Hilltop Holdings Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Hilltop Holdings fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call and webcast. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If anyone has any difficulties hearing the conference, please press star zero for operator assistance at any time. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt Dunn. Please go ahead.

Thank you. 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, credit risks and trends in credit, allowance for credit losses, liquidity and sources of funding, funding costs, dividends, stock repurchases, subsequent events, and impacts of interest rate changes, as well as such 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 risks and uncertainties. Actual results, capital, liquidity, and financial condition may differ materially from these statements due to a variety of factors, including the precautionary statements referenced in the preface of our presentation and those included in our most recent annual and quarterly reports 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 share. A reconciliation of these measures to the nearest GAAP measure may be found in the appendix to this presentation, which is posted on our website at I'll now turn the presentation over to Jeremy Ford.

Thank you, Matt, and good morning. Before we cover the results from the quarter, I would like to spend some time reviewing the full year of 2024. During the year, we saw a dramatic shift in the Fed's posture regarding inflation and their corresponding target rate. The FOMC cut rates three times in 2024, totaling 100 basis points of reduction. Further, the yield curve realized a material change in shape as long-term rates, namely the 10-year Treasury note, fluctuated over 100 basis points from peak to trough over the course of the year. Through prudent management, Hilltop produced an increase in consolidated pre-tax income year over year, despite the volatility of both short and long-term rates. Further, during the year, Hilltop realized growth in core deposits at Plains Capital Bank, enhanced our liquidity position by returning non-core excess funding, continued progress towards operational efficiency with improved financial results at Prime Lending, invested further in the foundational business units at Hilltop Securities, and returned $64 million to stockholders. As we embark upon a new year, we will continue to focus on risk management, sound balance sheet positioning, and the commitment we have to serve our customers and communities, which we believe will drive long-term value creation through economic cycles with our synergistic and durable business model. Moving to the fourth quarter. Hilltop reported net income of approximately $36 million, or 55 cents per diluted share. Return on average assets for the period was 0.9%, and return on average equity was 6.5%. Favorable operating results from the banking and broker-dealer business units helped to produce a quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year increase in pre-tax income. Hilltop realized another quarterly improvement in net interest income, primarily due to a growth in average earning assets, though consolidated net interest margin at Hilltop and net interest margin at the bank did experience compression in the quarter. We will comment further on the bank's NIM later in our prepared remarks. During the quarter, Plains Capital Bank generated $51 million of pre-tax income on $13.3 billion of average assets, representing a return on average assets of 1.24%. Average loans at the bank declined by approximately 1% in the quarter, primarily due to a modest decrease in average core loan balances on a linked quarter basis. The bank realized an increase in its loan production pipeline pull-through rate as borrowers grow more accustomed to the new interest rate environment. We expect that it will take several quarters for the increase in borrower activity to materialize into an increase in funded loans held on our balance sheet. Average deposit balances at the bank increased by nearly $600 million during the quarter, which was driven by an increase in both core interest-bearing deposits and non-interest-bearing deposits. The increase in core interest-bearing deposits represents the fourth straight quarter of growth. Results in the quarter at the bank included a reversal of provision for credit losses of $5.7 million. This recapture was primarily due to positive migration in the loan portfolio as total criticized loans declined by approximately $34 million during the quarter, as well as an improvement in collective economic conditions. Will is going to provide further commentary on credit in his prepared remarks. The bank realized a seven basis point compression in net interest margin from the third quarter to 2.98%. This change was primarily attributable to the immediate repricing of cash held at the Fed, which experienced growth and balance during the quarter as the rates on both earning assets and interest-bearing liabilities declined. Overall, the bank showed steady improvement through the year in terms of funding, credit quality, and loan pipeline growth. Moving to prime lending, where the company reported a pre-tax loss of $9.9 million during the quarter. The quarter-over-quarter decline in operating results was primarily driven by a reduction in origination lock volumes during the fourth quarter. Notably, prime lending did experience an increase of $438 million in origination volume compared with fourth quarter of 2023. Gain on sale of loans sold to third parties increased by two basis points when compared to the third quarter. However, prime lending experienced a continued downward trend in mortgage origination fees and other related income, which decreased by five basis points quarter over quarter. While management at prime lending has prudently trimmed fixed expenses by 14% when compared to the fourth quarter of 2023, We believe the challenging mortgage market will continue to negatively weigh on Prime Lending's operating results in the seasonally slower first quarter of 2025. In the fourth quarter, Hilltop Securities generated pre-tax income of $20 million on net revenues of $125 million for a pre-tax margin of 16%. Speaking to the business lines at Hilltop Securities, Public finance services produced a 32% increase in net revenues on strong offering volumes amidst a record year of industry issuance of $508 billion of total volume. Structured finance net revenues increased by $9 million from the fourth quarter of 2023. This year-over-year growth was primarily driven by improved secondary margins in the TBA business despite the volatile mortgage market. In wealth management, net revenues increased by $2 million compared to the last year's fourth quarter as an increase in retail and clearing fees and interest revenue more than offset a modest decline in sweep revenue from the firm's FDIC sweep program. Finally, the fixed income business remains pressured. due to challenging market conditions and the business unit realized a decline in net revenues of $10 million when compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. Overall, Hilltop Securities delivered strong results in the fourth quarter as the public finance, structured finance, and wealth management business lines closed out the year with positive quarterly and annual results. The broker-dealer delivered a healthy pre-tax margin for the fourth quarter and for the full year, on increased revenues for both time periods. The firm continues to show an ability to provide diversified income streams across varying rate environments. Moving to slide four. Hilltop maintains strong capital levels with a common equity tier one capital ratio of 21%. Additionally, our tangible book value per share increased from year end 2023 by $1.14. to $29.49. During the period, we returned $11 million to stockholders through dividends. Thank you. I will now turn the presentation over to Will to discuss our financials in more detail.

