SB Finl Gr achieves 83% increase in earnings per share and stable loan growth, positioning for strong Q4 performance and market expansion

Good morning everyone and welcome to the SB Finl Gr third quarter 2025 conference call and webcast. I would like to inform you that this conference call is being recorded and that all participants are in a listen only mode. We will begin with remarks by management and then open the conference up to the investment community for questions and answers. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Sara Mekus with SB Finl Gr. Please go ahead. Sarah.

Thank you and good morning everyone. I'd like to remind you that this conference call is being broadcast live over the Internet and will be archived and available on our website at ir.yourstatebank.com Joining me today are Mark Klein, Chairman, President and CEO Tony Cazantino, CFO, Chief Financial Officer and Steve Walls, CLO, Chief Lending Officer. Today's presentation may contain forward looking information. Cautionary statements about this information as well as reconciliations of non GAAP financial measures are included in today's earnings release materials as well as our SEC filings. These materials are available on our website and we encourage participants to review to refer to them for a complete discussion of risk factors and forward looking statements. These statements speak only as of the date made and SB Financial undertakes no obligation to update them. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Klein.

Thank you Sarah and good morning everyone. Welcome to our third quarter, 2025 conference call and webcast. The third quarter reflected steady execution across our business lines and continued stability in our core markets and concentrated growth and expansion wins. I'm pleased to report that the integration of the Marblehead clients was successfully completed this past weekend. We welcome and value them as they are a key ingredient in our strategy to further leverage our community bank brand. We're also preparing to descend upon a new adjacent market just to our west into Napoleon, Ohio, and Henry County. We're clearly excited about the potential of this market and especially the $800 million in deposits in the market we intend to aggressively pursue as a result of our new presence. Throughout the quarter we maintained our focus on disciplined lending, core deposit growth, careful expense management. While the operating environment remains competitive, we believe our balance sheet lines of business, credit quality and a growth mindset position us well for the final quarter of the year. Some highlights for the quarter include net income of $4 million with diluted earnings per share of $0.64, up $0.29 or approximately 83% compared to the prior year quarter when considering the servicing rights impairment adjusted EPS was $0.68 for the quarter. This was our 59th consecutive quarter of profitability. Tangible book value per share ended the quarter at $17.21, up from $16.49 last year or a 4.4% increase. Excluding the acquisition payment for Marblehead, tangible book value per share is up 8.9%. Net interest income totaled 12.3 million, an increase of over 21% from the 10.2 million in the third quarter of 2024. From the linked quarter, net interest income accelerated at a 30% annualized pace. Loan growth over the prior year quarter was approximately 80.6 million or 7.8% and now marks the sixth consecutive quarter of sequential loan growth. Deposits grew by nearly 103 million or 9% inclusive of the $51 million in deposits related to Marblehead. The deposit base and relationships from Marblehead have remained largely intact since the financial merger in January. When we exclude the Marblehead deposits, overall deposit growth was still healthy at 4.5%. Assets under our care continue to grow and now exceed 3.5 billion, consisting of bank assets of 1.5 billion, residential servicing portfolio of 1.5 billion and now wealth assets of over 600563 million. Once again, this diverse book of assets provides stability across market cycles and continues to position us well for performance enhancements heading into 2026 and beyond. Mortgage originations for the quarter were 67.6 million, down from both the prior year and linked quarters. However, our pipeline has strengthened a bit with the 30 year rate at or below the 6% level for most of this past month. We are well positioned to recapture market growth with our 23 lenders positioned all across the Midwest in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Columbus and Northwest Ohio. As rates decline, operating