Prosperity Bancshares, Inc.

Good morning, and welcome to the Prosperity Bank Shares second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in 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 on your telephone keypad. 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 Charlotte Rasche. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Prosperity Bank Shares' second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. This call is being broadcast live over on our website and will be available for replay for the next few weeks. I'm Charlotte Rasche, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Prosperity Bank Shares, and here with me today is David Zalman, Senior Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, H.E. Tim Tomanis, Jr., Chairman, Alsobek Osmanov, Chief Financial Officer, Eddie Safedy, Vice Chairman, Kevin Hannigan, President and Chief Operating Officer, Randy Hester, Chief Lending Officer, Maze Davenport, Director of Corporate Strategy, and Bob Dowdell, Executive Vice President. David Zolman will lead off with a review of the highlights for the recent quarter. He will be followed by Osobek Osmanov, who will review some of our recent financial statistics, and Tim Tamanis, who will discuss our lending activities, including asset quality. Finally, we will open the call for questions. Before we begin, let me make the usual disclaimers. Certain of the matters discussed in this presentation may constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the federal securities laws, and as such, may involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results or performance of Prosperity Bank shares to be materially different from future results or performance expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to be materially different than those in the forward-looking statements can be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including forms 10Q and 10K and other reports and statements we have filed. All forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. Now let me turn the call over to David Zalman.

Thank you, Charlotte. I would like to welcome and thank everyone listening to our second quarter 2025 conference call. I'm proud to announce that we entered into a definitive agreement with the American Bank Holding Company and Corpus Christi to merge. We have followed American Bank closely for more than two decades and have tremendous respect for the bank and for the people that have contributed to its success. Our banks have a complementary footprint and we are familiar with and remain committed to the communities that American Bank serves, including with both financial products and community support. This combination will strengthen our presence and operations in South Texas and surrounding areas and enhance our presence in Central Texas, including in San Antonio, a highly desirable high growth area. With regard to earnings, Our net income was 135 million for the three months ending June 30, 2025, compared with 111 million for the same period in 2024, an increase of 23 million, or 21%. The net income per diluted common share was $1.42 for the three months ending June 30, 2025, compared with $1.17 for the same period in 2024, an increase of 21%. Net income for three months ending June 30, 2024 included the impact of a merger-related credit loss provision and merger-related expenses from the Lone Star transaction, the FDIC Special Assessment, a net gain on the Visa Stock Exchange, and the Sullivan Investment Securities. Excluding these one-time items for the three months ending in June 30, 2024, the net income was $116 million, and earnings per share was $1.22. When comparing these results with the quarter ended June 30, 2025, net income increased 18 million to 135 million, or 16%, and our earnings per share increased 20 cents or 16.4%. Our annualized return on average assets and average tangible common equity for the quarter ending June 30, 2025 compared with the same period in 2024 were a 1.41% return on average assets compared with 1.17% and 13.44% return on average tangible common equity compared to 12.34%. The net interest margin on a tax equivalent basis was 3.18% for the three months ending June 30, 2025, compared with 2.94% for the same period in 2024, and with 3.14% for the three months ending March 30, 2025. As mentioned on prior calls, these are the results we expected and we anticipate these tailwinds should continue to be positive for the near future. Loans were $22.1 billion at June 30, 2025, a decrease of $123 million compared with $22.3 billion at June 30, 2024. Our linked quarter loans increased $219 million, or 4% annualized from $21.9 billion at March 31st, 2025. Overall, the bank grew loans by $220 million in the second quarter of 2025, or 4% on an annualized basis, with most of the growth attributable to the seasonal strength of the mortgage warehouse business. We remain positive on our ability to grow loans in the second half of the year. We saw consistently higher monthly new production numbers in the second quarter, and core commercial loans, excluding mortgage warehouse loans, were up 73 million, or 2.4% annualized. We have been focused on using our liquidity to fund commercial loan growth, and we are starting to see progress. Deposits were 27.4 billion at June 30, 2025, a decrease of $459 million or 1.6% when compared with $27.9 billion at June 30, 2024. The linked quarter deposits decreased $553 million or 2% from $28 billion at March 31, 2025, primarily due to decreases in public fund deposits higher-cost deposits acquired in the recent acquisitions, and business deposits, and our disciplined deposit pricing. Prosperity generally experiences seasonality with its public fund deposits as public fund customers use the top tax dollars that they receive in December and January throughout the year, resulting in lower deposit balances in the second and third quarters of the year. Our bankers' focus is on building core deposits Our non-interest bearing deposits represented 34.3% of our total deposits at June 30, 2025. With regard to asset quality, our non-performing assets totaled 110 million or 33 basis points of quarterly average interest earning assets at June 30, 2025, compared with 89 million or 25 basis points of quarterly average interest earning assets at June 30, 2024, and 81 million, or 24 basis points, of quarterly average interest-earning assets at March 31, 2025, with a significant portion of the balance for each period attributable to the acquired loans. At June 30, 2025, the allowance for credit losses and loans was $346 million, and the allowance for credit losses on loans and off balance sheet credit exposure was $383 million. The allowance for credit losses on loans was 3.47 times the amount of non-performing assets. We were very excited about our pending merger with American Bank Holding Company and American Banking Corpus Christi. We also continue to have conversations with other bankers considering strategic opportunities. We believe that higher technology and staffing costs, loan competition, succession planning concerns, and increased regulatory burden all point to continued consolidation. We remain ready to move forward in the event a transaction materializes and will be beneficial to our company's long-term future and increased shareholder value. Texas was rated as the second best state for business in 2025 by CNBC. However, we believe it should have been number one. That's just a little humor, guys. Texas continues to shine as more people and companies move to the state because of the business-friendly political structure and no state income tax. Prosperity continues to focus on building core customer relationships, maintaining sound asset quality, and operating the bank in an efficient manner while investing in ever-changing technology and product distribution channels. We intend to continue to grow the company both organically and through mergers and acquisitions. I want to thank everyone involved in our company for helping to make it the success it has become. Thanks again for your support of our company. Let me turn over our discussion to Osobek Osmanov, our Chief Financial Officer, to discuss some of the specific financial results we achieved. Osobek.

