Good morning and welcome to the FB Financial Corporation third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. Please also note today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Rachel Doreske, Financial Management Associate for FB Financial. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today for FB Financial Corporation's third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call this morning is Chris Holmes, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Michael Mettee, Chief Financial and Operating Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind listeners that during today's call, management may make forward-looking statements regarding the company's plans, expectations, and outlook. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those discussed. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties, including risk factors that could cause actual results to differ, can be found in our earnings release, our most recent annual report on Forum 10-K, and our subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. FB Financial undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. In addition, today's discussion may include references to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable gap measures are available on our third quarter 2026 financial supplement posted to the investor relations section of our website at www.investors.firstbankonline.com and on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mr. Chris Holmes.

All right. Thank you, Rachel, and good morning. We appreciate you joining us today and your continued interest in F&B Financial. We reported EPS of $1.20 and adjusted EPS of $1.21 and grown our tangible book value per share excluding the impact of AOCI at a compounded annual growth rate of 11.3% since our IPO. Our net income was $60.2 million or $60.9 million on an adjusted basis. and our returns remained healthy with return on average tangible common equity of 15.2% or 15.7% on an adjusted basis. This quarter's performance was highlighted by strong growth in both loans and deposits, solid profitability and stable credit quality. We grew loans at an annualized rate of 9.7%, which is at the very high end of our forecasted range of mid to high single digits. Our deposit growth rate was 8.8%, which included a decline in broker deposits. We actually grew our customer deposits at an annualized rate of 11.2%, and the broker deposit decline brought that net growth rate down to 8.8%. Growth in both loans and deposits was fueled by our commercial and consumer businesses, which reflects our continued success in attracting new customer relationships across business units. Given the size and scale of our balance sheet today at approximately $17 billion in total assets, growth levels are notable and represent continued meaningful expansion of our business. As I reflect on the third quarter, what stands out is the consistency of execution and the continued momentum in our business. We see healthy activity levels across our markets, strong pipelines, and meaningful opportunities to deepen existing relationships while adding new customers. Our quality execution across the franchise remains a defining characteristic of our organization, and we continue to invest in people, process improvement, and technology that drives long-term growth. That investment includes adding great people to our organization, but also involves developing talented associates already within First Bank and creating opportunities for them to grow and lead. What differentiates First Bank What differentiates First Bank is the combination of an award-winning client service, which, by the way, is certified by J.D. Power as the highest level of customer satisfaction in our region, engaged and talented associates, which we use a third-party Willis Tire Watson to track for us, and a relationship-focused business model. When these execution strengths combined with Attractive Markets, we get strong growth and profitability, and you see that in our results. While our core operating performance remained strong during the quarter, there were a couple of items of impact that should be noted. Specifically, our mortgage banking segment faced headwinds with the sharp rise in interest rates in the back half of the quarter, and we also recognized An interest income reversal on a loan that was moved to non-accrual in the quarter. And we'll let Michael touch on the specifics of both mortgage and the non-accrual loan. But I will say that the credit is being managed by our special assets team, which continues to work constructively with the borrower. We're working together on that to achieve the best possible outcome. And we believe the credit has relatively low, if any, loss content. Overall, credit trends across the loan portfolio remain stable. We continue to feel good about the quality of our portfolio and the underlying risk of our company. Looking ahead, we remain optimistic about the opportunities in front of us. The operating environment for banks remains favorable, customer activity remains healthy, and our markets continue to benefit from strong economic fundamentals. While there are always factors outside of our control, including interest rate volatility and broader macroeconomic developments, the underlying drivers of economic activity throughout our footprint remain constructive. Employment trends remain healthy. Commercial activity remains solid. We believe our markets across the southeast remain positioned to outperform many areas of the country. We see meaningful opportunities for profitable growth and remain confident in our ability to deliver mid to high single-digit balance sheet growth while maintaining a disciplined approach to risk and capital management. With that, I'm going to turn the call over to our Chief Financial and Operating Officer, Michael Mettee, for some additional color on the forum.

