down. I mean, the real truth is anybody can give them away. So I'm not sure this is over yet. I mean, I think we're banking on Trump and Powell having a drink together or something and lowering rates. So that may happen. It may not happen. But what we don't need to happen, that happened, if we take breaks, President Trump, who, as you know, I'm a huge supporter of, talked about going back to 1% money. If we do that again, we'll have inflation again running rapid. So that's the scary part of that. We need a slow, premeditated drop in interest rates. We don't need a quick drop in them. That could really kind of screw things up.

Yep, makes sense. And then maybe going to the M&A side of things, obviously we've seen some more deals in Texas as of late. You noted earlier that you guys are looking at a few things currently. I'm curious, maybe if you could give us an idea of what size opportunities you might be targeting here in the near term. And then would there be anything that you all would pursue right now similar to CCFG or Marine where you're acquiring loan assets versus a whole bank deal?

Well, William, Probably not on the holdback. I mean, we're really looking for a holdback, probably not on the subsidiary operation or loans. We're probably not. I mean, not that we wouldn't do it. We just hadn't seen it. So if we saw it, Kevin, look at it and let us know. But we are pursuing a couple of banks that give us an opportunity to grow. And we've seen a couple. We're going to talk about a couple next week. And then I'm going to see one next week. So we... We're trying to find something. You know, you can't, you run, call it GAAP or non-GAAP, 202, 208, ROA. You can't ask for much more than that out of your people. So we've about milked all we can get out of this turn. So it's time to find something else for us to buy. And we're on the path. Just has to be accretive, accretive, accretive to make sense. And if somebody out there wants to join a company that's growing and making lots of money and got a strong financial statement, We're the one, or we're one of. We're not the only one. There's more than us, but I don't know if that answers your question or not.

Yeah, it does. And you kind of led to my last question, is just with the way the math works today with the marks and the interest rate marks still, do you think you can get a triple accretive deal still at this time, or do you have to take a de minimis amount of dilution to get something across the finish line? Yeah.

We haven't taken dilution before. Interesting you say that. I went back and looked at these serial acquirers recently. If you go back and look at some of those, one of them, I looked back, they outbid me 10 years ago, and the stock's the same price today that it was 10 years ago, and the dividend's the same price. They're paying the same dividend that they did 10 years ago, and the people that, I mean, they bought the bank, but they didn't do anything. I mean, they Nobody got any appreciation out of that trade. So you go back and look at those serial diluters five and ten years back. I just started looking one day at those that beat us on some bids back in those days. Actually, this one is the same price it was ten years ago. It was a buck and a half down, but bank stops have risen a little bit lately. So we're not going to get into that game. I don't know what people are thinking when they dilute themselves into infinity. We have no intention to do that. We're not going to do that. I mean, would I do six-month dilution? Maybe if it's the right deal that was EPS-accretive, maybe. But to go out and dilute myself, I mean, so many people bought some of these deals that we turned down. I mean, we saw some of those deals, and we turned down. And we saw Veritech got a nice deal with a good company. That's a nice trade for them. I congratulated them on that trade. We were not on that trade, but we were on one of the others that got done recently. You get me off on that. When I look back how we got outbid on these deals five, six, seven, eight years ago, and the stock's less today than it was then, and they're still paying the same dividend, then nobody got anything. That's the problem. do a four-year earn back to 10.

Yeah, I think I know the deal you're talking about in Florida right there. I think I remember the one you're talking about there. So I think that's why your stock trades where it goes, Connie. So I appreciate all the tillage. Thanks for the time.

Thank you for appreciating our patience and our holding power.

We now turn to Matt Olney with Stevens. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Probably for Tipton, I want to ask about deposit pricing in the footprint. Saw some good results in 2Q, but just curious what you're seeing as far as deposit pricing. Any incremental pressure you saw during the course of 2Q? And some of your peers have talked about seeing potentially some higher deposit costs in the third quarter or at least until the Fed makes its next move. Just curious what you're seeing there. with respect to deposit cost competition in the footprint?

