Hilltop Holdings Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Hilltop Holdings second quarter 2021 earnings conference call and webcast. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one in your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Eric Yohe. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Grant. Before we get started, please note that certain statements during today's presentation that are not statements of historical fact, including statements concerning such items as our outlook, business strategy, future plans, financial condition, allowance for credit losses, the impact and potential impact of COVID-19, Stock repurchases and dividends, as well as other items referenced in the preface of our presentation, are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations concerning future events that, by their nature, are subject to risk and uncertainty. Our actual results, capital, liquidity, and financial conditions may differ materially from these statements due to a variety of factors, including the precautionary statements referenced in our presentation and those included in our most recent annual report and quarterly report filed with the SEC. Please note that the information presented is preliminary and based upon data available at this time. Except to the extent required by law, we expressly disclaim any obligation to update earlier statements as a result of new information. Additionally, this presentation includes certain non-GAAP measures, including tangible common equity and tangible book value per shares. A reconciliation of these measures to the nearest gap measure may be found in the appendix to this presentation, which is posted on our website at ir.hilltop-holdings.com. With that, I will now turn the presentation over to President and CEO, Jeremy Ford.

Thank you, Eric, and good morning. For the second quarter, Hilltop reported net income of $99 million, or $1.21 per diluted share. Return on average assets for the period was 2.29%, and return on average equity was 16.4%. Despite certain headwinds in each business, our collective business model was able to generate strong earnings and grow capital, while at the same time returning capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Plains Capital Bank generated pre-tax income of $87 million, compared to a pre-tax loss of $17 million in Q2 2020. Improvements in the economic outlook and positive credit migrations drove a $29 million reversal of provision, compared to a provision expense of $66 million in Q2 2020. Outside of a few pockets of weakness, such as business-focused hotels, our borrowers generally are seeing improved results with the economy reopening and robust activity. Strong deposit growth has continued, with average interest-bearing deposits including broker deposits and Hilltop Security suite deposits, increasing by 26% from Q2 2020. This growth was partially offset by the planned runoff of approximately $858 million in broker deposits and the reduction in Hilltop Security suite deposits of approximately $690 million. As we optimize our liquidity sources and defend our net interest margins, We attribute this core deposit growth primarily to increased liquidity in the market from government stimulus and the work our bankers have done to increase deposits from existing and new clients. Total average bank loans declined modestly by 2% versus Q2 2020, as PPP loans have run off and commercial loan growth remains pressured. Quality loan demand has been muted, as our borrowers are flush with liquidity. leading to paydowns and payoffs or the use of elevated liquidity to fund capital expenditures and other investments before seeking bank debt. However, the Texas markets we are in continue to experience significant activity from business and household migration, which should drive meaningful long-term opportunities for the bank, specifically in higher growth markets such as Austin and Dallas with products like multifamily. Importantly, our business model has allowed us to selectively retain high-quality mortgages from prime lending to support loan balances and provide improved yield opportunities for our elevated liquidity and capital. Prime