Thank you, Jeremy. I will start on page five. As Jeremy discussed, for the fourth quarter of 2024, Hilltop reported consolidated income attributable to common stockholders. of $35.5 million, equating to 55 cents per diluted share. The fourth quarter results reflect a few notable items, including a $5.9 million provision for credit loss recapture, which reflects the combined impact of positive credit migration during the period and an improved economic outlook versus the third quarter. In addition, during the quarter, we recognize a negative valuation adjustment of $5 million related to an owned office facility that management intends to exit and sell. While we are making progress on the sale, it has not closed, and as a result, Hilltop may have additional adjustments related to this transaction in future periods. Lastly, during the period, Hilltop recognized tax benefits related to various state income tax filings and certain discrete items in the fourth quarter. The impact of these tax items equates to approximately $3 million on an after-tax basis. Further, these tax items reduced the GAAP effective tax rate in the quarter by approximately 7% to 14.2%. I move into page six. For the full year of 2024, Hilltop reported consolidated income attributable to common stockholders of $113 million, equating to $1.74, for diluted share. During the year, net interest income declined by 11%, and that was largely offset by lower provision expense in 2024, which equated to approximately $1 million for the full year. I'll address the allowance for credit losses in more detail later in my comments. A few additional items of note. While not included in the 2024 results, we disclosed on January 15th on Form 8 , that we had redeemed all outstanding senior notes that were due to mature on April 15th of 2025. These notes were redeemed from cash on hand. In addition, Hilltop announced in a press release on January 27th that our merchant banking group, Hilltop Opportunity Partners, has agreed in principle to sell its ownership position in Mosier Energy Systems. The after-tax gain for this transaction is estimated between $23 and $27 million. It is important to note that this transaction is expected to close during the first quarter of 2025, but importantly, has not closed at this time. The estimate provided is subject to change if this transaction were to be modified in any material manner prior to close. Turning to page 7. Hilltop's allowance for credit losses decreased during the quarter by $9.8 million to $101 million. While management continued to leverage the Moody's S-5 scenario in its assessment of ACL, the macroeconomic outlook improved in the fourth quarter, reflecting a lower probability of recession than in prior periods. Further, the portfolio experienced client-specific improvements in overall risk score, which additionally reduced the ACL during the period. These benefits were only somewhat offset by higher specific reserves related to certain individually evaluated credits. Lastly, the ACL roll forward includes net charge-offs, which largely reflects our best estimate of loss for one of the auto note portfolio credits we've discussed over the last few quarters. Allowance for credit losses of $101 million yields an ACL to total loans HFI ratio of 1.27%, as of December 31st, 2024. I will address additional credit trends later in this presentation. As we've seen over time, ACL can be volatile as it's impacted by economic assumptions, as well as changes in the mix and makeup of the credit portfolio. We continue to believe that future changes in the allowance for credit losses will be driven by net loan growth in the portfolio, credit migration trends, and changes to the macroeconomic outlook over time. Turn into page 8. Net interest income in the fourth quarter equated to $105.5 million and included $1.1 million of purchase accounting accretion. As expected, the interest margin declined versus the third quarter of 2024, falling by 12 basis points to 272 basis points. While minimizing NIM compression remains a focus, We are pleased that net interest income remains stable versus the third quarter of 2024 levels as overall deposit costs declined once the Federal Reserve began moving the federal funds rate lower. Also of note, average excess cash reserves increased to just under $2 billion as we experienced growth in client deposits and declines in loans held for sale and loans HFI. Growth in cash levels did pressure NIM and increases overall asset sensitivity for the organization. Turning to page 9, we have more discussion topics related to NII. In the upper left chart, we provide detail into our latest sensitivity analysis for NII related to parallel and instantaneous shocks and interest rates. As is noted in the chart, Hilltop remains approximately 6.5% asset sensitive in the F100 scenario. Over the past few years, we have reduced our asset sensitivity by approximately 50%, from 12% to 6.5%. Going forward, the most significant driver of NII performance will be driven by our ability to manage interest-bearing deposit betas, which are currently modeled at 54% through the cycle. As it relates to deposit betas, we have achieved a 62% interest-bearing deposit beta in response to the Federal Reserve's first 100 basis points of rate reductions. While this beta level is encouraging, we remain focused on managing deposit costs to support both improved profitability and long-term deposit growth. In the lower left of the page, we highlight that our longer-term target for asset sensitivity is 2% to 4%, and we're executing on a number of strategies to move our exposure toward these levels in a prudent and methodical manner over time. In addition, the tables on the right of the page highlight the interest rate reset schedule for our variable rate loans at Plains Capital Bank. As is shown, the majority of the variable rate portfolio will reset within 30 days following any rate action set forth by the Fed. Turn to page 10. Fourth quarter average total deposits are approximately $11 billion, remaining largely stable with the fourth quarter of 2023. On