Community Financial System - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• EPS of $0.93 beat Wall Street consensus by $0.02, while revenue came in below S&P Global consensus; year-over-year performance was strong with double-digit revenue growth and record net interest income. EPS estimate: $0.91; revenue estimate: $197.13M; actuals (S&P basis): $189.56M*.
• Net interest margin expanded 4 bps sequentially to 3.21% (3.24% FTE), aided by lower deposit costs; total deposits rose 3.4% QoQ on seasonal municipal inflows, pushing loan-to-deposit ratio down to 75%.
• Insurance Services was the main performance driver; diversified fee revenues represented ~39% of total, with new quarterly highs in non-bank services revenue.
• Credit costs ticked up: provision of $6.7M tied to a specific non-owner-occupied CRE relationship; NPL ratio rose to 0.72%, but allowance coverage remained robust (ACL/loans 0.79%) and liquidity covered 254% of uninsured deposits.
• Management signaled continued NIM expansion of 2–7 bps per quarter, mid-single-digit OpEx growth with de novo branch costs skewed to Q3, and maintained mid-single-digit growth expectations across fee businesses.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Record net interest income ($120.2M) and margin expansion (+26 bps YoY NIM; +4 bps QoQ), supported by lower funding costs and higher loan yields.
• Insurance Services delivered “excellent” revenue growth with sizable margin expansion; contingent commissions and acquisitions drove a 27.9% YoY revenue increase to $14.27M.
• Diversified model worked as intended: “times like these… we shine,” with banking and insurance taking the baton as market-sensitive businesses face asset value headwinds.

What Went Wrong

• Revenue below S&P consensus; provision for credit losses increased to $6.7M tied to a specific CRE loan, contributing to flat GAAP EPS QoQ.
• Indirect auto lending softness due to aggressive competition and tariffs; portfolio shrank by ~50 bps in the quarter and remains the wildcard for 2025 growth.
• Nonperforming loans rose to $75.0M (0.72% of loans); delinquent loans increased to 1.29% of ending loans; management expects majority of a related CRE charge-off in Q2 before potential recoveries.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, and welcome to the Community Financial System First Quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in the listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dimitar Karaivanov, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Dimitar Karaivanov (CEO)

Thank you, Sagar. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our first quarter earnings call. I would like to start this call by acknowledging Joe Soteras's upcoming retirement in July. Joe joined us through the acquisition of Wilbur and cumulatively has been with our company for 30 years. That is quite the accomplishment, and we're very grateful for his contributions. Joe's integrity and humility have been a pillar for us over that period, and I also want to thank him personally for being a great partner for me in the past four years. I'm also very happy that our company's performance allows people to have rewarding and productive careers and retire earlier than most. Joe, congratulations. I would also like to welcome Marya Wlos as our new CFO. Marya joins us with a very dynamic background in finance and a very strong mind for driving business performance.

Equally as importantly, she fully embodies our values of humility, integrity, teamwork, and excellence. Mariah, welcome. Now on to business. We had a productive quarter. Results were consistent with last quarter, even with a shorter calendar, seasonal slowdowns, lower asset values, and creeping uncertainty. Operating return on assets was 1.28%, and operating PPNR per share was up 18.6% on a year-over-year basis. Looking at each one of the business units in more depth, our banking business is benefiting from continued repricing of assets, while funding costs are also moving lower, leading to margin expansion. Deposits benefited from seasonal municipal flows, while loans were essentially flat as growth in commercial and mortgage was more than offset by weakness in auto lending, which was mostly seasonal and pricing-driven.

We continue to focus on appropriate risk-reward in terms of both credit quality and rate, and see some increased aggressiveness by competitors on both fronts. With that said, pipelines in commercial and mortgage, while a bit lower than last year, are still solid, and we believe that mid-single-digit growth for those portfolios is still on track for this year. It may just be at the lower end of the range, depending on overall economic activity. Indirect auto lending remains more of a wild card given aggressive competition and impact of tariffs. Our employee benefit services business also had a solid quarter, and business momentum is strong. Current asset values will likely have an impact in 2025, but we're also working hard on the underlying unit growth. Our insurance services business had an excellent quarter, with expenses flat and revenues up meaningfully, leading to sizable margin expansion.