Yeah, good afternoon. About the same as we talked about in the first quarter. I mean, you kind of got some of the same guys running the same specials here that they have been for the last six months or so. Our folks negotiate against those well, and we're able to price them slightly lower than what some of the competitions do. And we've got a decent... we've got a decent amount, about a billion one or so in CDs that mature in the second half of this year, and hoping that we can, optimistic that we can get those down just a little bit from where they're maturing at.

Okay. Appreciate that, Stephen. And then I guess the other question is more for I guess for Johnny, Johnny, you mentioned that buyback yield in the press release and the prepared remarks. Just curious about your thoughts on the buyback and the million share pace that you mentioned in 1Q, 2Q. Just trying to appreciate if you still have a similar appetite for that pace, even at these current valuations.

Well, that's a good question. We'll see if we can put some money to work here in the next 30 days. some capital to work. We've continued to buy the stock back. It has been deluded to us to buy it back, as we know. I think your group is running the numbers on that and also DDNF is running those numbers on that on the buyback yield and give us a better understanding of where we need to be. As of right, we talked about a special dividend to all our shareholders. Actually, we're looking. I was seriously considering, and still am seriously considering a special dividend to our shareholders. But let's see what we get bought in the next 30 days here. And maybe we'll have, we got about how much cash at the holding company right now? About $400 million. $400 million. Well, that's a comfortable side of it. Anyway, we've got a few things we've got to pay off. $140 million. $140 million. I thought that paid off July 1. It pays off July 31, right? Right. So we've got $140 million to pay off happy sub-debt, and we'll pay that off when that comes up. So we'll probably sit for a little bit, but actually we've got so much capital, and it's It's going to reward our shareholders. And we might do that anyway. It's certainly a thought that's on our mind to do is to do something with that.

Perfect. Okay. Thanks, guys. Great quarter.

All right. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from Brett Rabaton with Hoved Group. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good afternoon. one of two i guess first johnny you mentioned the 450 million this year and 500 next year you know are those just kind of round numbers because that would imply a bit of um that income atrophy in the back half of this year well we're at 233 million today we have a

That's just about what we're running, right? We're running about $110, $150, $120 million a quarter. So that's annualized. That's about where that is. I don't think that's a reach. I think next year is the reach. I think next year is the reach. I mean, we may not get 450 this year. It may be 440 or it may get 460. It depends on what happens between now and the end of the year. But I think $500 million is realistic. If we can get some assets undertow, we can get our hands on some assets. That's the key. We can't, you know, I guess I said, I was there at my conference recently and I said, I can't ask our people for any more than a 2% ROI. And Donna said, yeah, but you do. So we'll ask for it, but it's not realistic.

Yeah. Is that 450? Is that on reported or the core?

It'd be reported earnings. Yeah. Okay.

It'll be better than that, Brad. I think that was just a round number.

Okay. Did you hear that?

I like what he said. That's the first time I heard him say that. He voted for the $420 million budget and

And I vote against them.

And then it sounds like the loans, you know, loan volumes are still strong, but you're expecting some payoffs in 3Q. Any color on the pipeline, you know, relative to 1Q and then just what the production was this quarter?

Yeah. hey brent this kevin the pipeline is still pretty strong you you are right we had a couple of things that we thought would probably pay off in the second quarter that moved in the third quarter so you know last quarter i was saying we we had an uphill climb because of what we saw come to pay off a little bit pushed to third quarter but um you know production is is good i think may a billion one last quarter um pipeline is still you know, still like it was.

Okay. And then maybe just last one around the margin, you know, and if a Fed does cut in September, perhaps, how do you guys think about the impact to your margin?

