Atlantic Union Bankshares Corp (AUB) 2025 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Atlantic Union Bankshares fourth-quarter 2025 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions). Please note that today's conference is being recorded.

I will now hand the conference over to your speakers Bill Cimino, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Olivia, and good morning, everyone. I have Atlantic Union Bankshares' President and CEO, John Asbury; and Executive Vice President and CFO, Rob Gorman, with me today. We also have other members of our Executive Management Team with us for the question-and-answer period.

Please note that today's earnings release and the accompanying slide presentation we are going through on this webcast are available to download on our investor website, investors.atlanticunionbank.com. During today's call, we will comment on our financial performance using both GAAP metrics and non-GAAP financial measures. Important information about these non-GAAP financial measures, including reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures, is included in the appendix our slide presentation and in our earnings release for the fourth quarter and full year 2025. You'll also make forward-looking statements, which are not statements of historical fact and are subject to risks and uncertainties. We -- there can be no assurance that actual performance will not differ materially from any future expectations or results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.

We undertake no obligation to publicly revise or update any forward-looking statement, except as required by law. Please refer to our earnings release and our slide presentation issued today as well as our other SEC filings for further discussion of the company's risk factors, including and other information regarding the forward-looking statements, including factors that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statement.

All comments made during today's call are subject to that safe harbor statement. And at the end of today's call, we will take questions from the research analyst community. I'll now turn the call over to John.

Thanks, Bill. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Atlantic Union Bankshares reported strong fourth quarter financial results, reflecting disciplined execution and successful integration of the Sandy Springs acquisition.

We believe the adjusted operating and financial results for the quarter showcased the organization's earning capacity. While merger-related charges continue to affect this quarter's results, the underlying operating performance supports our continued confidence in achieving the strategic goals associated with the Sandy Spring acquisition, namely the targets for adjusted operating return on assets, return on tangible common equity, and efficiency ratio.

With the core systems conversion completed in October and only modest residual merger-related expenses anticipated in the first quarter, we expect in the ways associated with our merger-related expenses to decline. This means that we will be positioned beginning with Q1 2026 to report unadjusted results demonstrate the financial strength and operating efficiency we are committed to delivering for our shareholders.

Our commitment to creating shareholder value remains unwavering. We believe Atlantic Union is well positioned to deliver sustainable growth top-tier financial performance and long-term value creation for our shareholders. We believe the strategic advantages gained from the Sandy Spring acquisition, combined with continued organic growth opportunities due to our robust presence in attractive markets reinforce our status as the premier regional bank headquartered in the Lower Mid-Atlantic. I'll briefly cover our Q4 and full year 2025 highlights and share market insights before Rob presents the financial review. And here are the highlights for our fourth quarter.

Quarterly loan growth was approximately 6.3% annualized, ending the year at $27.8 billion. Our pipelines were higher at the end of the fourth quarter than they were at the start of the quarter, which suggests we are on track for loan growth consistent with our full year 2026 outlook. While forecasting loan growth remains challenging and the still uncertain economic environment, we continue to expect 2026 year-end loan balances to range between $29 million and $30 billion, inclusive of the negative impact from loan fair value marks.

We observed a return to more typical commercial line utilization levels in the fourth quarter. Loan production reached a record high in Q4 as our team gained momentum despite ongoing economic uncertainty the Sandy Spring core systems conversion and the CRE loan sale executed at the end of the second quarter of 2025. Additionally, we observed growing confidence among our client base which, combined with seasonally strong lending trends further supported our robust performance in the quarter. Our deposit base experienced typical year-end fluctuations due to activity from large commercial depositors with some of these balances returning during the early weeks of the first quarter.

Our FTE net interest margin increased by 13 basis points to 3.96%. While improvement in accretion income contributed modestly, the main driver was our ability to reduce deposit costs while holding loan yields relatively flat compared to the prior quarter. On yield stayed relatively steady despite the Fed rate cuts and its impact on our variable rate loan yields due to increased accretion income, higher loan fees, and the repricing of renewed and new fixed rate loans at current market rates.