Thank you, Mr. Zalman. Good morning, everyone. Net interest income before provision for credit losses for the three months ended June 30, 2025 was $267.7 million, an increase of $8.9 million compared to $258.8 million for the same period in 2024, an increase of $2.3 million compared to $265.4 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2025. Fair value loan income for the second quarter of 2025 was $3.1 million compared to $3.3 million for the first quarter of 2025. The fair value loan income for the third quarter of 2025 is expected to be in the range of $2 to $3 million. The net interest margin on a tax equivalent basis was 3.18% for the three months ended June 30, 2025. An increase of 24 basis points compared to 2.94% for the same period in 2024, and an increase of four basis points compared to 3.14% for the quarter ended March 31, 2025. Excluding purchase accounting adjustments, the net interest margin for the three months ended June 30, 2025 was 3.14% compared to 2.86% for the same period in 2024 and 3.1% for the quarter ended March 31, 2025. Non-interest income was $43 million for the three months ended June 30, 2025, compared to $41.3 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2025, and $46 million for the same period in 2024. The prior year non-interest income included $10.7 million in net gain on sale of securities. Non-interest expense for the three months ended June 30, 2025, was $138.6 million compared to $140.3 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2025 and $152.8 million for the same period in 2024. The prior year non-interest expense included $4.4 million in merger related expenses and $3.6 million in FDIC special assessments. For the third quarter of 2025, we expect non-interest expense to be in the range of $141 to $144 million. The efficiency ratio was 44.8% for the three months ended June 30, 2025, compared to 45.7% for the quarter ended March 31, 2025, and 51.8% for the same period in 2024. The bond portfolio metrics at 6-30-2025 have a modified duration of 3.8 and projected annual cash flows of approximately 1.9 billion. And with that, let me turn over the presentation to Tim Kimanis for some details on loan and asset quality.