Michael. Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. I'll start my comments with the balance sheet. As in the prior quarter, We delivered strong loan and deposit growth with both increasing at high single-digit annualized rates. Loan demand remained healthy across our commercial and consumer businesses. Community markets led the growth with Auburn, Noonan, and Tuscaloosa continuing to perform well. Metro markets also contributed solid production, particularly Birmingham, Chattanooga, and Knoxville as larger commercial loans with longer lead times moved through the pipeline. Our diversified footprint allows us to generate growth from multiple sources. Community markets provide consistent relationship-driven production, while metro markets create opportunities to win larger, more complex relationships. Both strategies contributed to a meaningful growth and position us to perform across a range of operating environments. As we balance growth and profitability, contractual loan yields remain stable at 6.21%. while late quarter production came on at approximately 6.44%. These results reflect our team's pricing discipline and the appeal of our customer focused approach. As discussed previously, being easy to do business with is a strategic priority and this quarter's growth provides further evidence that those efforts are working. On the deposit side, we strengthen our granular core deposit base through growth and active customer accounts and average balances while adding several large commercial relationships. Customer deposits grew approximately 11% on an annualized basis during the quarter. We remain encouraged by customer acquisition trends and believe relationship-based deposit gathering will remain a long-term competitive advantage. Deposit pricing remained competitive with our cost of deposits increasing six basis points and blended rates on new production into the quarter at approximately 3%. We expect funding competition to remain elevated and will continue to emphasize profitable growth in discipline pricing. Our customer relationships, experienced teams, and diversified funding base positions us to grow deposits while managing funding costs effectively. With year-to-date growth tracking within our forecasted range, we expect growth to moderate into the fourth quarter due to the normal timing of paydowns, renewals, and larger commercial closings. Pipelines remain healthy, and we continue to expect full-year loan and deposit growth within our mid to high single-digit range. Turning to earnings, net income totaled $60.2 million, increasing from the prior quarter as higher net interest income and lower provision expense more than offset deposit pricing pressure in a challenging mortgage banking environment. Profitability remained strong with return on average tangible common equity above 15% and return on average assets above 1.4%. Core net interest margin compressed consistent with our prior expectations as funding costs continued to rise. Margin reflected the reversal of approximately $1 million of accrued interest income on a credit move to a non-accrual during the quarter. As Chris noted, our teams know this credit well. It is supported by adequate collateral values, and we discussed this on last quarter's call. Quarter over quarter, margin declined 12 basis points from 3.95% in second quarter to 3.83% in the third quarter. Two options accounted for five basis points of this decline. two basis point reduction in purchase accounting accretion, and a three basis point impact from the accrued interest reversal noted earlier. Excluding those items, core margin declined approximately seven basis points from 3.95% to 3.88%, primarily reflecting continued industry-wide deposit pricing pressure. Looking ahead, we remain comfortable with our full-year net interest margin outlook, excluding loan accretion at 3.7% to 3.8%. Continue deposit competition and aggressive loan pricing remain headwinds, while our asset-sensitive position should provide support if rates move higher as expected. For the fourth quarter, we expect core margin to remain near third quarter levels as deposit repricing pressure is largely offset by balance sheet growth, stable loan yields, and our slightly asset-sensitive position. This outlook assumes the current rate forward curve and remains sensitive to changes in market rates. Turning to non-interest income, revenue declined $1.3 million. primarily due to lower mortgage banking income. Higher swap fee and investment services income partially offset this decline, which was supported by healthy customer activity. Given the significant rise in long-term rates during the quarter, particularly the 10-year treasury yield, I'd like to briefly discuss the mortgage segment and our outlook for the business. Like others across the industry, we expect higher rates to weigh on near-term origination volumes and profitability. Even so, our view of the mortgage business is unchanged. Mortgage banking remains an important source of new customer relationships, provides meaningful optionality for balance sheet growth and fee income growth, and creates opportunities to deepen relationships across the broader franchise. During the quarter, we launched a program to deepen relationships with new mortgage customers through deposit investment accounts, and the early results are encouraging. Today, 83% of participating borrowers have a checking relationship with First Bank, with average deposit balances approximately twice our existing customer average Media and FICO scores above the current portfolio average and loan to value ratios below secondary market originated loan values. These are the types of relationships we want to attract and retain, reinforcing the strategic value of mortgage banking beyond its standalone earnings