lending had another solid quarter, generating $49 million in pre-tax income. While the mortgage market has begun to normalize compared with the frenzied activity in 2020, volumes and profitability still remain elevated relative to historical levels. Prime lending originated $5.9 billion in volume with a gain-on-sale margin on loans sold to third parties of 364 basis points. Although average mortgage interest rates declined year-over-year, refinance volumes decreased to 32% of total origination compared to 47% in Q2 2020. A decrease in mortgage interest rates typically leads to an increase in refinancing volume. Significant refinancing activity during 2020 has limited the population of loans eligible for refinance. Importantly, our focus on home purchase mortgage origination should allow us to outperform the broader market. As the third-party market for mortgage servicing has continued to improve, we have reduced our retained servicing to 25% of total mortgage loans sold during the quarter and executed an MSR sale of $32 million reducing our MSR assets to $124 million. In addition to rates, inventory and affordability are the main things we are paying attention to in the mortgage industry. With low inventory continuing to drive home prices higher, the properties that are available are increasingly getting out of reach for buyers. This phenomenon affects both volume as well as gain on sale margins, as certain products are more competitive in this environment. Despite the ever shifting mortgage landscape, Prime Lending continues to execute well on its growth strategy, primarily centered on hiring purchase-oriented loan officers. In the second quarter, Prime Lending had a net gain of 11 loan officers that we believe could add incremental annual volume of nearly $300 million. For Hilltop Securities, They generated $6.9 million of pre-tax income on net revenues of $94 million for a pre-tax margin of 7.3%. This was a challenging quarter for the mortgage-centric and fixed-income businesses. Although these businesses have performed exceptionally over the past year, they are subject to volatility, which illustrates the importance of diversified revenue streams within Hilltop Securities. The structured finance business was adversely impacted by mortgage market volatility in March and April and generated net revenue of $11.5 million, a decline of 75% from Q2 2020. On a positive note, block volumes remain relatively strong compared to pre-2020 historic levels as we continue to add and maintain strong relationships with existing clients. Importantly, our public finance and wealth management businesses generated revenue and income growth. And we are pleased with their positive momentum. Moving to page four. Hilltop maintains strong capital with common equity tier one capital ratio of 20% at quarter end. During the quarter, Hilltop returned $55 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. The $45 million in shares repurchased are part of the $75 million share authorization the Board granted in January. This week, the Hilltop Board authorized an increase to the stock purchase program to $150 million, an increase of $75 million. Factoring in shares repurchased made during the first half of 2021, Hilltop now has approximately $100 million of available capacity through the expiration of the program in January 2022. Even with sizable capital distributions to shareholders over the past two years, including the opportunistic tender offer executed in 2020, our tangible book value per share has grown at a compound annual rate of 21% because of the profitability of our unique business model. We plan to continue to prudently distribute capital to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Hilltop's performance in the quarter highlights the versatility of our franchise and the value of our diversified operating model. Although near-term headwinds and volatility may occur, we believe each of our businesses are well-positioned to take advantage of profitable growth opportunities and that we have the leadership, capital, and strategies in place to build on our franchise. With that, I will now turn the presentation over to Will to discuss the financial results.

