Home Bancshares, Inc. (HOMB) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Greetings ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Home BancShares, Inc. Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. The purpose of this call is to discuss the information and data provided in the quarterly earnings release issued after the market closed yesterday. The company presenters will begin with prepared remarks, then entertain questions. [Operator Instructions] The company has asked me to remind everyone to refer to their cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements. You will find this note on Page 3 of their Form 10-K filed with the SEC in February 2026. [Operator Instructions] And this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Donna Townsell, Director of Investor Relations. Donna, please go ahead.

Donna Townsell: Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to our third quarter conference call. With me for today's discussion is our Chairman, John Allison; Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank; Kevin Hester, President and Chief Lending Officer; Brian Davis, our Chief Financial Officer; Chris Poulton, President of CCFG; and Scott Walter of Shore Premier Finance. The story of the quarter was stability, strength and shareholder value creation. All banks are not created equal in management, profitability, margin and among many other categories. And we certainly work hard at Home to set ourselves apart. We are proud to announce another record-setting quarter here at Home, and our team is prepared to provide more details about our performance. Our first speaker today will be our Chairman, John Allison.

John Allison: Welcome, everyone. It's another strong quarter for Home BancShares, led by record earnings of $129.1 million or $0.65 a share. For the first 9 months of '26, we remain on the strong path towards my goal -- our goal of $500 million, or it sound better to say $0.5 billion. I never thought I'd be saying that, but we're on a path for that. For the first 9 months of '26, we produced $380 million in adjusted earnings, keeping us on a strong path towards our goal of $500 million. Really, the real difference between the earnings and the adjusted earnings is primarily Mountain Commerce, the merger expense of $12 million to $13 million. During the quarter, we paid our new dividend of $0.23 a share. I know you are all happy with that. I would think it's a 9.5% increase, and my wife is extremely happy. As you all remember, she's a dividend hawk for everyone. Increase from the last quarter, we repurchased 1.3 million shares for approximately $39.3 million, creating a shareholder buyback yield of 0.69% in the third quarter. Second quarter, we created a shareholder buyback yield of 0.77%, and the first quarter of 0.25%. So total through 3 quarters additional shareholder return of 1.71%. For the 3 quarters, we repurchased 3.3 million shares, approximately $94.4 million, with plans to continue stock repurchases during the fourth quarter. Couple that with a new dividend yield of approximately 3%. It is our goal to return as much capital to our shareholders as prudent to do so. I understand the importance of shareholders because they are the ones we work for. Being a founder, Chairman, owner operator and largest individual shareholder, I understand the alignment firsthand, management is invested in alongside our shareholders, and we remain committed to sharing the rewards of the company performance with them. That more than confirms the passion and drive to share the rewards with all our shareholders. Home's earnings power and balance sheet flexibility was shining brightly in the third quarter with record profitability, strong stock repurchases, margin expansion, increased dividend, consistent ROA, strong PPNR, tangible book per share growth, low efficiency ratio. It will be interesting to see once we -- as time goes on this quarter, how we compare to the rest of the industry. We're proud of the fact that we've been named by many companies for outstanding peer-leading performance awards year in and year out and as we forge forward on our goal of $0.5 billion in profit. As I said in the second quarter, Mountain Commerce transaction is performing very well and making a continued contribution to the total company. Based on what I've seen, I'd do that transaction again. We expect additional benefits as we complete the back-office integration during the fourth quarter. Congratulations on a good job to our new Tennessee partners. I'm proud of the work you're doing. Again, the big surprise, like, the second quarter was the third quarter average loan [ growth ] balances outstanding. What appeared to be a large down quarter like last quarter, turned out to be only down $28 million on average balances from last quarter. That's a result of keeping many of the loans and payoffs coming late quarter. Our funding strategy also continued to benefit earnings. Borrowing expenses during the quarter declined by $2.3 million. Decrease in interest expense on deposits was $1.2 million of that and decrease of $1.1 million in interest expense on Federal Home Loan borrowing and other borrowings as we reduced total borrowings by $200 million during the quarter. Many banks may think their AOCI pain is over because they restructured the balance sheet. It took hundreds of millions of dollars, in some cases, billions of dollars of losses attempting to repair the damage inflicted by their decisions. The story appears to be repeating itself again as rates continue to climb. Home avoided taking excessive duration risk, maintained balance sheet flexibility and protected shareholder capital. Our disciplined decision not to build a large, long-duration securities portfolio has proven to be the right one. Higher rates still affected our AOCI during the quarter, but impact remained manageable relative to our size. If you remember, we've not bought securities in years to speak of. A key point that differentiates Home from most banks as evidenced by the increase in margin for the quarter is the balance sheet is structured to increase the margin as rates increase. Donna said all banks are not created equally and they're not created equally. But when rates go up, stocks -- bank stocks usually go down when it's actually positive for Home BancShares, as you can see for the quarter. We built this balance sheet to perform through different economic and interest rate environments, and that discipline continues to benefit our shareholders through today. Those pushing public banks to buy low rate long-term securities several years ago are now the ones pushing for growth. Grow, grow, grow. Growth at any expense. They said, Johnny, open up that loan machine. I really bet that few, if any of them have ever run a bank. Being one of the most profitable and safest banks in the country year in and year out has worked for our shareholders. We will stay the course as we have in the past. I'd rather be known as one of the safest and most profitable banks in the United States than one with problems losing millions of hard-earned money of the shareholders. We will grow when opportunities meet our standards for credit quality, pricing and shareholder returns. We will stay the course and you can bank on that. Regarding our large nonperforming loan, we've been discussing for several quarters, our long-standing guidance has been, we have no additional loss in the large Texas C&I relationship. And in fact, we expect recoveries over time. There's been a lot of positive movement in this credit over the last 90 days. 80% of the assets of the company are under a signed asset purchase agreement that we expect to close tomorrow or next week, 3 weeks from now, but soon. And the remaining 20% have a preliminary agreement with only one contingency that will be resolved once the first part is sold and completed. So when the 80% sold, we understand the other 20% will come right after that. We expect these transactions to close this quarter. The scheduled proceeds from these 2 sales transactions would result in a recovery over the current carrying balance. Remaining balances owed and the proceeds would be between the personal guarantors and Home BancShares. Profitability, as I said earlier, of our company, we had a $166 million PPNR, and I think Stephen is going to cover most of those. We came out with a pretty good efficiency ratio of 40.84% for the quarter and 2.11% ROA, and that's without the Mountain Commerce conversion. Our nonperforming ticked up a little bit, but that's not a concern to us at that. I think Chris had a little one that popped up, $11 million or $12 million, and he's around to discuss it anybody wants to ask a question. I'd like to say a special thanks to our team for continuing to produce better numbers almost every quarter in our 26-year life. We're honored to be a continuing top performer year in and year out. Donna, I think that's all the news I have because all the news I have was good, and I have no bad news.

