Synovus Financial Corp.

Good morning and welcome to the Sonovus Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Cool. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a confidence 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'll now turn the call over to Jennifer Denver, head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning. During today's call, we will reference the slides and press release that are available within the Investor Relations section of our website, sonovus.com. Kevin Blair, chairman, president and chief executive officer, will begin the call. He will be followed by Jamie Gregory, chief financial officer, and we will be available to answer your questions at the end of the call. Our comments include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and the actual results could vary materially. We list these factors that might cause results to differ materially in our press release and in our SEC filings, which are available on our website. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements because of new information, early developments, or otherwise, except as may be required by law. During the call, we will reference non-GAAP financial measures related to the company's performance. You may see the reconciliation of these measures in the appendix to our presentation. And now, Kevin Blair will provide an overview of the quarter.

Thank you, Jennifer. Good morning and welcome to our third quarter 2024 earnings call. Before I begin our call, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the profound impact of hurricanes Helene and Milton on our community. The devastation has been immense, affecting countless lives and businesses. However, in the face of such adversity, we have witnessed incredible resilience and solidarity. Our communities are coming together, determined to recover and rebuild stronger than ever. At Sinovus, we are committed to supporting these efforts and playing an active role in the recovery process. Together, we will overcome these challenges and build a brighter future. Now let's review third quarter results. Sinovus reported GAAP earnings per share of $1.18, which included an $8.7 million visa valuation adjustment. We reported adjusted diluted PPS of $1.23, which increased 6% sequentially, primarily driven by stronger net interest income coupled with lower provision for credit losses and stable adjusted non-interest expense. The most notable financial headlines for the quarter included a sequentially higher net interest margin, year over year adjusted revenue growth of over 2%, driven by a 15% jump in adjusted non-interest revenue, coupled with an adjusted non-interest expense decline of 1%. Finally, our net charge-offs improved again in the third quarter, down to 25 basis points, and our liquidity and capital positions remain quite strong. Sinovus continues to demonstrate progress in various key initiatives. We are steadily attracting talent in various client-facing and corporate services roles. Non-interest revenue growth remains strong, and lending pipelines in production are returning to more elevated levels. Lastly, I'm extremely pleased with the continued progress we are delivering in strengthening our balance sheet, which positions us well as we close out 2024 and pivot towards a more constructive growth environment in 2025. Now let's turn to slides 3, 4, and 5 for some more specifics on the financial highlights for the quarter. Net interest income increased 1% from the second quarter as the net interest margin expanded 2 basis points to 3.22%. Funded loan production rose 8% sequentially, and period-end loans were up $27 million. We continue to generate healthy and consistent loan growth in the middle market, CIB, and specialty commercial units. While line utilization was stable. However, loan pay down and payoff activity and strategic rationalization and non-relationship credit provided a headwind to third quarter outstanding growth. Core deposit growth of 1% was attributable to increases in money market and operating deposits. Non-interest bearing deposits were more stable in the third quarter with a decline of $94 million sequentially. Furthermore, we reduced broker deposits for the fifth consecutive quarter. Our team remains very focused on accelerating core funding generation through sales activities and product expansion while continuing to manage through an overall diminishment cycle. Adjusted non-interest revenue declined 4% from the prior quarter, primarily from lower capital markets income. On a -over-year basis, adjusted non-interest revenue increased significantly, up 15% as there was sharp growth in commercial sponsorship income from expansion of the card sponsorship business and our partnership with Green Sky. Capital markets and treasury and payment solutions fees also contributed to a strong -over-year growth. Adjusted non-interest expense was relatively flat -over-quarter and down 1% on a -over-year basis. Our 2023 cost initiatives as well as ongoing diligence have contained overall expense growth -over-year. We have also maintained a level of strategic investment that positions Sanobis well from a competitive standpoint in order to drive long-term shareholder value. On the asset quality front, as expected, net charge also for 25 basis points compared to 32 basis points in the second quarter, while the allowance for credit losses were relatively stable at 1.24%. Lastly, we further bolstered our common equity tier one ratio in the third quarter through solid earnings accretion while still completing about $100 million of opportunistic share repurchases. Common equity tier one levels are at their highest in nine years at .65% and currently set just above our stated range of 10 to 10.5%. Our successes are anchored by our team members and their dedication and passion for delivering the Sanobis purpose on a daily basis. Financially, this was a strong quarter of execution where we posted an adjusted return on average assets of .3% and an adjusted return on tangible common equity of .1% while managing down our adjusted tangible efficiency ratio to 53%. Moreover, we continue to deliver in areas that have presented broader risk concerns surrounding the industry by lowering credit costs, limiting fraud losses, reducing wholesale funding, and delivering deposit betas during the easing cycle, all while maintaining elevated levels of capital. We are demonstrating great progress and momentum that will continue into the fourth quarter and beyond. And now I'll turn it over to Jamie to cover the third quarter results in greater detail.

