SmartFinancial Inc (SMBK) 2026 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the SmartFinancial third-quarter 2026 earnings release and conference call. (Operator Instructions)

I will now hand over to Nate Strahl, Director of Investor Relations, to begin. Please go ahead.

Thanks, [Erica]. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for SmartFinancial's third-quarter 2026 earnings webcast and conference call. During today's call, we will reference the slides and earnings release available in the Investor Relations section of our website at smartbank.com.

Billy Carroll, our President and Chief Executive Officer will begin the call, followed by Ron Graczynski, our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide additional commentary. We will be available to answer your questions at the conclusion of our call.

Our comments today include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are described in our earnings release and SEC filings, which are available on our website.

We undertake no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise, except as required by law.

During today's call, we may reference non-GAAP financial measures related to the company's performance. Reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the appendices to the earnings release and investor presentation filed with the SEC on October 19, 2026.

And now I'll turn the call over to Billy Carroll.

Thanks, Nate, and good morning, everyone. Great to be with you and thank you for joining us today and for your interest in SMBK.

As usual, I'll open our call with some commentary and then hand it over to Ron to walk through the numbers in greater detail. After our prepared comments, we'll open it up with Ron, Nate, Rhett, Miller and myself available for Q&A.

The third quarter was another outstanding one for our company. We continue to build strong organic momentum. Generated record operating revenue and expanded their return metrics. The foundation we have built over the past several years is producing the results we expected and our team remains highly focused on disciplined growth and long-term shareholder value.

So let me jump right into some of the highlights.

First, and as I always say, one of the most important metrics to me, we continue to increase the tangible book value of our company. Tangible book value per share was up, ending the quarter at $28.50. The tangible book value excluding AOCI increased to $30.03. That represents 15% annualized quarter-over-quarter growth excluding AOCI.

For the quarter, we posted operating earnings of $18.6 million or $1.10 per diluted share and record operating revenue of $57.5 million. We did have a few moving parts that netted out positive to operating earnings this quarter, including a nice tax credit transaction that Ron will discuss in a moment.

We again delivered excellent growth on both sides of the balance sheet with 15% annualized organic loan growth and 12% annualized core deposit growth.

Our return metrics, though slightly aided this quarter, continue to strengthen. Operating return on average assets increased to 1.20% and operating return on average tangible common equity increased to 15.1%.

Credit quality remains very sound. Non-performing assets were only 25 basis points of total assets and annualized net charge-offs were 6 basis points. We did have a slight uptick in delinquencies in our fountain equipment subsidiary as higher diesel prices have strained some transportation business, but overall very manageable as that continues to be a relatively small piece of our overall loan book.

And we were thrilled to open our full service Columbus, Georgia Financial Center during the quarter. This is our first branch in this great state and an important step in building density in that market and supporting the strong start our Columbus team has made.

Looking at the first few pages in our deck, you can see the continued progress in revenue, EPS, return metrics and tangible book value. The consistency of those trends demonstrates the strength of our organic strategy and the operating leverage we are building.

A couple of additional high-level comments from me on growth, we added $174 million in loans this quarter, representing 15% annualized. The growth remains broad-based with strong production across all regions and continued momentum in C&I lending.

Our average loan portfolio yield, including fees and accretion, ticked up to 6.08%. Regarding deposits, core deposits increased $163 million or 12% annualized during the quarter.

Our focus on both sides of the balance sheet continues to pay off and loan-to-deposit ratios maintained very manageable at 87%. Deposit pricing remains competitive and higher funding costs pressured the margin modestly, but net interest income still increased nicely to $49.4 million as balance sheet growth more than offset that pressure.

On expenses, operating non-interest expense was $36.4 million. The quarter included some slightly higher one-time items along with continued investment in our people and franchise. Even with that increase, year-over-year operating revenue growth outpaced operating expense growth.

We will maintain discipline around expenses, but we'll also continue making investments that support growth, including revenue-producing talent, technology and strategic facilities. So all in all, another excellent quarter of continued execution. I'm going to stop there and hand it over to Ron to dive into the details. Ron?