expenses decreased approximately 3% from the linked quarter and up slightly compared to the prior year. Year to date expense growth excluding the one time merger cost was 9.5%, well below the 18.5% year to date revenue growth. This acceleration of revenue over line item expenses represents an operating leverage of now 3.5 times this quarter and 1.8 times for the year through three quarters. Asset quality continues to be one of our competitive advantages. Charge offs returned to more historic levels and we successfully eliminated nearly 1.3 million in non performing loans from the linked quarter by way of payoffs and upgrades. In clear sight, we continued the relentless pursuit of our five key initiatives and I'll remind you growth and diversity of revenue Organic growth for greater scale to improve efficiency, deepening client relationships for greater scope and more services per household, Excellence in operational activity and of course top tier asset quality. A little closer look at revenue diversity. And growth. Mortgage originations remained fairly consistent during the third quarter and continued to show solid improvement from earlier in the year. Total production was approximately 68 million as I mentioned, just slightly below the level recorded in the same quarter last year. While we have been disappointed overall in the residential market this year, our ability to generate residential real estate loans across our footprint still improved by 9% over year to date 2024. As a result, we have improved our residential loan sale gains now by 13%. Over the prior year to date. Said we are absent from any meaningful refinance volume thus far in 2025. This quarter continued our trend of purchase and construction loans. Year to date we have completed over 80% of our volume in purchase and approximately 7% from construction. Throughout nine months we have done just $7 million in refinancing our own book. As a result, our servicing rates have increased by nearly 1 million or 7% and are providing an additional 175,000 in annual revenue for 2025. Non interest income was up 2.9% from the prior year quarter at 4.2 million and down 15.9% from the linked quarter. The increase from the third quarter of 2024 was driven by increased mortgage servicing rights as well as increased title service fees and other fee based business line revenue. From the linked quarter we saw a reduction due to the 460,000 servicing rights impairment that accounted for approximately 60% of the decline. Peak Title continued to be a bright spot in our fee income suite thus far. In 2025 their revenue contribution is up nearly 400,000 or 32% on a year to date basis. These results are especially meaningful given that our mortgage value is up just 9% year to date. Peak has expanded their customer base well beyond State bank and our commercial lenders have consistently increased their referrals. In fact, year to date our internal referrals have provided our title Company with 28% of their total revenue. Our Wealth Group is transitioning to a new strategic partnership with Advisory Alpha that we mentioned in prior quarters. This will enable us to bring an expanded suite of marketing materials to the table and most importantly, a number of CFP professionals that will be an added benefit to our current and future clients while strengthening our high touch brand. Over the coming quarters, we intend to expand on the impact this strategic partnership will have on our client base. On the scale front during the third quarter, we continue to make solid progress integrating the Marblehead team into our organization. Their staff has blended well with our State bank team and we've been very encouraged by their continued success in retaining longstanding client relationships and maintaining strong community ties. We also recently completed the integration of Marblehead's customers into our core system on October 24, marking the final step in aligning operations and technology across our combined organization. This acquisition, while small, has enabled us to enter a new market and add nearly 2,500 deposit accounts with a weighted average cost of approximately 1.2%. As I mentioned earlier, deposit growth both with and without Marblehead, has been a strong contributor to our earnings in 2025. We have been able to keep most of our excess deposit liquidity, which has averaged approximately 75 million invested overnight, expanding margin revenue as rates are expected to further decline in the coming quarter. We will be utilizing this liquidity to fund our solid loan pipelines across our footprint