Thank you, Osselbeck. Non-performing assets at quarter end June 30th, 2025 totaled $110,487,000. are 50 basis points of loans and other real estate. Compared to $81,419,000 are 37 basis points at March 31st, 2025. This is an increase of $29,068,000 on a length quarter basis. Since June 30th, 2025, $1,138,000 of non-performing assets have been put under contract for sale. The June 30th, 2025 non-performing asset total was made up of $102,607,000 in loans, $6,000 in repossessed assets, and $7,874,000 and other real estate. Net charge-offs for the three months ended June 30th, 2025 were $3,017,000 compared to net charge-offs of $2,704,000 for the quarter ended March 31st, 2025. This is an increase of $313,000 on a linked quarter basis. There was no addition to the allowance for credit losses during the quarter ended June 30th, 2025. No dollars were taken into income from the allowance during the quarter ended June 30th, 2025. The average monthly new loan production for the quarter ended June 30th, 2025 was $353 million compared to $317 million for the quarter ended March 31st, 2025. This is a $36 million increase on a link quarter basis. Loans outstanding at June 30th, 2025 were approximately $22.197 billion compared to $21.978 billion at March 31st, The June 30, 2025 loan total is made up of 36% fixed rate loans, 34% floating rate loans, and 30% variable rate loans. I will now turn it over to Charlotte Rasche.

Thank you, Tim. At this time, we are prepared to answer your questions. Our call operator will assist us with questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. 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 comes from Michael Rose with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Good morning. Just wanted to get some color.

Good morning.

Just wanted to get some color. You know, it looks like there was some purchase loan decline this quarter, but can we just get an update on any sort of revised expectations for loan growth X warehouse? Seems like the industry is starting to pick up a little bit here. I assume you had some paydowns as well that were kind of impacting this quarter's growth. I did sense some optimism at the front of the call, so just trying to get an update there. And then if Kevin's there, we'd love the update on the warehouse. It looks like it did a little bit better on average than what he talked about last quarter. Thanks.

Yeah, thanks, Michael. I'll try to tackle both and see if anybody wants to add on. I think in terms of loan growth, the quarter has started off a little better than the prior quarters. We do have some loan growth, not Not a ton, call it $40 million worth so far for the quarter. Pipeline looks pretty good. So I think low single-digit growth for the rest of the year is probably achievable. Just as an aside, we've also had some okay core deposit growth, I think almost maybe $90 million so far for the quarter. So both of those seems to have stabilized a bit. Loan demand's okay. If there's been another point of weakness, it's been usage on corporate or middle market kind of revolvers. Usage is down quite a bit from where it had been with people taking excess cash and paying down debt rather than growing their balance sheets. And we'll see whether that shifts around or not. I think a lot of that was tariff related. On the warehouse, just by way of background, we averaged for the last quarter $1.179 billion. We thought it would be about $1.150 billion, so we were just slightly ahead of what we were thinking. So far for this quarter, Michael, through last night, we have averaged $1.307 billion, to be exact. And last night we closed out a little lower than normal at $1.226 billion. That's not unusual for this time of the month. We get a lot of Ginnie Mae settlements in the 20th, 21st, 22nd of every month. On balance, I think we will probably average a little better this quarter than last at $1,250,000. Typically, our third quarter is our best quarter in normal times, and these are more kind of normal times. I do expect it to be a little bit better, close to $100 million better on average than Q2.

Yeah, I think the thing that we liked about it too, rightly or wrongly, we really saw commercial or commercial loans pick up and mortgage loans went down. Again, we have so many mortgage loans that we've seen that there were $73 million more in commercial loans increase. I think that was good. And we do seem to see... A lot of, I don't know, I wouldn't call it production, but there's a lot of stuff going through the loan committee now. So things look pretty good, I think.

Michael, this is Tim. Yes, with regard to what David just said. And I do see coming up the next handful of months basically the same way that Kevin does. So I think he's spot on.

Very helpful. And then maybe one for also back just on the on the margin, you know, not as much momentum there, I think, as we would have thought. You have the range that you talked about, 325 to 330. I noticed that, you know, interest bearing deposit costs were flat. So maybe just walk us through some of the puts and takes as we think about the next couple of quarters, you know.

uh you know bond portfolio pricing uh pickup uh further ability to lower deposit costs cds maturing you know kind of etc and just how we should think about the the trend relative to what you talked about earlier this year thanks michael let me just start off okay i have kind of the model in front of me and just to kind of give you some color i mean we're look our net interest margin continues it might it continues to go grow i think we're showing with no change in interest rates at 335 3.35% net interest margin in six months. If interest rates go down 100 basis points in that six months, it's at 3.3%. On a 12-month time frame with no change in interest rates, we get to 3.48%. And with 100 basis points down in 12 months, we're at 3.40. 24 months, and I won't go past that, we're at 3.8%. 76% with no change in net interest margin, and 3.61 with the 100 basis points down. So our models still continue to show great expansion in the net interest margin over a period of time. Sorry to jump in on you.