Thanks, Billy. Good morning, everyone. I'll start with deposits. During the quarter, our non-broker deposits grew $163 million, driven by continued new account growth and strong relationship expansion. The weighted average cost of new deposit production increased 43 basis points to 3.33% for the quarter and was 3.36% for September.

Non-interest-bearing deposits were essentially unchanged at $920 million, representing approximately 70% of. Total deposits. Interest-bearing deposit costs increased 9 basis points to 2.71%, while total deposit costs increased 11 basis points to 2.26%.

Loan balances increased $174 million with growth diversified across all loan categories and geographies. New loan production carried a weighted average yield of 6.37% for the quarter and was 6.78% for September.

Our growth on both sides of the balance sheet reflects the consistent execution of our relations-based strategy. Our bank has remained focused on pairing quality loan growth with broader client relationships, operating accounts and core deposits.

Turning to margin, net interest income increased $1.3 million to $49.4 million and net interest margin was 3.45% in line with our stated guidance.

Looking ahead, we expect continued improvement in asset yields to support modest margin expansion overtime time however, near-term deposit cost pressure is expected to continue to offset some of that benefit. As such, for the fourth quarter, we currently expect net interest margin to remain around current levels in the 3.45% range.

Our provision for credit losses declined to $687,000 from $1.5 million in the prior quarter. This included approximately $1.1 million of provision partially offset by a $371,000 release from our unfunded commitments liability. The provision also benefited from a $1.7 million net release of a loan-specific reserve driven by a loan payoff.

Overall, the allowance for credit losses increased slightly to $45.6 million and our allowance to loans ratio declined to 94 basis points. We believe the allowance is appropriate for the portfolio and current environment. Operating non-interest income was $8.1 million, up $245,000 from the prior quarter, led by service charges and mortgage banking income.

Together with higher net interest income drove operating revenue to $57.5 million, reflecting continued momentum across the company. Operating non-interest expense totaled $36.4 million, up $2.4 million from the prior quarter. Approximately $1 million of this increase was attributable to sale losses and valuation write-downs on repossessed equipment in our equipment finance subsidiary.

Salary and benefit expenses also increased, primarily due to higher production-related variable compensation. Professional service expense included approximately $300,000 of consulting and placement costs associated with our tax credit purchase. Adjusting for the equipment finance and tax credit expenses, our nonissuance expenses were in line with our stated guidance.

Our operating efficiency ratio increased to approximately 63% from 60% in the prior quarter. Although the ratio was elevated this quarter due to the forementioned items, we expect to generate positive operating leverage over time as our recent investments contribute more meaningfully to revenue.

We will continue making targeted investments in our expanding markets while maintaining discipline across the broader expense base. For the fourth quarter. We expect operating non-interest income of approximately $7.5 million and operating non-interest expense of $35 million to $35.5 million.

Salary and benefit expenses are expected to range from $21 million to $21.5 million, reflecting production-related incentive compensation and additional hiring. Incentive compensation accruals will vary with performance.

Turning to taxes, income tax expense was $1.9 million. Compared with $4.2 million in the prior quarter. During the quarter, we purchased $36 million of transferable energy tax credits at a discount to face, resulting in a $2.6 million income tax benefit.

Looking ahead, we may consider similar transactions from time to time as part of our tax planning. Our effective tax rate going forward will be in the range of 19.5% to 20.5%. I'll wrap up with capital. Our tangible common equity ratio was 7.8% compared with 8% in the second quarter.

The decline in the tangible common equity ratio was primarily attributable to changes in AOCI as rising interest rates reduced the fair value of our bond portfolio during the quarter.

In contrast, our estimated common equity Tier 1 ratio increased to 9.8% and our estimated total risk-based capital ratio was 12.6% at quarter end.

Our capital position remains solid and provides flexibility to support organic growth, maintain balancing strength and continue building long-term shareholder value.