again. We have grown loans now for six consecutive quarters with the annual growth rate of 7.8%, well in line with our historical averages of high single digits. We understand that the majority of the growth has occurred in the Columbus market and in the commercial real estate product line. However, even with the impact of that somewhat lopsided growth over the past four to five quarters, Columbus represents just 40% of our loan balances and CRE is now less than half our total outstandings. Additionally, CRE is in our loan portfolio and contributes and constitutes just 203% of regulatory capital, which is well below peer and well within regulatory benchmarks. Expanding Relationships or More Scope Our focus on relationship banking continues to guide how we serve and grow our franchise. We remain committed to understanding the needs of our customers and delivering the right mix of products and services to support them through varied economic conditions. As part of that commitment, we've continued to refine and expand our hybrid office model that combines personalized in market service with flexible digital and remote engagement. This approach has strengthened connectivity with clients while helping to enhance efficiency across our footprint. We remain dedicated to this model in our new markets of Angola, Indiana and soon to be Napoleon, Ohio, and have begun retrofitting several of our existing offices to better align resources with current levels of activity. As we disclosed in prior quarters, our markets have experienced disruption from mergers and acquisitions. We have been opportunistic in pursuing clients of the disruptive competitors, but most importantly, we've been able to add depth to our business development teams and in our urban markets and in our agricultural lending business line. All of these changes have been part of a concerted effort to be present and available in each of our communities. There is still a significant level of business activity in our legacy markets and as client rub heightens, we feel we are well positioned to leverage our Main street banking model with newly acquired talent to drive our acquisition of both loans and deposits. Higher referrals remain a key element on our quest to deepen existing client relationships. Year to date we have now initiated over 1100 referrals to business partners with 557 closing for approximately $62 million in additional business for our company. Operational Excellence A major focus for us throughout this year has been the acquisition and integration of Marblehead clients, employees and community. We achieved the financial close of the transaction five months after announcement and customer conversion nine months after the financial close. Despite the speed of those transitions, we have had little to no customer attrition and the client facing staff are here today taking care of their long term clients. Our integration team has built a process and structure that will allow us to compete and complete future transactions quickly and efficiently. As we indicated last quarter, we believe that agricultural lending opportunities have begun to expand in our markets. Fact, we recently added another experienced lender in the ag production sector and will undoubtedly allow us to solicit a number of well established ag production relationships across the Tri-State region. Our balances have been steady at 65 million for some time, but our commitment and renewed emphasis are intended to deliver us a hundred million dollar portfolio a year from now. Finally, asset Quality we continue to reveal a high level of asset quality metrics. As with prior quarters. As I mentioned, charge offs failed to 0 basis points from just 2 basis points in the second quarter. Non performing assets totaled 4.9 million. We remain focused on maintaining our strong asset quality as demonstrated by the continued management of our criticized and classified loans which stood at 5.8 million down from 7.2 million in the linked quarter. Our allowance for credit losses remained robust at 1.44% of total loans not providing 345% coverage of non performing assets. We did make real tangible progress to reduce non performing loans this quarter, but we still have room for improvement. In fact, our top quartile performing peer group has been consistently 10 to 15 basis points lower than us on this ratio. We do feel that we have additional opportunities to reduce it further and are targeting 25 basis point level of NPAs in the coming quarters. Now I'll turn it over. Call to Tony for additional comments on our quarterly performance.