Donna Townsell: Okay. Well, no bad news is good news. So thank you, Johnny. Our next report comes from Stephen Tipton.

John Tipton: Thanks, Donna. As Johnny mentioned, the third quarter of 2026 was another strong performance for Home and Centennial Bank. Adjusted earnings were $129.1 million, an increase of $1 million from last quarter. Performance metrics are again top tier with a 2.11% return on assets and a 16.54% return on tangible common equity, which is on a TCE ratio of 13.48%. The reported net interest margin was 4.53%, an increase of 2 basis points from Q2. The core margin, excluding event income, was 4.50%, up 3 basis points from the prior quarter, and up 4 basis points year-over-year. The overall loan yield, excluding event income, averaged 6.91% and exited the quarter at 6.90%, while interest-bearing deposit costs averaged 2.37%. Total deposit costs were 1.83% in Q3 and exited the quarter at 1.81%. Switching to the balance sheet. Legacy deposit balances declined in Q3 by $358 million as a result of a decline in municipal deposit balances, quarterly tax payments in September and the reduction of wholesale deposits from the MCB acquisition. We continue to focus on core deposit relationships in this extremely competitive rate environment. Noninterest-bearing balances now stand at $4.21 billion and account for over 22% of total deposits. Loan production softened slightly in the third quarter to $850 million, reflective of our conservative approach to underwriting and discipline in pricing. Tennessee contributed nicely this quarter with almost $70 million in production. Payoff volume that we've discussed in the past materialized in Q3 with payoffs at $1.01 billion. Our pipeline for unfunded commitments remained strong at over $3.8 billion. As Johnny mentioned, tangible book value per share grew $0.03 to $15.35 despite a $65 million increase in AOCI and the share repurchases, a testament to the earnings power and stability of our company. Capital levels remain extremely strong with common equity Tier 1 capital ending at 16.7% and total risk-based capital at 19.4% and reserve to total loans of 1.93%. We believe our balance sheet is well positioned to benefit from the recent move in rates and from what looks to be additional rate hikes in the future. We have approximately $1.2 billion in fixed rate loans maturing over the next 12 months at a weighted average rate of 5.72%, along with $7 billion in variable rate loans. Asset liability modeling shows a nearly 6% increase in net interest income in an up 100 basis point scenario. We are proud of the third quarter results here at Home and look forward to another record year as we round out 2026. With that said, I'll turn it back to you, Donna.