With that said, I'll turn it back over to Billy.

Thanks, Ron. As you can tell from Ron's comments, we continue to execute successfully in the leveraging phase of our company's growth.

Our outlook remains centered on the strategy that has brought us here, getting deeper in our markets, growing share, expanding high-value relationships, recruiting great bankers and leveraging the infrastructure and capabilities we have built.

Our pipelines remain solid and we continue to see opportunities across our footprint. The higher rate forecast does present some added challenges as we look ahead, but I'm going to continue to stick to our high single-digits plus growth guidance, even though we bettered that in recent quarters.

Talent acquisition remains a high priority. Market disruption across the Southeast continues to create opportunities for us to add experienced revenue producers who fit our culture.

We have added some strong bankers in several markets this year. And our ability to recruit maintains one of our company's key competitive advantages. We had several very nice recruiting wins this quarter and have several other great talent members in the pipeline currently.

Again, Columbus, Georgia is a good example of our strategy in action as we open their full-service financial center during the quarter, right in the heart of Columbus's main business district. We're very bullish about the opportunity to build meaningful relationships and market share there.

To summarize, we're positioned very well. We are executing, posting record operating revenue this quarter. We are producing, posting double-digit organic growth on both sides of the balance sheet. We're managing risk as credit remains very sound and we are winning on talent as we continue to add outstanding new team members.

I also want to close with a huge shout out. Fair Associates as our company was recently named to Great Place to Work's list of TOP50 mid-sized companies in the country. And we also ranked number 11 nationally in the financial institutions category. This is another great statement on the culture that this team is creating.

Our future is bright. And I appreciate the work of our SmartFinancial and Smart Bank team and the efforts of all of our associates. I'm extremely proud of what we're building here at SMBK.

I'll stop there and we'll open it up for questions.

(Operator Instructions) Will Jones, KBW.

Yeah, hey, great. Good morning, guys.

Hey, Will.

Hey, another really strong quarter of growth, both sides of the balance sheet, loans and deposits. I know last quarter, we spoke about some deposit seasonality that we would see on the back of the quarter that may be supporting some of the growth we saw. Could you speak to maybe any seasonality in this quarter's results and what you would expect to maybe flow through into the balance of this year?

Ron, you want to jump in on that one?

Yes, we did get a pickup really for Q3 is throughout the Board, not only new relationships, but building of the old -- building of the existing client base. So I think we're -- I think we're still looking for a good growth quarter for fourth, and we're out of our seasonality trend, our historical trending for that.

Yeah, got it. Okay. And then I think Ron, I heard you say the new deposits in the quarter were 330. Did I hear that right?

Correct. 3.33 for the quarter, yes.

Okay. And as we just kind of model out and think about deposit betas moving forward, could you just maybe walk us through where you would level set expectations there? And hear you that that margin may be more stable over the near term as.

Some of your repricing on the asset side is offset by deposit costs. Is that how we should kind of think about additional incremental hikes from here? I know the forward curve would imply maybe a few more hikes coming into 2027 is kind of a stable margin where you would kind of peg margin performance as we think about additional hikes in the future?

Yeah, first, we're about since the new rate since the rates hiked again, we're probably running around 70% beta at this point of time. We're really so neutral, we're really not going to be affected by rate hikes or rate decreases at this point. A lot of our expansion that's our modest expansion throughout 2027 is really due to our repricing book. We will see incremental lift going through 2027.

So as far as rate hikes, we should be fairly neutral throughout each rate hike, which by the way, our guidance does include a rate hike in December.

And then just fair to say, I know we talked about a $1 EPS target by the end of this year, feels like things are still kind of turning in that direction if we normalize some of the expenses from this quarter, is that kind of a fair comment? Is that the way that you guys are kind of doing the business?

Yeah, Will, I think you're spot on. Yeah, you really, you shake out kind of the ebbs and flows this quarter. It's really a solid quarter. And we still feel very good about our ability to kind of hit that 4x4 challenge that we've stated publicly hitting that dollar run rate. We're still on that trajectory.