Tony thanks Mark. Good morning everyone. Let me outline some additional highlights and details of our third quarter results starting with the income statement. In the third quarter total operating revenue increased to 16.6 million, a 15.9% rise from the 14.3 million in the prior year and a 3.5% decrease from the linked quarter. Net interest income growth was and has been the main driver with it reaching 12.3 million in the quarter up 21%. Loan income topped 16 million for the second consecutive quarter reflecting our higher level of outstandings and the contractual repricing of the portfolio. Loan yields in the quarter reached a new high of 5.95%, up 23 basis points and as a direct result pushed our earning asset yield up 18 basis points of 5.31%. Year to date ROA was 90 basis points up 17% with our pre tax pre provision ROA at 1.29%, a 28 basis point improvement over the 2024 third quarter. Year to date Performance despite the growth in the balance sheet and the need to fund our earning asset growth, funding costs have been very stable. Total interest expense for the quarter of 6.5 million was up just 113,000 or less than 2% from the prior year. Our year to date interest expense is up 430,000 on a dollar basis, comparing very favorably to the 7.1 million that interest income has risen year to date. Our rate on interest bearing liabilities was 2.33% for the quarter, down 19 basis points from the prior year. As the impact of Marblehead's lower cost deposits and organic deposit growth in a number of our markets has held down funding costs, we believe that this quarter will likely represent the low point on funding costs as well as the peak in our net interest margin of 3.48%. We do have several more quarters of asset repricing and we will continue to roll off bond balances into higher yielding assets, but funding costs will likely rise to offset that margin appreciation. As has been the case for most of the last two years. Fee income has been fairly consistent at between 4 and 5 million per quarter with the level of our margin revenue increasing substantially. The fee income to total revenue percentage has trended down from our historical averages to the now mid to high 20 percentile range. This quarter we had higher OMSR impairment given the improvement in rates which was more than offset by the increase in our equity from the lower AOC IVET level. Total mortgage banking contribution this quarter of nearly 1.5 million was higher compared to the third quarter of 2024 by over 10%. We continue to utilize a hedging program which allows us to not only maximize gain potential but also minimize our rate exposure with an expanding pipeline. The gain on sale yield thus far in 2025 is 2.08%, slightly down from 2024 the sale percentage this quarter of nearly 100% has increased our year to date originated sale percentage now to 88%. Operating expenses, as Mark commented, continue to be well controlled as they were down from the linked quarter by 3% and are up from the prior year by just 500,000 or 4.5%. This sub point sub 5% growth level includes all of the operating costs for Marblehead fully integrated into our current environment. We've increased total headcount by just five from the prior year as we have made structural changes in mortgage and support to offset the new additions for Marblehead and for our lending staff. Now let's review the balance sheet. Mark touched on our growth metrics for both loans and deposits which have been critical to our earnings expansion this year. Looking into 2026, we expect that we will deliver another high single digit level of loan growth which we intend to fund with bond portfolio runoff, 4 to 5% deposit growth and supplemented by targeted wholesale borrowings that complement our current balance sheet structure. We have not been a large player in the wholesale market as our stable deposit franchise has been able to deliver the funding needs for us to self fund our asset growth. We currently have just 35 million of wholesale borrowings with an average coupon in the low fours. All of our liquidity ratios are currently well within policy and we have immediate access to over 190 million in FHLB capacity with nearly 500 million in total contingent funding options. Our loan to deposit ratio remained consistent to the linked quarter at 88%. We believe that the low to mid-90s is a target level for this ratio that will balance profitability with liquidity risk given the stable nature of our deposit franchise. With an average account balance of roughly 22,000, our deposit betas are very predictable and allow us to rely upon that funding base moving forward on capital management. During the quarter we repurchased 101,000 shares at an average price of just under $20, roughly 115% of tangible book and 95% of tangible book. Adjusted for AOCI, we have now bought back nearly 252,000 shares this year for 4.5 million using 45% of our earnings. As Mark mentioned, tangible book value per share was up from the linked quarter by 77 cents driven by a $2.1 million benefit on AOCI, higher earnings and a reduction in share count from the buyback. And lastly, asset quality Total delinquencies were slightly lower than the linked quarter at 45 basis points with the bulk of the reduction in the 90 plus day category since the prior year. Total delinquent loans are down 1.7 million. And total classified loans were also well down from the prior year by nearly 1.3 million, or 21%. Our allowance for credit losses increased 1 basis point, but remained consistent with portfolio trends and in line with recent quarterly loss rates. Given the general improvement in our CECL metrics and the improvement in NPLs this quarter and what potentially will be upgraded in the near term, it is more than likely that this is the high end of our reserve level going forward. I will now turn the call back over to Mark.