Importantly, this also demonstrates we are putting our interest rate accretion income and principal repayments from the acquired fixed rate loan portfolios to work as those loans renew, are repriced to higher market rates.

Fee income was strong, primarily driven by loan-related interest rate swap fees and fiduciary and asset management fees with both benefiting from the Sandy Spring acquisition. About 27% of interest rate swap income this quarter came from former Sandy Spring customers. While Sandy Spring had a native swap program, AUB swap program is well established and mature, we expect ongoing growth in this area, though it's important to note that swap income may vary from quarter to quarter. Overall, credit quality showed continued strength and improvement with our fourth quarter annualized net charge-off ratio coming in at 1 basis point. The net charge-off ratio for the full year was within our guidance at 17 basis points.

Leading asset quality indicators remain encouraging. Fourth quarter nonperforming assets as a percentage of loans held for investment declined a further 7 basis points to 0.42% from 0.49% in the prior quarter. Criticized and classified assets remained low at 4.7%. We believe credit underwriting, client selectivity, and loan loss performance have consistently been traditional strengths of AEB, Sandy Spring Bank and American National Bank reinforcing our continued confidence in asset quality. Before we discuss unemployment rates, I want to clarify, we are comparing November to September figures since October data is unavailable due to the government shutdown.

Taking a step back, Virginia's unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.5% in November, compared to September, demonstrating notable resilience, especially since the national unemployment rate rose by 0.2 percentage points to 4.6% during the same time frame.

Maryland's unemployment rate rose to 4.2%, a 0.4 percentage point increase in September. This change aligns with our expectations, particularly considering the November data now includes federal government workers who took buyout plants. Despite the uptick, Maryland continues to outperform the national average during the same period.

North Carolina's unemployment rate edged up 0.1 percentage point to 3.8%, remaining well below the national average. Although we do anticipate some further increases in unemployment across our markets in our CECL modeling, we expect these levels in Virginia and Maryland and North Carolina stay manageable and below the national average consistent with Moody's current state level forecast.

We remain confident in our markets and consider them among the most attractive in the country. For those who missed our Investor Day last month, I want to revisit a key slide from our Investor Day presentation as its message remains essential. We have deliberately and thoughtfully built the distinctive, valuable franchise outlined in our strategic plan delivering on our commitments and establishing the banking platform we set out to create. With this strong foundation, we believe we're well positioned to capitalize on the expanded markets gained through the Sandy Spring acquisition, drive continued growth in Virginia, and pursue new organic opportunities in North Carolina and across our specialty lines. Our full Investor Day presentation details our market approach for the next three years, and I encourage everyone to watch it.

With disciplined execution of our prior acquisitions and no additional acquisitions currently planned during this phase of our strategic plan, our focus now shifts to demonstrating the franchise's earnings power and capital generation ability. It's time to show that our efforts and investments have been worthwhile.

After dedicating capital to strategic investments over the past two years to complete the company we envisioned and work diligently to build and consistently communicated our plans to do so we believe we are now seeing clear tangible benefits from these efforts.

In summary, 2025 was a pivotal year for AUB. We remained agile and responsive while managing a significant merger integration a major CRE loan sale and navigating macroeconomic headwinds, including federal government restructuring and unpredictable tariff policies. Despite these challenges, we delivered operating results that we believe will stand out among our peers.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Rob for a detailed review of our quarterly financial results before we open the floor for questions. Rob?

Well, thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. I'll now take a few minutes to provide you with some details of Atlantic Union, its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2025.

My commentary today will primarily address Atlantic Union's fourth quarter and 2025 financial results presented on a non-GAAP adjusted operating basis, which for the fourth quarter excludes $38.6 million in pretax merger-related costs from the Sandy Spring acquisition. And for the full year 2025 [supports] the following items: pretax merger-related cost of $157.3 million, pretax gain on the sale of CRE loans of $10.9 million and the pretax gain on the sale of our equity interest in Cary Street Partners of $14.8 million.