contribution. Mortgage banking remains an important part of our long-term retail strategy, although the higher rate environment will likely reduce its earnings contribution in the fourth quarter in 2027. We will actively manage expenses while balancing profitability with our priorities of growing relationships, retaining a high-quality team, and delivering strong customer service and offering competitive products. In addition to the challenging rate environment, you'll see a one-time transition expense of $719,000 within the segment's results due to conversion costs incurred as we transition our mortgage origination platform and subservicing arrangements. Our teams have spent considerable time and effort executing these projects, which we believe will enhance the customer experience in the future. Absent this non-recurring expense, the segment remained profitable during the quarter. Turning to non-interest expense, total expenses were $96 million, up approximately 5% from the prior quarter, or 4% on an adjusted basis. The increase primarily reflected higher performance-based compensation accruals tied to significant balance sheet growth, attractive profitability and earnings growth, as well as the 719,000 one-time mortgage segment charge noted earlier. On an adjusted basis, the efficiency ratio was 54.3% and the banking segment efficiency ratio was 50.8%. Industry expense pressures remain elevated, particularly across compensation, benefits, insurance, and technology. We continue to manage expenses carefully while investing in the franchise's long-term growth. We did not generate positive operating leverage this quarter as mortgage revenues Mortgage revenue pressure and the non-accrual interest reversal offset the benefit of balance sheet growth while incentive compensation increased with business activity. Our objective remains to convert customer and balance sheet growth into revenue growth that outpaces expenses and produces returns above our target levels. Looking ahead, we expect discipline expense management through the year end and are narrowing our banking segment guidance outlook to $325 million to $335 million. which is near the lower end of our prior guidance. We remain focused on balancing targeted growth, investments for strong operating performance and shareholder returns. Turning to credit, provision expense totaled $1.4 million for the quarter. Our ACL process continued to incorporate some downside economic scenarios through a weighted forecast, although the assumptions this quarter were modestly more favorable than those used in the second quarter. The improved forecast was largely offset by reserves associated with loan growth. Reserve activity for individually evaluated credits were limited as the elevated activity recorded in the second quarter did not reoccur. As a result, provision expense remained modest despite another quarter of solid balance sheet growth. Our allowance coverage ratio ended the quarter at 1.47%, reflecting strong loan growth and stable underlying credit performance. Net charge-offs and the non-performing asset ratios also remain stable, supporting our view that the broader portfolio credit trends remain sound. The increase in non-accrual loans during the quarter were primarily attributable to the credit discussed earlier. As noted, this loan is supported by adequate collateral values and we continue to believe loss content is limited. We continue to monitor the potential economic effects of interest rate volatility. Geopolitical Developments, Energy Prices, and Fiscal Policy on our Business and Markets. Even so, we remain encouraged by the fundamentals across our footprint, including healthy employment, solid customer activity, and markets that continue to compare favorably with many regions of the country. Looking ahead, absent a meaningful change in the economic outlook or credit performance, we expect provision expense to be driven primarily by loan growth and changes in individually evaluated credits. We also expect net charge-offs to remain within our long-term target range. Turning to capital, we issued $125 million of subordinated debt during the quarter, further strengthening our capital position. We plan to deploy the proceeds over time to support loan growth in our markets and fund strategic initiatives that advance our long-term growth. Our tangible common equity to tangible asset ratio declined 17 basis points during the quarter. primarily due to continued share repurchases reflecting discipline and opportunistic capital deployment. Even after those repurchases, our capital levels provide significant flexibility to support growth, return capital to shareholders, and pursue strategic opportunities. Our balance sheet is resilient across a range of interest rate environments. Approximately 61% of the investment portfolio is floating rate with relatively limited embedded and unrealized losses. This positions us to allocate capital opportunistically, while many institutions remain constrained by balance sheet considerations. That flexibility, combined with our earnings power and capital generation, remains a meaningful competitive advantage. Our capital ratios remain well above regulatory requirements, with our common equity Tier 1 ratio of 11%, a Tier 1 leverage ratio of 10%, and a total risk-based capital ratio of 13.6% at quarter end. In closing, I want to thank our associates for their hard work, dedication and commitment to our customers. This quarter demonstrated the strength of our franchise through strong balance sheet growth, solid profitability, stable credit trends, and disciplined capital management. We remain optimistic about the opportunities ahead and confident in our ability to deliver sustainable long-term value for shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Chris.