Thank you, Jeremy. I'll start on page 5. As Jeremy discussed, for the second quarter of 2021, Hilltop reported consolidated income attributable to county stockholders of $99 million, equating to $1.21 per diluted share. Included in the second quarter results was a net reversal of provision for credit losses of $28.7 million, which included approximately $500,000 of net charge-offs in the quarter. On page 6, we've detailed the significant drivers to the change in allowance for credit losses for the period. The most significant drivers in the quarter were the positive migration of certain credits in the portfolio and the further improvement in the expected macroeconomic outlook. First, related to the macroeconomic outlook, we leveraged the Moody's S7 scenario for our second quarter analysis. The scenario highlights improving real GDP and unemployment trends coupled with increasing risk of higher inflation in future periods versus the economic scenarios selected for our first quarter assessment. The impact of the improving economic outlook resulted in the release of $11 million of ACL during the second quarter. The second key driver was the ongoing improvement in credit quality across the portfolio. During the quarter, the restaurant portfolio experienced positive migration, resulting from improving financial performance and more resilient outlook for future periods. Further, the business saw broader base improvement across a set of clients, whereby their full year 2020 results were not as severely impacted as was previously expected, and their first half results were improving from prior risk rating assessment periods. The result of the improvement to the client level equated to a net release of ACL of $17 million during the second quarter. The combination of improved client performance and the improving macroeconomic outlook, which were only modestly offset by net charge-offs, resulted in an allowance for credit losses for the period ending June 30th of $115 million, or 1.51% of total loans. Further, the coverage ratio of ACL to total loans increases to 1.86% for loans that we believe have lower loss potential, including PPP, broker-dealer, and mortgage warehouse loans are excluded. Turning the pace up. Net interest income in the second quarter equated to $108 million, including $12.4 million of PPP-related interest and fee income, as well as purchase accounting accretion. Net interest margin declined versus the first quarter of 2021, driven by lower PPP fee recognition, higher average cash balances, and continued pressure on loan helper investment yields. Somewhat offsetting these items were higher loan helper sale yield, resulting from higher overall mortgage rates, coupled with lower interest-bearing deposit costs, which have continued to trend lower, as expected, finishing the quarter down 9 basis points at 32 basis points. We continue to expect that interest-bearing deposit costs will move modestly lower over the coming quarters as the consumer CD portfolio continues to mature and reset the lower yields. As it relates to asset yields, the current competitive environment for commercial loans is resulting in substantial pressure on new business loan yields, as well as our ability to maintain current floor rates. Further, with funded loan growth continuing to be slower than we expected, we are increasing the level of one to four family loans we're retaining on the balance sheet to approximately $50 to $75 million per month from the prior outlook of $30 to $50 million per month. As we've noted in the past calls, we are using the one to four family loan retention approach to offset the slower growth commercial lending environment. While this does provide a high quality source of assets and net interest income, these loans generally carry a yield below that of our traditional commercial loans. And as a result, we'll put downward pressure on NIM. To that end, we expect that NIM will remain pressured into the second half of 2021, moving lower towards 240 and 250 basis points by year end. Turning to page eight. Total non-interest income for the second quarter of 2021 equated to $340 million. Second quarter mortgage-related income and fees decreased by $99 million versus the second quarter of 2020, driven by lower origination volumes, declining gain on sale margins, and lower lock volumes. As it relates to gain on sale margin, we note in our key driver table in the lower right of the page that gain-on-sale margins on loans sell 22 basis points versus the prior quarter. Further, we are providing the impact on gain-on-sale margin related to those loans that have been retained on the balance sheet. For additional clarity, the reported gain-on-sale is the margin reported by our mortgage origination segment and reflects all loans distributed and retained on the balance sheet. Gain on sales loans sold to third parties provides the margin on those loans that were distributed outside of Hilltop Holdings or purchased at market value. As a result of our one-to-four family loan retention approach and the increase in aggregate monthly loan retention levels, these gain on sale margins have begun to diverge more than they have in the past. And as a result, we have provided those statistics for reference in this presentation. These statistics have been provided in our form, NQ, and earnings release materials historically. During the second quarter of 2021, the environment in mortgage banking remained solid, and as expected, continued to shift to a more purchase mortgage-centric marketplace. During the second quarter, purchase mortgage volumes increased by $1.1 billion, or 38.5%, while refinance volumes declined 43%, or $1.4 billion, versus the first quarter origination levels. We expect this trend to continue towards a more purchase mortgage-centric market over the coming quarters, which could continue to pressure gain-on-sale margins into