No, that's absolutely right. And just give a little bit of a color on the question why we're achieving these numbers. If you look at our model, our cost of deposit model shows it's going to continue to stay as is. You know, there's no much downward decrease on the cost of deposit. But what we see is the repricing of two things, right? First of all, it's our bond portfolio. As we mentioned, we have about $1.9 billion of cash flowing each year and rate on that is about 2.15% of your take, even take. So that's going to be repricing at least, you know, depending on if you put it on the loans, repricing at 300 plus basis points. But if it was going to Put it in securities, it's still more than 2.5%. On the loan side, we have about $5 billion cash flow coming in. So out of that, with about 60% or $3 billion, it's more like fixed variable rate. That's going to reprice higher than what we're putting currently on the loans. So those drivers showing in our model that it will help us to continue to increase the margin and net interest income. So I think our model still continues to show that we should be on average for the year to be the range we provide to, I mean, 3.25 to 3.3 NIM for the year.

Okay. I appreciate all the call, everyone. I'll step back. Thanks.

The next question is from Catherine Mueller with KBW. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. I want to follow up on the margin. Hey, good morning. I just want to follow up on the margin with just the size of the balance sheet to kind of think about, you know, I saw the cash and average earning assets kind of came down. How should we be thinking about just the size of the bond book and the size of cash in the next couple quarters?

Well, again, I'll start off. I mean, I think the balance sheet size, if you look year over year, we were down 1.6% in the deposit side. And then you look at this quarter, as mentioned earlier, this is seasonally a time when we do lose deposits. So we think that the deposits probably have stabilized. And so I think that you'll probably see probably the third quarter still kind of, I guess, where we're at kind of right now, but should start picking up in the fourth quarter for sure. So we should see fourth and first quarter pick up in that. And I think that a lot of it depends on interest rates, I think, in general. I mean, If we really wanted to build the balance sheet, and we weren't as disciplined as we were, we don't have any broker deposits, we could easily bring in a bigger balance sheet if you're willing to pay the 5%, 4.5%, 4.5%, 5% interest rate. So you can build the balance sheet, but we've been trying to be very disciplined and really manage our net interest margin. That's kind of where we're at right now. But overall, to answer your question, I think that we have stabilized, and I think you will see growth going forward. Not tremendous growth, but growth.

I agree. That's exactly right. And I would just say on the model, fundamentally nothing changed from us. It just was the deposit drop-off we saw in the second quarter impacted NII as we saw it. But fundamentally, our model is still showing that continued expansion in the margin and net interest income.

You also have reduced your borrowings from the Federal Home Loan Bank compared to last year, where we were at 3.9 last year.

Yeah, in the beginning of 3.9, and we reduced to 2.9 this year.

And again, that was a big drop in the asset size. It shouldn't affect the net interest income, but just a big drop in the asset size. Correct.

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And then on loan yields... Also, Matt, I feel like mixed shifts just within your balance sheet is what's driving the margin expansion. But I'm curious if you see some more upward momentum in loan yields as maybe growth improves into the back half of the year as well.

I'd say yes. A couple of things is mixed. Less mortgage, more commercial. So I think we'll pick it up there. As Austin Beck said, a shift out of bonds and into loans also improves And, you know, as we looked at it, you know, you probably, someone mentioned early in the early reports this morning that loans held for investment, the yield was down a basis point. And that's really just in terms of inside baseball, we always have, not always, but typically have some non-accrual pickup income in a quarter. We had more than usual last quarter, maybe 2.3, 2.4 million, and we had We had $400,000 this quarter. And that, believe it or not, on the overall loan yields, that changed loan yields to minus one basis point versus up two or three. So that's just a small inside baseball piece of it. So this quarter, maybe last quarter wasn't quite as good as it was advertised or written. And this quarter is not as bad. Just a couple of basis point difference. But we don't see that number being down this quarter, it's an aberration, not a trend.

Okay, that's very helpful. So still upward momentum in loan pricing as expected.

Yeah, yeah.

That's great. Okay, great. Thank you.

The next question is from Manon Gosalia with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, all.

Good morning.

I wanted to focus on the acquisition and specifically on the NII accretion from the acquisition. Can you comment on, I guess, what sort of NII you think you can get from the acquisition? Are there any revenue synergies that you're building in? Is there any benefit on the deposit cost side? And if there's any loans that you might want to run off after completing the acquisition?