And feel really good about Air Ability. Not just hit that, but Air Ability continue to move EPS higher as we look into next year. Again, we've talked about it a lot. I mean, they're focused on just continuing to grow EPS and revenue and book value. That's kind of where we're sitting and team's done a great job on that. So yeah, I think we're moving in that direction and feel pretty good about the chances of getting that here pretty soon.

Yeah, certainly. Well, the momentum is certainly still very much evident. So congrats there, guys, and then thanks for the questions.

Russell Gunther, Stephens.

Hey, good morning, guys. I wanted to start on the loan growth side of things morning, Billy. Another enviable organic growth quarter and guide, maybe a more intermediate question on my end. As you guys think about potential Fed rate hikes and the absolute level of interest rates, is there a threshold where you would expect to see some pipeline fallout that would put that kind of high single, low double-digit growth profile at risk?

Yes, that's a really good question, Russell. Yeah, obviously, as rates edge up, and quite frankly, we're talking about that a lot with our division and regional leadership. We're talking about pipelines and thinking about '27 and starting to lay out our forecasts. And right now, even with kind of the current rate environment, pipelines still feel pretty good.

Now, I do agree, I think if you're going to see another. Two to three hikes, could that have some impact as we look into '27, absolutely. I think the macro is the macro. And so we've got to deal with that just like everybody else. What I will say. Is that, I call it the hustle factor that our guys and gals have across our board of just getting out and bringing in new relationships.

I don't think that will slow down. So, it might slow a little bit of just what I call just maybe some of the new projects that are going on that we see, but I still think we have got a great shot at continuing to bring in new relationships, new device accounts and new funded debt as we hopefully move things from other entities.

Got it. That's very helpful. Thank you, Billy. And then always have that great slide in the deck that flushes out your back book repricing opportunity that Rania mentioned, the reinvestment rates on the loan side. Could you just share where you're reinvesting on the investment securities front. And then on the other side, it would be helpful to get a sense for just kind of where spot and the period deposit rates ended the quarter.

At this point, we're buying bonds SOFR plus 85, so in the five plus range. Again, a lot of our we're just kind of just keeping our balance of our investments pretty stable overtime and the spot. Deposit pricing, our CDs were today around $410 for 7-month CDs. Our 13-month CDs are $415, and our money markets are in the $360 to $370 range at this point. We try to target 95% of Fed funds.

Fantastic. Thank you. And then just last one for me, if you don't mind, I appreciate the near-term expense outlook. But how are you guys thinking about a core expense growth rate on a more intermediate-term basis as you guys balance franchise investment and talent and tech with the goal of delivering positive operating leverage?

Yeah, great question. And again, we're having these exact same conversations, Russell, as we're kind of going through our '27 forecasting.

Again, you used the word, it is balanced. We're continuing to grow, continuing to add team members. When we look at, we kind of look at it almost in a little bit of, I call it same-store sales, when you kind of factor out some of the new ads. I think if you factor out kind of some of that and you just look at where. We are moving forward, I think we can stay pretty reasonable on the expense growth.

Now, Ron, I know we're talking about -- we're probably not prepared to really lay -- I know we're working through forecast right now, probably not ready to give '27 guidance. But, I mean, percentage-wise, you got a range that you could maybe share.

For both of me, I think we're going to be in a five to six growth range going off of a fourth quarter's run rate. But again, we will be providing continuous leverage and sustainability in our workforce and our franchise. We benefited from keeping our expenses to a tight band, but our franchise is growing, so we will have incremental growth in our non-interest expenses.

Understood. I appreciate your thoughts, guys. Thanks for taking my question.

Stephen Scouten, Piper Sandler.

Hey, good morning, everyone.Ron, I appreciate the information you gave there on CD and money market cost there. Can you talk a little bit about maybe what you're seeing all in kind of blended rates come in at on the deposit side and kind of how you're seeing spreads. Overall and any sort of directional trends there, whether you're seeing spreads compress, given competition or what have you?