Donna Townsell: Thank you, Stephen. And Kevin Hester will wrap up our prepared remarks with an update on lending.

Kevin Hester: Thanks, Donna. Loan balances ended the quarter much better than we anticipated when we visited 90 days ago. We had some payoffs late in the quarter, but also held on to a few that we expected to pay off. Johnny says I'm not very good at forecasting loan balances, so I've got that going for me. I'm not sure if it's correct or not, but for what it's worth, this quarter looks better than the last. We continue to see sizable loan opportunities throughout our footprint, and we're encouraged by the effort that's given by our lenders. Johnny commented on the large nonaccrual. And while we hoped it would be a third quarter resolution, we're very encouraged by the progress made recently, and we believe that the proposed asset sales validate our underwriting and management of the credit. Overall asset quality remains solid. And while nonperforming loans increased 11 basis points quarter-over-quarter, that increase is due to one CCFG loan that we expect to be resolved in this quarter, and Chris is on the call to provide more color on that. We remain focused on asset quality, profitability and growth in that order. One thing I can confidently tell you for my 65 quarters leading the lending function of this company is that this is the only formula for long-term success in this industry. Donna, I'll give it back to you.

Donna Townsell: Thank you, Kevin. Well, Johnny, before we go to Q&A, do you have any additional comments?

John Allison: Well, I think Stephen kind of hit that. Think about the quarter, we've got an AOCI mark of $65 million. We paid our new dividend, increased dividend, and we bought back 1.3 million shares, and we still grew tangible book value slightly. We didn't lose or tangible book didn't go down. Banks sell on tangible book, and we still increased tangible book value per share. I'm very proud of that. And that -- what that says is that Home has amazing earnings power. That's what 2.11% ROA will do for you. I really just want to thank the entire team for continuing to deliver outstanding results nearly every year of our 26-year history. Home BancShares has built a consistent record of top-performing banks and the performance reflects the discipline and dedication of our employees across the company. This was another strong quarter for Home BancShares. We produced record earnings, meaningful capital to shareholders, maintained our balance sheet discipline, made encouraging progress on the large credit we've discussed. We remain focused on finishing the year out strong and delivering long-term value for our shareholders. Past that, I think that's enough for me, Donna.

Donna Townsell: Okay. That sounds good. We will turn it over to Q&A.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question is from the line of Steve Scouten from Piper Sandler.

John Tipton: He was going to be in kind of a rural area today. He may not be making connection. Let's move on. If he comes back, we'll handle it, how about that. Let's move on.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of Woody Lay from KBW.

Wood Lay: I wanted to start on the net interest margin and higher rates would seem to be a benefit for you all. I was just curious with the hike in September, how you've seen the NIM progress from there and what incremental rate hikes could mean for the NIM going forward?

John Tipton: Woody, this is Stephen. Yes. I guess first part of your question, the core NIM, excluding event income, averaged 4.5% for the quarter, it was 4.55% in September. Obviously, the rate hike came halfway through the month there. So I think there may be a little bit of incremental benefit for us. And then just based on our ALCO modeling, like I said in the comments, I mean, we show -- I think it's 5.6% increase to NII in up 100 basis point scenario. So that's kind of what the way we think about it today. I mean, we're certainly in a competitive environment on loans and deposits. But if we're able to -- if we're able to control that on the deposit side and get some lift out of these maturing loans over the next 12 months, I think there's a chance that it could potentially move a little higher from here.

Wood Lay: Got it. That's helpful. And then I was curious on the growth front based on your opening comments, it seems like you're a little bit more optimistic on growth in the fourth quarter. And I was curious, is that a reflection of competition slowing down? Is pricing becoming more rational? I guess just curious on your thoughts on maybe what's driving that clear path to growth?

John Allison: This is John. I'll tell you a little about that and give it to Kevin after that. We had some -- we had -- we lost about 400 -- about $500 -- $0.5 billion of loans due to some unusual circumstances that we have -- that hit the company over the past 18 months. They're gone now. Those unusual circumstances are gone. But -- we're back on the loan -- we're back on the loan wagon today. We've got lots of good stuff working. And I think you'll see -- you'll be pleased to see the loan growth out of Home BancShares. I'll let Kevin speak to that. He was referring to, and then we'll let Chris comment on it also.

Kevin Hester: Yes. Woody, I don't know that it -- it may be saying that people are coming back to their senses with the 25 basis points that already occurred going up and the thought that there's probably 75 more coming that may have -- that may be playing into where we're at. We're not 100% sure of that at this point, but there's certainly -- there's certainly some good opportunities that we're looking at for this quarter, good sizable opportunities, and it's across the footprint. It's not all in one place. So that -- we may look back at 90 days and say that, yes, that's part of it. But I'm not 100% sure that's the case yet.