Hey, Brett, this is Steven. You know, I think the same thought process we communicated in the past. I mean, we still screen to be a little asset sensitive, but I think in the first 25 or 50, whatever it is, down scenario, that gives us certainly some cover to lower deposit rates. We've seen a little bit of sensitivity around 4% or 3% in some of our deposit book and going below there. I think if you see the Fed make a move at some point, that'll give us the that'll give us the news and the ability to be able to lower that and hopefully be able to offset what occurs on the loan side from the variable rates.

You didn't ask this question, but I have to get it out. Our expenses were high this quarter, and they were high because of a lawsuit settlement that we had that had been going on for several years. It was about $3.5 million. Actual expenses, when you take the one-timers out, according to Stephen, is $111,500,000. And I did the numbers myself, and that's pretty close when you take the one-timers out. So the expenses, don't think the expenses have run off the rails. They haven't run off the rails. So we'll do a better job next quarter. But that was something that Brewing, we've been dealing with for years, and we dealt with it. And on the expense side, but we actually had something, an offsetting income item there. We sold... FinTech operation out of Happy Bank that brought us about $3.5 million in pre-tax income in. So anyway, the expenses will be back around the 111, 112 mark for the next quarter. It should be.

Okay. Good to hear. Congrats on the quarter and hope things cool off a little bit in Arkansas now.

They're not going to cool off here too hot. 10-day advanced weather, the low is today at 96 or something, right, Kevin? Correct.

We now turn to John Ostrom with RBC. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. Hi, John. Hey, Steven, maybe for you, just to clean up on the margin, in your prepared comments, you talked about being optimistic about the June margin. Can you give us a little bit more detail on that? It seems to indicate you think it's going to step up, but just curious your thoughts on that.

Yeah, yeah, so thanks, John. The core NIM excluding event income in June was $447, so it was up a handful of basis points from from where the quarter averaged. Some of that was loan yields were up a couple of basis points, deposit costs were flat, and then the investment portfolios performed a little better as of late.

Okay. Okay. Very helpful on that. And then just a couple more smaller ones. Can you talk a little bit about the mortgage banking outlook? I know it's a small line item. but maybe it's symbolic of a little better activity in some of your footprints on housing. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Hey, John, this is Kevin. Yeah, I mean, I think it's been up and down. We'll have a good month of locks, and then the next month will not be good. I don't know that there's going to be Until there are some rate drops that get the mortgage rates down below where they are today, I don't know that we're going to see any kind of real positive multi-month trend there.

This is Steven. I'm sorry, John. I was going to say we're committed to the space. We brought a team in DFW area on board kind of late first quarter of this year. They had a good second quarter and are profitable already. So, I mean, I think we'll continue to be in that space and continue to try to grow it the right way.

Okay. Okay. And then a small one on shore. I know you mentioned the yacht project. Is there anything else in there that that's really substantially all of the change and not accrual loans?

Yeah, that was the that was the change for this quarter was that and that's been on our radar for for a solid six months that the arrest process takes quite a while, takes longer than I would hope, even even when it's here in the US. And so we think we're in good shape once we're able to do something with it. But right now it's sitting in our possession and working through the legal process.

It's a $9 million yacht with less than $5 million pay off on it. So it's just a matter of getting your hands, when you get your hands on it, get it sold. There's not a loss in this. All right. Maybe. If it brings 5 million, we got legal fees, maybe some, but there should not be a loss. Let me say that. This is the process. We anticipate to take it. The process just continues on, but I think we're about to get... The process is about over, right? The sheriff arrests it, takes it, puts it in, then the judge gives them X number of days to pay us off and... they don't get us paid off, then we get the boat. So we're at the point of getting the boat, I think, Kevin. We're close. It's close.

OK. All right. Thanks a lot. Nice job. Thank you.

We now turn to Katherine Mealer with KBW. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good afternoon.

Hi, Katherine.

How are you? I'm great. I had a really nice quarter. Most of my questions were asked and answered, but my one follow-up is just on credit. You mentioned you still have about $30 million left over of charge-offs just from the Texas cleanup a few quarters ago. Any update on the cadence of that $30 million and how we should see that come through over time?