That said, in the fourth quarter, reported net income available to common shareholders was $109 million, and earnings per common share were $0.77. For the full year 2025, reported net income available to common shareholders was $261.8 million and earnings per common share were $2.03. Adjusted operating earnings available to common shareholders were $138.4 million or $0.97 per common share in the fourth quarter, resulting in an adjusted operating return on tangible common equity of 22.1% and adjusted operating return on assets of 1.5% and an adjusted operating efficiency ratio of 47.8% in the quarter.

For the full year 2025, adjusted operating earnings available to common shareholders were $444.8 million or $3.44 per common share, resulting in an adjusted operating return on tangible common equity of 20.4%, and an adjusted operating return on assets of 1.33%, and an adjusted operating efficiency ratio of 49.7%.

As John mentioned, we believe these adjusted operating results for return on tangible common equity and the efficiency ratio puts us in the upper quartile of our peer group for the full year of 2025. Turning to credit loss reserves at the end of the fourth quarter. The allowance -- the total allowance for credit losses was $321.3 million, which was an increase of approximately $1.3 million from the third quarter, primarily driven by loan growth in the fourth quarter. As a result, the total allowance for credit losses as a percentage of total loans held for investment decreased 1 basis point to 116 basis points at the end of the fourth quarter.

Net charge-offs decreased to $916,000 or 1 basis point annualized in the fourth quarter from $38.6 million or 56 basis points annualized in the third quarter due to the charge-off of two commercial and industrial loans in the third quarter. Net charge-off ratio for the year came in at 17 basis points, in line with our 15 to 20 basis points guidance. Now turning to the pretax pre-provision components of the income statement for the fourth quarter. Tax equivalent net interest income was $334.8 million, which was an increase of $11.2 million from the third quarter primarily driven by a decrease in interest expense resulting from lower deposit costs and increases in interest income on loans held for investment in the securities portfolio, which was partially offset by a decline in other earning asset interest income, primarily driven by lower average cash and cash equivalent balances in the fourth quarter.

As John noted, the fourth quarter's tax equivalent net interest margin increased 13 basis points from the prior quarter to 3.96% primarily due to lower cost of funds, partially offset by a slight decrease in earning asset yields.

Cost of funds decreased 14 basis points from the prior quarter to $2.03 for the fourth quarter due primarily to lower deposit costs, reflecting the impact of Fed funds rate decreases starting in September of 2025. Earning asset yields for the fourth quarter decreased 1 basis point to 5.99% as compared to the third quarter due primarily to lower investment and other earning asset yields, partially offset by slightly higher loan yields.

As John mentioned, loan yield stayed relatively steady despite the Fed rate cuts and its impact on our variable rate loan yields due to increased accretion income, higher loan fees and the repricing of renewed and new fixed rate loans at current market rates. Noninterest income increased $5.2 million to $57 million for the fourth quarter from $51.8 million in the prior quarter, primarily driven by a $4.8 million pretax loss in the prior quarter related to the final settlement of the sale of CRE loans executed at the end of the second quarter of 2025 as part of the Sandy Spring acquisition.

Adjusted operating noninterest income, which excludes the pretax loss on the CRE loan sale in the third quarter, the pretax gain on sale of our equity interest in Cary Street Partners in the fourth quarter, and the pretax gains on the sale of securities in both the third and fourth quarters remained relatively consistent with the prior quarter at $56.5 million, primarily due to a decline in service charges on deposit accounts of $1.1 million which was driven by temporary post-conversion fee waivers for Sandy Spring customers. A decrease in other operating income of $807,000 primarily due to lower equity method investment income and seasonally lower mortgage banking income of $727,000, offset by higher loan-related interest rate swap fees of $2.5 million due to higher transaction volumes and increases in fiduciary and asset management fees of $1.3 million, primarily due to increases in state fees, personal trust income, and investment advisory fees. Reported noninterest expense increased $4.8 million to $243.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2025, primarily driven by a $3.8 million increase in merger-related costs associated with the Sandy Spring acquisition. Adjusted operating noninterest expense, which excludes merger-related costs in the third and fourth quarters and amortization of intangible assets in both quarters increased $1.4 million to $186.9 million for the fourth quarter, up from $185.5 million in the prior quarter.