an ending balance basis, deposits increased by $274 million from the third quarter of 2024, driven largely by growth from existing clients. As a result of our ongoing pricing efforts, average interest bearing deposit costs declined to 327 basis points, a decrease of 35 basis points from the prior quarter. Currently, we expect that interest bearing deposit costs will move somewhat lower over the coming quarter and then stabilize until we see additional movement by the Federal Reserve on short-term rates. Turning to page 11. Total non-interest income for the fourth quarter of 2024 equated to $196 million. Fourth quarter mortgage-related income and fees increased by $4 million versus the fourth quarter of 2023, driven by improvement in both lock and closed volumes versus the same period in the prior year. While signs of improvement in our mortgage business are emerging, some of the significant macro challenges persist whereby the combination of higher interest rates, home price inflation, and a somewhat limited housing supply continue to pressure volumes and margins. Versus the same period prior year, purchase mortgage volumes increased by $212 million, or 12%, and refinance volumes increased by $226 million. During the fourth quarter of 2024, in-on-sale margins remained relatively stable with third-quarter levels for loans sold to third parties. During the fourth quarter, higher third-party sweep fees drove the increase in securities and investment fees and commissions. In addition, structured finance continued to produce strong results during the quarter as overall capital market activity supported margins, even while overall lock activity declined to $667 million. Of note, same period, prior year lock volumes were substantially impacted by certain states providing additional state funding to support their state housing authorities and down payment assistance programs. As we've noted in the past, it's important to recognize that both fixed income services and structured finance businesses at Hilltop Securities can be volatile from period to period as they're impacted by interest rates, overall market liquidity, and production trends. Turn into page 12. Non-interest expenses increased from the same period in the prior year by $12 million to $263 million. Driving the increase in non-interest expense were higher variable compensation expenses principally within the mortgage and securities businesses. Also of note, the negative valuation adjustment that I referenced earlier is included in the expenses other than variable compensation and again equated to $5 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Looking forward, we expect expenses other than variable compensation to remain relatively stable between $185 and $190 million per quarter as the ongoing focused efforts related to streamlining our operations and improving productivity continue to support headcount and improved throughput across our franchise, helping to offset the ongoing inflationary pressures that persist in the market. Moving to page 13. Fourth quarter average HFI loans equated to $7.9 billion. On a period-ending basis, HFI loans declined versus the third quarter of 2024 by $29 million, driven by a modest paydown activity in our commercial lending business. While the economy in Texas remains resilient, we do expect that the competition for funded loans will remain very intense. As we look into 2025, we are expecting full-year average bank loan growth between two and 5%. This outlook includes the bank's retention of prime lending mortgage loans. I'm moving to page 14. As is shown in the chart on the bottom left of the page, net charge-offs for the fourth quarter equated to $3.9 million. As noted earlier, the most significant charge-off in the period related to one of the large auto note finance credits, which equated to $3.6 million. For the full year of 2024, net charge-offs equated to $11.2 million for 14 basis points of period-end HFI loans. We believe that credit quality remains stable across the portfolio and do not currently see any large systemic areas of concern. However, we are monitoring our loans and borrowers closely as the persistence of higher interest rates and potentially lower real estate utilization rates in commercial real estate could have a negative impact on our clients and our portfolio. As is shown on the graph at the bottom right of the page, the allowance for credit loss coverage at the bank ended the quarter at 1.33%, including mortgage warehouse lending. Moving to page 15. As we move into 2025, there continues to be a lot of uncertainty in the market regarding interest rates, inflation, and the overall health of the economy. That said, we have provided our current outlook metrics for the coming year. As we've noted in the past, we're pleased with the work our team has delivered to position our company for long-term success. Our outlook for 2025 reflects our current assessment of the economy and the markets where we participate. Further, as the market changes and we adjust our business to respond, we will provide updates to our outlook on our future quarterly calls. Operator, That concludes our prepared comments, and we'll turn the call back to you for the Q&A section of the call.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. Questions will be taken in the order received. Should you wish to cancel your request, please press the star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, Please lift the handset before pressing any keys. Once again, that is star one should you wish to ask a question. Your first question is from Michael Rose from Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Good morning. Good morning. Maybe we could just start on the merchant banking gain, and obviously that will add to capital. I know you guys just announced the buyback. Any plans for anything like an ASR like you've done in the past or to be maybe a little bit more aggressive with the buyback at this point? Just trying to appreciate the capital priorities and if there's been any changes just given this expected gain. Thanks.