Yeah, just to make sure to be clear there, what I was mentioning was the 30 million recoveries that we think that we would get over time.

I meant recoveries, excuse me.

Yes, I misspoke. Largely, it's a million and a half a quarter. There's a couple of chunks in there. We could get, if one works out,

uh this quarter we could get a million and a half on top of that but but from a recurring standpoint it's a million and a half a quarter uh on on one of the loans that we charged off okay great and then if just one more back on the buyback i mean is it you've been really active you know in in lieu of not having any m a in the past few quarters is it fair to assume that that pulls back if you do announce a deal that you're looking at this quarter that we probably pull back on the buyback for a period of time, just depending on what that looks like? Or do you think you're outside of when you're not able to buy back stock just with a deal pending, you're just going to be continually buying back stock, you know, kind of alongside M&A?

We have not quit buying back stock and we will probably won't quit if we run into, we'd see I don't see the capital restraints keeping us from doing what we need to do, even if we buy $4, $5, $6, $7 billion worth of assets. Steve and I talk about it nearly three or four times a week, whether we want to do it or don't want to do it, where we are. We have a 10-10 meeting, executive meeting every day, and we cover all those items. To say we're going to quit buying back, I wouldn't say that. To say we're going to buy a million, I can't say that, but I'm sure we'll continue to buy back stock. I have this non-delusion idea that I don't want to dilute. We don't dilute, and then we turn around and buy the stock back, and we actually dilute ourselves buying the stock back. I wondered sometimes if that was the right thing for us to do. And we have a couple of companies running that analysis for us as we speak and going to make presentations to us. I want to see that. I really wasn't familiar with the buyback yield. We've seen the buyback yield now. We started adding it to our chart. It does add incremental kick to our shareholders. But I said to Donna, I said, did you feel that kick last quarter? And she said, no. And I said, well, if I did a big stock dividend, would you feel that kick? And she said, yeah, I would. So the answer is we'll probably continue to buy back stock unless we need money for an acquisition.

That makes sense. Especially given your capital. I mean, if you're And if you're saying you're looking at deals, did you say you're looking at adding $400 to $700 million in assets? I mean, that's just as small given your capital levels. So certainly you'll have plenty of capital still unless you do multiple deals, right?

Oh, did I? Billions. I didn't say millions. Did I say millions? I'm sorry. Billions. $400 to $600 billion.

Oh, my goodness. Okay.

$400 to $600 billion. I'm sorry. I mean, look back. That makes sense. We'd buy $400 million if it was good enough trade for us. It takes a lot of work.

And you're also not the kind that would issue cash with an acquisition, right? It's always stock for stock, given your currency.

Cash in an acquisition, would you do cash?

Well, we haven't. We haven't. It gets diluted, right? It gets really diluted. Our dollar bill's worth $2.25. So, you know, it sure works better to use your currency and do a trade. Yep. But we throw some cash in the deal. We used to throw cash in about every deal we did. We put 10 or 20% cash in. We're not afraid to do that. It does creep right up on the dilution. It gets there pretty quick, doesn't it, Brian? Yeah, it does.

Great. All right. Great. Thank you so much. Great quarter. Looking to see what you've got for us over the next few months.

Thank you. Versace Sport.

As another reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad now. We now turn to Michael Rose with Raymond James. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. Just a question on, you know, hiring. We've seen a lot of banks disclose, you know, hiring plans, some formal, some informal. Just wanted to get a sense from you guys what the hiring plans were for you if you plan to accelerate then. I know the expense run rate will come down next quarter, which you said earlier, but is there an opportunity here? Is it a little too rich for what you guys are looking at at this point? Thanks.

You're saying hiring plans?

Yes, hiring of lenders is what I was referring to.