This was primarily due to a $2.4 million increase in other expenses which was driven by an increase in noncredit-related losses on customer transactions and a $1.7 million increase in marketing and advertising expense. These increases were partially offset by a $1.4 million decrease and FDIC assessment premiums due to lower assessments in the fourth quarter of 2025 and a $1.2 million decline in furniture and equipment expenses, which was primarily driven by lower software amortization expense related to the integration of Sandy Spring.

At December 31, loans held for investment net of deferred fees and costs were $27.8 billion, which was an increase of $435 million or 6.3% annualized from the prior quarter. At December 31, total deposits were $30.5 billion, a decrease of $193.7 million or 2.5% annualized from the prior quarter. primarily due to decreases of $260 million in demand deposits, largely driven by typical seasonal patterns and $14.5 million in interest-bearing customer deposits which were partially offset by an increase of approximately $81 million in broker deposits.

At the end of the fourth quarter, Atlantic Union Bankshares and Atlantic Union Bank's regulatory capital ratios were comfortably above well-capitalized levels. In addition, on an adjusted basis, we remain well capitalized as of the end of the fourth quarter if you include the negative impact of AOCI and held-to-maturity securities unrealized losses in the calculation of the regulatory capital ratios.

During the fourth quarter, the company paid a common stock dividend of $0.37 per share, which was an increase of 8.8% from the third quarter's and previous year's fourth quarter dividend amount.

Of note, on a linked quarterly basis, tangible book value per common share increased approximately 4% to 19.6 -- $19.69 per share in the fourth quarter. As noted on slide 17, we are maintaining our full year 2026 financial outlook for AUB that was provided at our Investor Day in December. We expect loan balances to end the year between $29 million and $30 billion while year-end deposit balances are projected to be between $31.5 billion and $32.5 billion. On the credit front, the allowance for credit losses to loan balances is projected to remain at current levels in the 115 to 120 basis point range, and the net charge-off ratio is expected to fall between 10 and 15 basis points in 2026. Full tax equivalent net interest income for the full year is projected to come in between $1.350 billion and $1.375 billion, inclusive of accretion income.

As a reminder, we considered accretion income resulting from acquired loan interest rate marks as a built-in scheduled accounting tailwind to our GAAP earnings and net interest margin as the accretion income related to the loan interest rate marks gradually transitions to core cash earnings over time as the loans obtained through acquisitions either mature or get renewed at current market rates. As a result, we are projecting that the full year fully tax equivalent net interest margin will fall in a range between 3.90% and 4% for the full year, driven by our baseline assumption that the Federal Reserve Bank will cut the Fed funds rate by 25 basis points in April and September in 2026 and that term rates will remain stable at current levels.

On a full year basis, noninterest income is expected to be between $220 million and $230 million, while adjusted operating noninterest expense is expected to fall in the range of $750 million to $760 million, which includes the expense impact of our North Carolina investment and other 2026 strategic initiatives.

Based on these projections, we expect to generate annual growth in tangible book value per share of between 12% and 15% produced financial returns that will place us within the top quartile of our proxy peer group and meet our objective of delivering top-tier financial performance for our shareholders.

In summary, Atlantic Union delivered strong operating financial results in the fourth quarter and in 2025, and we remain firmly focused on leveraging this valuable Atlantic Union Bank franchise to generate sustainable profitable growth and to build long-term value for our shareholders in 2026 and beyond.

I'll now turn the call over to Bill to see if there are any questions from our research analyst community.

Thanks, Rob. And Olivia, we're ready for our first caller, please.

(Operator Instructions). Janet Lee, TD Cowen.

To give some -- I want some more clarifications on your 2026 guide, which was reiterated from your Investor Day in December. Is there any sort of range that you're gravitating towards whether that's higher end or lower end of net interest income given the higher launching point for NIM, but although I do expect that NIM will grind down from there in 2026.

And it looks like there are different puts and takes in terms of deposits were coming in below given seasonality and loans are a little bit above what you guided. So I wanted to see what would put you at the higher end versus lower and what your baseline expectation is?