Okay, I'll take that one. And I'll start off with deposit and what we... Notice that American Invest has really good deposit base and very similar to ours. That's what attracted us to American Bank. And if you look at their cost of deposit, it was 1.66%, very close to ours. You know, compare if you look just overall industry, very low. That was, they have very strong deposit base. On the loans, they yield in higher than ours. I think their loan yield about 6.43. So both of them taking those is very going to be accretive to our margin. If you look overall on dollar-wise, I think on an annual basis, it's going to bring, if you just take the run rate, it's about $85 to $90 million on NII themselves. But in addition, we're going to be having some markups on those loans to the fair value. And also, we're going to have AOCI adjustment on their bond, which can generate additional $15 million per year, $15 to $16 million. So combining those, we know it's going to be pretty strong expansion on our net interest income. If you look at our margin ones, if we calculated, it gives about mid-single digit on the margin increase overall.

I think you could say also that American Bank is very similar to us. If you look at our cost of deposits, their cost of deposits were very close. And again, I don't think you're going to see, with some banks that join us, we know going in, that there's going to be a pretty good loan runoff and a pretty good deposit runoff. We don't see that in American Bank. We feel comfortable. They're very much like we are, and I don't see, I don't, I just, I think it's just a good core bank. Really, it's a peach.

That's helpful. And then maybe on capital deployment priorities from here, I think you mentioned in your opening comments that you continue to have conversations. It looks like you're opening more M&A. But this is also an all-stock acquisition. Is there any ability to maybe buy back some of the stock you've issued in the open market once the acquisition closes?

Right now, there's a lot of activity in M&A. And again, I suspect that we'll be using some of that capital that we have going forward probably in M&A.

Got it. Thank you.

The next question is from Peter Winter with DA Davidson. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I wanted to ask. Good morning. I wanted to ask about the Loan Star portfolio. Loans were down about $180 million year-over-year, and deposits were down about $250 million year-over-year. So are you nearing a bottom? And then maybe if you can talk about the quality of American banks' loans and deposits, would you expect some runoff once you close that deal?

I'll start. Lone Star Bank did have a lot of higher cost deposits, so we're not rattled by that amount of deposits. And they were extremely high cost, sometimes 100 basis points more than what we were paying. So we suspected that. As far as the loan side, somebody may be able to help me with the loan side. I know that we, I think overall the loan quality was really, Pretty good. We have one large loan that got thrown into the non-performing assets that was 13 or 14 million. But again, it's well securitized. I don't think that we see any loss in that. Their underwriting at Lone Star Bank was very good, I think. I mean, with the exception of this one credit that we have, I think they were very good. Going forward with American Bank, again, a little bit different in some underwriting, but I think if anybody came and looked at us from another bank, they would think we're different than them. I think overall, I don't see the deposit loss or the, and there'll always be some, but I don't see the deposit loss or the loan loss in the American deal. I think it's just a really good core bank. It's hard to find real good core banks like this, and this is really a good core bank.

And David, one thing I would mention, I do think that Loan Star has stabilized in terms of loans and deposits both. The future will tell us, but I do feel like they're stabilized.

We knew going in there was a certain portion. They were about 100%. There were some 5% CDs that were going to go.

That's correct. From day one, they have worked very closely and very well with us. to address those issues and deal with them.

We knew that even going in, so it wasn't anything none of us expected. Let me say that.

That's correct.

By recap, I think we're done or near done with Lone Star Strengthening, and I think American Bank is just a different animal. It's been around 50-plus years, really, really solid deposit franchise. I mean, very, very solid. Credit quality, good. Maybe underwriting a little different than us, but the credit quality, very good. Does that mean there'll be zero runoff? No, but it's going to be very mild, very, very mild. This is not a big shift in terms of what they're paying on deposits versus us. It's a high quality franchise. We're lucky to get it.