the future. We continue to expect that gain-on-sale margins for third-party sales will fall within a full-year average range of 360 and 385 basis points. Other income declined by $37 million, driven primarily by declines in TVA lock volumes, volatility in market rates, and volatile trading in fixed-income capital markets. As we've noted in the past, the structured finance and fixed income capital market businesses can be volatile from period to period as they are impacted by interest rates, market volatility, origination volume trends, and overall market liquidity. Moving to page 9. Non-interest expenses decreased from the same period in the prior year by $27 million to $343 million. The decline and expenses versus the prior year was driven by decline in variable compensation of approximately $35 million at Hilltop Securities and Prime Lending. This decline in variable compensation was linked to lower revenues in the quarter compared to the prior year period. Looking forward, we continue to expect that our revenues will decline from the record levels of 2020, which will put pressure on our efficiency ratio. That said, we remain focused on continuous improvement leveraging the investments we've made over the last few years to aggressively manage fixed costs while we continue to further streamline our businesses and accelerate our digital transformation. Moving to page 10. End of period HFI loan equated to $7.6 billion. As we've noted on prior calls, we expected that loan growth would be challenging during the first half of 2021, and the results bear that out. We've seen substantial increases in competition for funded loans across our Texas markets, which we expect will continue into 2022. Further, the ongoing growth in available liquidity both on bank balance sheets and customer balance sheets could further delay a return to more normal commercial loan growth rates for at least a few quarters. We continue to expect that full-year average total loan growth, excluding PPP loans, will be within a range of 0% to 3%. As noted earlier, we are increasing the level of retention of one to four family loans originated prime lending to between $50 and $75 million per month. During the second quarter of 2021, prime lending locked approximately $176 million of loans to be retained by Plains Capital over the coming months. These loans had an average yield of 3.11% and an average FICO and LTV of 780 and 64% respectively. Turning to page 11, second quarter credit trends continue to reflect the slow but steady recovery in the Texas economy as the reopening of businesses continues to provide for improved customer cash flows and fewer borrowers on active deferral programs. As of June 30th, we have approximately $76 million of loans on active deferral programs, down from $130 million at March 31st. Further, the allowance for credit losses to end-of-period loan ratio for the active deferral loans equates to 16.8% at June 30th. As is shown in the graph at the bottom right of the page, the allowance for credit loss coverage ratio, including both mortgage warehouse lending as well as PPP loans at the bank, ended the second quarter at 1.64%. We continue to believe that both mortgage warehouse lending as well as our PPP loans will maintain lower loss content over time. Excluding mortgage warehouse and PPP loans, the bank banks ACL to end-of-period loans HFI ratio equated to 1.86%. Turning to base 12. Second quarter end-of-period total deposits are approximately $11.7 billion and remain stable with the first quarter 2021 levels. While the overall balances were relatively unchanged, the mix of deposits continues to improve as broker deposits declined approximately $300 million and non-agent bearing deposits rose by approximately $200 million versus the first quarter 2021 levels. Given our strong liquidity position and balanced sheet profile, we are expecting to allow broker deposits to mature and run off. At 630, Hilltop maintains $268 million of broker deposits that have a blended yield of 31 basis points. While deposit levels remain elevated, It should be noted that we remain focused on growing our client base and deepening wallet share through the sales of our commercial treasury products and focused client acquisition efforts. Turning to page 13. In 2021, we continue to remain nimble as the pandemic evolves to ensure the safety of our teammates and our clients. Further, our financial priorities for 2021 remain centered on delivering great customer service to our clients, attracting new customers to our franchise, supporting the communities where we serve, maintaining a moderate risk profile, and delivering long-term shareholder value. Given the current uncertainties in the marketplace, we are not providing specific financial guidance, but we are continuing to provide commentary as to our most current outlook for 2021 with the understanding that the business environment, including the impact of the pandemic, could remain volatile throughout the year. That said, we will continue to provide updates during our future quarterly calls. Operator, that concludes our prepared comments, and we will turn the call back to you for the Q&A section of the call.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask your question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question will come from Brad Millsaps with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Good morning, Brad. Jeremy, maybe I want to start with the broker-dealer. I'm just wondering if you could maybe offer a little bit more color on your outlook there. I know it was a tougher quarter. I think you've made comments in the past that you thought performance in 2021, you know, might look a little bit more like 2019. Just kind of curious if that still holds with kind of this quarter in the books now, kind of based on what you're seeing, you know, maybe here to start the second half.