The priorities haven't changed because of the specific gain. You know, I think that we've just got authorization for $100 million share repurchase for the program for the year. It's not an ASR. It's just going to be during open windows, and so we're certainly evaluating that. And, you know, I think that, you know, we're hoping to be active with our share repurchase to our authorization this year. Last year, we were, we started the year, stronger and did about 20 million dollars but we we held off because we had these looming debt maturities that we wanted to make sure we had you know optimal flexibility for it okay that's uh that's helpful and then um well maybe if you could just help me better appreciate the uh the loan growth outlook you know it is it is fairly wide can you just give us some

assumptions around, you know, what you're assuming for paydowns. I know the auto book is still, you know, will be somewhat of a headwind, although declining. Can you just talk about, you know, borrower activity, pipelines, things like that? It seems like there's a lot of optimism in the market, but we haven't really seen it come through in the actual industry data yet. So just trying to better appreciate what could drive you to the lower end versus the upper end. Thanks.

Yeah, so the, you know, the range is a little wide. We're here at the early part of the year. Seems to be, you know, a pretty, pretty substantive bid and ask around where the Fed's going to kind of land the plane here in terms of this rate cycle. So trying to reflect that as well. You know, I think we've seen pipelines build really through, you know, midway of the third quarter into the fourth quarter. Certainly that's continued here from a commercial lending perspective. That said, just for us, a lot of our activity is, as you know, commercial real estate oriented, so that means know we'll book the commitment it'll take uh you know our customers will then work through their their equity installations and then they'll start the borrowing process so while we've got strong pipelines and strong activity that may not manifest itself in terms of actual fundings on the balance sheet for a couple of quarters and so our outlook kind of captures that as well we did see as we noted on prior calls some softness in the late first and second quarter last year which are kind of causing a little bit of a slower start. As you can see, we're also expecting to retain loans that are originated at prime mortgage loans. We expect that retention to be 10 to 30 million per month. We evaluate that on an economic basis, so it's not an auto drive matter in the context of just kind of turning it on at a level and forgetting about it. We'll evaluate pricing. We'll evaluate the overall return profile. And so that range in and of itself would put you anywhere from 120 million retained to 360 retained. So those are the kind of things that start to put you within the range of 2% to 5% of the entire portfolio and some of the variability. But as we have, we're going to be thoughtful and prudent about how we put capital to work. both from a credit perspective, but also a duration and asset liability perspective as it relates to the mortgages we're going to retain.