Yes. So as we've said, Janet, we're guiding to net interest income between $1.35 billion and $1.375 billion. To come on the higher end of that, it's really going to depend on somewhat of -- do we get elevated accretion income as we saw this quarter. We're not modeling that going forward into 2026, we've got that coming down a bit.

Also, I think the other component there is can we continue to lower deposit costs as the Fed reduces the Fed funds rate. We're taking a bit of a conservative approach on that. Of course, that's dependent on the competition out there and the need for funding the loan growth that we anticipate.

So really, we're kind of in that range, but on the higher end, if we could see cost of funds come down a bit more than we're projecting that would probably lead us to the higher end and accretion income we'd also add to that confidence if we see that coming in a bit higher.

Also, as you know, loan growth would also play a part in that. We guided to mid-single digits if we see a higher loan growth and term rates kind of remain high with a steep curve we could see that be coming in at the higher end as well.

Got it. And if my calculation is correct, I see that the cumulative interest-bearing deposit beta to the rates coming down in the high 40% range. Do you still forecast that mid-50s beta? Or is that little lower heading into 2026. And also, I see that there was a deposit remix into more interest-bearing checking, which I assume are lower cost than the other ones, what kind of -- wanted to see what kind of -- what drove that remix in the quarter and whether that's going to reverse in the quarters ahead?

Yes. So on that Janet, in terms of the betas, we're still guiding to an interest-bearing deposit guidance of mid-50s, 50% to 55%, which is in line with wind rates were going up I think we ended up the prior through the cycle, beta was around 55% for interest-bearing deposits. On a total deposit basis, we're in that 40% to 45% range. I calculate that we're about 50% betas to date, if you go back to when the Fed started cutting in September and about 40% total deposits. So we're kind of staying in that range. We have seen we've been aggressive on lowering deposit rates, about $12 billion to $13 billion.

We've been able to reprice fairly quickly as the Feds come down. That's been a good thing to offset our beta rate reloan book that reprices with Fed funds. So that kind of is a balancing act there. So -- but in terms of what was the other -- the end of the other question you had.

Deposit remix?

Yes. So there has been some reclasses that have occurred post the Sandy Spring conversion. So there's some of that, that's kind of moved in one category to another. That's primarily probably the main driver of that. So not expected that to shift too much going forward, kind of level set that now.

David Bishop, Hovde Group.

John, are you I think I heard you say during the preamble that the loan pipeline had increased relative to that coming into the quarter. Just curious if there's any numbers you can put around it or percent increase and how you're thinking about near-term loan growth here as you talk to your commercial clients, so you're starting to see some traction across the legacy Sandy Spring portfolio? And is that some of the drivers we saw in the C&I growth this quarter.

Yes, I would say that we had a modest increase in the total pipeline by end of year -- end of quarter versus beginning of quarter. That's really important and a bit unusual for Q4 because, as you can see, Q4 was a big quarter.

Now as we expected, it was very much back-end loaded. We were -- teams were super busy over the month of December the typical phenomenon is you would expect to see the pipeline somewhat clean down. In other words, normally, it takes a while for it to rebuild. So we were pretty excited to see that it was continuing to refill, so to speak, over the course of the quarter. And I would just say that what we're hearing, we can see the pipeline the feedback we're getting from our market leaders is quite encouraging.

So we feel pretty good about things in terms of the outlook. That's part of what's giving us confidence in our mid-single-digit guidance. And it feels pretty -- Dave ring you can comment on this, but what we heard is pretty broad-based in what we see.

Yes, I guess I would -- I'd only add that our folks are very optimistic going into the year with good pipeline across the program. It's not in one place.

Yes, including the former Sandy Spring franchise to be clear.

Great. And then, John, maybe a holistic question. change in the governor mansion there. Just your view here from a business-friendly climate, do you think that's going to have much of an impact in terms of the Commonwealth growth capacity in business climate?

Yes. Thank you. No, we feel good about the outlook here in our home state of Virginia. Virginia has a long tradition of business-oriented moderates in the statewide offices, governor, US Senate -- and I feel quite confident that the new governor will continue that tradition.