Sure. Yeah, I mean, I think we saw a really volatile quarter as we discussed in Q2, particularly in the businesses that were really outperforming in fixed income and structured finance that are the higher margin businesses as well. And we see those being rectified and improving from where they are today, but, you know, clearly not at the levels they were in 2020 with the, you know, with the tailwinds that we had. So getting to your point, I mean, I think that as we look through the rest of the year, you know, I think we're looking at net revenue of somewhere around $425 million and pre-tax margin and the low fees for the year.

Okay, great. That's helpful. And then just maybe move the balance sheet. Obviously, cash continues to build. You'll continue to get more back with the PPP program. I know last quarter you commented you didn't really expect to build the bond portfolio in a big way, and you really didn't. I'm just curious if that kind of still holds or kind of what your plans are kind of with some of the excess liquidity.

Yes, Will. A couple things to note. I do think the bond portfolio is higher, you know, to probably higher into the $2.4 to $2.5, $2.4 billion, $2.5 billion level into the period of $2.1 billion. As we continue to kind of work to address, you know, as you note there, higher cash levels, higher liquidity levels, we're also increasing the loan retention rate As we noted in our comments to $50 to $75 million, we view these mortgage retention strategy or approach both as a counterbalance to softer commercial home demand, but also somewhat as an alternative to the investment securities portfolio. So that increase, we'll continue to monitor on a quarterly basis. But as we figure today, those are the two things we're proactively doing to address liquidity over time.

Great. And then just the final for me, I know you kind of addressed it there at the end, but I guess your provision guide would imply that you guys would be actually taking a provision in the back half of the year. Can you just kind of talk a little bit about that? You've got a pretty large reserve, you know, obviously you're not expecting a ton of commercial loan growth. So just kind of, you know, kind of curious, kind of what's, what's kind of driving your assumption in the back half.

Yeah, I think as we, as we look at it and, you know, if you look in the, uh, look in the appendix, you'll see the COVID modified loan portfolio. We've still got about $76 million of deferred loans. You know, we're actively monitoring the portfolio. I think we've consistently said we expect charge-offs to be a little higher in the second half of the year than they are in the first half. And that kind of bears its way here into the outlook. You know, and I think the other portion that's always out there is what's the economic outlook going to bear in subsequent quarters. So from our perspective, again, we've got a lot of monitoring going on across the portfolio. While there's been, as Jeremy mentioned, I tried to mention in my comments, I'd say substantive improvement across a lot of industries and a lot of dimensions in the portfolio. We've still got certain credits that we're monitoring very, very closely, principally those business-centric hotels. in the short run. So that's what's leading to that outlook. I know we've got a recapture so far of about $34 million. But, again, I think it continues to be our perspective that we'll have higher charge-offs in the second half.

Great. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Sure. Our next question will come from Michael Rose with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Just wanted to start off following up on Brad's question. So if I look at the A-triple-L XPPP, it looks like you're at 112 if I'm doing my math right. So that would imply a little bit of build here. You know, just given the outlook, you know, for credit, which is, you know, still pretty positive. I understand the comments around the COVID exposed, you know, industries and things like that. But, you know, are we kind of at a level for the A-triple-L that, you would think would be relatively steady state from here?

All that's equal? Yeah, I think we'll put the traditional kind of caveat around that of the economic outlook can be volatile and that can move the number one way or the other materially in any given period. As it relates to kind of the other key drivers, whether it be credit migration, again, we continue to see positive credit migration across a large, large swath of the portfolio. We've still got the watch portfolios, which I mentioned just a moment ago. And as you mentioned, we don't expect loan growth to be outsized in the second half. So those would historically be the key drivers, loan growth and migration, which we'll both continue to watch. But I think the guidance we put forward here tries to capture our best thinking around where that provision goes from here.

Okay, that's helpful, Will. And then maybe as a follow-up, just on the mortgage business, I think we're all cognizant that you guys you know, have had a great run here and things are normalizing, you know, gain on sale spreads are normalizing, volumes are normalizing, although, you know, we did get another upward revision from the NBA the other day, which should help. You know, what can you guys do, whether it's from hiring additional producers or, you know, targeting certain markets to, I guess, quote, unquote, soften the blow and, you know, generate a kind of a softer landing as the market normalizes? Thanks.

Yeah, that's a good point, Michael. And I think, you know, even though it is normalizing, you know, it is still strong from a historical pre-2020 perspective. And to your point, what we're really, the main focus we're doing is trying to recruit profitable LOs. And to date, we have hired, we've increased our LO count by 72. And in the quarter, as I mentioned in my comments, we increased it by a net 11 that we think will add an incremental $300 million of volume. And that's net of the determinations that we've had.