All right, thanks for the call, Michael. And operator, at this time, I'd like to open the line for questions.

At this time, we'll begin that question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star and then one using a touchtone telephone. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. If you are using a speakerphone, we do request that you pick up the handset prior to asking your question to ensure the best sound quality. Once again, that is star and then one to join the question queue. Our first question today comes from Russell Gunther from Stevens. Please go ahead with your question.

Hey, great. Good morning, guys. Good morning, Russell. Morning, Chris. On the loan growth side of things, high single digits, high end of year guide, it was broad-based, would be helpful to get some comments on how utilization rates trended in the quarter. where pipelines stand post another strong print. And then I think you mentioned a little bit of seasonality in the fourth quarter, but as you look ahead, would you guys expect to be able to sustain this high single digit pace or is there an absolute level of rates where we start to see some demand destruction and loan growth begin to slow?

Yeah, we'll tag team this one. Yeah, you're right. We've been I'd say practically double digits at least in most of the year. Start out the year a little bit slower, but we're high single digits at this point in terms of loan growth, and we expect to end up the year in high single digits. So fourth quarter seasonally is usually just a little behind the first couple quarters, or I'm sorry, the mid-quarters, but we still expect to see really good activity and really strong pipelines as we head into 27. So as we're projecting through Q4, a little bit of elevated payoff activity, but, you know, that's normal. I mean, that happens and we don't consider that to be really abnormal. And we see us ending the year still in the mid, I say high single digits is where we'll, will be for the year on the loan side and growth on the deposit side. I'd say high single digits as well. There's a chance that we might be double digits on deposit growth. And frankly, when I'm thinking deposit growth, Russell, I'm thinking customer deposit growth. We did mention in the comments that we were over 11% customer deposit growth for our and that continues to be strong as well. Michael?

Yeah, good morning, Russell. So, actually, I would say activity in the quarter was actually, if you look at extended credit versus utilization, back to your utilization credit, it's actually even better than probably obviously funded. So, our utilization rates were down 2% to 3% on construction and commercial and industrial loans. opportunity for growth there. If you just kind of work back into our normal CNI range of 46% utilization, we were a couple of percent below that. It's just, you know, our clients just didn't tap into their newly new lines yet. So some upside there, the pipeline actually quite robust. You know, we felt good about it all year and that momentum continues. Chris touched on the deposit piece as well. I mean, the deposit pipeline is actually quite robust as well. So that's encouraging to be able to fund loan growth organically. We're a customer-driven balance sheet, which I think is pretty unique relative to a lot of the rest of the industry, especially with rising costs in brokerage and wholesale. So we're excited about that and the loan opportunities in front of us. As Chris mentioned, fourth quarter can get a little bit heavy on payoffs and normal year-end activity, but we feel pretty well positioned.

I appreciate both your thoughts there, guys. Thank you very much. And then just last one for me would be on the margin. You know, you gave us some color in terms of how you expect to end the year. But Michael, it would be helpful to get a sense for kind of how the margin trended throughout the quarter, perhaps touch upon where deposit costs ended 3Q.

Yeah. So the rate increase, right, was I think 13 days before quarter end. So your deposits reprice kind of immediately is what I'd say, Russell, on our index deposits. Loan growth resets over 90 days. You know, 50% of our portfolio is floating. 61% of the investment portfolio, that generally happens kind of first day of the quarter. So you haven't seen some of the asset sensitivity health margin. So that's why we're a little bit kind of bullish on being able to maintain our margin guide. Deposit costs, you know, new deposits on a blended basis came in around 3% for the quarter. So if you think about our total portfolio in that kind of 240 range, you know, obviously it's coming in higher. And I think that continues given where Brokered is. Brokered's in that 4.5 plus percent range. So new deposits are pretty competitive. Understood.

Okay, great. Thank you guys for taking my question. All right. Thanks, bro.

Our next question comes from Steven Scouten from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead with your question.

Yeah, thanks. Good morning, everyone. Maybe continuing on on that new deposit blended rate, I think you said it was around 3% this quarter. I think if memory serves me, it's around 2.7% last quarter, and then with the rate hike towards the end of the quarter, would we expect that to continue to trend appreciably higher from here, or wouldn't you see in kind of, you know, just in the last couple weeks maybe to give some color into where deposit costs could continue to trend?

Yeah, and I think I probably didn't answer that part of Russell's question, actually. Yeah, deposit costs in September were higher than July and August, but I I do think that's reflective of the rate increase. And if you've got kind of a 50% beta in there, 40, 50% is where you see that. We did have some large deposits come in that are indexed, which drove our deposit costs higher, kind of north of that 3%, Stephen, in September. But based on what we can tell, it probably sticks in this range unless there's another rate increase in October. Currently, we think there's probably going to be a Fed hike in December, so that'd be late quarter. But if you saw one in October, I think you'd see deposit costs move higher.

Makes sense. And are you guys thinking about the deposit and loan betas any differently kind of in this potential, hopefully small, upright cycle that we're seeing? I guess if we see, like you said, we've seen the one, maybe we see one in December. who the heck knows what happened after that. But you just mentioned 40 to 50% deposit beta. How do you think about loan betas in this kind of minimal upcycle here?