Steve Moss, Raymond James.

Maybe just following up on the loan pipeline here. Just kind of curious where are you guys seeing loan pricing shake out these days? And also wondering where deposit costs were at quarter end.

Yes. So on the loan pricing side, we're seeing about $6 to $6.20 loan pricing, both on the variable and the fixed rate loans. So we expect that will continue. It really depends on where short-term rates are, obviously, on the variable rate side and where term rates are. But but the spreads seem to be holding up pretty well on top of those indexes.

And in terms of the the deposit cost at the end of December is what you're asking, Steve. Yes, we're below 2% on that, it's about -- I think it was about $1.96 coming out of December.

Okay. Appreciate that. And then in terms of just kind of thinking about the core margin here, I apologize if I missed it, but just curious, do you continue to expect core margin expansion here throughout the year? And kind of just how you're thinking about the cadence, if that's the case.

Yes. We think core margin will expand a bit. Some of that's coming off where we talked about the acquired loan book is repricing and coming in back into core. So from a loan yield point of view, that's helpful. In terms of fixed rate loans coming on about 100 basis points or so higher than what the portfolio yield is.

If Fed cuts more than a couple of times, we probably will see some stable loan yields or margin or we could see some contraction a bit. But our call is a couple of cuts next year, which is manageable and as I mentioned, we're able to reduce similar deposit costs, which I think that's the Fed funds fairly quickly, which will offset some of the variable rate loan impacts of further cuts.

So all in all, I think we'll see some modest core margin expansion based on those factors.

Okay. Appreciate that. And then just in terms of following up on the purchase account accretion, just curious, any updated thoughts around the full year number for that?

In terms of 2026, Steve?

Yes

Yes. We're currently modeling between $150 million and $160 million in 2026. Well, as you know, that can fluctuate. We saw a bit higher than than expected in the fourth quarter. So that can fluctuate, but give or take, our baseline modeling in the guidance we're providing from a margin perspective and net interest income perspective is in the 150 to 160 range.

Okay. Appreciate that. And John, maybe just one for you on North Carolina expansion. I know you talked about it a fair amount last month. Just kind of curious as you continue to expand down there in the market, what are the good things you're seeing?

Maybe what are some of the challenges as you're building out down there?

Yes. Well, I think that we're making good progress in terms of the efforts to expand the commercial teams -- and Shawn O'Brien is here, Head of Consumer and Business Banking. Shawn, you can speak to just sort of the latest in terms of the branch build-out.

Yes. We continue to move quickly have plans for our 10 branches to be open in Raleigh and Wilmington here in the next 1.5 years, 2 years. And we're hiring staffing across the bank to make sure there's teams to support on both the wholesale and consumer side. So progress have been very good there as far as finding good sites and finding teammates.

So we think we're on track, Steve.

Brian Wilczynski, Morgan Stanley.

So sticking with the loan growth. So at Investor Day last month, you talked about several different focus areas for organic loan growth over the next few years. There's the Sandy Spring footprint, North Carolina, and also the specialty banking businesses. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about where you're seeing the most traction in the fourth quarter given how strong growth was what you see as sort of the near-term driver across those three buckets versus what may take some more time to materialize.

Dave, do you want to give some color on that?

Yes. We could talk for hours on this one.

Let's not do that.

We've seen the Sandy Spring part of the franchise really turned the corner from integrating the bank and getting trained up to positive results in the fourth quarter and a really good pipeline going into the first quarter. North Carolina steady as she goes there. We're hiring into that market. So there's ramp-up periods for folks that we'll see, I think, really nice results over the course of '26, but they also have turn the corner. They're also growing and their pipelines are good as well.

On the specialty side, we have hired the Head of Healthcare banking, which we talked about in that meeting. And the other specialty businesses actually contributed largely to some of the growth we've had.

And then here in Virginia, which would be the single largest concentration, what we were so pleased to hear this week as we did our check on with all of the commercial market leaders and credit officers is we're seeing strength across the state, not -- and so that's actually really good to see. So we feel pretty good about the setup on Brian. It feels pretty well diversified.