Okay, so what's the base of that off of in terms of lenders? And obviously, it dovetails into the higher origination. You know, it's already feed laid out for the year, moving it from 17 to 20 to 20 to 23, which is a nice, It's just trying to get a sense for what the net ad is and what it means for the headcount.

Sure. You know, where our LO headcount is right now is about 1,300.

Okay. Helpful. Maybe just one final one for me. You guys doubled the share buyback authorization to $150 million. I guess the assumption would be that you would probably use most, if not all, of it And then, you know, just given that capital levels are still elevated, is there, I guess, the willingness and desire to continue to purchase shares, just given you're trading about 1.2 times tangible? Thanks.

Yeah, I mean, I think that clearly we've been trying to – we've bought, you know, $50 million year-to-date, and so we have $25 million as the first authorization. We – And so we authorized those $75 million because we didn't want to run into any pressure with that. So I think we'll take things one at a time. And I think we'll be looking to be in the market. We'll obviously be prudent about price and where we're at now, I think, is probably an area that we would be in the market. And we'll just kind of play out the year and We're only doing this in open market, and we're only going to do it at a level that doesn't impact the stock price.

Understood. Thanks for taking my questions.

Sure. Thanks. Our next question will come from Matt Olme with Stevens. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning, guys. I want to go back to Michael's question around Prime and the new hires that were disclosed. Is this a newer initiative for prime hiring new lenders, or is this just the same hiring strategy, just finding more success recently? I'm trying to appreciate if we should assume additional hires in the future and we could see additional market share takeaway in the mortgage business.

Sure. You know, I think it's part of the business, period. However – With COVID and just the overwhelming volume in 2020, there's just really not a lot of movement there. So you're always going to have churn. You're always going to have hires and terminations. I would say that there's a renewed focus on hiring talented, purchase-oriented loan officers this year, and particularly because we're seeing normalization in the markets.

And the second part to that, Jeremy, given the new hires, should we anticipate some market share takeaways in the mortgage business?

I mean, as we said in our comments, I think, you know, given the models and, you know, the team that we have, I do think that as refinancing Wayne's, we will be market share takers, and that's our goal. Okay.

And then sticking with Prime on the expense side, you guys already disclosed some really good data around the variable comp for that business. But as industry volumes slow down, are there any more fixed costs you consider pulling down if you think mortgage volumes could be slower for a while?

You know, we're going to obviously really pay attention to that. But in this market where you've got, like, in some cases, 10... Buyers for a property, we're still having to do the work like we were originating like last year. So we still had to maintain staff. And we want to make sure that we were able to really deliver with exceptional service and being on time is a big part of that. So I don't see that waning, but we'll obviously be very focused on it.

Okay. And then lastly for me on the loan growth outlook, I definitely appreciate the commentary about the increased level of single-family retention, but you also dropped the commentary around commercial loan growth rebounding in the back half of the year that I think you previously mentioned back in April. Any more color you can add to that about why that was dropped?

Well, I think, well, I mean, we're still at 0% to 3% kind of full-year average, which has been our position on kind of full-year average loan growth. So I don't know that we've changed our loan outlook. I do think, you know, commercial loans, what we're seeing is, for funded loans in particular, is hyper-competitive. And, you know, both pricing, which we generally are comfortable competing on the pricing dimension, but also structure is starting to move. And again, we're going to be as we have been over time, very prudent about structure and maintaining structure, maintaining kind of our underwriting principles. And so as we look forward, and again, I think as we look out with both the liquidity that customers continue to maintain as deposits, customer deposits remain at very elevated levels, along with the overall liquidity on bank balance sheets, we think that this kind of lower growth environment could persist, as we noted, into 2022, really driven by those items, as well as, again, a slowdown in overall funded loan demand as customers put cash to work ahead of borrowing.