Yeah, I mean, it's roughly the same. I'd say, you know, the pressure on loan yields that we've seen throughout the summer does not follow the yield curve, right? The yield curve has been steepening. So you'd expect to see kind of the three, five, portion of term loans move higher. We did see that at the end of the quarter. I mentioned we were at around 644 on new production. I think if you look back last quarter, 630-ish. So you saw that same kind of what I'll call 45, 50% beta. But I would expect, we would want to expect to see that move higher as rates move higher.

Okay. And then just in terms of composition and loan growth, it looked like maybe there's a little bit more weighted towards the one to four family this quarter. Anything of note there or just kind of attractive yields that was worth holding on balance sheet this time around? Or kind of how can we think about what the composition of new loan growth might continue to look like from here?

Yeah, I think we try to maintain a balanced approach, Stephen. So one thing and a quarter, maybe one to four family, one quarter, maybe C&I, one over, or maybe owner occupied. The composition, I mean, part of that was the mortgage platform, mortgage segment platform that I talked about, which was a deposit generation portfolio kind of campaign was actually really successful, weighed on some of the gain on sale results. But then a portion of that's also branch originated, more community-based lending type of activities. So I think Higher mortgage rates would kind of dictate that that would slow down. I think that that's expected. But what I really like about our mortgage division is that optionality, as you mentioned. It's probably not the end of the world to have seven and a half, seven and three quarter mortgage-originated paper on your balance sheet right now that sticks around for kind of five to seven years if you think rates are going down.

Pretty good lever to have. That's an originate to sell channel for us, but it's nice that we're thinking about where rates are and it's nice to have the optionality that we could keep some of that on the balance sheet if we opted to do that. And if rates go down, by the way. And then if rates do go down, that that generally leads to a later date on sale.

Absolutely. Great. Thanks for all the color. I'll go ahead and step back. Appreciate it.

All right. Appreciate it, Steve. Our next question comes from Will Jones from KBW. Please go ahead with your question.

Hey, great. Thanks. Good morning, guys.

Morning, Will. And welcome. Nice to have you as the primary.

Yeah, absolutely. Great to be here. I wanted to circle back on the discussion on asset sensitivity. Michael, it sounds like this next quarter, as we start to see some of the rate lift on the asset side, you'll be able to see more of a stabilized margin and then kind of offset some of the funding pressure that is oncoming. To the extent, as we look out at the forward curve, we do see additional hikes into the future. Do you feel like that same dynamic will be at play where your general asset sensitivity can offset You know, incremental funding pressure or will there be a point where deposit competition, you know, just becomes too fierce and it may start overcoming, you know, some of that general asset sensitivity?

Yeah, Will, welcome. Glad to have you. So, I mean, roughly for every 25 basis point increase in Fed funds, you should see, I'm going to say around a three basis point increase in our margin. I think the reason we've kind of stuck with our guide and that range is the behavior you mentioned on competition. You know, I think some market sanity probably comes in at some point. But a lot of it depends on where people can fund in that broker and wholesale market. And right now, getting customer deposits even at Fed Funds target rate or slightly above kind of 4% is just a better funding mechanism than wholesaler brokered. And so as long as that is the case, and kind of the back end of the curve is steeper, I think you see what you said, fierce deposit competition. So we've kind of muted our margin asset sensitivity based off expected competition, and I'd like to think there's some upside there, but time will tell.

I would also say when we think of our margin, we think of it net of accretion. and we also and so when you look at we've said 370 to 380 range net accretion and if you we did have an unusual item where we had the non-equal interest reversal this this time which this quarter which cost us at three basis points in the quarter and so if you look at our core margin we're really right in the middle of the range that we have have projected if you take those two. Net of accretion and the one unused wide of this quarter were really right at that sort of 375 range.

Yeah, I think one other thing I'd add was it's really important to us that we're growing customer relationships. And so balance sheet growth, a nominal decrease in margin, but you have to grow net interest income, right? You have to grow earnings and you have to grow relationships. And so that's where we have our team focused. We want to be disciplined. in pricing. But a couple of basis points of margin compression with double-digit growth is not the end of the world for us. In fact, we're quite happy about it. Exactly.

No, he said not the end of the world.

We'll take it.

Yeah, no, that's totally fair. Hitting right on the NIM versus NII debate that I feel like we're all trying to figure out nowadays. Maybe just, I guess, a little backward-looking when you – So what happened with the September hike? I know you've got about 40% of your deposits that are indexed, but for the remainder, were there maybe more exception or negotiated prices? Did you find yourself having to play more defense on those depositors or just give us a flavor of kind of what client reaction, client behavior was to the September hike?