Yeah, we've always over the last couple of quarters, we were probably on our side of the house kind of quiet, getting the phone calls of pricing. Yeah, the pricing competition is real. We're coming in at the $335 million range all in. That's kind of what we expect. I don't know how much incrementally higher we're going to go at this point, but that's to be determined.

The market is real and we're getting more calls every day for accession pricing. That's the best I could tell you at this point.

But I'll add too, Stephen. I think the team's also doing a really nice job on the asset side. We're sitting down and really looking at watching that and kind of fighting for every basis point on the asset side. Loan growth is competitive too, but we've been able to continue to eke out pretty nice incremental rates on our loan growth as well.

So while -- yeah, a little more deposit funding than we'd like to see. We're doing a nice job balancing it with the growth that we're getting.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the growth is a huge tailwind there. And I think that the average yield is, what, $6.08 currently? And I'm not sure if you noted this or if it's in the slide deck, apologies that I missed it, but new loan yields are coming on around where, all in.

On September was $6.78. So for the quarter, it was $6.37. So we are getting some nice lift from the rate increase.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Okay, great, appreciate that. And I think, Billy, you mentioned the $1 run rate and your progression there. Do you guys have or do you think you'll. Maybe be putting out some longer-term profitability targets from here. You guys have made just obviously tremendous strides over the last couple of years. Just kind of curious where you think you can continue to head from here, what's possible for the franchise?

Yeah. Yeah, Stephen, we will. I think we're spending a lot of time. We've worked through our executive teams planning meetings over the last few weeks and got board strategy coming up. Here in a couple of weeks. And so we're laying out the forecast.

As you all know, we're pretty transparent. We've demonstrated our ability to kind of challenge ourselves internally and execute on that. That's worked pretty well. So we're kind of working through what that next challenge is going to be for our group, but we will -- we'll be sharing that at the appropriate time.

But again, I remain so excited about what we're seeing in this company, the energy, again, I mentioned recruitment. I mean, we're adding some great bankers to this platform just strategically and in some key markets. So Ilove our ability to continue executing.

And so, yeah, we'll be laying out we've got Nate's kind of our marketing guy when it comes to kind of crafting the mantras for the challenges. So we're trying to figure out exactly what we want to lay out for '27, but stay tuned.

And I do think the whole team's up for the challenge. I mean, they push us. It's a good mix of driving for hire.

Yeah, it seems like you have a group that likes a challenge, so that's fantastic. I guess last thing for me, and I think I kind of asked you this last quarter as well, but M&A possibilities, I mean, does any of this change, you continue to have strength from a pricing power perspective?

You're now in Columbus. I mean, do you think about maybe changing direction at all or putting that back on the table in any way, shape, or form, given maybe a desire to get more scale and density in newer markets?

I think our focus continues to be 1A on what we've done, this organic strategy and just adding great regional bankers is really where we want to focus, we're watching what's going on. In the world. I mean, it's a -- there are opportunities out there.

Again, I've said it before and I kind of -- I'll reiterate it. I think it would have to be something that was really unique that made us better and not just bigger if we were ever to look at something. Because, again, we've kind of got this thing built to where we can punch up.

And we've got -- when you look at our products and our services and our ability to compete against the larger regional banks. We can do that now at $6 billion. And so I think for us, it would have to be really unique for us to consider it. But we're always keeping our eye open on what's happening, but organic continues to be 1A.

I think it's intriguing to look at, obviously always fun to run the numbers. But man, we are pretty darn focused on what we're doing now. And I echo what Billy said, it would have to be super attractive for us to deviate from the. Our strategy.

Yes, makes sense. Continues to be a great answer there. Keep it up, guys. Appreciate the time.

Thank you.

Brett Rabatin, StoneX Group.

Hey, guys. Good morning. If I heard the guidance correct, the guidance for 4Q fee income was $7.5 million. One, is that the right number? And then two, it's a little softer than 3Q, if so. And just any thoughts on the fourth quarter level of fee income?