Jamie? Thank you, Kevin. Moving to slide six, period-end loans grew $27 million from the prior quarter. Loan production, which was up 8% sequentially and 6% year over year, has started to show signs of a rebound within both our CRE and CNI segments. Line utilization was essentially stable. However, increased commercial loan production was offset by commercial real estate payoffs, consumer softness, and continued non-relationship portfolio rationalization. Strong -to-date growth in strategic lending verticals, such as middle market, corporate and investment banking, and specialty lines, has been essentially offset by paydowns and payoffs and non-relationship loan portfolio rationalization. We generated $149 million in sequential growth and $604 million, or 5% -to-date growth, in middle market commercial, CIB, and specialty lines. This was offset by a $212 million -to-date decline in institutional CRE and senior housing loans from market-related activity. We continue to strategically reduce our non-relationship lending within our national accounts portfolio as well as third-party consumer loans, further positioning our balance sheet for core client growth. These balances were down $78 million in the third quarter and $427 million -to-date. Overall, we estimate loans will remain stable in the fourth quarter driven by continued growth in our key commercial segments, offset by CRE and senior housing payoffs and paydown activity. As we look into 2025, we expect the market-related and strategic declines to abate, positioning us well to return to a growth posture that is core to our value proposition. Turning to slide 7, period-end core deposit balances rose $295 million, or 1%, on a link quarter basis. -interest-bearing deposit balances fell $94 million from the prior quarter, with balances generally exhibiting more stability throughout the quarter relative to the headwinds experienced over the last year. There was growth in money market and operating accounts, partially offset by a decline in -interest-bearing savings and time deposits. Meanwhile, broker deposits declined $297 million, or 5%, from the second quarter, which was the fifth consecutive quarter of contraction. Deposit calls rose four basis points from the prior quarter to 2.72%, primarily as a result of mixed shift and the residual impact of higher average non-inspiring deposit balances in the second quarter. As we ended the quarter, we saw deposit rates begin to decline, led by reductions in rates on higher beta deposits as well as time deposits. As we look to the fourth quarter, we expect deposit calls to generally follow the -45% beta that we have communicated previously. It is worth highlighting that approximately two-thirds of our core time deposit portfolio matures within the next five months. In terms of deposit balance expectations for the fourth quarter, we expect broad-based deposit growth across our business segments supported by seasonal public funds tailwinds. Moving to slide eight, net interest income was $441 million in the third quarter, an increase of 1% quarter over quarter, while the net interest margin was two basis points higher at 3.22%. The third quarter now benefited from various drivers, which included a full quarter impact of the securities repositioning in May and a modest improvement in asset yields, which more than offset the impact of the aforementioned negative deposit mixed shifts and other lesser factors. Net interest income benefited from the slightly wider net interest margin, with lower average loan balances during the quarter serving as a modest headwind. As we look forward to the fourth quarter, we expect that, in isolation, continued FOMC easing will serve as a modest headwind to the net interest margin, largely as a result of the repricing lead lag impacts we have outlined previously. However, opposite that, we expect fixed rate asset repricing, including $750 million in loan edges maturing in the fourth quarter, to help support a relatively stable fourth quarter net interest margin. Kevin will provide further detail on our updated guidance momentarily. Slide nine shows total reported non-instance revenue of $124 million. Adjusted non-instance revenue declined 4% from the previous quarter and increased 15% year over year. When looking at the year-ago quarter, core banking fees increased 6% supported by growth in treasury and payment solutions, while capital markets fees increased 29% and commercial sponsorship income rose sharply. The sequential decline was primarily attributable to a 32% decline in capital markets fees, which were elevated in the second quarter. Wealth management income rose 1% from the prior quarter, while core banking fees were relatively flat. We continue to demonstrate strong non-instance revenue momentum relative to peers by investing in solutions that deepen client relationships and provide healthy growth in areas such as treasury and payment solutions, capital markets, and wealth management. Moving to expense, slide 10 highlights our ongoing operating costs discipline. Reported non-interest expense was $314 million in the third quarter, which included an $8.7 million visa valuation adjustment. Adjusted non-interest expense was relatively stable sequentially and 1% lower from the year-ago period. Employment expense increased 2% from the second quarter, which was offset by a 6% drop in other expense, primarily attributable to lower legal and other credit-related costs. Employment expense had a modest increase of 1% -over-year. The increased costs associated with merit and benefit programs were mitigated by our efficiency efforts, leading to a 4% -over-year decline in headcounts. Occupancy and equipment expense increased 3% as a result of ongoing technology and infrastructure investments. These items were more than offset by a 9% drop in other expense as a result of lower FDIC expense and operational losses relative to the same period last year. Importantly, we will remain proactive with disciplined expense management in this growth-constrained environment. Moving to slide 11 on credit quality. Provision for credit losses declined 11% from the second quarter to $23 million. Our allowance for credit losses ended the third quarter at $535 million, or 1.24%, which is relatively unchanged from the prior period, driven by improved overall performance offset by individually analyzed loans. Our preliminary analysis of the impact of Hurricane Helene indicates that a specific provision for credit losses is not necessary at this time. We will continue to analyze the potential loss impact of both Hurricane Helene and Milton. Net charge-offs in the third quarter were $27 million, or 25 basis points annualized, compared to 32 basis points annualized in the second quarter. Non-performing loans increased $57 million and are now .73% of loans, up from .59% in the second quarter, primarily from a single office loan relationship. The criticized and classified ratio rose slightly to .9% and remains at a very manageable level. We maintain a high degree of confidence in the strength and quality of our loan portfolio, and we will continue to reduce our non-relationship credits and manage the portfolio with a heightened level of diligence in this more uncertain macroeconomic environment. As seen on slide 12, our capital position was stable in the third quarter, with the preliminary common equity tier one ratio reaching .65% and total risk-based capital now at 13.62%. Another strong quarter for core operating performance serves as a continued tailwind to our capital position, which, alongside a relatively stable balance sheet, supported us purchasing approximately $100 million in common shares within the second quarter while maintaining relatively stable capital ratios. As a reminder, our focus remains on prioritizing the deployment of our balance sheet and capital position for core client growth. However, amid the current environment, we have used share-e purchases as a complement to effectively manage within our capital management framework. As we look to the remainder of the year, we will maintain this disciplined approach, which acknowledges the uncertainty in the current environment and ensures sufficient capital for expected client growth. Our remaining share-e purchase authorization in 2024 is approximately $80 million, which we expect will be fully utilized by year end. I'll now turn it back to Kevin to discuss our fourth quarter 2024 guidance.