John Allison: One more comment from me. We're seeing a lot of opportunities out there right now that really look good. I think you'll see come to fruition. Chris, do you want to comment on CCFG about what you're seeing?

Christopher Poulton: Sure. Thanks. Well, it was a little slow new origination-wise for us in the third quarter. I mean, I think we closed towards the end of the quarter other than 2 loans heading to closing, we probably had 0 in the pipeline, no soft quotes, new term sheet. But I view that as a good thing. Ultimately, the market was in transition and the market has got to catch up with us sometimes a little bit on feeling sour about things. But really, since the start of this quarter, I think people are starting to accept that the way things are going to look going forward, rate-wise and such. And so we've seen a lot of pickup in the last couple of weeks, a lot of our existing clients, a lot of deals coming back our way that maybe went away for a little while, et cetera. But I think what we're hearing in general is it's pretty uncertain out there and in uncertain times, our certainty is a virtue. So I like what we're seeing, pipeline is filling back up. And hopefully, it will continue that way, but I feel good about things. It was a little bleak in the third quarter.

Wood Lay: And then I guess, actually, just one quick follow-up. I mean it sounds like pricing and spreads are a little bit incrementally positive. Just any sense on structurally, I think last quarter, you called out you're seeing some irrational structure in the marketplace, which was causing you to pull back. Are you still seeing any of that over the past quarter?

Kevin Hester: Yes, I don't think that that's necessarily changed. I could believe that maybe pricing discipline is coming back a little bit more than I do structural discipline at this point.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of John Arfstrom from RBC Capital Markets.

Jon Arfstrom: Kevin, just one quick one on loan growth. You talked a little bit about late payoffs in the quarter. Can you help us kind of understand the size of that?

Kevin Hester: It was -- I would say the latter part of the quarter was $300 million or $400 million. And it's -- other than one that Johnny was talking about, the majority of that was just projects, we do a lot of construction and projects reached the time where it's -- where they either sell or they move to permanent financing, and that's what we were seeing in the third quarter. There was a lot of projects that needed to move on because it was time.

John Allison: One of those was -- one of them that had unusual circumstances was great credit, $170 million credit that we lost over unusual circumstances. They're not -- hopefully, that's not repeatable.

Jon Arfstrom: Yes. Okay. I know we tease you guys on the loan growth projections, but it sounds pretty good from my point of view.

John Allison: It's much better. It's much better. I'm telling you, we're looking at some good opportunities.

Jon Arfstrom: Yes. Okay. Just 2 quick ones on credit. Chris, anything to note on the CCFG nonperformance? It sounds like that's going to be resolved. But anything on that? And then can you guys remind us the size of the Texas resolutions and what kind of a step down we could see in the Texas nonaccruals?

John Allison: Chris, go ahead and take the first part, and I'll take the second.

Christopher Poulton: Okay. Yes, the one loan that popped up is a -- it's a little less than $15 million a predevelopment loan to -- it was the previous customer, and they had developed and done fine on that. So we did a predevelopment loan for them a couple of years ago. It's an L.A. loan. It's entitled for residential, which L.A. needs. It was adjacent to the Eaton Fire area, so kind of Northeast L.A. So they had asked for some accommodation on that right after the fires. We gave them that, gave them a little extension for that, but we've kind of gotten to the end of that. And we really needed to -- we really need to exercise our right under loan agreement to try to get resolution there. So we started a foreclosure action at that maturity. Since that time, we've signed an LOI for the loan sale. We put that a little bit on hold right now. We are continuing to work that. But our borrower has been in contact with us throughout. They've approached us in the last -- again, in the last week or so with what they would need to do to reinstate that loan. And so we're going to give them kind of another 5 days or so here to come to us. We gave them a plan for reinstatements and the first stage of that over the next few days, and then there's about a 45-day period after that for them to fully do that. That's our preference. Our preference is to work with our borrowers when they can come to the table. So we're going to give them an opportunity. We're going to try to give them an opportunity to do that. Hopefully, that's the way that works. If it doesn't, we'll go forward with the LOI or we'll go forward with foreclosure and sell the property. But our hope right now is the borrower will be able to do what they've said they can do.

John Allison: Okay. And on the large C&I credit. You got more questions on that one, John or you good with...

Jon Arfstrom: No. Just the Texas...