Yeah, I think there's general excitement, right, from anybody when the Fed announced increases rates. I think that initially it's a, hey, you need to raise your deposit costs, but don't raise the loan rates. I think it's in general how the world thinks about it, but it was actually quite muted. We generally are very, not generally, we are very fair to our clients when it comes to deposit pricing. We're not interested in trying to get everybody to zero deposit costs so that when the Fed hikes rates, they get a cost and say, hey, man, you know, Why is Fed Funds at 380 and you've been paying me two basis points? We don't think that's a good customer value proposition. So it does limit some of the client reaction. And then you mentioned index deposits, right? We did that in 22, I believe it was, for this very thing so that we could just be fair to our clients in all rate cycles. No matter if rates go up or down, they're treated fairly. fairly, and the company's treated fairly, and the shareholders are treated fairly. So that's, that mutes that a little bit, Will. Now, you know, when two-year treasuries at 480 or whatever, you start to get some people call and say, hey, what are we thinking here? And so those calls do happen, you know, with people with a lot of money, which makes sense.

Yeah, I would add one point. You know, the historical inefficiency in deposit pricing is being sucked out of the industry, I think, primarily. And I think it's going to just be more that way with technology. And so then you ask a good question, but with our clients, they've come to know that we're going to move them. And so we go ahead and move our relationship, good client relationships, we go ahead and move them. And they don't have to ask for them to be moved. And so we've actually taken we've added efficiency to the process with our clients but we think one that's helping us retain them because it creates a really good client experience and we think it's helping us get more and so we've seen some of our biggest deposit clients become bigger deposit clients because they know that hey they don't have to call and they know that it's going to be adjusted whenever rates adjust and and that creates a better client experience. Hey, and the other thing, shout out back to you guys, good piece, good research piece from your group, Will, on the NIM versus NII. I think a lot of good stuff in there and just as Michael put it earlier, hey, we'll give up two basis points of margin if we can get double digit growth and that's, we think we're using our capital really effectively in that, so.

Yeah, I appreciate that. We're trying to just be thoughtful around that debate there and kind of how the right way to view that dynamic is going forward. So I appreciate that. Shout out. Last one for me, guys. I'll just throw in. We're kind of hovering around that 9% TCE range that we talked about being a target last quarter. Just any thoughts on the buyback and what you guys might think about strategically there going forward?

Yeah, you saw our repurchase activity this quarter. And we do think at certain price levels, it's a good use of capital at other price levels. Maybe it's too dilutive to capital. And so we will continue to be thoughtful and active around that. at price levels that we think are appropriate.

Yeah, okay. All right, that's fair. Well, thanks, guys, and I'm glad to join you.

Great. Thanks, Will. Thanks, Will.

Our next question comes from Brett Rabitin from Stonex Group. Please go ahead with your question.

Hey, guys. Good morning.

I wanted to start on just the organic expansion question

Thank you all for joining us.

Thanks, Brett. And you're right, we didn't actually mention that in our comments, but we've been in Asheville with a loan production office, and we converted that to a full-service location, so it's now we're in North Carolina. We have said that that's a target market, target expansion for us. We think it's a fantastic place to live, work, and play, a lot like a lot like where we are in our headquarters market of Tennessee and the markets we're in in Georgia and Alabama and Bowling Green, Kentucky. So we think Western North Carolina particularly is a great spot for us to start there and we have a beachhead location and I would assume that others would follow over time so that's going to be a place where we continue to grow and build out our presence, build out our brand.

Okay. And Chris, any updated thoughts on M&A and just if you see that as more or less likely than maybe you have in the past and just what you're seeing or hearing from possible partners?

Sure. You've heard me say often banks are sold, they're not bought. And so we are A willing and thoughtful participant. And so we stand at the ready. And if the right thing comes along, then we would act upon that. And, you know, we've described our geography as running from central and western Virginia all the way through the Carolinas, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee, and maybe a few spots in Kentucky and then even into the northern part of Florida. That's really our geography and so we keep a close, we try to anyway, keep a close watch on that. We like things that are closer to our existing geography rather, even within that geography I just described, we like things that are closer to our existing geography rather than further away. and we love banks that look like us. We love community banks. We love strong deposit sides of the balance sheet and we love cultures that are, let's say, straightforward. What you see is what you get and that's really what we really get excited if we get opportunities that are like that. and like I said, we stand.

Okay.

And then if I could ask one last one just around, you've talked some about your value proposition and how the inefficient market for deposits is going to change with technology. The M&T CEO at our conference recently basically said AI could be scary but what it's going to do is make banks more efficient. So if you wake up and banks are 20% more efficient. That probably goes to the customer. And so you have to find ways to stay at the higher end of margins for the industry. You know, what are you guys' thoughts on that? And just, you know, everyone's worried about AI changing the dynamic around deposit rates.