Some of the revenue growth was due to timing of contingency payments, but we still remain on track to deliver meaningful operating leverage through the rest of the year as well. In fact, insurance was the main driver of strong performance this quarter for the overall company. Our wealth management services business results in line with last quarter and up meaningfully year-over-year. Similarly to our employee benefits business, we may experience revenue headwinds the rest of the year tied to asset values. In summary, I feel good about the ability of our diversified company to grow revenues regardless of the economic and market generations. If you look at last year, for example, our market-sensitive businesses, employee benefit services, and wealth management services drove the majority of the overall improvement for the company. This year so far, it's looking like the banking insurance will take the baton.

That is how our company is designed, and it is times like these when we shine. I also feel great about our continued ability to attract talent, and we had one of our best quarters in talent acquisition across all units: banking, benefits, insurance, and wealth. I will also note that the current economic uncertainty is as high as it's been in many years, and it's the time to be extra prudent and make sure we're truly getting paid for taking on risk while strengthening reserves. Our business is diversified and highly profitable. Our balance sheet is excellent, and we're ready to capitalize on the right opportunities. I will now pass it on to Marya to deliver the detailed financial highlights. Marya.

Marya Burgio Wlos (CFO)

Thank you, Dimitar. Good morning, everyone. As Dimitar noted, the company's first quarter performance was solid. GAAP earnings per share of $0.93 were up $0.17, or 22%, over the first quarter of the prior year and down $0.01, or 1%, over linked fourth-quarter results. Operating earnings per share and operating pre-tax, pre-provision net revenue per share were also up significantly year-over-year, while remaining relatively consistent with last quarter. The company recorded operating earnings per share of $0.98 in the first quarter as compared to $0.82 one year prior and $1 in the linked fourth quarter. First quarter operating PPNR per share of $1.40 was up $0.22, or 18.6%, from one year prior and was consistent on a linked quarter basis. Strong revenue growth and improvements in core operating performance of all four businesses underpin these year-over-year improvements.

The company recorded total operating revenues of $196 million in the first quarter. This was up $18.7 million, or 10.6%, from one year prior and was consistent with the record result established in the linked fourth quarter. This quarter established new quarterly highs for net interest income and insurance services revenues, as Dimitar also highlighted. The company's net interest income was $120.2 million in the first quarter. This represents a $0.2 million increase over the linked fourth quarter result and a $13.2 million, or 12%, improvement over the first quarter of 2024 and marks the fourth consecutive quarter of net interest income expansion. Lower funding costs helped drive increases in both net interest income and net interest margin in the quarter.

During the quarter, the company's cost of deposits was 1.17%, a decrease of six basis points from the prior two quarters, and drove a decrease of five basis points in the total cost of funds from 1.38% in the linked fourth quarter to 1.33% in the first quarter. The company's fully tax-equivalent net interest margin increased four basis points from 3.20% in the linked fourth quarter to 3.24% in the first quarter. The company has increased its net interest income for 18 consecutive years, and the outlook remains positive for continued net interest income expansion in 2025. Operating non-interest revenues were up in all four businesses compared to the prior year's first quarter and represented 38.7% of total operating revenues. Banking-related operating non-interest revenues were up $0.9 million, or 4.7%, over the same quarter of the prior year, driven by increases in mortgage banking revenues.

Employee benefit services revenues were up $0.9 million, or 2.9%, over the prior year's fourth quarter, reflective of an increase in the total participants under administration and growth in asset-based fees. Insurance services revenues were up $3.1 million, or 27.8%, over the prior year's first quarter, driven by contingent commissions and recent acquisitions, while wealth management services were up $0.7 million, or 7.1%, reflective of more favorable market conditions and growth in investment advisory accounts. On a linked quarter basis, operating non-interest revenues were down $0.3 million, or 0.4%, due in part to two fewer days in the current quarter. The company recorded a $6.7 million provision for credit losses during the first quarter, reflective of an increase for a specific reserve on one non-owner-occupied commercial real estate loan placed on non-accrual during the fourth quarter of 2023.

This compares to $6.1 million in the prior year's first quarter and $6.2 million in the linked fourth quarter. During the first quarter, the company recorded $125.3 million in total non-interest expenses. This compares to $118.1 million of total non-interest expenses in the prior year's first quarter. The $7.2 million, or 6.1%, increase between the periods was primarily driven by increases in salaries and employee benefits, including the impact of annual merit-based salary increases, data processing, and communication and occupancy and equipment expenses. The increase also included approximately $0.9 million associated with the bank's DeNovo branch expansions. Additional DeNovo-related expenses are expected to be incurred in the remaining three quarters of 2025. The effective tax rate for the first quarter of 2025 was 22.8%, down slightly from 22.9% in the first quarter of 2024.