John Allison: Okay on the large C&I credit, it's a 2-piece sale. Sale #1 is the marine equipment floating stock that brought 92% of appraisal. That's the bid. It's been purchased by New York Stock Exchange company. The purchase agreement is signed. We're waiting on approval from the Coast Guard that the employees have transferred over and the equipment will transfer over and waiting on approval from the Coast Guard. That should bring in the $85 million range for us. The second part of that is the -- basically the fuel tanks. And there is a $17.5 million bid on those. We should net about $16.5 million out of that. So that brings us in $101 million, $102 million once that closes, the book balance, not the actual balance, but the book balance we have is $91 million. So you'll see about a $10 million recovery of the loan loss reserve or whatever when that closes. And the balance is -- has been default interest that we have not recognized $0.01 of. So it will be a -- between the personal guarantors Home BancShares is how we resolve whatever balance is out. But you should see recoveries there. Once we got a hold of the credit, we underwrote the credit, and I have to congratulate our people on an outstanding job to get 92% of their appraisals. So it -- I would have told you it'd be going by now, but sometime in the next couple of weeks, I would expect it to happen. We'll issue an 8-K when that happens. And we're buying a bottle -- Stephen's buying a bottle of a 25-year-old WhistlePig and Donna is having a tent party in our parking lot. So we're going to be drinking WhistlePig and have the tent party out front here at -- when we get a final resolution. I think it's close, close enough, it's about a little whiskey, John.

Jon Arfstrom: I wish I could get an invitation, but...

John Allison: Expenses might be up a little bit in Q4.

Jon Arfstrom: Well, congratulations on that long time coming, but that will be a nice step down.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Brett Rabatin from StoneX Group.

Brett Rabatin: Johnny, I wanted to ask, I know you were looking at a potential few transactions and I kind of heard that a lot of folks are saying, well, the AOCI marks have risen so much that that's kind of changed the math for the short term, and so maybe M&A is tougher right now. But just wanted to hear if any of those -- any of those 3 were looking like they might still be possible and just what you're seeing out there? And then I get a lot of feedback from people saying, "Hey, Johnny, if Johnny wants a really good bank that's going to add some good assets, he might need to bend his triple accretion laws just a little bit. So I was just hoping to get some color on those things.

John Allison: Well, we haven't broken yet, right? One of these deals were just -- was about too much dilutive, 30 minutes or a cup of coffee dilutive. They've gone radio silent on me. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened with that deal. I don't know. It was something that had a high level of interest to us, and it's just gone quiet. So I don't know where the banker is coming -- I assume the banker will be back to us at some point in time, but that one just went quiet. The one of them we pulled out on was 2 deals, one we pulled out on and the banker is going quiet on this other one. So it's something that I think would be good for them and good for us. I think it would be a nice transaction for Home to do. And we spend a lot of time modeling it and playing with it, and we're willing to bid up for it. So as it turned out, I called a banker yesterday and told them to call me, and I haven't heard anything from him. So it's kind of disappointing. I don't know if they use me as a stalking horse or what they did. But anyway, we'd like to have -- we'd like to put a transaction together, and we're ready to do that. So we'll be working on -- we're always working on it. There's a lot of them out there right now opportunities to do those transactions. And our currency still is holding up fairly well. We got knocked down a little bit here as all the banks got knocked down recently. But I think we'll be back and we'll be able to do trades here before long. A little disappointing. I don't -- that's a little disappointing that we didn't -- we hadn't brought that one closer to fruition. But if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, there's more out there. So we'll move on. I wish I told you we're going to -- one of them we did due diligence on and we got inside the loan book, we decided that wasn't for us. So it was a tough deal to do anyway. And once we got in the loan book, we came out of it.

Brett Rabatin: Okay. And second question is what I'm gathering from the call is, it sounds like there's some budding optimism for loan growth and production. But I didn't quite get it. It sounds like you also think that maybe the payoff challenge that you've had in the past 2 quarters. Is that dwindling down? And then I was just also kind of curious as it relates to that, if Shore Premier was still seeing demand or how that business would go in with higher diesel prices and whatnot?

Kevin Hester: Brett, this is Kevin. I'll take the payoff. There's still it could be close to last quarter as far as the payoff number goes. We'll see how that plays out. I mean you had some rollover into this quarter that we thought were going to happen last quarter. So that always happens when you're looking at folks that are selling the properties or going and getting permanent financing. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when that's going to happen. So -- but there's still a little bit of...

Donna Townsell: However, from my aspect, I'm seeing better opportunities than I've seen in a while. So I think we can overcome those payoffs. And I'm not sure -- they have to come down substantially because we've taken so many so far this year. So hopefully, we won't continue to see the big bites in the payoff. Chris, you got anything big payoffs coming?

Christopher Poulton: I wouldn't say we have elevated. I mean, we always have payoffs. If I don't get payoffs, I get nervous.

John Allison: I said I'm ready for positive loan growth, what I'm ready for.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Matt Olney from Stephens.