We don't do that. That's not our style. I think that's chicken shit. Pardon my expression. I really do. I don't like that. And we've had, I don't know, over the years, seven or eight teams in here, people wanting to walk out of their company. Some of them, I don't know how you face those CEOs, Michael. I walk in We just had them here in our office one time and I went to a meeting in Dallas and I walked right into the CEO of the company they were leaving. Just something that bothers me, you take a young loan officer and you bring him up through the ranks and you help him build his book and his portfolio and then someone offers him another $200,000 in a bonus and they walk out the door. That's not our style. We don't do that. Not to say we won't hire somebody for somebody from another company, but that's just not our style. We don't, we don't do that. We don't plan on doing it. That's not going to be a focus for us.

All right then. Um, uh, maybe just, just one more separately for, uh, maybe for Chris, um, you know, obviously devastating what happened out in California. You guys have an office out there. There's going to be some, some rebuilding. Um, how much of an opportunity is that for, for you all and. Um, is that something that we should consider as we're thinking about growth potential over the next couple of years? Thanks.

Yeah, thanks, Michael. Um, uh, I think it remains to be seen in terms of, you know, in terms of what kind of opportunities can be. It's a long term opportunity. If it's an opportunity. Um, I think I read the other day I was talking to somebody they've issued 50 building permits total. Since then, um, I. find it very hard to believe California will start rebuilding in the near term.

All right. Thanks for taking my questions. Yep.

We now turn to Brian Martin with Johnny Montgomery. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon. Good afternoon. Hey, Johnny, maybe just one back on the M&A. I think last quarter you talked about maybe preferring some smaller deals as opposed to bigger deals. But, you know, depending on what's available and what you're looking at, I mean, any change in your outlook or just, you know, thoughts on just the, you know, the sizing of, you know, things you're looking at near term here, what they look like or, you know, geographically, any little bit more color on that?

They're in the $2 billion to $6 billion range, and they're either in our footprint or outside.

Does that help you?

Yeah, so $2 billion to $6 billion in the U.S., and your preference in terms of multiple deals versus one deal, is there any preference there still in terms of how you're thinking about that?

It doesn't matter, you know. That's probably what will happen. We'll sign a deal and then there'll be another one pop right behind it. But if it is a good deal and it works, we'll go ahead with it. Providing that regulators will allow us to do that. I assume they will. Okay. Gotcha.

Okay. That's fine. And then how about just one for Steven on the margin. Steven, I think the, it sounds like the margin you know, I guess where it exited versus where it's at today, it's up a little bit this quarter to date or this, you know, this quarter to date. But on top of that, you've also got the sub debt coming off, I guess. So just the benefit, I mean, is your expectation then that, I guess, what's the impact of that sub debt on the margin as you get into 3Q?

Sure. So Brian and I were talking before the call. It's about five or six basis points that it will benefit the NEM when it goes away. Again, it's going to go away end of this month or first of August. So you'll have two thirds of the benefit this quarter and then the full benefit in Q4. But absent that, I mean, I still have to say pleased with where June ended, but if we can hold in this 445 range and then layer a little benefit from the sub debt, I think we'd be pleased. for that in Q3. We talked a little earlier about what you're seeing on loan pricing and some of those things, and we'll see where that goes, but very pleased.

I think we have just short of a billion dollars root price between now and the end of the year, Stephen.

Yeah, we got a little less than $800 million in loans, fixed rate loans that mature in the second half of this year. Those are coming off at $546 million. So there'll be an opportunity to get those up some. We've got about a billion one next year that's at 599. So who knows what happens with interest rates between now and then. But certainly in the second half of this year, I think there's an opportunity to get a little extra yield on what's maturing. Gotcha.

Okay. That's perfect. I was going to ask on the loan yield. So that's something you addressed. Just on the I think Johnny said, or I think Johnny on the expense number, you know, the core number just in reconciling to that 111 million, I guess the, when you get down kind of that level this quarter, Steven, what outside of the 3.3 million, you know, if you're 116 million in reported expenses, absent the three, three, you know, what else comes out of that to kind of, you know, get down to that 111 million, this type of number is more core.