Thank you, Jamie. I'll now continue with our updated guidance for the fourth quarter of 2024. Based on -to-date results, our current pipeline and expected payoff activity, period-end loans are forecasted to be relatively flat in the fourth quarter and be down 1% to flat for the full year of 2024. Growth in the fourth quarter will continue to be driven by middle market, corporate investment banking, and specialty lending lines. Our expectations for core deposit growth remain within the 1% to 3% range in the fourth quarter and up 2% to 4% for the full year, aided by seasonal public funds, tailwinds, and new core funding growth initiatives. Our outlook now points to adjusted revenue of $560 to $575 million in the fourth quarter and a range of negative 2.5 to negative 2% for the full year. Importantly, our adjusted revenue guidance now assumes a larger amount of rate cuts than our previous guidance, with 50 basis points of cumulative rate cuts occurring in the fourth quarter. Net interest margins should be relatively stable in the fourth quarter as a result of lower deposit costs combined with fixed rate asset repricing and our hedge maturity. Adjusted noninterest revenue growth is forecasted in the -single-digit percentage range for the year. Our capital markets feed pipeline is building, and we continue to execute on core growth in treasury and payment solutions. We remain very focused on discipline expense control. We anticipate our adjusted noninterest expense will be between $305 million and $310 million in the fourth quarter, excluding the FDIC special assessment up approximately 1% for the full year. Given current credit migration trends and assuming a relatively stable economic environment, we expect net charge-offs to remain fairly stable within a 25-35 basis point annualized range in the fourth quarter compared to 33 basis points here today. Moving to the tax rate, our current forecast points to an approximately 21 to 22% level in the fourth quarter.

We will continue

to use share repurchases to manage overall capital at our current levels. There is approximately $80 million of share repurchase authorization remaining, which we expect to fully utilize in the fourth quarter. We will continue to support a strong and liquid balance sheet, which is prioritized towards serving the growth needs of our clients, regardless of the economic environment. And now, operator, this concludes our prepared remarks. Let's open the call for questions.

Thank you. We now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press start and 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 start and 2. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Thank you. Our first question for today comes from Brandon King of Truist. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Good morning, Brandon. Jamie, could you expand on your margin expectations beyond the fourth quarter, particularly if we get a more protracted eating cycle? It seems like, you know, with the lag nature deposits, with that being less of a headwind, we could see some margin expansion as we get into next year. So just wanted to get your overall thoughts on that.

Yeah, thanks, Brandon. As we look at the margin, you know, in the near term, as we said in our guide, we expect the margin to be relatively stable in the fourth quarter, and that would continue early into 2025 as we expect the easing cycle to continue as we go through the first half of next year. But when the easing cycle stops, we do expect to see margin expansion due to the fact that it's going to be a period of time that we think it will be unlocked over time. And so, you know, for us, we think that relatively stable margin in the medium term, and then once you get past the easing cycle, we expect to see the margin start to expand as we unlock the value in those fixed trade exposures.

Okay, got it. In other words, in order to see any expansion you need to expect it to remain on hold, is that a fair assumption?

Well, it depends on how long the easing cycle is. As we've said before, we believe that we are relatively neutral to the front end of the curve. And so, you know, outside of that lead and lag impact, we do believe that we're neutral to the front of the curve. And so at some point, the fixed rate asset repricing tailwind will come in regardless of easing or no easing. And so that, you know, that will happen. But you know, you're right, thinking the medium term, relatively stable on the margin, but the fixed rate asset repricing will start to flow in as we go through 2025 in any scenario.

Okay. Okay. Got it. And then lastly for me on credit, encouraging to see net charge-offs trend lower. I just wanted to get an overall sense of the confidence in that net charge-offs can remain sort of in this range for the foreseeable future and if there are any concerns as far as tail risk out there within your portfolio.

Yeah. Hey, Brandon, it's Bob. I'll take that one. Yeah, we are pretty confident in that guidance range. I mean, certainly this quarter, you know, was at the lower end of our range and we're happy with that. But we're holding on that guidance at 25 to 35, really based on, you know, what we've done in terms of individual loan analysis, et cetera. You know, we had an NPL increase this quarter that Jamie spoke of that is baked in there as well. So yeah, all in all, I think the guidance is good, certainly in the short term. And then as we get into 25, we'll think more about our guidance, certainly as we get into the conferences in January.

Okay. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you, Brandon. Thank

you. Our next question comes from Jared Shaw of Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everybody. Thanks for the question. I guess maybe the first one, just looking at loan growth and production, as we go into 25, is this level of production sort of a good baseline to use? And can you refresh our memory on what is the balance of those non-core loans that are still out there in terms of sort of non-relationships, CRE, the shared national credits, the third party consumer that you're talking about? What's the aggregate headwind that that could be producing?

It's a great question. And for many reasons, I feel like we're following up on a year where we talked so much, Jared, about balance sheet optimization. I'm way more optimistic about our prospects to renew our growth orientation as we enter 2025, and it's for a couple reasons. To your first point, production has been consistently growing. When you look back at kind of our troughed first quarter production, that was the low watermark for us as it relates to funded production. We've seen the loan production increase in the second quarter, and now again in the third quarter up another 8%, and that would put the third quarter 70% higher than where we were in first quarter. Our pipelines are fairly stable, and so we would expect to see production levels to continue to increase for a couple reasons. Number one, we think that there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty associated with the election, so once we get the election behind us, we think that that could drive some demand. And two, as rates continue to come lower, we think that could also stimulate the production side of the equation. To your point on the strategic runoff or strategic optimization, you know, we've taken the last year to exit and reduce our exposure in various asset classes that, quite frankly, we just didn't think had the type of return profile that we wanted. That included our medical office sale, which was around a billion three. We've run down our syndicated lending portfolio as well as our third party consumer lending portfolio. That's about one point eight billion dollars of year over year runoff or about four percent of our outstanding. That's largely complete at this point. We'll continue to see some runoff in the third party consumer, but this last quarter, that was around 20 million dollars, so not a substantial amount. So that headwind has largely been played and going forward, we shouldn't have the same impact. Number three, line utilization. This quarter, we're roughly at 47 percent and that stabilized. We had seen a decline over the last several quarters. If you go back to the same period last year, we were at roughly 53 percent. So just getting back to a normal utilization rate would provide about a billion dollars of incremental growth. And then lastly, we continue to add new talent in middle market. We're up almost 10 FTEs this year, specialty lending, and we're now starting to expand our sales resources and our community bank across many of our higher opportunity markets. So for all of those reasons, I have greater confidence that 2025 will look more like a normal year for loan growth.