Thank you, Tony. We remain very encouraged by our potential to deliver a strong performance in the last quarter and full year for 2025. Anticipated further reductions by the Federal Reserve, potentially expanding mortgage volume, coupled with a larger balance sheet and higher margin should provide the tailwind we expect as we close out the final quarter. We continue to see strong loan pipelines and the new lenders we have added to our team are anxious to deliver new loan and deposit relationships. We announced a dividend last week of 15 and a half cents per share, equating to a 3.1% yield and just 24% of our earnings. This will complete our 13th consecutive year of increasing our annual dividend payout to our shareholders. Now we'll open the call up for any questions.

Sarah, Jamie, we are now ready for questions. And ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press STAR and then one. Using a touchtone telephone to withdraw your questions, you may press star. And two, if you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up the handset prior to pressing the keys to ensure the best sound quality. Once again, in order to ask a question, please press STAR in one. And our first question comes from Brian Martin from Janney Montgomery. Please go ahead with your question.

Hey, good morning, guys.

Hey, Brian.

Morning, Brian.

Hey, thanks for the update there. Just, I don't know, Mark, maybe just. Can you. whoever, I guess, just on the, on the loan growth, can you just talk about anyone? It sounds like, Mark, your last comments about, you know maybe some recent hires, I don't know if they're recent or just someone you're, you know, talking about over the last six to 12 months you've hired, but just the pipeline and the hires. Sounds like the AG will be a little bit of a focus here, given the new addition there. But just how we think about the growth, you know, the pipelines and the growth, you know, the next, you know, six to 12 months and particularly I guess maybe just geographically it sounds like there's good growth everywhere but maybe a little bit more in ag here in the short term.

Yes, as you know and as I indicated we hired a new seasoned ag lender from from a competitor that has gone through some M and A and and that individual managed over 100 million portfolio. So we're clearly expecting some opportunities there given the disruption in the landscape and and the opportunities there. We've also replaced an individual in the northern market with a seasoned individual that has been with some larger banks that clearly managed a larger portfolio as well. So those are a couple areas that we are pretty optimistic about. And then we've certainly continued to have good traction from the Columbus Ohio market under the leadership of Adam Gresel and the two lenders that we have in that market. And as I mentioned CRE continues to be the focus. But CNI still is on our radar in all of our markets. Steve Walls can give a little bit of color on growth in the other markets we have Steve, which has been a little more limited.

Sure. Yeah. Thanks Mark. Yeah Brian, I think you know you heard discussion in the comments about our expectations about about ag and what can be delivered there. We do certainly expect that addition to eight hour called them legacy markets that have been certainly flatter growth. That being said it doesn't change our expectation that Columbus will continue to deliver high levels of growth. But also those other growing more urban markets we do expect to play along as well. So while we certainly expect a little pick up an aggressive we do have expectations broadly that the additions we made will enter to our benefit broadly.

Gotcha. And can you I guess is there. How is the pipeline of you know. Kind of unfunded commitments as far as. Those funding up here? I guess is there a still pretty healthy balance of what you guys expect to fund up there that's kind of already booked and just you know, kind of waiting to be funded.

There is there remains a number of dollars in unfunded commitments. We continue to replace some of those dollars as they roll obviously into the permanent loan structure. We continue to grow in that area as well and we expect certainly over the next six to 12 months and in this quarter as well to continue to kind of hold serve with where we've been on a growth rate.

Brian.

Gotcha Tony.

Any additional color on pipeline?

Yeah, I think you know as Steve and Mark mentioned, you know we probably have 40 million of unused line commitments will fund in the call it the next six to 12 months. I think most of our lending that's been commercial real estate, especially in the, in the Columbus market, has probably been, you know, shorter term, you know, kind of three year type transaction. So we're probably one year into that process. So we feel like there's still significant potential there to expand that. I would think Q4, we're probably going to do similar growth level that we did in Q3, call it, you know, 15 to 20 million of growth and you know, our initial expectations is kind of an 80 to $100 million, 2026 number and call that 40% funded by things that we've already booked and you know, 60% from, from New activity. I guess if I lay it out at a high level.

Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, and Tony, I guess maybe can you talk about the ability. I heard your comments on the margin, but just, you know, I know you still have a fair amount of liquidity, but you also talked about growing deposits and potentially using some, you know, some borrowings. Just frame up. I mean, I guess the loan growth here, in the next six to 12 months in terms of how you fund that, I guess is it, is it primarily going to come from the liquidity or I guess, is that, is that not the case? Just trying to think if you work that down a little bit. Because it feels like if you work that down a little bit, you know, you know, it probably, you know, helps the margin a little bit. But then again, you also talked about the competitiveness. So I don't know just how you. Can frame up the margin outlook and just that utilization of that liquidity.