That's great to hear. And you highlighted the 6% annualized growth in the fourth quarter pipelines up sounds like production is up. At any puts and takes in terms of how we think about, say, the first half of 2026 relative to what you just did in the fourth quarter. Is there any seasonal benefit in the fourth quarter was -- and does the government shut down a material tailwind? Or does it feel like you can sort of maintain this cadence over the course of the year?

Q4 is traditionally seasonally strong in my experience across the industry, and that's because businesses are strongly motivated to get things done before year-end for reporting purposes, planning purposes, tax purposes, you name it. So you can always expect to see a seasonally high Q4.

Q1 traditionally is somewhat slow, normally just because so much goes on at the very end of the year. So we would expect to see the typical pattern, which is all kind of build as the year goes on. There's usually a little dip in Q3 as people go on vacation, frankly. There are some -- there's normally some element of seasonality, but we see the opportunities there. So we'll see what happens.

Really appreciate the detail.

Catherine Mealor, KBW.

This is [Hanan] stepping in for Katherine. I had a question on deposits. We saw a decline in deposits this quarter. And I was wondering if you could provide any guidance on the outlook for deposit growth into next year.

Yes. Let me start by saying we saw the typical for us, end of year decline that happens really in the last two weeks, if not last week of December. It's not at all uncommon. And we saw it again to where some of the larger commercial depositors will have various payments that they're making.

And so you see this downdraft and noninterest-bearing deposits that happens late and that's what was going on. Over the course of the quarter, we did continue to run down some higher cost sort of less relationship-oriented deposits that came out of Sandy Spring in particular, so you've got a seasonal element going in there and you see the deposit base kind of settling in. Rob, do you want to speak to outlook for the, I guess, for 2026.

Yes. So if you look at our guidance, we're really guiding to about -- off the fourth quarter base, about 3% to 4% deposit growth for the year. We think that's achievable both on the commercial and on the consumer side. We've got more treasury management opportunities in the former Sandy Spring footprint. So there's some opportunities to grow there. So we're feeling pretty good because really low single digits is what we're going for.

Stephen Scouten, Piper Sandler.

So one quick clarification, John. I think you said most of the cost saves related to the Sandy Spring dealer kind of in the numbers here, maybe some marginal benefit in 1Q. How should we think about -- I know we've got the full year guide, but just the run rate for expenses in the first quarter off of this, what I think was around $200 million, $205 million here this quarter on an adjusted basis.

Yes. So Steve, the way to think about it is you're going to see kind of a flattish quarter in the way we're modeling it, last quarter, first quarter, and it starts coming down a bit. over the remainder of the year is, of course, you understand the -- there is some seasonality in the first quarter as the FICA resets, bonus payments are made unemployment taxes go up and then we have some merit increases going in.

So that will be kind of the high watermark as we will, which is typical and then start to come down. If you look at it from an operating -- excluding the amortization of intangible expense, we're calling for, on average, call it about $188 million a quarter going forward, but it will skew a bit higher in the first quarter. It starts to drop off in the subsequent quarters.

Rob, what can we say about what's left of Sandy Spring related expenses?

Yes. So our -- well, I think it's not all in the numbers yet, but we've achieved the cost savings. About $80 million is what we had projected, 27.5%. In the numbers, it's probably about annualized about [60-some-odd million] there, call it, $60 million. We're getting another $5 million coming out of the fourth quarter. So that will get you to that $80 million mark. So there is some benefit that you'll see in the first quarter.

That's why we're kind of calling for flattish in the first quarter because it's offset by some of these other seasonal items. But you should see that come through going out in the second to fourth quarter. Of course, we also have investments that are being made in North Carolina and some strategic investments we made, which we noted in Investor Day. So those are kind of all in the numbers that I'm talking about.

And I referenced there's some residual remaining expenses in Q1, which is I think --

From a merger related.

Like merger on.

Yes, we have a couple of some IT decommissioning expenses and you related to some leases that we're getting out of maybe less than $5 million is our projection for the first quarter for merger related.