Well, I think that on... Regards to AI and technology, I do think the efficiency in terms of how we think of the efficiency ratio, and we think of the efficiency ratio not just as an expense measure. We think of it as how efficient are we carrying out our business every day. And so we do think that I think a lot of your primary applications of AI are going to be in that area for banks. But I also believe that for many folks, deposit in terms of rates has already become quite efficient. If you look at what is available to you, Brett, look, you're an educated person. Thank you for joining us. But I don't think it is like a light switch. I don't think it just flips on one day. So I think it'll continue to get more and more efficient. I think as technology continues to become, the technology in that space continues to become more adapted and easier to use and more prevalent. I think that it just becomes a very efficient deposit market. along with more efficient on the expense side of getting more out of every expense dollar we spend. So I think we think of those kind of actually as almost separate and we work both sides. But going back to what we discussed earlier, we're making it pretty efficient for our customers today by Part of our value proposition is you don't have to watch your bank every day to make sure they're giving you a good, strong customer value proposition. We're going to make sure we're presenting that to you, whether you're calling us when rates change or not.

Okay. That's helpful. Thanks so much for the color.

All right. Thanks, Brett. Our next question comes from David Bishop from Hofty Group. Please go ahead with your question.

Yeah, good morning, gentlemen. Hey, quick question, Mike. You noted the stress on both the deposit and the loan yield side here. In a perfect world, where should we see that new origination yield be running at? I think you mentioned 640 or so at the end of the quarter. Just curious, you know, on a normalized basis, where you'd expect those to be coming in on?

Well, on a Perfect World would be 7 plus percent, I guess, if you think about just spread over the five year. I think, yeah, we see a wide range of competition. I mean, there's some people here locally that are doing owner-occupied CRE in the fives, which is not something that we're willing to do. And so that keeps pressure on low yields. I think they should be those upper sixes, low sevens. As you see, kind of the belly of the curve. and Stephen. But that's a little bit of that function on competition, right?

Absolutely. And then notice the increase in the metro versus community deposit growth this quarter. Just curious if you see much of a pricing differential between those two channels.

Thanks. Yeah, metro, I mean, the Nashville market had a really, really strong deposit quarter and that's kind of the and the driver there. And there's more in the pipeline as well. I mean, I got to say, you know, all of our markets are competitive. And so there's no free lunches anywhere. But I think the way that, you know, Chris just touched on the prior questions, you know, we're not treating people in a metro market versus community market any differently. You know, we're trying to be fair to everyone and create value for our customers. which creates a customer driven balance sheet. So not a whole lot of pricing difference. We give the same amount of authority and discretion to the smallest market we're in to the largest market we're in and we expect them to go get relationships and grow them in the same way.

Got it. Thank you. Our next question comes from Steve Moss from Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question.

Good morning. Maybe just following up on loan growth and rates here, just kind of curious, given a little bit of moderation, fourth quarter, wondering, as you expect, if rates There are new origination rates go higher here. Do you expect maybe loan growth could slow into 2027?

Yeah, fair question. We haven't seen that indication yet, but yes, we do think it could, but we haven't seen it yet. At some point, you know, Deals begin to fall out. You know, they don't pencil out anymore on the loan side. And so, again, we haven't seen it yet, but we do think it's certainly a possibility that that could happen if rates continue to increase.

Okay. Appreciate that. And then just on the credit here, I know you guys highlighted two criticized classified assets last quarter, if I recall correctly. I'm kind of curious with the non-performing error, how large is it and just kind of what type and maybe how long until it works out of the system if you guys have any color?

Yeah, the one loan we referenced is about $13 million. Size, again, adequately collateralized, liquid collateral. For the most part, there's some other collateral also, but for the most part, it's liquid collateral. Thank you very much guys. All right. Thanks, Steve.

Our next question comes from Christopher Maranac from Breen Capital. Please go ahead with your question.

Hey, good morning, Chris and Mike. Would you consider growing the securities portfolio more if the competitive pricing were to either get worse or just not be adequate as we roll through these next few quarters?

Good morning, Chris. This is Michael. The threat runs about 9% of total assets. I mean, I think we've been in a range of up to probably that kind of 14, 15% range. So if we, you know, if we had a large deposit growth, we'd certainly deploy into kind of some of the floating rate securities we've been in so that, you know, when loan growth does come at the right kind of return there, you would deploy it into that. We are focused on growing our relationships, and I've said that like three times, and so You know, our goal is to continue to deepen and grow that part of the balance sheet. If there's irrational pricing and it's better to get into some flooding rate securities to deploy deposits, excess deposits. And yeah, we would do that for short term. But in the long term, we're trying to grow the company. And that generally happens through relationship driven activity.