Yeah, I mean, you know, in a perfect world, you know, let's say we've got 50 million of, you know, 50 to 75 million of available liquidity today that we're investing overnight. If I didn't think there was going to be a significant increase in the competitive nature of deposits, you know, I think we turn that 50 to 75 million immediately into our loan pipeline, which, you know, we'll probably call that a 300 basis point improvement over what we're earning today. And you know, I've just kind of believed on the ground from what I've seen that funding costs and competition is going to get tougher. So I, you know, I really think, you know, we've had a very stable deposit base that, you know, there's no but there. But I do think that there's going to be some pretty good competitive offerings from competition in 20, in the early part of 2026. And I think our customers will be subject to some of that desire and emphasis about potentially wanting higher rates, which concerns me a little bit, that will squeeze our margin, you know. But if I think we can hold where we are and just use that 75 million, then I do think margins will increase from where they are today.

Well, unfortunately, Tony, the runoff and the amortization in the securities portfolio certainly add some inertia and some tailwind as well.

Yes.

Okay. And so just big picture broadly, Tony, you know, given the competitive pickup here, I guess if your margin peaks this quarter, I guess, you know, do you just see it kind of being just a little downward drift given, you know, the factors you kind of outlined there? It doesn't seem like there's a big shift lower. Just it doesn't seem like it's going a lot higher. It's like more the offset with, you know, some of the you're repricing that you're going to have and then you're just being offset by maybe the competitive factors a bit. Is that kind of how to think about it?

Because I do think, yeah, I do think, you know, three and a half is, is a good solid margin level for us given our asset size and given where we are, you know, I think we're probably going to hold that margin level throughout 2026 because we're going to have repricing on the asset portfolio, bond roll off, that'll be higher, you know, reuse of liquidity, that'll be a higher number and a little bit of headwind from, you know, from funding costs potentially. But you know, if we have fairly dramatic rate decreases, you know, in the short term, you know, our prime base, call it every 25 basis points cost us, you know, call it 350,000 on an annualized basis from you know, kind of our prime based helocs, et cetera. We probably got 75 basis points of move before we hit our floors. So we're kind of in that window of, you know, how you recover from that if it's a fairly rapid decline in Fed rates.

Gotcha. Okay, that's helpful. And just, that's fine. I think that was it on that. And then how about just, you know, in terms of the credit quality, sounds as though there's opportunity. You know, this is kind of the peak on the reserve coverage, I guess. Can you just kind of frame up, I mean, I guess if credit quality holds and there's no big. And you do see a little improvement here, it sounds like there's some potential improvement. Maybe just frame up what that improvement could look like and just, you know, where you're thinking on reserve coverage, you know, over time as you kind of continue to, you know, bring that credit numbers down a little bit more.

Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to start. I do think, you know, we probably have got call it, you know, 500,000 to a million of current non performing that we think we have a better than average chance that we're going to be able to either upgrade or get those paid off in the next, call it six months. And then I think that'll be as we talked about kind of that 25 basis point level of NPAs, which I think is probably the low point that we'll see. So I think that adds some, some downward pressure in the current world of CECL about where a reserve is. You know, if you look at any comparison we have relative to peer or relative to where we are, our reserve level at 144 is at the high end, which is fantastic. But I do think we're going to have some pressure that you know, potentially we're not going to take reserve back. But you know, we may not be putting as much in as we have this year. I mean we put in, you know, almost a million dollars this year through, through nine months. So you know, a pretty, pretty strong level of provision we've set aside in what has been a great credit quality year.

Yeah, Brian, I just add, you know, we've talked about it in prior quarters here. We've got a very robust loan review process and have been confident that, that we understand where the weaknesses are. So the pace of improving, improving that ratio has been a function of the time it takes to get controlled collateral. In some instances just being a little longer than we expected. It's not really a result of, well, one troubled credit fell off and was replaced by another. Again, we remain confident we know our portfolio well. It's really just been the pace at which we thought we could clean some of those up that frustrated us.