That's it. It's all over. That is the guidance.

That's great. That's extremely helpful detail. I appreciate it. And maybe I know you kind of noted the progression in North Carolina and that potential expansion is still pretty much on path for build out over the next 1.5 years to 2 years. Is there any impetus to kind of accelerate any of your plans or push maybe deeper into hiring activity that seems to be the norm across the spectrum today. Everybody seems to want to hire as many people as they can, with the dislocation we're seeing across the industry. So just wondering if that -- any of your plans there could accelerate? Or if you feel like there's a lot of capacity still within the team, just given the integration with legacy Sandy brings into the AUB platform?

That would principally be, I think, a commercial or wholesale banking question. Do you want to answer that, Dave?

Yes. I mean this is not the time you necessarily want to hire a banker because going to have to pay their bonus.

Even this time of the year.

We had this time of year. But we have a pipeline, a strong pipeline of people that we would expect to bring on board after bonuses are paid at the other institutions. And we currently have a lot of capacity within the team. We have 20 bankers sitting in the market already.

In Carolina.

In Carolina. And they're very active. And so we're going to continue to grow using those bankers but also build out the rest over time. But you should expect to hear about more hiring March -- between March and August during the year?

We do feel good about the team. Our capacity, we're sort of always in the market to some extent. But we wouldn't expect to see like some big announcement that there's some big expansion per se, but we'll see how it goes.

But there's no constraints on hiring. It's higher you can --

We have a long track record as we can expand with the right talent. We tend to do that and make it work out.

A little harder to accelerate on the consumer side because you got the branch build-out and things -- so it's more on the wholesale side. We'll push as hard as we can, but it's depending on the hiring of capabilities there.

Great. And then just maybe lastly for me. I mean, you've got a lot on your plate, clearly, in terms of the North Carolina expansion. Obviously, hoping to accelerate growth overall in terms of uses of capital.

But as earnings continue to ramp higher and capital build should accelerate here, at what point do you think you entertain maybe share repurchases or other paths for that soon to be building excess capital over time. And is there a kind of a threshold you want to hit from a capital level first before you'd entertain that?

Yes. I think we've been clear that we will entertain a share repurchase probably in the second half of 2026 of this year. Really looking at excess capital, anything beyond the 10.5% CET1 would be what we'd be looking for to utilize -- consider excess capital to be in the repurchase market. So we're on track for that as we go through the first -- for the second quarter of this year. So as we said, we could be in the market late in the second quarter or in the third quarter.

And I'm glad you asked that question. You saw that we grew tangible capital about 4%, approximately 4% in one quarter. And we're doing exactly what we said we would do. We've invested capital to build the franchise, to secure our positioning to put us on this profitability and capital generation footing. And now we're receiving the benefit of that.

And we've been clear that we are guiding towards 12% to 15% annualized tangible capital growth. So we are going to be in a good position, as Rob said, where we'll be able to consider share buybacks.

Yes, fantastic. It feels like everything is laid out before.

We have a follow-up question from David Bishop.

John, real quick, I guess, a question for Rob. You noted the -- in other expenses noncredit-related customer losses. Is that that fraudulent type losses? Just curious what sort of drove those other expenses higher?

Yes. That's mostly what that is. Fraud is episodic and it can come and fit in spurts and that's what you're looking at.

Yes, it was elevated just a couple of items issues that came up in the fourth quarter. Hopefully, they don't recur, but they're here. It's become --

You get these scams that move around the industry -- and then there'll be something else, but that's episode. Yes, think that's what's the run rate issue.

Got it. So within your OpEx guidance for the first quarter, the flattish, would that be flattish off the reported sort of $204.6 on an adjusted basis? Or would it be sort of 202 adjusting for the fraud.

Yes. It's kind of kind of around that range, 203 -- 202, 203, including the amortization, just because there's ads -- think about it is, yes, we may not see that level, but there's other things that will come in from a seasonal point of view.

Thanks, Dave, and thanks, everyone, for calling. We look forward to speaking with you in three months. Have a good day.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.