OK, that's great color. I really appreciate the details on that. And then just as a follow up for me, what's the, maybe for Jamie, what's the impact of those hedge maturities on the hedge cost? You called up the 750 million hedges maturing in fourth quarter. What's the cost on that and is there anything as we look at sort of the first half of 2025 we should be focused on?

Yeah, those hedges, a couple of things on that. The average rate is 95 basis points in the fourth quarter. There are 250 million that matured already on October 1st and then 500 million that matures on December 1st. When you look heading into 2025, what you'll see is stability in the balances of the hedge portfolio. But a little bit of remixing is there's a couple of maturities that come through and then you have some forward starting hedges that start. So you'll see the effective rate on the hedges increase, you know, as we go through early 2025, getting up to about the 3% area in the second quarter. And that's the general trend. So the headwind from the hedge portfolio diminishes really as we go through 2025. And when you get out into the second half of 2025, those rates are not too dissimilar from market rates. And so the headwind there is expected to really abate, you know, as we go through 2025.

Great, thanks very much.

Our next question comes from Ibrahim Poonawalla from Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Oh, sorry, Ibrahim, your line is now open.

Alex, let's go to the next caller.

Of course. Our next question for today comes from Christopher Maranac of Jani Montgomery Scott. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning.

Good

morning, Chris.

Hey, Chris, we can't hear you.

Sorry, Chris, are you able to just come closer to the microphone for us? Apologies, we're still not receiving any audio. We'll move on for now. Our next question comes from Timur Brazila from Wells Fargo. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Good morning. My first question is around the capital market income in the quarter. You know, it sounded a little bit more pessimistic on the latest update and then the numbers still came in pretty good. I guess in expectation for the rest of the year, is there anything chunky that's still coming through or did some of that chunkiness materialize in 3Q? We just love to get an expectation of what we could see there for the remainder of the year.

Yeah, Timur, it's a great, great point and we are really pleased with the performance of our capital markets business. You're right, you look at it and it's quarter on quarter is down, but that's from a high water mark in the second quarter and we are really pleased with kind of where we stand right now. We believe that 10 million a quarter is a good number to use to build off of. And I would just say don't forget that this is an environment of low transaction volume. And so for the team to be out there delivering solutions to our clients that's driving this 10 million revenue, that's a real positive. And as we look at the fourth quarter, we're expecting relative stability in capital markets revenue. You clearly will see mixes between the line items embedded in that business, but we expect stability. But the teams are working on projects that are lumpy and they are positives, but we're not including that in any of our guidance

today. I think, Timur, I'd add just when you look at this last quarter at the 10.3 million, about 30% came from derivatives, about 25% from syndications and lead arranger fees, 15% from debt capital markets, 17% from FX and about 10% from government guaranteed loan sales. So it shows you the granularity amongst the categories and to Jamie's point, that kind of serves as the baseline for growth going forward.

Okay. And then maybe a bigger picture question. You know, again, the update provided, I guess it's close to a month ago now, relative to the results, the results were pretty meaningfully stronger. I guess what was the biggest surprise in the back end of the year that drove the result relative to the last guide?

Yeah, you know, as we look at what happened here as we wound down the quarter, there were positives across the board, really in PP&R and in credit. And so if we look at NII, we have outperformance of loan yields versus expectation, non-deposit liability calls to outperform, really just strength across the board in NII and that led to that margin expansion you saw for the full quarter. Within fee revenue, it was our wealth business that drove the outperformance in the last month of the quarter. And then on expenses, a couple things happened there. We had a $3 million decline in our FDIC expense and that impacted our expectations. And then we had various other kind of timing-related good guys on NIE that just came through in September that were each positive. And so a lot of good news in the month of September, giving us a nice tailwind heading into the end of the year.

Okay, and if I could just squeeze one more on credit, again, you know, encouraged by the loss content, but just looking at the trends in non-performing loans and the classified criticized, you know, how close are we in topping now, especially in the classified criticized categories? You know, 4% is that kind of the top here? Any kind of color as to what your internal expectations are for where classified and criticized loans can top out?

Yeah, Timmer, it's Bob again. I would say we're close. I mean, certainly if you looked at the criticized trend, the rated trend, we were down last quarter, I think from 3.8 to 3.7, ticked back up a little bit this quarter to 3.9. So, you know, we're kind of bouncing a little bit here. I think the bias is still, you know, slightly negative, but we've had some upgrades and certainly we're still having some downgrades, but overall I think the velocity of that increase is certainly not as strong as it was. Our grading process does have a little bit of a lag because we're grading on a quarterly basis looking back for the most part. So, even though rates are beginning to help us, you're still going to have a little bit of lag effect, so you could see, you know, a slight increase, but I think you're close in your comments around 4%. I think that's a fair number for us. We have a very, you know, strong risk rating team, very well led. We have a great loan review process internally, so I feel really good about the accuracy. We get a downgrade occasionally, of course, but overall I think we get really good marks on the accuracy and your point around, you know, beginning to peak is probably pretty close.

Great. Thanks for the comment. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Abraham Poonawalla of Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning.

Good

morning, Abraham.

I just want to follow up in terms of deposit pricing and just how you're thinking about the deposit growth going forward. So one, if you could comment on what's the pricing environment, how do you expect deposit beta to behave, assuming the Fed is able to cut a few times before the end of the year, and then just talk to us about new deposit acquisition, where are they coming from, and how do you see the mix shift in NIV evolving from here? Thanks.