Ending loans decreased $11.2 million, or 0.1%, during the first quarter, driven by a net decrease in the consumer indirect lending portfolio, which was partially offset by growth in the business lending and consumer mortgage portfolios. Although this result ends the company's streak of 14 consecutive quarters of loan growth, the company continues to invest in its organic loan growth capabilities and expects continued expansion into the undertapped markets within our Northeast footprint. Ending loans were up $537.6 million, or 5.4%, from one year prior, primarily due to growth in the business lending and consumer mortgage portfolios. The company's ending total deposits increased $453.3 million, or 3.4%, during the first quarter and $540 million, or 4%, from one year prior, driven by an increase in municipal deposits.

Public funds deposits increased to $2.341 billion at the end of the first quarter, up $408.5 million from one year prior and up $354.8 million from the end of the linked fourth quarter. Non-interest-bearing and lower-rate checking and savings accounts continue to represent almost two-thirds of the total deposits, reflective of the core characteristics of the company's deposit base. The company did not hold any brokered or wholesale deposits on its balance sheet during the quarter. The company's liquidity position remains strong. Readily available sources of liquidity, including unrestricted cash and cash equivalents, unpledged investment securities, funding availability at the Federal Reserve Bank's discount window, and unused borrowing capacity at the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, totaled $5.9 billion at the end of the first quarter. These sources of immediately available liquidity represent over 250% of the company's estimated uninsured deposits, net of collateralized and intercompany deposits.

The company's loan-to-deposit ratio at the end of the first quarter was 75%, providing future opportunity to migrate lower-yielding investment securities into higher-yielding loans. All the company's and the bank's regulatory capital ratios continue to significantly exceed well-capitalized standards. More specifically, at the end of the first quarter, the company's tier-one leverage ratio was 9.29%, which substantially exceeded the regulatory well-capitalized standard of 5%. Non-performing loans totaled $75 million, or 72 basis points of total loans outstanding. This represents a $1.6 million, or 2 basis point, increase from the end of the linked fourth quarter. Comparatively, non-performing loans were $49.5 million, or 50 basis points of total loans outstanding one year prior.

Loans 30 to 89 days delinquent were also up on a linked quarter basis from $55.9 million, or 54 basis points of total loans at the end of the fourth quarter, to $59.2 million, or 57 basis points of total loans at the end of the first quarter. The company recorded net charge-off of $3.2 million, or 13 basis points of average loans annualized during the first quarter. This is up slightly from $2.8 million, or 12 basis points, in the same quarter of the prior year. The company's allowance for credit losses was $82.8 million, or 79 basis points of total loans outstanding at the end of the first quarter, up $3.7 million during the quarter, and up $12.7 million from one year prior. The allowance for credit losses at the end of the first quarter represented over seven times the company's trailing 12-month net charge-off.

Looking forward, we believe the company's diversified revenue profile, strong liquidity, regulatory capital reserves, stable core deposit base, and historically good asset quality provide a solid foundation for continued earnings growth in the remaining three quarters of 2025. That concludes my prepared earnings comments. I would like to take the opportunity now to introduce myself and thank Joe for his guidance through the transition period. Joe, you are exceptional at what you do, and you will be missed. I would also like to thank Dimitar and the entire management team for their support over the last few weeks. It's an honor to join such a talented team, and I'm genuinely excited to help grow this portfolio. It's been a whirlwind 30 days, and while I still have a lot to learn, I can tell you the future of this company is very bright.

With that, Dimitar, Joe and I will now take questions. Segar, I will now hand it back to you to open the line.

Frank Schiraldi (Analyst)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, please press Star, then 1, on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press Star, then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Frank Schiraldi from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and congrats on the new position, Marya.

Marya Burgio Wlos (CFO)

Thank you.

I wanted to start, Dimitar, you mentioned—I think you mentioned pipelines a little bit lighter, maybe from the year-ago period. I wonder if you could drill down into that a little bit in terms of how significant the drop-off is on the commercial side in terms of pipelines. Also, if you would not mind, if you could provide any detail around blended new origination yields coming on currently.