Yeah, no, understood. And that reserve ratio, Tony, I mean maybe it's, maybe it gets down to the 125, 130 type of level. Is that could, where we over time you could see it go as things progress or is that, you know, do you have kind of a target as far as where, where you're thinking that ends up, you know, down the road?

Well, well, before Tony answers, I got, I got to tell you, Brian, you know that he and I are, are, are kind of bookends on that strategy. If, if we grow 150 or 200 million, I can see it going down to that, but I don't see it going down to that just because, you know, we have charge offs or, you know, lesser, it's not going to happen. I, I think more is always better in that arena.

Yeah.

I would say I worry less about the, the percentage than, than kind of the full dollar amount. I would guess if we're here next time, this time next year, we're probably in the range of, call it 16 million on a reserve 15,3 that we're at today, you know, and then, you know, where that reserve percentage is. If we grow, you know, 80 to 100 million, it's probably at 139, 140, something like that. So it's not terribly out. But you know, our coverage of NPAs at that point, if we get to where we think we are is probably over 4%. So we feel pretty good about where it is.

Yeah, okay, that makes sense. I mean, you guys have done a great job on credit and like you said, the reserves are, as Mark said, bigger is always better. But you know, certainly you have to understand the modeling as well and where the credit picture looks like. But okay, and then maybe just one of the last two here, just on the expense outlook, can you talk about, you know, kind of where we're at today? I guess I know that could change a lot with mortgage production and whatnot. There's some, you know, volatility with that. But you guys have done a great job on the expense side and just kind of, you know, trying to get my arms around, you know, what, what that looks like, you know, in the coming quarters or just next 12 months, however you want to frame it up, just kind of the trajectory from kind of the current expense run rate. How should we should think about it?

Well, Brian, just a couple comments and Tony can certainly clean this up. But as you, as you well know, technology has become a big factor in the expense side and we continue to work hard to remain relevant in that space. But that certainly is going to continue to accelerate on into the next foreseeable future. And then obviously from a people perspective, we're seeing a lot of pressure, if you will, in various markets to identify and attract the talent that we need. So pressure is clearly on the expense side, which certainly adds fuel to the fire when we talk about a balance sheet expansion and stabilize or widening margins. But it's going to get a little more difficult as we move forward, which again is so critical to expand the balance sheet. And Tony, I know you probably have some additional ideas on that.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think I think Q4, you know, we did 11, 11, 5 in total expense in Q3. I think Q4 will be in a similar number. I do think mortgage volume will be up, call it 15% versus where it was in the linked quarter, probably somewhere around 80 million. So that'll drive a little bit higher expense. But, you know, call it, you know, 11, 5 in, in Q4, you know, which would give us a, you know, call it 46 and some change for all of, for all of 2025. You know, I, I mean, I, I hate to say I feel good about it where expenses are, but I do. I mean, you know, we've added some, some staff and some things, but we made some structural changes on support in mortgage and we continue to find those kind of opportunities of people doing more jobs, kind of linking things together and doing some of those kind of things. I do think our hybrid strategy on branches will allow us to retrofit some, that will reduce some headcount. So I feel pretty good that, you know, a 3 or 4% pace in 2026 is, would be okay at this point.

Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, it makes sense. The, like you say the hybrid and some of the other, you know, like what you've done on the mortgage side has really helped and you know, we'll see what happens with the volume, which is kind of maybe the last thing I want to ask Tony just, or Mark just in terms of, you know, Mark's comment about the, you know, the 30 year being below 6 and really no refinancing done this year. I guess how do you think about just the mortgage volume for, for next year? I mean, I think if, you know, if you, I don't know what you guys talk a little bit about fourth quarter, that's front and center. But just in terms of what you're thinking in terms of where rates are today and the people you have on the ground, what should be, you know, kind of big picture outlook?