So, Ibrahim, let me just dive into the slide or the table we included on the deposit slide in the earnings deck. We added a third-quarter update to the far right, and our intent there was to show what has actually happened since the easing in the middle of September. And I think it's highly indicative of what we will see going forward. And what you see is the team is out there actively working with our clients and focused on reducing the cost of deposits. And you see, you know, going on rate in time deposits, 40 basis points lower than June, you know, implying an 80 beta that will come through over time. However, if you looked at the end of September time deposit calls, we've only realized about 20 basis points of decline. So, while new production would imply an 80 beta, the actual kind of what we've realized to date is around a 40 beta. On brokered, 80% repricing. You know, then the low beta, we have a 10% beta, and on the higher beta stuff, we have a 70%. So, if you just kind of use that and use the percent of deposits, what you see is with what we realized to date on time, the lower number, the 40 beta, you get to about a 30 to 45 cumulative total deposit beta realized through September 30th. Now, what we've said is we expect it to be 40 to 45, and so as time deposits flow through and you realize that 80 beta, that brings that number up to about 42%. And we don't believe that that's the end of the story. We believe that there's further repricing to go from there. We believe that brokered could easily end up being about 100 beta. We believe that the low beta and the high beta have room for improvement. And so, that's what we're looking at on the deposit side for deposit betas in the easing cycle. Clearly, it's uncertain how this will go. You know, our current expectation is to see 25 basis point cuts at sequential meetings, but it depends on how we go through that as to how it will all play out. With regards to deposit growth, we believe, you know, as we said, that deposits will grow here in the fourth quarter. A lot of that has to do with seasonals. We expect to see growth throughout our wholesale bank predominantly as you land within the lower cost deposits. And so, for the fourth quarter, we would expect to see, you know, as far as percent of total deposits reduction with high cost time deposits, with broker deposits, and then increase in the percentage weightings of now accounts and money markets. And so, that's what we're expecting to see here in the near term. And then as we look into 2024, I would just say that we're expecting to see continuation of core deposit growth. It is a clear priority for us. We've grown core deposits faster than loans for five consecutive quarters. We expect to see that continue as we go through 2025, and that will be a function of general environmental, what we believe tailwinds. We believe you'll see less headwinds from monetary policy. We believe we'll see client growth. And this diminishment headwind that we've seen for multiple years since 2019, we believe that that will slow and stop. And so, we think that the headwinds that have been slowing core deposit growth will abate and we'll see what we've seen in the past, which is, you know, strong core client acquisition, client growth leading to core deposit growth heading into 2025.

That is very comprehensive. Thank you so much. And just wanted to follow up on our embedded payments business mass. We spent a lot of time on the investor day a couple of years ago on this. Just to remind us where things stand, it does feel like when you look at top down from the life of JP Morgan partnering with Oracle, there is a lot of push towards embedded banking. I think that is something differentiated that CINOVA started. I'm just wondering how that's gone. Are you as bullish, less bullish relative to when you first launched this initiative?

Well, Ibrahim, I think to your point, I think the marketplace is speaking where there are competitors that are rolling out similar products. And as I said last quarter, one of the things that we've recognized is that in order to have an embedded finance solution that stands out in the marketplace, you've got to have solutions and products and capabilities that differentiate yourself. We built the beta version that had a MVP product. As you recall, we had various clients on that platform. And what we're doing today is we're looking at the offering that we provide and trying to improve some of the value propositions as it relates to the payment facilitation as well as some of the depository instruments that sit on the platform. So like anything else, we went out, we piloted, we saw, we received the feedback, and now we're working on creating a solution that has a stronger value proposition. And we'll roll that out in the future with some additional bells and whistles. But right now we've taken that same set of resources and we focus as much on our commercial sponsorship business, where we're looking to increase the amount of revenue that we earn today off of sponsoring merchant acquiring companies access to the MasterCard and Visa rails. That's about a 15, 20 million revenue business for us today. And that same group that's working on MAS is working on enhancing the population of clients that we use there. And then once we have that, we can also offer the MAS solution to those ISOs, not just to the software vendors. So know that we're working on the product and we'll come out in a future quarter and talk about what the enhancements are.

And you don't think scale is a disadvantage relative to the larger regionals or the big money center banks relative to what you're trying to do?

No, you know, scale, I think scale matters less there. It's about the partnerships and relationships that you're able to create with those independent software vendors or ISOs. What we said in the past, one of the reasons we felt that we had a right to win in that space is we've been in this payments business for a long time, dating back to our T-SIS ownership. And so to me, it's much more if you have the right product, it's about applying the right partnership and being able to add value to that client. I mean, that's what embedded finance really is, is you're creating a new revenue stream for that ISO or that independent software vendor. So I don't think scale matters as much as having partnerships, but you've got to have a product that's going to generate revenue for that client.

Good. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Maranac from Janne Munt, Montgomery Scott. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. Bob had a credit question for you. Thank you for the detail on the multifamily book and the slides. Can you give us an update on sort of how the criticized ratios look for that or how you would anticipate those play out the next few quarters?

Yeah. Hey, Chris. Thanks for the question. Yeah. Multifamily, you know, if you look at it overall, we have, I don't think there's certainly zero non-accruals in multifamily and very little, if any, substandard loans. And so most of that is what we would classify as a special mention, migration in multifamily, due primarily to some oversupply issues that we see in various markets and with construction projects coming online in the face of some oversupply. However, from a loss content perspective, you know, we feel really good about our multifamily book. It's certainly been a business that we've been bullish on for years. We're very good at it. We like where we are, our sponsors in that space really good. So overall, yeah, a little bit of negative migration there, but from a loss content perspective, we just don't see it. And, you know, once we kind of get through a little bit of time and some of the oversupply issues, you know, begin to abate in various markets, I think we're still long-term, you know, feel really good about multifamily, particularly in light of the housing environment, as you're aware.

Great. And then just a general question on overall, you know, the credit migration we saw in our performance, are those typically already criticized in prior quarters and so that's just kind of moving through the pipeline?