Yeah, that's a good point on the mortgage retention, because I think it was zero to 20 million last year, and now you're bringing it up a little bit. Correct. Maybe just finally for me, I'm sorry if I missed some of the margin commentary, but appreciate the NII guide. If we don't get the two rate cuts that you have built in, would you be closer? Would you be at the lower end? Or could you potentially be, you know, less than that, just given some of the competitive dynamics? Or is that range kind of contemplate, you know, somewhere between zero and two? And is that the way we should kind of think about it? Or does the guide really just kind of encapsulate the two cuts? Thanks.

Yeah, the guide encapsulates the two cuts across the year. You know, we're asset sensitive, so candidly, less cuts necessarily improves net interest income as a practical matter. So from our perspective, we'll wait and see where the Fed is, but the guidance we've got in place right now has kind of two Fed cuts, one in the middle of the year, one in third quarter. And we'll continue to watch those. We're going to continue to make progress on overall deposit costs. I do think it's important to note we've got our CD portfolio, which we had structurally moved to shorten up over the last 12 to 18 months. We've done that. The largest portion of that portfolio sits in kind of a 90-day product. Over the next 90 days, we've got about $650 million of CDs that come to mature. Those have got a blended average rate on them around 430 basis points, and the current offering for that product is 395. We're going to continue to see just through the natural matriculation of the balance sheet as well as some of the decisions we've made as to how we position the liability side. We're going to continue to see some of that benefit, which was part of the comment around we expect to see deposit rates continue to fall through the first quarter, and they likely start to stabilize up until we see the Fed make a definitive move from here. Perfect.

Thanks, Father Collier. I appreciate you taking my question. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question is from Steven Cowden from Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

Yeah, thanks. Appreciate it, guys. I'm curious how you guys are thinking about structured finance revenues for 25. Obviously, a really nice year in 24, and you guys talked about some of the down payment assistance programs and the benefits there. Um, what's what's that kind of environment looking like as you as you see it today and do you feel like that can continue to grow off of this? Let's call it 100Million dollar figure from 2024.

So, well, good morning. And I think, you know, from a structured finance perspective, you know, as we've noted, it's benefited for the last couple of years from, you know, one of our larger state housing authorities continuing to, in the state, putting in additional funds to support their down payment assistance program. We don't have any control of that. They obviously operate independently in that regard. And so, as a result, you know, If they chose to continue to support the program through their annual budgeting process, we obviously believe that would be favorable to the constituents in the state, but also our structured finance business. If they didn't, we would obviously expect revenues in structured finance would be lower as a result of not having had that support versus the prior couple of years where we've seen it. So that's a little bit of an unknown. We certainly can't comment on on any of the state budgeting processes, but that really is an added variable that's outside of kind of capital markets or overall product wherewithal.

Got it. Okay. And then, you know, like you said, it's a little unclear maybe where rate cuts, how many of them we get, when they come, and so forth. But How do you think about the asset sensitivity of the balance sheet over the longer term? I think you've said before maybe reducing that asset sensitivity over time, increasing retention with some of the hybrid mortgages potentially to do that. What's the goal and the target and what beyond those hybrid mortgages might you change around the balance sheet to inflect those differences?

Yeah, so, you know, in my comments, you know, we noted in here on page nine of our document, we show our longer term targets kind of two to four percent asset sensitive. Obviously, our mortgage company provides some countercyclical, more liability sensitive components to it in terms of overall income profile. But as it relates to NII, two to four percent asset sensitive, you can see here where we will have started and have restarted. the investment in our securities portfolio. It's worth noting that portfolio peaked at about $2.75 billion, currently has a book value of about $2.25 billion, and we'll reinvest those cash flows. I think we've reached a point where the reinvestment opportunity provides a better return and more stable earnings profile than the cash yields necessarily would, so we're starting that process. As you noted, the increase to retention of the three, five, and seven-year hybrid fixed rate mortgages, we believe those products, both from a profile perspective as well as an overall credit perspective, fit our profile from a longer-term perspective. You'll see in our guidance we did increase the retention level expectations to $10 million to $30 million per month. And then we'll continue to kind of move. If our deposit base remains strong, we'll continue to kind of move broker dealer suite deposits out of Plains Capital Bank back to the broker dealer and they can put them to work in their third-party bank program. So those are the types of things we're doing right now to start to drive and push that asset sensitivity down. As I noted in my comments, we have seen cash levels increase substantively, ending the period at the bank at just over $2 billion. And obviously cash, excess cash reserves of the Fed have 100% beta, you know, significant asset sensitivity. So as we continue to work that cash level down to our target level, which as we've stated is $300 to $750 million versus the $2 billion, we'll see that asset sensitivity level decline over time. But as I noted in my comments, we're not looking to kind of move the balance sheet quickly. We'll move it over time and prudently. We'll focus on return and long-term positioning. And that view will continue to evolve as the economic environment evolves.

got it that's extremely helpful thank you and then last thing for me is just you know there's been maybe a little bit more volatility around the quarter quarter provision than maybe i'm i'm used to seeing sometimes and you know a couple reversals and then you know there was a larger provision in the second quarter and you know some of that's episodic or credit obviously i know but can you kind of talk about how you guys think about the provision and if if I don't know if you have maybe a more fluid views than others may have. I'm just trying to get a feel for what kind of has caused some of that volatility around the build versus the reversals and kind of how you think about it.