Yeah, we had a million three, a little over a million three in legal expenses related to our West Texas lawsuit. And we talked a little bit about that last quarter. I think we had one fairly large invoice in April that was from the prior month. Those invoices have gone down to a nominal number now. So assuming we get that, settled in the near future, I would expect those legal expenses go away, and that kind of gets you down into the $111.5 million range.

One thing we do need to add back to the number is that we had that special assessment reduction, and so our FDIC number was down $1.5 million.

Yeah, and if you look at where salary expenses landed for Q2, they were They were a little elevated just from fee income, particularly at CCFG incentive comp, and then kind of same on mortgage. Mortgage had a good quarter. I'm holistically saying that incentive comp was up a similar number to what we had offset from the FDIC credit. Those cancel each other out. There's about $4.5 million that I would not expect to

Steve Monowitz, reoccur okay so that extra the extra that's in there is in the salary line and that's how to think about that to kind of get to the core number. Steve Monowitz, yeah yeah okay and then Stephen just that the I think last quarter and maybe Kevin talked about this, but the. Steve Monowitz, payoffs versus originations you guys had expected some payoffs it sounds like those. maybe are going to roll into the next quarter. But just what were the payoffs and the originations this quarter?

Yeah, payoffs this quarter were $756 million. And you're right, there are a handful of those that we expected to occur in Q2 that may slide into early Q3. So $755, they were about $650 last quarter.

um and then origination kevin mentioned origination volume was about a billion one um typically about half of that's funded uh at quarter end gotcha um okay and then maybe just one for kevin on on the credit quality it sounds like you know i guess the uh expectation was that the credit you know i guess there was maybe one large credit i thought was going to kind of come off or maybe a couple they were going to come off this quarter TAB, Mark McIntyre, Is that kind of the one you're referring to I guess when we think about third quarter kind of what the you know that. TAB, Mark McIntyre, Improvement that was kind of expected this quarter, would you are you suggesting that that's likely and I thought it was in the 10 or $12 million range that maybe we see that type of improvement and not performing in in the third quarter here or just some benefit there.

Yeah, your own point. It is around 12, and I really was hoping to be able to announce that we had it moved in the second quarter, but it looks like it'll be third quarter. And then we got another one in Oreo that I don't think it's quite time yet, but we'll start leasing the apartments this quarter. We'll see how that takes off. Well, then it'll generate activity with somebody coming in wanting to buy it. We're making progress.

Gotcha. Okay. And just the reserve level, you know, kind of drifted down a little bit this quarter. Just this kind of this level is where you're comfortable for now and just it kind of hangs around where it's at. Is that how you're thinking about it given the current credit outlook?

Yeah, we're comfortable. We're comfortable with it. extremely comfortable with reserves. We had an opportunity, we'll build it, we'll build it at some point in time. So I still like a 2% reserve. I just like it, you know, I just always run a 2% reserve. And if I get a chance to build it to 2%, I'll take it to 2%. I just sleep better at night than you should too. I sleep pretty good at 1.86 to 1.85.

All right. Well, congratulations on the quarter, and thanks for taking the questions, guys.

You bet. Thank you for such a support.

This concludes our Q&A. I'm going to hand back to Mr. Allison for any final remarks.

Good quarter. Thanks, everybody, for your participation. I hope you enjoyed the earnings release. I guess next quarter will be 77, is that right, Donna? Next one will be 77. So, Bunny? Bunny's in here. Willis, you got anything to say to the folks? No, just fantastic quarter. That's what I would say. I can say on behalf of all the other board members, we're very, very, very proud of this group sitting in this room today and all that you've done. Thank you. Appreciate it. Brian? Yes, sir. Got anything that you want to say or anything we left out you think we need to cover?

No, I think we pretty much covered it all.

Stephen, anything else?

No, good quarter.

Kevin? I'm good, sir. Donna?

Not here. Not here?

Not here. All right. Well, we're going to be gone. We'll see you and talk to you in 90 days. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, today's call is now concluded. We'd like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.