Short answer is yes. And in this particular case, you know, we had an office credit, office relationship that we moved to non-accrual. If you back that out, I know it's easy for me to do that, but if you back that out, our non-accruals actually would have decreased slightly. So, you know, it's a one credit story there that we've been working through for some period of time and, you know, we obviously have gone through our reserve process as well, feel good about where we are there and just continuing to work through that credit. Just couldn't hold it from an accrual perspective, but yes, it was rated before.

Got it. And generally speaking, the lower rate environment that we now have is going to make it easier for you to work through credits as time passes.

Well, it certainly doesn't hurt, so that's a good point. I do, as we mentioned earlier, Christian, there's a little bit of a lag effect on the ratings, you know, where you're typically looking at the previous quarter and so it'll take some time. And the other point I would make on grading is that, you know, it's a little bit slower upgrading than it is downgrading. So I think as you get into 25 a little bit further, you'll start to see some benefit there. But generally speaking, the lower rates would certainly help. And Chris, we've

talked about this in prior quarters and some of the conferences. You know, we're going to have some volatility, as Bob mentioned, on the criticizing classified and even NPL, but, you know, the thing that gives us confidence is when we look at those loans that are in non-accruing status, there are largely 8 to 10 loans that represent 80 percent of the balance. So to Bob's earlier point, we're doing individual loan analysis to understand what the lost content would be. And I hope that you get the same confidence that we get when we give out the 25 to 35 basis point guidance, which is, you know, largely lower than what we've experienced here today, that even with some of these migrations, we're not expecting any material increase in lost content. And at the end of the day, that's, you know, you'll see some movement there, but I think that's the bottom line of the story.

Yep. Great point, Kevin. Thank you both. I appreciate the information this morning.

Yeah, thanks, Chris.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Tony Ellion from JP Morgan. The line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. On slide 6, you know, the good growth and C&I balances you saw during the quarter, but line utilization was relatively stable. I guess, what will it take to see that utilization rate increase? Is it more rate cuts getting past the election? I appreciate your thoughts there.

Yeah, I think it's all the above. You know, we do a survey with our commercial clients that says what concerns you. The number one concern was the election. And obviously, whether you are a Republican or Democrat wins in many ways, it just takes some uncertainty off the table. So I think getting that behind us in November will be helpful. Number two, the concern that our clients have are around the strength of the consumer. And I think that really gets to the underlying strength of the economy. Can the consumer continue to spend? And the consumer has been fairly resilient through this entire cycle. And if that continues, I think that will take another concern off the table. The third is just declining margins of our clients. And I think that has to do with inflation. And that's the residual impact of just having inflation come down to match what they can pass on to the client. And the fourth is labor availability. So it's amazing to me that at the end of the day, one of the things holding back capital requests are finding the people to be able to work that new business line or support their growth. So I think it's going to take the election getting behind us. Line utilization, as I said earlier, could be as much as a billion dollars of growth just back to a normalized level. But we're already seeing production levels increase. And the one thing we haven't talked about is just pay off and pay down activities. We've said this year, 2023 was not a normal year. When you look at our commercial portfolio, each quarter we had about $1.3 billion of payoffs and pay downs. This year we're averaging closer to $1.6 billion. And that's going to remain elevated for several more quarters, especially as CRE has some more payoff activities. But that also will return to more normalized levels. So when you add in the fact that uncertainty goes away, production increases, we have to add in new talent and the payoff activity slows, I think you'll start to see loan growth return to more normalized levels.

Thank you. And then my follow-up, non-prosperity balances were relatively stable on a period end basis but declined at a faster pace on average. Given the number of rate cuts projected by the forward curve into next year, do you see those balances growing at some point in 2025? Thank you.

Tony, we would expect to see some growth in those balances in 2025. I mean, it's highly uncertain. That would be a change in trend. But we're optimistic that we can, through client acquisition and core business, that we can get a tail in there. But that's to be determined. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Samuel Varga of UBS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Jamie, I wanted to ask about the particular part of your long-growth middle market, CIBN specialty lending. Can you give us a sense for where those yields are relative to the book just in terms of the commercial yields? Like, is this mix of growth naturally benefiting your commercial loan yields?

When you look at those businesses and the spreads in those businesses, CIB would be on the tighter end and would actually be kind of tighter than our overall production. But we are seeing some tailwinds due to the spreads in those other businesses on the middle market and specialty. They change. They ebb and flow, especially in specialty. But in general, it's the CIB, think about larger, lower spread, originations, strong credits, and then in the others, you can generally get a little more spread.

And Jamie, in this last quarter, when you look at our total yields on production, we're about 750, 747, and the portfolio is about 647. Everything we're putting on today, although that's 55 basis points lower than what it was in the second quarter, given the rate cut, we're still seeing a going on yield that will be accretive to the overall portfolio. It's about 100 basis points higher.

Thank you both. That's very helpful. And then just on the next slide on deposits and sort of the core CD data that you've alluded to, the 80% that you've realized on the new production, I'm just curious if you can give any color at this time on whether that beta is still supporting the volumes you need, or is there any point where the beta gets almost capped because you need to bring the volume in and for the deposit base to support the long growth on the other side?

Well, if you look at the production levels, time production was actually higher quarter on quarter with much lower rates of production. And so we believe that what we're doing is appropriate. We believe that it will be sufficient for what we're looking for on the funding side. But I would just say that we're not beholden to any product for individual liquidity purposes. If we think it's a better idea to reduce our time deposit rates and use Brokert or Home Home Bank or anything like that to offset that funding, that's easy to do because we have this increased capacity of wholesale funding, which we continue to draw down. And so our funding story is really strong because we're in a spot where we can choose between all the different sources of liquidity. And right now we think that it's prudent to be fairly aggressive in the reduction of CD rates, especially the promo rates, as we go through this easing cycle.

Understood. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Steven Skelton of Piper Sandler. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. I'm curious kind of around potential operating leverage in 25. Do you think that is a plausible target or do you really need to see maybe the ability for fixed rate loan replacing to create that inflection point in the NIM to drive that or what might be the catalyst if you think it is plausible?

