Daniel K. Weiss
Thanks, Jeff, and good morning. For the quarter ending June 30, 2025, we reported GAAP net income available to common shareholders of $54.9 million or $0.57 per share. And when excluding restructuring and merger-related expenses from the Premier acquisition, second quarter net income was $87.3 million or $0.91 per share, representing an increase of nearly 200% from $29.4 million or $0.49 per share in the prior year period. On a similar basis and excluding the after-tax day 1 provision for credit losses on acquired loans, we reported $1.60 per diluted share for the 6-month period as compared to $1.05 per diluted share last year. To highlight a few of the second quarter's accomplishments, we generated strong year-over-year pretax, pre-provision core earnings growth of 134%. We grew both loans and deposits organically, improved the net interest margin, grew fee income 40% year-over- year and reduced the efficiency ratio. In addition to successfully converting the customer data systems of Premier, we also exited $115 million of Premier commercial loans and sold the mortgage servicing business of Premier. Our balance sheet as of June 30 reflects the benefits of both the Premier acquired balance sheet and organic growth, total assets increased 52% year-over-year to $27.6 billion, which included total portfolio loans of $18.8 billion, total securities of $4.4 billion and the addition of approximately $480 million in goodwill generated from the acquisition. Total portfolio loans increased 53.6%, reflecting $5.9 billion from Premier and $670 million from organic growth. During May, we sold $115 million of higher risk acquired commercial loans, which had a fair value of $74 million that we had identified for sale as part of our acquisition due diligence. These loans had been reflected in loans held for sale and were primarily higher-risk CRE credits. We have also seen an increase in CRE payoffs as properties are beginning to move to the secondary market for permanent financing or are sold. On a year-to-date basis, we've realized payoffs totaling $255 million and currently anticipate at least a similar amount during the second half of the year. That said, we remain optimistic about future loan growth with our strong pipelines, banking teams and markets, combined with more than $1 billion in unfunded LCD commitments expected to fund over the next 18 months. Deposits of $21.2 billion increased 58% versus the prior year due to premier deposits of $6.9 billion and organic growth of $849 million, which fully funded organic loan growth. Total deposits declined $138 million on a sequential quarter basis due to normal seasonality similar to last year and the intentional runoff of some higher cost certificates of deposit and less reliance on public funds from Premier of approximately $50 million. Encouragingly, we have begun to see the rebound in deposits so far in July and still plan to fund loan growth with deposit growth for the full year. Credit quality continues to remain stable as key credit metrics have remained low from a historical perspective and within a consistent range through the last 5 years. The allowance for credit losses to total portfolio loans at June 30, 2025 was 1.19% of total loans or $223.9 million. The decrease of $9.8 million from March 31, 2025 was driven by a reduction in PCD loan reserves from several larger payoffs and portfolio mix changes, which more than offset increases associated with a slightly higher unemployment assumption, loan growth and other loan portfolio adjustments. The second quarter margin of 3.59% improved 24 basis points compared to the first quarter and 64 basis points on a year-over-year basis through a combination of higher loan and securities yields, lower funding costs and purchase accounting accretion, which benefited the margin by approximately 37 basis points. Second quarter deposit funding costs of 246 basis points decreased 9 basis points from the first quarter and 28 basis points from the prior year period. And when including noninterest-bearing deposits, deposit funding costs for the second quarter were 184 basis points. For the second quarter, noninterest income increased 40% year-over-year to $44 million, primarily due to the Premier acquisition. With combined Premier fee income, we set record highs this quarter in several fee income categories, including trust fees, service charges on deposits, electronic banking fees and securities brokerage revenue. Valuations of equity securities linked to the company's deferred compensation plan also increased $1.5 million over the linked quarter, which drove net securities gains. And just as a reminder, these equity securities are held in a deferred compensation plan with the offsetting cost included in employee benefits expense. Noninterest expense, excluding restructuring and merger-related costs for the 3 months ended June 30, 2025 was $145.5 million, an increase of 47.5% year-over-year due to the addition of Premier's expense base, higher core deposit intangible asset amortization that was created from the acquisition and higher FDIC insurance expense due