Matt Olney: Just a few follow-ups here on the margin. Deposit competition, great to see deposit costs move lower in the third quarter, especially with some of your peers moving higher. Curious just about depositor behavior following the Fed hike a few weeks ago, kind of what you're seeing more recently? And if the Fed continues to hike, kind of what your expectations are on depositor behavior?

John Tipton: Matt, this is Stephen. First part, competition is fierce in all of our markets, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida. You've got different competitors in a lot of those markets, but you're seeing -- I got a text earlier this week in one of our markets, somebody was advertising 4.5% on a 12-month CD. So you'll see some of that stuff advertised. We've taken the same approach that we always have and negotiating one-off and selling the strength and stability of the company, and we'll get our shots along the way there. On depositor behavior from an interest rate standpoint, I don't know if I -- maybe a little more aggressive on this last rate hike in terms of expectations of what we pass along. We model, I think, 40% beta on checking and savings accounts and 100 in CDs. That's what we're working with our group on trying to kind of achieve overall. Some of the improvement in deposit rates for the quarter was kind of some of the outflows that we had on the municipal side. Most of those are tied to T-bills and index. So that's some of our higher cost funding that drew down some in the quarter.

Matt Olney: Okay. I appreciate that, Tipton. And then I guess another follow-up, Stephen, you mentioned the variable rate loans around $7 billion. I just want to make sure that's all-in number. Is that CCFG and the Community Bank? And just remind me within that $7 billion kind of the repricing timing as far as how quickly and how often those reprice?

John Tipton: Sure. Yes. So that does include CCFG. That's what is set to -- or can adjust in Q3 or Q4. So the longer-term stuff, I'll call adjustable rate that we have out there, but what we consider variable inside of, call it, 6 months or less. And some of that's daily, some of it's monthly, some of it is quarterly. 3.5 -- about half of the $7 billion, $3.5 billion is tied to Wall Street Journal Prime and then $3.3 billion or so is tied to SOFR. And then we've got some other indices for the balance of it.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of Michael Rose from Raymond James.

Michael Rose: Just wanted to go back to Mountain Commerce. I think the conversion -- systems conversion is coming up here next month. Any changes to cost savings expectations or any of the deal-related math, Stephen?

John Tipton: No. No. We're set for November 6 or the weekend of. We've already probably achieved a little of the cost savings along the way since 4/1, but come November 6 or the week after, we'll begin to see the realization of some of those from be it staffing or DP and other types of opportunities there. So no change and still estimate was, I think, a little over $5 million on an annualized basis is what we had targeted.

Michael Rose: Perfect. I appreciate that. Maybe separately, Johnny, I think previously talked about repurchasing all the shares that you issued related to Mountain Commerce. Is that kind of still the plan? You definitely sounded a little bit more optimistic on buybacks, particularly given the selloff we generally had in bank stocks since the middle of August.

John Allison: Yes, that's the plan. We're in about, what, 3.3 million so far, and we put about just short of 6 million. So I think in that...

John Tipton: About 400,000 shares quarter-to-date so far.

John Allison: Yes. Quarter-to-date, we bought 400,000. So that's 3.7 million. So we're still in there. And hopefully, we'll pick up 1 million or so this quarter. So we just keep on. Maybe we'll quite get it all done maybe by the end of the year, but maybe the first -- by the first half of next year, we'll have it all bought back. Do you think the shareholder yield is important, Michael?

Michael Rose: Do I? Yes. I mean I think you guys have a lot of capital and deploying that capital through dividend, buybacks, and opportunistic M&A, I think, is what we all want to hear and see. You guys do what you've done historically. So keep it up. Maybe one last just one for me on -- just on the environment. Any areas in credit that are, kind of, piquing your interest at this point. We've heard some scuttle around some of the restaurant groups and maybe some leisure and hospitality. Just anything you're watching a little bit more closely here.

John Allison: I don't -- we don't -- not really. We don't -- I don't see any -- if you're looking for a segment or a problem somewhere out there, I don't know if there's any widespread problems. Some of the Texas credits created that we've spent the last -- people fuss at us about growth. We've been busy cleaning up that Texas stuff for years. And all we got left maybe is a few hotels that give us a little problem. But overall, asset quality other than we don't have any problems. We have these asset quality meetings in Texas, it takes 2 hours and Florida takes 10 minutes and Arkansas takes 10 minutes, and you just don't have any problems in those markets. So anyway, we're continuing to work on those and -- but I don't see any segments anywhere. I don't -- we resolved this -- our big credit in Texas, which we think will resolve soon. And our nonperforming reserve nonperformer jumped over 300%. So I think you can expect that coming pretty quick. So asset quality overall is pretty good.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of Dave Rochester from Cantor.