Hey, Christopher, I would also just say for our Thank you so much for joining us.

drops in liquidity the last quarter or two, and those are not meaningful. But just curious if you have flexibility to push those a little lower, again, just to kind of try to manage income and outcomes.

Yeah, absolutely. We've got a lot of optionality in our balance sheet portfolio. So I'd say absolutely, Chris.

Yeah, absolutely. And we did add a slide on capital flexibility earlier. in our deck, which when you look at our AOCI plus our HTM securities marks, then you'll see that's actually very low relative to a typical bank our size, very low.

Nope, absolutely, and thanks for adding that this quarter.

Okay, great.

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Our next question comes from David Rochester from Cantor. Please go ahead with your question.

Hey, good morning, guys. Morning, David. I wanted to ask about your recent banker hiring and the talent pipeline, how that looks today, how that opportunity set looks coming into next year. Yeah, at least one big integration coming up in market. Seems like that could be a good opportunity for you guys. Just hoping maybe you can talk about that as well.

Yeah, Dave, it's Michael. Good morning. We had around 10 or so this quarter. That's generally the pace we've been going at. It's been interesting. across the footprint, so both in our community and our metro markets, including Nashville. I'd say the pipeline is just as full as it's ever been. I know I say this a lot, and you've heard me say this. We're more focused on hiring the right people than hiring people. And so that makes a big difference for us. and so I don't give our groups targets to go out and hire but we're definitely focused on getting the right people culturally that are focused on relationships and deposit generation, full banking activity and so that's really good. In fact, we were working on one this morning that was pretty early and we have one that's about to come across the finish line. Super excited about that and we continue to recruit. You mentioned the The conversion, I think, you know, we keep doing what we're doing, right? And so it's kind of like dating, you know, you just have conversations and it's ongoing. If, you know, they want to marry you on the first date, it's probably not the right person. And so this stuff can take years. And, you know, we're actively cultivating relationships and it'll play out over time. And at the same time, we're hiring young people. and we need to develop them too to create our own organic pipeline of talent. And so we're trying to hit it from both ends.

Yeah. And I just add to that last piece, reiterating one of the things Michael said. It is a long-term, you know, we view that as a long-term proposition for us in two ways. One is just like Michael said, generally when the folks that we're interested in make a move, it's going to be somebody that we've known for a long time. We've had conversations and they've watched our company and then they just decide to make a move is generally how that goes. And then the other thing I think that Michael squeezed in there that's really important is and I think this has been a change for us over the last three or four years and that's developing folks. A lot of our, for the folks that we're the most excited about are folks that have been with our company now for maybe five years and they started right out of college or they started or five years or less and they came in very young and have really matured and actually been going to, been making contacts around town and they blossomed into really important folks to manage relationships for us and they're doing a fantastic job and so that's an important part of our plan as well and so we're actually leaning into that with more development and training for early career stages and so I think banks have generally gotten away from that, and I know of another bank or two around the country from talking to peers that are doing the same thing because they think that's going to be the best route going forward. So we're really focusing on two different angles. One is we continue to recruit, but two is we're really developing our development, if you will, to be able to bring people along.

and the good news is we can do both. I mean, it's not one or the other and so you can do both.

Sounds like a good strategy. Maybe just one last one. You talked about loan growth next year potentially slowing a little bit with higher rates. I was just curious what you're seeing or what you would expect in higher rates for pay down activity. You'd think you'd get a little bit of a breather there but that's something that could help support you. What's your Your line of sight into that kind of activity next year.

Yeah, and David, just one thing that we may not have been totally clear on. In response to a question about could it slow in higher rates, we said, well, yeah, it could. That's not actually what we're thinking. That's not actually what we're forecasting.

We continue to see activity to be quite robust in 27.

Michael?

Yeah, I think it's important. that our people have to go. We have to go grow the company and if loan growth slows for the industry that means we got to take it from other people and we got to build market share whether that's loan or deposits and continue to expand our presence in any rate environment. I think there's been some really fair questions on at what point from a margin perspective do you kind of pull back and I think we can and Chris Holmes. All right.

Thank you very much everybody for joining us. We always appreciate your interest in FBK and hope everybody has a great day and great rest of the earnings season.

And with that, we'll conclude today's conference call and presentation. We do thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.