to our larger asset size. During the second quarter, employee benefits included expenses of $2.5 million of additional nonrecurring expenses with the aforementioned $1.5 million related to the deferred compensation plan and approximately $1 million in health care costs related to the timing of onboarding Premier employees and related health care services. When excluding these 2 items, total operating expenses were $143 million, consistent with our prior outlook. Our regulatory capital ratios have remained above the applicable well-capitalized standards. In conjunction with the February 28 closing of the Premier acquisition, we issued 28.7 million shares of common stock to acquire the outstanding shares of Premier, which increased total capital by $1 billion in anticipated modestly impacted capital ratios. Reflecting the full quarter average of Premier's balance sheet, Tier 1 leverage was 8.7% and tangible common equity to tangible assets ratio was 7.6%. Turning to our current outlook for the remainder of 2025, which includes the benefits from our acquisition of Premier, we are currently modeling two 25 basis point Fed rate cuts in September and October. However, given our relatively neutral rate- sensitive position, we do not expect a meaningful impact on our net interest margin from these cuts in the near term. We anticipate approximately 60% of the $2.9 billion CD portfolio will mature or reprice during the next 6 months, downward from a weighted average rate of 3.9%, and this should continue to benefit the margin. The acquired Premier CD book, which was marked down to a weighted average of 2%, has mostly run off due to the shorter duration of that book, and we anticipate the renewal rates of those CDs to mostly reprice into our current 7-month CD special in the range of 3.5%, creating a temporary headwind to margin growth here in the third quarter. As a result, we anticipate the Premier-related margin accretion in the third quarter to be down about 7 to 10 basis points from the 37 basis points we reported in the second quarter. While loans maturities, refinancings benefit overall loan yields and legacy CDs reprice downward, we continue to model legacy margin improvement of 3 to 5 basis points per quarter. And therefore, when combining the effects of the lower purchase accounting accretion, partially offset by the legacy margin improvement, we model a temporary 5 to 7 basis point decline in the third quarter margin with a strong bounce back in the fourth quarter with our margin returning to that second quarter levels in the high 3.50s. Trust fees as well as securities brokerage revenue for the remainder of the year should be modestly higher, reflecting modest organic growth and the benefit of our new markets and newly acquired assets under management. Electronic banking fees and service charges on deposits, which are subject to overall consumer spending behaviors, should be in a similar range to the second quarter. Mortgage banking income should also be in a similar range to the second quarter, reflecting the opportunities in our new markets, but will continue to be impacted by overall residential housing market. And finally, gross commercial swap fee income, excluding market adjustments, should be in a similar range to the first half of the year. As we've stated in the past, we remain focused on delivering disciplined expense management while making appropriate investments to support long-term growth, like our recent LPOs in Knoxville and Northern Virginia. Subsequent to the successful customer data systems conversion of Premier, we achieved the bulk of the planned 26% cost savings by June 30. And as mentioned last quarter, our midyear merit increases offset the remaining cost saves from the completion of the systems conversion. Therefore, we continue to expect the expense run rate for the third quarter to be consistent with the second quarter in that low to mid-$140 million range. The provision for credit losses will depend upon changes to the macroeconomic forecast and qualitative factors as well as various other credit quality metrics, including potential charge-offs, criticized and classified loan balances, delinquencies, changes in prepayment speeds and future loan growth. And regarding the FASB rule change related to the CECL double count, if the rule is finalized by October of this year, we will evaluate the potential benefits and risks to adopt that change as it relates to the acquisition of Premier and make a decision at the time on an appropriate course of action. A rough estimate of the potential benefit to capital, if we adopted, is it would increase capital by approximately $45 million after tax, while lowering loan marks by approximately $60 million pretax. And lastly, we currently anticipate our full year effective tax rate to be between 19% and 19.5%, subject to changes in tax regulations and taxable income levels. We are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead and pleased with the success of our strategies playing out according to plan. Operator, we're now ready to take questions. Would you please review the instructions?