As we look to 2025 and we will get more guidance on this later in the quarter at an industry conference, but as we look to 2025, we believe a couple of things. We believe that expense growth will be higher than it is right now. Obviously, we're not growing expenses. We've done a lot to drive that performance, but we do believe that expense growth will be higher in 2025 than what we've seen recently, really as we lean into the opportunities here in the southeast. We believe that the growth opportunities in the southeast are strong and we believe that we have the right to win. And so we will lean into that here at the end of this year and as we head into 2025. And so expense growth will be higher, but we believe that I'll go alongside higher revenue growth. And so what we expect to see on the revenue side is Kevin walked through in detail why we expect to see loan growth, all those different components. You combine just pure business growth along with line utilization increases, along with increased transaction activity. We do expect to see strong revenue growth that goes with that. And so operating leverage in 2025 is possible. Obviously, the rate environment is very important. A lot of uncertainties as we look that far forward at the moment, but we do see paths to that as we look into 2025.

Okay, extremely helpful. And I know you also said the path of non-interest bearing deposits remains uncertain as well, but are you seeing any kind of glimpses of things that could create a shift in terms of the pace of decline? Does it look like that on an end of period basis, that pace of decline actually didn't ramp up even a bit this quarter? So I'm just wondering if there's anything you're seeing that would give you some hope of near term stability there on those non-inspiring deposits.

I think Jamie and his team have been looking at the various segments of where we're seeing DDA diminishment. I think on the positive side, we've seen the consumer average balance per account fall below $10,000, which is kind of a low watermark. And depending on what happens with consumer, the level of diminishment could greatly decline. We saw a little more this past quarter in business banking versus commercial. Commercial diminishment largely has dried up in the third quarter. So I think the way to think about DDA, to Jamie's earlier point, we're going to produce some new level of production. Some of that now is finding its way into interest bearing checking, so you're not going to get the non-interest bearing. But the biggest driver to your question is the diminishment of average balance per account. And each quarter we are seeing that continue to decline. And when it actually hits its trough, we can't predict that, but it appears based on that trajectory that we're getting closer to that.

Perfect. Thanks for the call. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Rose of Raymond James. The line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Most have been asked and answered, but just wondering if you got any sort of updates on the thought process around M&A. Last month we saw the OCC, FDIC, DOJ have updated their merger review process. And as I step back and I think about the way the industry could consolidate over the intermediate to longer term, as I think about the Southeast and where you guys are from an asset size perspective, you have a couple banks that have come into your markets, or at least some of the Southeast a little bit more aggressively. You have some of the mega banks building branches seemingly on every corner in every one of your markets. Is there more a risk of not doing something versus doing something over

the intermediate to longer term, do you think? I think it relates

to kind of longer term financial targets or not. Just wanted to see if as we think about consolidation and what's going to happen with the industry over the intermediate to longer term, what role does that mean for Sonovus? Thanks.

Yeah, Michael, it's a great question. We're hearing more and more discussions around what happens if the administration changes and does that drive more M&A activity? And you can hear from some of the other earnings calls that others have recognized the Southeast is a pretty great place to do business. But in many ways our answer is unchanged. We believe that the greatest investment we can make today is in Sonovus and adding talent, continuing to add new technology, new capabilities and solutions to continue to drive deeper wallet share with our existing clients and attract new clients. In many ways in the short and medium term, that sense of acquisition or the impact that would be associated with any sort of migration or conversion would actually create greater opportunities for us to take share. So I don't think anything's changed for us. It's no secret that the Southeast is a great place to do business. And to your point, people are adding branches and putting LPO's and adding teams. And we're continuing to focus on how we win market share. And we're doing that without having to buy a bank. We're adding new teams and new talent and adding new technology. So the story really hasn't changed. And it just really means that to win in this space, you've got to have a real value proposition. And that's why when we look at some of these awards that we win, whether it's J.D. Power or Greenwich, it's important for us to continue to provide a level of service and advice that is second to none, that beats our competition. And that's, I think, the most important part rather than trying to do an acquisition that relies on cost reductions and revenue synergies to generate that EPS growth. We're focused on Sonobis and what we can do to take advantage of the organic opportunities.

Okay. And maybe it's just one follow-up just as it relates to the organic opportunity. I know you talked about, and I know it's early for next year, but you talked about more of a normal year of loan growth. But you do have some self-imposed headwinds that are abating in terms of third party health care, things like that. Line utilization, as I think you mentioned, could begin to pick up once you get through the election and some of these other things. What does a normal year mean for Sonobis? Historically, it's been a few percentage points above GDP growth that correlations broke down here in recent years for obvious reasons. But kind of what does that mean for Sonobis? Maybe not just for next year, but as we think about the next couple of years. Thanks.

So, Michael, you said it. What we've said in the past, it's hard to give someone an absolute range to your point based on what the underlying growth would be given by the economy. So we've always set 100 to 200 basis points above the underlying growth. And that's just predicated on the fact that we want to provide our fair share of growth plus something in excess to show that we're taking market share from competition. And so if we were to return to a normal 2 to 3% GDP growth, you would expect us to be at somewhere around 4 to 5% loan growth. And that's under a kind of normal situation. And to your point, for a lot of the reasons that you noted and I talked about earlier, the headwinds are largely abating. And it's going to turn towards production and line utilization. And one of the things that we've been doing over the last several years are continuing to add new errors to our quiver as it relates to new businesses, new specialty finance areas, new teams. We're expanding, as I said earlier, we're starting to expand our community bank again where we're adding talent in some of our high growth markets. So for all of those reasons, we still feel like we can outpace the market with loan growth exceeding that of the underlying GDP.

Very helpful. Thanks for taking my question.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Gary Tenner of DA Davidson. The line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. I had a follow-up on the deposit side. Jamie, I appreciate the commentary about two-thirds of the core CD book maturing next five months. As you think about your posted rates and at least recent customer behavior, is the expectation and strategy that you'll be able to keep that slug of deposits pretty short and kind of be able to come back again, you know, second, third quarter of next year to reprice them down again?