Yeah, Brett. Yeah, fourth quarter, we're projecting $7.5 million, and it is softer. It's really the mortgage, our mortgage unit, the seasonality of it. Could we do better maybe from what's in the pipeline? But right now, usually we do start slowing down, and that's been a pretty decent lift for us quarter over quarter. So that's really the only item that's really causing that.

Any thoughts on the third quarter strength, versus what I've seen from some other banks, when mortgage has been tough given rates?

I'm sorry, Brett, was that mortgage? Is that what you were mortgage specific?

Yeah, just the mortgage banking line item was stronger in 3Q than 2Q and 1Q. It just seems like others have had some pretty tough comps in 3Q, just given rates. So I was just curious what the strength was related to 3Q?

Yeah, I'll do that and then Ron or Brett, I mean, chime in. But yeah, overall, I think a lot of it has just been our mortgage group has really had just an overall really good year. We've continued to add some really good mortgage bankers over the course, especially early in the year. Those folks have kind of ramped up and have kind of gained momentum, even in an environment.

We were actually talking with one of our mortgage team members yesterday about kind of prospects and Ron said, and you do get a little bit of seasonalities, you don't have as many closings usually in Q4, but our pipeline is still pretty good.

We're still getting while some one to four pockets may be a little bit softer in some different spots, we've been able to continue to eke out really good growth and been real pleased with what we've been able to accomplish this year on mortgage. So I think a lot of it is just.

Number one, team is very focused and sales side is doing a great job there. And then probably number two is just we've been able to do it with some really good new mortgage banker additions this year. I don't know, Rhett, Ron, any additional color on that from you guys?

Bill, you're spot on. I mean, our volume, we have been putting more originators out on the field. So our volume has increased. So we've just, it's been working for us.

The production side has to your point, Billy, the new hires has been a key driver. And then I think that team's ability to just continue to process activity very efficiently is also, it helps with the new producers, we're able to get deals turned around quickly and get responses back in business.

Okay. That's super helpful. And then the other question I had was just around slide 14. And if you could just refresh my memory on you've got nearly half a billion of fixed rate loans yielding slightly under 5% that mature by the end of next year and a little over $100 billion of adjustable rate loans at a similar rate.

Do those loans -- I mean, I assume those are all kind of more, fixed rate commercial real estate type properties. Do those loans, do you think, reprice to a higher level, or do you think that those loans end up repricing someplace else with another institution? Or just any thoughts on that slide 14, those loans that are repricing, over the next year?

I'll start. What we have seen for our renewals and repricing, we are getting, one, we're getting about 100, 110 basis points over the original rate. Two, for the renewal side, we are keeping around 80%, 85% of those in-house. So we're very successful in keeping those. Nice retention and a lot better rates than what we've had. So it's been something we've been working at for a while and quarter over quarter. So we don't see why that would defer or change going forward either.

I can ask one last quick one just around demand. I've had folks asking about maybe demand being quelled by higher rates and you guys obviously have an origination rate of September close to 7%. Have you guys seen any of that where higher rates might be starting to slow demand a little bit or is it just not a factor at this point?

We're watching it. We're watching it, Brett. I know we talk about pipelines a lot and just trying to project growth over the near term as good as you can project off the pipelines. But we've usually been pretty accurate around that. We're not seeing it slow yet.

I think if you do get a couple of more rate increases in there, could you see some slowdown as we look into '27? Absolutely. Again, I'll kind of go back to my comment that I made earlier. It is not slowing our team's calling efforts down and our prospecting efforts. And so even though.

Even though you might get a little bit of softness maybe in some new projects, I think our ability to move clients over and to move deals over remains pretty good. I don't read anything that you would add to that.

I think that's spot on, Billy. I would say what we're seeing in opportunities, I don't think, is really slow when you combine our calling efforts and our new team members and additions we've had across the footprint, we're still seeing a very steady pipeline.

Okay, great for showing our guys.

Thanks, Brett.

Steve Moss, Raymond James.