David Rochester: Back on the deposit discussion. Given that the incremental aggressiveness you guys had mentioned on the deposit front, how are you guys thinking about a return to deposit growth in 4Q? Are you confident in that? And do you think you can fund the loan growth you're expecting with deposit growth next quarter?

John Tipton: Dave, it's Stephen. That would certainly be the goal. We've talked about the competitive environment, some seasonality in the last quarter, we would expect to see some of the municipal balances return there. We're talking to loan committees constantly about opportunities to get deposits with loan opportunities that come across in order to help fund that. Separate and apart from that, I mean, we've got $4.9 billion in capacity with the Federal Home Loan Bank. We've got a good cash position today. We've got a securities portfolio that comes off about $30 million a month. So not concerned from a liquidity standpoint. I think historically, the approach has been to use some of those avenues and take our time and pick our spots as opposed to being out here and having to run CD ads to raise funding. So...

David Rochester: I appreciate that. And then can you just give an update on where the spot price for deposits is at quarter end and where you guys are seeing new money post the hike?

John Tipton: Yes. So total deposit cost end of it, the average 1.83% for the quarter, 1.81% for September. I see our CD and money market negotiations every day. Our folks are doing a good job. We may have to pay 4% here or there with the customer just because the bank down the street is running an ad at 4.20% for 7 or 8 months. But our folks do a good job in negotiating down into the low and mid-3s. I guess, mid-3 is kind of we think about opportunities today.

David Rochester: Okay. And then just switching gears to the fee side of things. There was a little bit of volatility in trust fees this quarter. I was just wondering what the driver of that was? And how should we think about that line rebounding going into 4Q and next year?

John Tipton: Yes. Some of it is seasonality in terms of when our annual trust fees are charged. Q3 is generally a little bit of a light quarter there for trust. And then mortgage and CCFG fee income were a little bit light this quarter as well.

David Rochester: Do you feel pretty good about that bouncing back in next quarter?

John Tipton: Yes. I mean I think if you look over the last 6 quarters, we've averaged about $50 million just shy in noninterest income, and I would expect to see us migrate back closer to that number.

John Allison: The good news is we got customers that do real business, not just transaction. The bad news is that they're making a lot of money and they pay a lot of taxes. So we get hammered on the quarter. So -- but it comes, it's coming back.

David Rochester: Good. All right. Maybe one last one on expenses. You have some good expense control this quarter you guys showed. Is this a good run rate to kind of finish out the year? And what are your thoughts on expense growth next year?

John Allison: We haven't done our budget for next year yet. I guess that's coming pretty quick, isn't. Brian, you may be working on it now, right?

Brian Davis: We're kind of waiting for Mountain Commerce to get converted.

John Allison: Okay. Okay. So we don't have next year's if you got -- if I'm running, it will be less than it is this year, but -- Stephen is smiling now.

John Tipton: Yes. I mean, you've got some inflationary pressure, but we've also -- we've had some things set up throughout the year where -- whether it's physical space leases that we've been able to kind of work space down, we'll begin to see some of that benefit in Q4. Some of the lower-performing segments that we have, we're taking a look at what opportunities may be there for cost savings. You've got the Mountain Commerce cost savings that we'll get some of in Q4. So some of that should offset just inflationary pressures this quarter and next year.

David Rochester: Okay. So maybe a flattish kind of number that making this run rate this quarter good for next quarter?

John Tipton: For Q4, that's probably fair.

John Allison: [indiscernible].

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Ed Najarian from Hovde Group.

Edward Najarian: My questions have mostly been asked and answered. Just a real quick one. How do you think about the sort of the juxtaposition, again, about -- around deposit pricing? On the one hand, it's great to keep deposit pricing low, creates that wide NIM and great returns and love that you're giving back tons of capital to shareholders and keep buying back stock. But do you feel like you're going to have to raise deposit rates kind of along some reasonable deposit beta with the increase in the Fed funds rate? Or are you going to continue to try to really keep them restrained and not raise them much as we continue to get rate increases here? I guess the real question is, how should we think about deposit beta with you guys around Fed funds rate increases?

John Allison: We're forced to raise rates, if we're forced, we will. And I don't know what we ended up -- I don't remember what our deposit beta was as rates went up to the 6s. Do you remember what our cost of funds got up to 2 something? A little over 2, 2.40 something in the higher rate environment?

John Tipton: On total cost, yes. I mean we've already passed -- when the Fed hiked 25, what a month ago, we've got a product that is kind of loosely indexed to Fed funds that those customers have that expectation. We passed 25 onto them there. We've got some negotiated products that our folks know that they've got to deal with and pass whether it's 40% of that on or 100% of the rate increase on depending on a customer-by-customer basis. So we handle that 2 days after the Fed raised rates, and things will kind of settle in from there until the next rate hike.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Brian Martin from Brean Capital.