Dimitar Karaivanov (CEO)

Yep. Thank you, Frank. I would kind of probably put it in a couple of buckets. On the commercial side, pipelines are not that dramatically different from last year. It might be a couple of percentage points lower. The difference is we're probably seeing a little bit more on the payoffs than last year. I think that's going to have some impact in the aggregate terms. I think we also have a little bit more uncertainty as to when some of the pipeline gets pulled through, just given everything that's happening with our clients and the macro environment. On the residential side, pipelines are probably about 10% lower than last year. Still pretty good. We're just getting into the busy season, so we're really going to have a much better sense of where things are here and towards May and June.

Again, that's also been a little bit impacted, I think, predominantly by availability in our markets as opposed to demand. Demand is there. Just availability of housing units is not quite where it needs to be. That's kind of what we're seeing. I think we touched on the indirect side in the prepared remarks. We still feel pretty good about our ability to grow that portfolio. As we've said before, we don't change our credit box in that world. For us, some years could be a lot more growth, some years could be a lot less growth, some years we might even shrink. We'll see. We'll take what they give us in our box. As it relates to loan originations in the first quarter, they were right around 7%, a little bit lower.

I think we're going to continue to see some of that pressure through the year. That's not unexpected given what's happened with rates and competitive dynamics.

Great. Okay. I appreciate the color. As my follow-up, just wondered if you could provide any more color update on DeNovo expansion, timing for branches to come online, and if you could maybe just further quantify, Marya, how that would impact or could impact the expense base through the year here.

Yeah. I'll take that, Frank. Last year, we opened the first one, which was in Syracuse. We just opened the second one, which was Buffalo. The next one is going to be in Syracuse again, and then we start in Albany. We kind of go around the footprint, including PA and all the other places, Rochester. That is on track. We continue to expect that we are going to be opening virtually all of them, maybe save for one or two by the end of the year. As we have discussed, we are also going to be consolidating a very similar number of locations through the year. The impact of all of those initiatives will come out kind of on a clean run rate basis in Q4. We have talked about the costs before.

You're probably going to expect to see a little bit more marketing and kind of startup costs, if you want to put it that way, in Q3 in particular, to the tune of $3 million-$4 million in that quarter. Outside of that, nothing's really changed in terms of our expectations or in terms of how we're meeting our milestones.

Okay. All right. Appreciate the color. Thanks.

Sure. Welcome.

Frank Schiraldi (Analyst)

Thank you. Your next question comes from Steven Moss from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, Dimitar, Marya.

Dimitar Karaivanov (CEO)

Morning, Steve.

Maybe just starting or following up on loans here, just curious, Dimitar, how much tighter is loan pricing these days for auto and just kind of how you're thinking about that market going forward in terms of balances and stuff?

Sure. On the auto side, where pricing is today is pretty similar to the portfolio rates that we have. We are kind of churning the portfolio at similar rates. You are not going to see a tremendous amount of pickup there. It probably shrank by 50 basis points plus in this quarter. We have seen a lot of competitors that were a little bit more quiet over the past couple of years kind of get back and even go deeper on credit as well. Again, for us, we do not really do that. It is really just a matter of our credit box and some changes on pricing. We have adjusted our pricing there. We are clearly seeing some more momentum. Some of it is seasonal as well, especially in the western part of our footprint. That is where we have seen most of the challenges in that portfolio.

I think more broadly on pricing for the aggregate business, I will tell you that we have a lot of competitors that were constricted over the past couple of years, large and small, and they kind of a little bit woke up, especially post-election, and decided that it's time to grow and make up ground. We have seen some, frankly, astounding rates on the commercial side, starting with a 5. That's not the kind of business that we are going to do today. We are probably going to continue to see some pressure on that side as well.

Okay. Great. Appreciate that color there. In terms of the non-performing loan here that you guys disclosed last quarter and put the specific reserve on this quarter, just kind of curious about the timing around resolution and kind of how that may play out.

Yeah. Hi, Steve. It's Joe. We put the credit on a call back in the fourth quarter of 2023. We are basically—in fact, I think it's today—we're looking at a potential foreclosure sale on the property. We got an updated appraisal right at the end of the first quarter, and hence the additional reserves of about an additional $3.8 million or $3.9 million over and above what the reserves were prior. I will just note that we apply a very conservative valuation in terms of not only do we take the appraised value, but we apply additional discounts to that just to be conservative. Ultimately, we hope that we can resolve the ultimate sale of the properties a little better than a call than the current reserve amounts.

With that said, given that the property is expected to be foreclosed upon in the second quarter, we expect to take the majority of the charge-off in the quarter and then hopefully recover that over time through the sale of the properties. All in, there are about 18 properties in the business park. We are still trying to collectively with the other participants figure out what the strategy is for ultimately realizing the value of those properties. I would expect that that, call it resolution or sale of those properties, will certainly take some time.