Good morning, guys. Maybe just start on the equipment finance. On the equipment finance here, just with Fountain. I think I heard you, Billy, talk about some challenges within that portfolio regarding higher diesel, just kind of curious how large is that portfolio and any color you can give there?

Yeah, I'll give a little just a little high level with Rhett, maybe you could walk through specifics on portfolio balances. Yeah, overall, yeah, my comments were, we saw a little bit of delinquency creep in that book, a lot of that's just some of these smaller mom-and-pop transports, just a little bit of strain there.

We've been able to kind of navigate that pretty well internally. So with diesel prices up, you might say we might have a little bit more delinquency. But overall, we think it continues to be very manageable as it's a small piece of the book, any portfolio specifics?

I'll just say it's about $145 million or so is the entire book state.

Okay, great. Appreciate that color there. And then just on thinking about NII growth here going forward, given the 70% deposit beta, sounds like you'll another good quarter loan growth. So obviously like a mid-teens type year for you guys. For NII in the upcoming quarter, if the margin is only $3.45, is that like a 2% type NII number for you guys here?

Ron, on NII growth, we probably had -- we were probably a little better than that this quarter. I'm thinking we probably haven't looked at it from a percentage standpoint. We probably calculated it pretty quick. But I think it's probably -- I think we were a little better than that this last quarter. But that's probably in the right range. Ron, you got a quick math on that?

We're probably looking at the NII change about pretty closer to 3%. For Q4?

Okay. So maybe a little bit -- so maybe longer similar to the current quarter for the fourth quarter here.

Yeah. Yeah. A little -- probably a little -- maybe a top higher, but yes, sir.

Awesome. Thanks, Ron. Okay. And just in terms of -- you guys have managed down your securities and liquidity a bit. It kind of seems like we're hitting the floor here. I'm just curious, are you guys willing to run it a bit lower to fund loan growth or have we hit the floor, actually, is what I'm trying to say, ask?

Yeah, I still think we have a little bit, probably. We could probably go $80 million less, but we're getting near our floor at this point. So we've got a little bit more ammo, but we just keep reinvesting in the portfolio, so.

Okay. Great. Well, nice quarter, and that's all my questions. Appreciate all the call here, guys. Thank you very much.

Christopher Adamo, Brean Capital.

Hey, guys. This is Chris Adamo on for Chris Marinak. I got a quick one for you on the credit fronts. So I guess what would you guys could you provide any color ideas into the CRA loss rate for the quarter? And also, I guess, how do you kind of see that going forward and impacting future provision and overall reserve levels going forward as well?

I guess just to make sure I had to clarify the right question, Chris, was it was -- you're saying loss levels, is that what I guess just had to -- how do we view loss levels going forward, is that correct?

Yes, that's correct.

Yeah, I'll just, yeah, I'll make a high level comment and then they'll let Rhett jump in. Overall, you still feel really good about the credit book. Again, when you look at what little we had in the way of losses so far this year, most of that has been our equipment finance sub related, which is usually typical. We'll a little bit more than that just because we get the yield for it, but I don't anticipate anything. Unusual going forward, Rep?

Anything on your side as far as just kind of expected thoughts around credit in the next couple of quarters?

Billy, I would say absolutely for purposes of the outlook. I mean, I think it's clearly to your point, I mean, our strain is in that equipment portfolio. And. Wouldn't anticipate to see any, significant changes there as far as -- as far as, larger or additional losses. I mean, it's -- we'll work through that book as we go through this cycle in the transportation space, but don't anticipate it having any significant impact. I mean, we feel like our allowance is positioned very well with where we are today. So, I don't see it being a significant change.

Yeah, so, yeah, I think, Chris, ain't pretty stable moving forward.

Perfect. I appreciate the time.

Appreciate it. Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Miller Welborn, Chairman of the Board for closing remarks.

We really appreciate you all joining us today. Thank you for your interest in what we're building here at the bank and for our team and I hope you all each have a great day. Talk to you soon.

Thanks.

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