Well, as you know, Brian, we're, we're geared up for and structured for that 450 to 500 million number that we've talked about forever. We're still structured like that. We've improved marginally, but we're looking for a sub six, much like everyone's looking for a sub six and something. You know, with that five and a half kind of a number or five and a quarter would be a great boost to that level of volume. But this year certainly has been better than the one before. But we have the capacity and 23 different producers that are highly incented to find additional volume. I would certainly like to think that we would get Tony's got his number, I'm sure, but I certainly like think we get back into the 400 range, you know, as rates decline, particularly on the 10 year. Now I know it bumped back up here recently, but that would be a welcomed boost to our earnings, if you will, if we could get something in that 5 range. Comments Tony yeah, I think, you know.

I think like I said, we'll likely do 80 million in the Q in the fourth quarter, which you know, be a nice solid improvement from, you know, the 68 million we did this quarter. I do think mortgage volume will tend higher. You know, we're now in, you know, call it the fourth year of this kind of tough rate environment and there becomes a point where you do have a kind of a backlog of things. I looked at the pipeline this morning of 37 million and there were an awful lot of refinances on there. Probably, you know, call it 12 million of that. So you know, about 30%, which would be a big number. So you get this initial move when you get the rate below 6 and then I think if you see that for an extended period, you know, you might get back to a 20% refinance level. And if that's the case then, you know, I think, you know, the $320 to $350 million range is probably pretty solid and you have an outside chance to get to the, you know, kind of a four handle in 2026. We'll see how this quarter goes.

Just short of my number 420 optimistic.

CEO around up to the 4 handle somewhere. Something north of 4. How about that Brian would be good. There you go. Well, I won't ask for bets on. Rates because that'll drive a lot of it too. So. And I guess everything good with the, the Marblehead transaction in terms of the integration? I guess no, I guess. Mark, you talked a little bit about the opportunity. Anything you're seeing in that market that is something we should hear about in terms of any initiatives you've got there. I know there's opportunity there, but just trying to frame up the integration went well and those cost savings are all I guess effectively in the numbers now in terms of when we look at next quarter.

Yeah, they generally had a smaller staff and we're getting back in the game up there. They were basically on the sidelines for at least a couple of years given their capital position. So we got some work to do. But clearly there's opportunities up there and we intend to pursue those. The staff that was there is still there and we're leveraging that brand that's 117 plus years old into ours. So, you know, we have high expectations. And that coupled with. Wasn't your question. But, you know, you couple that with a new market we're going into in Henry county that collectively has, As I mentioned, $800 million in deposits there that strangely enough, 700 million of that 800 million rested in community banks that I would say below, you know, 3, 2, 3 billion. You know, now it's like 300 million. So there's a lot of deposits that have gone to regional players and our intent is to pursue those aggressively. So everything to the north and a little to the, to the east, I guess of us, which would be, you know, the Henry county thing is where our focus is going to be. In addition to that Columbus market that we all know is on fire.

Yeah. Okay. And I guess in terms of, you know, capital balancing, you know, potential, you know, M and A versus, you know, the continued repurchase of shares, you know, what's the, what's the mindset today, you know, in terms of how you're thinking about that, you know, how we should think about it, you know, in the coming quarters?

Yeah, I think, you know, I think we're, we're getting to the point. Obviously our, you know, our dividend, you know, shareholder dividend is, you know, going to be above 4 million, you know, next year based upon where we are. So that, you know, that's getting to be meaningful. You know, we obviously are fine on a regulatory capital basis. But, you know, I would say we're probably going to probably slow down the buyback a little bit just so we can retain a little bit of capital for potential, you know, transactions if they come together. Although we still have, you know, a tremendous amount of excess earnings, you know, obviously our debt reprices next year, mid year. So we've got some things we got to think about there, whether we, you know, refinance or, you know, expand or do some things there. So, you know, I think on the capital front, we have a lot of opportunities and options as we sit today.

Gotcha. Okay, well, I appreciate all the. I'll take all the questions in the update, guys.

That's all right.

Thanks, Brian.

Have a good one.

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Once again, thank you for joining us this morning. And we certainly look forward to bringing you up to date on our full year results in January. Thanks for joining. Goodbye.

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