Yeah, I think the American bank deal makes, you know, we have a big strong position in the Houston market. We have a strong position in the Dallas market and a good position in the Austin market. But again, along the Gulf of America, We have Victoria. And again, it was such a great merger with us. I mean, they joined us, and we became the number one market share in that whole second-tier market. Well, right down the road is Corpus Christi, and this gives us the number one market share in Corpus Christi. And I mean, so we really have become number one market share or major market shares in these second-tier markets like... like Victoria, like Corpus Christi, like Odessa, Lubbock, Midland, Bryan College Station, and those are really great markets, and this just fits in just perfectly with that, not to mention that it gives us, we really needed some locations in the San Antonio market, but we only had one, and I think this gives us, what, four more locations in the San Antonio market, so it really helps us get a jump in the San Antonio market as well, so we're really excited about that.

Thank you for all that detail. I could ask on credit, I'm certainly not worried about credit with you guys, but just curious about the, what drove the increase, 29 million increase in non-performing assets. And then, you know, just what's the outlook for non-performing assets going forward? Just given the comment, most of it is acquired loans, which you have reserves against, but I'm just wondering when, when those starts should start to decline.

I think I can address that for you. The increase is really made up of three buckets, so to speak. One is a $13 million loan that David referred to a minute ago from Lone Star State Bank. It's real estate secured. We think we're probably not going to lose any money. from that loan, time will tell, but that's our forecast right now. So that's 13 million. There's another one, 19 million, that's from the Legacy Texas portfolio. It's secured by notes on used vehicles. We do think there's a bit of a loss there, but it's fully reserved. So we don't see any negative impact from that standpoint. The biggest change is we've got about $51 million in single-family homes included in the non-performing. We made efforts starting a couple of years ago to increase our minority home loans. And the result is we've taken several homes back. The good news is as we are able to foreclose on them, we've been able to sell them all relatively quickly. So we think this is something that we're going to work through over the course of the next year. But if you look at those three buckets, one is $51 million, one is $13 million, and one is $19 million. that's a huge percentage of the total non-performing assets. So we think we're dealing with all those effectively.

Yeah, and just to add to what we see in the future, you never know what's going to happen in the future, but we don't see anything in our commercial loan system that's particularly worrisome at this stage of the game. I would say that there is a chance, maybe even likelihood, that we continue to tick up just a little bit on the single family mortgage portfolio from that $51 million that it's at today. Fortunately, that asset class is a very low loss given default. And I think the bottom line is, as we sit here today, obviously we went through all of this in our reserve analysis at the end of the quarter for quarter end and concluded we didn't need to add the reserves. And we'll see where we are next quarter. I don't see anything on the horizon that's going to change that.

We also cut the product off. This was a product that was designed just for minority lending, low-income lending. Again, there's not much money down, and you even get some walking around money when you go. This was to help with fair lending. Again, it's kind of a catch-22. If you don't produce a certain amount of this kind of production, then if you really want to expand and grow, you're out of the game also. So it's just part of the deal. But, again, I think that we've got it all under control. And the good news is that as we've repossessed this stuff, we've gotten out of it pretty quick with very little loss.

That's right. And we did discontinue that type of loan actually over a year ago.

Right, over a year ago.

Got it. Thanks for taking the questions. I appreciate it.

The next question is from Steven Scouten with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks, everyone. Appreciate it. Just going back to American Bank, and, David, you noted the four additional branches in San Antonio. Given that that's, I think you guys said, the third largest MSA in Texas, do you look to deepen that franchise further in San Antonio beyond this acquisition? Could you look at new hires, or could incremental M&A in that market be in the cards? I guess I should just say stay tuned, I guess. Okay, fair enough. And then maybe on pricing around the deal, I mean, the three-year earn-back feels like maybe towards the longer end of what we've seen from you guys. Would you say that that was kind of pushing the limits of what you would want to do from an earn-back perspective on a deal?

Does that three-year, Cullen, help me, does that three-year include the, you know, the way it was priced, it looks like it was priced higher than some of the other deals at 2.2 times. But again, When we looked at the bank and you added back the AOCI, the price was like 1.8 times, which for a bank like that, we thought was a very, very good deal. So that three-year, was that based on the... It does include that, yeah. It does include that. But again, I think for a bank that's a quality bank like this, that three years is not unreasonable at all, and I'd do it again tomorrow if we get another bank like that. It's really a sweet bank.

Okay, great. And then just as you think about future targets, I mean, I know the last three deals have been maybe towards the smaller end, more digestible into the spectrum. Do you think about, you know, maybe a more meaningfully sized deal? And additionally, would you look at anything outside of Texas and Oklahoma today, or do you want to continue to deepen that footprint in the strength of those markets?