Okay. Thanks, guys. All right. Thanks, Matt.

Our next question will come from Michael Young with Trif Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for taking the question.

Hey, Michael. Morning.

I wanted to see if I could just get, you know, sort of more of a real-time update, you know, maybe quarter to date. We've obviously seen a material drop in interest rates over the last couple weeks compared to the prior four months, and then also the removal of kind of the 50 basis point additional charge for refinance. So have you guys seen in the last couple weeks a material increase in volume? Does that give you any additional confidence, maybe above and beyond when you guys were originally setting guidance?

I don't think we've seen anything that would cause us to change our guidance. We took the origination volume up the range of basically $3 billion to reflect both birth path performance, but also what we're seeing on a real-time basis. The fee reduction, I think, in principle, we're seeing been passed through to the client at this juncture, so it's We're seeing it, but at the end of the day, most originators seem to be passing that through. We certainly are. From our perspective, again, I think while the market continues to be choppy, we're still very constructive on the purchase origination market, as Jeremy mentioned. There are some constraints there as it relates to overall availability. and affordability, but that said, we still remain very constructive on the purchase side of the market. We think refinance is going to move around a little bit based on where rates are, but there was a lot of refinance activity over the last 18 months, and as a result of that, it's probably not as sensitive to short, small basis point moves in the 10-year as it may have otherwise been historically. we think that we think the guidance outlines our view and what we're seeing at most current levels.

Okay. Thanks. And maybe, you know, in addition to LO hiring, could you talk about any other, you know, strategic initiatives that you guys might pursue? You know, I know in the past, you guys have gotten a little more involved in kind of the construction or renovation market. You know, obviously there might be a HELOC opportunity at the core bank, you know, as, market values appreciate, but people want to hold on to their core loan. Any other things like that that we could look for, joint ventures, et cetera, maybe kind of over the medium term?

I wouldn't look for any product differentiation. We have our joint venture business that's in the home building business is really strong, so we'll continue to try to grow that. However, our JV business at Prime Lending is as just three affiliated partners, and it represents about 8-10% of our overall volume. I think that the big thing that Prime Lending continues to try to do is really enhance their technology and support for the loan officers. invest in that so that we're able to continue to leverage that network and grow it more. And that's what we'll continue to do. And then we have with the implementation of our new loan origination system, Blue Stage, and then we've got some other add-on applications that should hopefully increase flow.

Okay, great. And one last one, if I could sneak it in. Just on sort of fair value marks or adjustments that may have flown through kind of the income statement this quarter that we shouldn't necessarily forecast going forward. I know that's typically a bigger mover in the TBA business, so just any color there would be helpful.

Yeah, not a lot of fair value marks as it relates to pipeline marks as we've historically had in periods, I think. We did note in our press release we had about $6.5 million of fair value marks related to certain hop investments where transactions were executed in the period, but that was episodic, if you will, and not necessarily related to any pipeline activity in the core business.

Okay. Thank you.

Our next question will come from Woody Lake with KBW. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. Morning. Most of my questions have been answered, but I had a couple quick follow-ups. So it's another nice quarter on the deposit cost front. It looks like you have around $300 million of broker deposits remaining. I was just curious when these broker deposits are set to mature and what yield do they carry?

Well, the blended is right around 30 basis points, and they're going to mature between now and over the next 12 to 18 months. So there's a long window in terms of the maturity. So they kind of move, I'd say, there'll be a block of CDs that continue to kind of roll off here over the next 90 days. And then the more kind of money market funds have a longer maturity value on them.

Okay, got it. And then last for me, you noted that you executed another MSR sale of $32 million. Was there any material gain that came out of that sale?

We did execute the sale. We also executed a few LOIs, which will be noted as well. We did see kind of favorable pricing there relative to the mark to the tune of about $9 million. Okay.

Okay, got it. Thanks, guys.

This will conclude our question and answer session. And now the conference has concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.