Yes, that's our that's our base case expectation. And we will continually look at the forward curve and think about the spreads between longer term CDs and for shorter term. But right now, our focus is ensuring that that book reprices as truly as quickly as possible, but also solves what our clients are looking for. They want some stability and they go into that because they want multiple months of flat rates on their deposits to be able to count on. And so we have to be balanced in what we do. But right now, we're leaning into that five months.

I appreciate that. And then just a quick question on the office loan relationship. You know, I appreciate the fact that MPLs would have been down, excluding that. But any any color there in terms of geography, you know, kind of the office product type just just for some background color?

Yeah, sure. Not to get too specific on the on the credit, but it's two different cities, two different suburban offices, one in the southeast, one is not. So, you know, that that's kind of the outline of it, about equal dollar amounts, quite frankly, but separate resolution plans working with those loans. So and again, to your point, I think if you do take out that that office loan, you look at the MPL reduction overall. But if you look specifically at our office portfolio, you know, the criticized rated ratio is less than 10 percent. Obviously, this this one is a non-accrual. So if you back that out, you really don't have very much in the way of non-accrual. So there is some stability in the office book, but we realize that, you know, over time, I think you're going to continue to have one also in office. We think we've got a good plan on this one actually to work through resolution.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Catherine Miller of KBW. The line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. I want to follow up on the margin and just think about they get to learn a little bit. First, start with the fixed rate book. And is there any way to quantify just the amount of fixed rate repricing that we may see in 2025?

And that's impact margin.

Yeah.

You know, when we look at 2025, our outlook as far as the impact of fixed rate repricing has not materially changed outside of the fact that when we, you know, we used to say 20 base points, but as before the securities repositioning, you know, currently, it's our expectation is about 15 basis points of margin impact due to fixed rate repricing in 2025. And it'd be the same number for 2026. So that's consistent really with what we've said before, except for the fact that we accelerated that process with the securities reposition earlier this year.

Okay. And then just as a follow up, do you have where the fixed rate book, where that current portfolio rate is today?

The fixed rate book, well, we do the, there are a couple different components that I'll point to. So if you're, if you're working on the fixed rate repricing impact, here's what I would, how I would break it down. Our fixed rate commercial loan book is a little less than 20% of assets. It's about 18% assets. Those rates on the books are about 2% below current origination rates. So you have 18% of the book, 2% below what I would consider today's market rates due to when they were originated. On the mortgage portfolio, that's about 12% of assets and the book yield on that is around 4%. And so you could say that's 2% or so below market rates on the residential mortgage portfolio.

Okay, great. And then on the variable rate piece, you had a really good slide in your last deck that just broke down that kind of components of your variable rate loan portfolio. Can you talk a little bit about maybe the kind of the cadence of how quickly some of that's repricing what you've seen so far with the 50 basis point cut and maybe what that means for loan yields as we go into the fourth quarter?

Yes, yeah, absolutely. I mean, when you step back from a high level, the loan beta starts with the 62% of loans that are floating rate and then you back out the hedges. And so on loans, you should assume low 50s beta through this easing cycle. And that's pretty, you know, it'll flow through pretty cleanly. For total asset beta, when you add in the securities portfolio, you get to kind of low to mid 40s on the asset beta of the balance sheet. And so that's at a high level what you'll see through the easing cycle on the asset side of the balance sheet. When you look at the individual components of floating rate loans, they're progressing as you would expect with their contractual resets. And so we have about 19 billion of loans that are one month so far. We have the 2 billion that are a little less than 2 billion that are one year Treasury resets. Now, those are really the only unique structures we have on the balance sheet. Those are one year Treasury floating rate loans that reset monthly. And so we've been seeing a little bit of margin pressure from those ever since one year started to go down a few months ago. And so that's already been in there and it'll continue depending on where one year Treasuries go from here. And then we have 3.5 billion of prime loans. We have overnight SOFR loans around a billion dollars. And those all will reset when the Fed actually moves. And I will just reiterate the point that on the hedge portfolio, those are receive fixed hedges pay overnight SOFR. And so those reset actually when the Fed moves as well. So that's a lot of detail around how our floating rate exposure will reset as we go through the cycle.

That's great. Very helpful. Thank you.

Thank

you, Catherine.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Russell Gunter of Stevens. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. You guys just tackled my remaining question. Apologies. Tried to remove myself from the queue. Thank you.

No, thank you, Russell. Have a great day.

Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Kevin Blair for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Alex. As we wrap up today's call, I want to thank you for your attendance and your continued interest in Sonovus. I also want to recognize and thank all of our team members who are listening in today. Our financial results and our successes are a direct reflection of your commitment and dedication making Sonovus stand out in this crowded banking landscape. We are keeping our team members affected by hurricanes Helene and Milton and our thoughts and prayers. A special thanks to our corporate services team members who went above and beyond traveling to the impacted areas to provide generators and necessary supplies. Your efforts made a significant difference in people's lives. Thank you. In the third quarter, we continue to receive national recognition for our corporate culture, innovation and outstanding client service. American banker named Sonovus number six in its top 20 banks on reputation. And we won the 2024 Impact Award in cash management and payments from DATOS insights for our Accelerate Pay payment suite. I'm incredibly proud of our team and these accolades, which highlight our ability to continue to create a competitive advantage across all of our businesses. Looking ahead into the next quarter and also 2025, I'm confident that our continued execution of our plan will enable us to achieve sustainable growth and even higher levels of profitability. Our team's passion and resilience has consistently driven better financial results and an overall risk profile. The progress we've made this quarter, along with our collective efforts and commitments, gives me even more confidence in our future success. To our investors, thank you for your continued support and interest. We look forward to seeing many of you in upcoming meetings and conferences ahead. Thank you all. And now Alex, that concludes our third quarter 2024 earnings call.

Thank you all for joining today. You may now disconnect your lines.