Brian Martin: Just maybe a couple of follow-ups on some items for me. Just on the credit front, outside of the Texas credit you talked about, any other expectations in terms of kind of notable progress on the other credits as you kind of go into the fourth quarter or into next year, just in general, big picture?

Kevin Hester: Brian, this is Kevin. There's -- I mean there's always some movement. It's kind of like with this one, you hope it happens quicker than it did, but these things just take some time when they're -- when they're where they are. So that's by far the largest one we have, and we'll cut it in half. So when you get back to there, we were at a pretty low number when you take half of that out. We're at a pretty low number and it's just things that you have to kind of work through. So -- incremental progress, but nothing imminent.

Brian Martin: Yes. I got you. Okay. That's helpful. And then just on -- with the improvement with the Texas credit, just I know the provision this quarter, obviously was 0 just in terms of how to think about kind of near-term provisioning or given the recoveries in the Texas cleanup, I guess, any sense as we go into fourth quarter and first quarter, how to think about that provisioning line?

Kevin Hester: Yes. Steve and I are looking at each other. I think we both have the same answer, which based on what Johnny said earlier, I think we would expect not to have any provision this quarter.

John Tipton: Brian, it's Stephen this side. We actually -- we've already got a -- we got a decent recovery in the first week of this month from a charge-off that we had in the first quarter of this year. So we're sitting in a recovery position nicely right now, assuming we get some of the recoveries we would expect, I think you'd see reserve coverage grow nicely and not need to provision anything.

Brian Martin: Got you. Okay. And that could bleed into early next year based on kind of the trends we're seeing. It sounds like, I mean, at least lower or 0, whatever the level is, that's big picture how to think about the next couple of quarters.

John Allison: That's fair.

Brian Martin: Yes. Okay. And just the last couple, Stephen, I think your comments on the margin, just it sounds -- given the deposit cost outlook, and I don't know what the new loan yields are coming on today, but the margin is more relatively stable than rising given a couple of rate hikes. Is that how to think about it at this point?

John Tipton: Yes, I think so. I mean, like I said, we exited the quarter at 4.55% on a nonevent income basis. And I think if we can run in that 4.5% range, maybe a little higher, we'd be certainly pleased.

Brian Martin: Got you. Okay. And the new loan yields today are comparable to where they have been?

John Tipton: Yes. We -- the $850 million in production this quarter was -- I think it's 6.95%. So at the -- for most of the quarter, a little above prime. So...

Brian Martin: Got you. Okay. And the last couple. On the M&A side, Johnny, it sounds like certainly looking, but it doesn't feel like anything is imminent near term in terms of M&A, just kind of plod along here and look at the opportunities.

John Allison: I think that's fair. I'm looking for one, I'm ready to do one. We're ready to do one. We're ready to -- if it makes sense, we're ready to do one. So we've got some opportunities out there. The ones -- I was kind of hanging on this one because I really wanted to do that trade. And I guess it just went away. The banker never called me back to tell me where it was. So I don't know if he lost his phone or what, something. But anyway, we are -- there's another one out there we'll go to work on. So see if we can put it together.

Brian Martin: Okay. And then I think you mentioned, Johnny, the buybacks, I mean, obviously, getting back to Mountain Commerce, but it sounds like your commentary was more that it continues in the fourth quarter, suggesting it may not be as interesting, I guess, or likely to continue into next year. I guess, did I hear that wrong? Or just kind of wait and see...

John Allison: You heard it wrong. We've been buying back stock for years, and we'll continue to buy stock. Either Steve or I will get out of the market and somehow take our stock down $1 and I say Stephen, he said, I'm already buying I'm already in there. I'm already in there this morning. I said, okay, just keep buying. But they want to take it down, just buy it.

Brian Martin: All right. I'm just making sure you weren't leaning towards your wife and raising the dividend more. So I appreciate all the color.

John Allison: Catch me while I go -- she is just thanking me for mentioning her on the call and letting everybody know that she's supporting. She wants another one tomorrow, but we're going to have to wait...

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Allison for closing remarks.

John Allison: Thank you. Hopefully, we keep rolling the way we're rolling, we'll hit the $500 million or y'all tell me sometime. It does -- it sounds better to say $0.5 billion. What does it take buddy?

Unknown Executive: $0.5 billion.

John Allison: We started as Michael couldn't spell billion. So now we're halfway there. Anyway, thank you all for your support. I think things have been -- we've really had a good strong year this year, and I think we're going to wrap the year up fairly strong, too. So thanks, everyone. Talk to you in 90 days.

Operator: This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.