I guess I'd just say stay tuned. I mean, there's a lot of activity going on right now, you know, and hard to give Again, I can repeat what we've said in the past that we always like Texas and it's always a fill-in. If you're in a car and you drive 30 minutes anywhere, you're going to see one of our banks. So when we can fill in, I don't think we're in the valley. That may be the first part of the valley and probably El Paso. Anywhere else you go to Texas, you're going to see us wherever you go. So I think that our first and foremost is always in Texas and we're in Oklahoma too if something developed there. But again, of a certain... If an asset were outside the state, again, we're not going to go outside the state for a $2.5 billion deal. But again, if it's a deal that really has true market share, it's really helpful and it helps us from a strategic point of view from where we're going and where we're going to be, the answer to that would be yes.

Great. And maybe one last point of clarification on the NIM trajectory you talked about, David. I think you said $335 could happen in six months, $348 over 12 months, et cetera. Does that include the mid-single-digit impact to the margin from American Bank, or is that kind of on your existing balance sheet?

No, this is just our existing balance sheet, so that should help, no question. Perfect. Thanks for the clarification. Thanks for the time today.

Yeah. The next question is from Ibrahim Poonawalla with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hey, everyone. This is Eric on for EBR. Just had more on the fee income line. It has been running above, I know previously you've talked about 36 to 38 million as kind of the run rate that you view, but it's been above that for several quarters now. Is the run rate in your mind higher now? Like, how should we think about that kind of moving forward?

Yeah, Eric, I agree. I think I would probably update our run rate to 38 to 40 million now because what we've seen very strong, you know, our service fees and debit card fees overall. has increased because of the volume. So yes, we see increase on overall managers income. So I would say I would update range to 38 to 40 million. Okay, that's helpful.

And then maybe one more on M&A. David, based on everything you've said, I have a guess of what you'll say, but does the American deal limit the ability to complete any other deals until that closes or are you still very active?

No, we're still very active.

Got it. Okay. That was it for me. Thank you.

The next question is from John Arstrom with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Good morning. Hey, just to follow up on that, I know you guys had a tough time with the last deal getting it closed on time. Any evidence of less regulatory pressures, David? I mean, I don't think you're going to get into that. situation again. But any evidence of that?

I hope so. You saw the cadence deal close in just a few months. But again, we understand that that bank, the industry bank, they wanted to get that off of their books before something else happened. But everybody else that we've talked to so far, it looks, you know, historically, we used to get a bank deal done in three months. And I'm hoping that Charlotte may jump in, but I'm still thinking that, you know, we're going to go back to those three to four months. I think that I think that's what we're looking at. That last deal, it started off with the DOJ in a town of 10,000 people that we were a big bank in. I mean, there were so many miles from Tyler or something. I don't want to get into all the details. And then it was another deal after that. From what everybody tells me, they're more focused on substance instead of form right now. Unless something changes in the administration, which I don't see happening right now, I think It seems to be a lot much cleaner and clearer path where we're going, and I think everybody kind of knows where they're going right now.

Okay. And then you kind of alluded to this. I have two more questions here, but you kind of alluded to this, but do you feel like you have enough branch density in some of your larger markets? And then also curious about some of the faster-growing outer suburbs of the big cities in Texas. Do you feel like you have density there, or is that a target for you?

That's what we're building right now. I do think if you look at Houston, Dallas, Austin, probably the only place that we don't have enough stores or locations is probably the San Antonio markets, which we would much like to be much bigger there. Anytime we can move into a market and be a number one market share in the second tier like Corpus Christi, that's just stuff we love. We've done that Victoria, Corpus, Midland, Odessa. Love it, Gary. Bryant College Station. So whenever we can do that, that's really a sweet spot for us, really.

Okay. And then, Kevin, one for you, follow-up from very early. You talked about revolvers being down a bit, and you thought it was maybe just, you know, maybe from some of the uncertainty last quarter. But anything else in your mind driving that change, and do you expect that to stabilize?

I do. I do. We spent... the better part of a couple of days digging into it here last week and this week and talking to clients. And I think it's not only going to stabilize, it's probably going to go the other way.

Okay. And you feel like it's starting to turn now? It is. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Charlotte Rashi for any closing remarks.

Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for taking the time to participate in our call today. We appreciate your support of our company, and we will continue to work on building shareholder value.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.