Yeah. So, you know, obviously we feel like we were kind of following the allowance for credit loss guidance from a gap perspective, adopting and adapting a economic outlook each each period through our controls and governance process we believe kind of most reflects where management believes the economy is going obviously there's been some volatility uh from an economic perspective so that's that's one part and you should see that i think universally it's worth noting we only use one scenario so we don't we don't wait if you will or probability adjust to multiple scenarios which which may allow you know others and i can't speak to that but it may may allow others to to have a little less variability there but we do what we do leverage one scenario because we think that that generally provides the cleanest cleanest perspective um the other part has been the auto note portfolio which honestly As we noted late last year, started to manifest itself. We took some significant reserves. We then started to, through the workout process, lease those reserves. As I noted earlier, we had a net charge off, which obviously has a swing on the overall reserve balance as well. So that portfolio activity throughout the course of this year has also kind of created some variability that might have been outside of normal.

Got it. Yeah, extremely helpful. Probably right about those differences. So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Your next question is from Rudy Lay from KBW. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, guys. Morning. Morning. Just one more follow-up on the asset sensitivity and the bond book. Do you have how much cash flows you're expecting from the securities portfolio in 2025? And how should we think about the incremental yield pickup there?

Yeah, so the cash flows, you know, it's an estimate, but cash flows between $250, $300 million on a full year basis. You know, think about the weighted average yield on the portfolio at right at 310 basis points. And, you know, the reinvestment yield today, and I think that's where it becomes difficult, but we believe the reinvestment yield today will be between, you know, 450 and 475 basis points. Obviously, as the rate paradigm shifts, that could change, but we believe there's probably about 150 basis points of pickup and positive carry on that rollover balance as we go throughout the year.

Okay, that's helpful. And then I wanted to shift over to deposits. I mean, it was a really strong quarter for deposit growth. Just any color on the trends there?

You know, I think during the quarter and really during the second half of the year, we had some strong customer activity. both in terms of just normal flows and activity, but also we did have some, I'd say, episodic events where we had customers that were able to sell their businesses, liquidate properties, exit properties and the like. And so that did drive up kind of year-end balances. We expect to see through the first quarter, some of that, you know, normalized as those customers start to put those funds to use in either new products or move them out for wealth management purposes and the like. So we do think, you know, we probably hit a high water market, 1231. We'll start to see that normalized in the first quarter for, you know, normal reasons like, dividend distributions and payments and incentive payments and the like, tax payments, but also some of those larger, more episodic events, those customers starting to make longer-term decisions around where that cash will be. That said, I do think we continue to focus on growing our treasury services platform. as well as further integrating with our customers around their operating accounts and the like. So it is a foundational strategy and approach for us to continue to grow deposits, which we'd expect to do. But that said, we did have some episodic favorable events in the third and fourth quarter that kind of moved deposit balances higher.

Got it. And then lastly, just shifting over to credit, criticized, saw a nice step down. Just any detail you could provide on upgrades you saw there?

Yeah, I mean, we saw, as I noted in my comments, I mean, we saw a few very specific upgrades. One in particular was our commercial real estate space where we've had some customers and some property. We had some customers put forth some additional capital there and cash flows, you know, started to improve as a result of that. So, you know, this is one of those processes that we evaluate each quarter. And again, as I noted, we look across the portfolio. We don't see any large systemic credit risk exposures in place, but we continue to monitor each credit closely, kind of one by one in this particular scenario, though it was one of our real estate customers that received an upgrade in the period.

All right. That's all for me. Thanks for taking my questions. Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you. Your next question is from Jordan Ghent from Stevens. Your line is now open.

Hello, Jordan. Your line is now open. Are you on mute? Hello, Jordan.

Seems like we lost Jordan. There are no further questions at this time. The question and answer session is now closed. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining. You may all disconnect your lines.