Okay. Great. Appreciate that color there. In terms of the employee benefit services business here, Dimitar, I hear you on the near-term headwinds, but markets have kind of come back a bit. Just kind of curious if you could kind of handicap some of the near-term revenue puts and takes.

Yeah. It's a little bit hard, to be honest with you, Steve. I think where we're running right now, it's probably lower single digits to mid-single digits in that business, probably closer to the lower. We do have really good momentum in terms of plant acquisitions and units that are coming onto the platform. Frankly, the plans and conversion this year are higher highs than they've ever been. We know we're going to get a decent amount of unit growth. Again, it's very hard to predict. It really depends on which day of the month you price these assets, as we've seen a lot of volatility. For all we know, we might be up 10% next week, and we might be down 10%. It's really hard to pinpoint where things are going to settle.

Okay. Great. I guess just one last one for me here. On the municipal deposit side, where you had deposit growth there this quarter, you highlighted an expansion there. Just kind of curious how you're looking to grow that business and kind of how rate-sensitive we should think about it being in the future.

Yeah. It's a business for us that's now pushing about $2 billion in outstandings on the deposit side. It is a business that we've had a very long history in. These are not funds that really are hot money, if you will. These are municipalities and government entities that have multiple, multiple accounts with us. It is not just the money market or the CD that they're looking to just park money in. We've just done a better job over the past couple of years of being even more focused on the business line and making the calls and having the presence in the markets. To us, if you look at the blended rate on that portfolio, it's in the low twos today. It is a very productive funding source. That's kind of our business.

It's just natural seasonal flows and just on-the-ground blocking and tackling full relationship as opposed to bidding on some large county CDs that we don't do any other business with.

Got it. Appreciate all the color here today. Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Your next question comes from Matthew Breese from Stevens Inc. Please go ahead.

Hey. Good morning.

Dimitar Karaivanov (CEO)

Hey, Matt. Just wanted to get some sense for NII over the course of the year. You had mentioned payoffs and competition. To me, the first one is just what are expected cash flows over the next 9 to 12 months from the securities and loan portfolio? And what are the rolloff yields there? Matt. This is Joel. I'll take that one. With respect to the loan portfolio, what I can tell you is that on a trailing 12-month basis, so kind of looking backwards, we had, call it, between $1.5 billion and $1.8 billion of rolloff. Obviously, that's dependent on prepayments and prepayment speeds and the like. I think that's a fair expectation kind of looking forward. The current book yield is about, it's just north of 5.50%, and the new volume rate is around 7%.

That's kind of how the backbook is pricing on the securities portfolio. We have pretty minimal runoff for the remainder of 2025, so less than $100 million, which is coming off a little north of 2, around 2, call it. We are not going to see much opportunity there from a repricing standpoint, at least for the remainder of 2025. However, when we hit late 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029, we have about $2 billion rolling off in kind of the 2% range. From my perspective, it kind of builds a bridge to kind of work the loan yields for the balances of this year and into next year. Then we start getting to some securities cash flows in 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029, which you can pick your redeployment rate there, Matt.

If it's coming off at 2, I would expect that the redeployment, whether it's in loans or even re-upping on some securities, will probably be a higher book yield. We will try to maximize effectively the rollover this year on the loan book in terms of just improving the yield and then get to those securities cash flows in those periods.

Very helpful. I mean, all that to say, it sounds like earning asset yields are going up and to the right for a while. Is it also safe to assume that it's going to be difficult to squeeze deposit costs much lower? Are there any opportunities there?

Yeah. I think that's a fair sort of path, Matt. We might get a little bit better deposit pricing over time. Given where we're starting from, kind of at that 130-ish range, it's going to be hard to, or it's going to be more difficult for us than it will be for some other of our peers to bring down the cost of funds too significantly. I think we're going to get most of our net interest margin and net interest income left really on the asset side as that reprices over the remainder of 2025 and into the next four years or so.

Got it. Okay. And then, Dimitar, just in terms of your comments on competitive conditions and uncertainty and things kind of slowing down from a pipeline perspective, does that change your, if it continues, does that change your thinking around bank M&A at all? Might you reengage in places you might not otherwise with a fuller pipeline?

I think as an aggregate comment, Matt, we do not really change our strategies depending on the environment. In other words, M&A is an important piece of what we do. We are always looking for quality adds to our company. When I say quality, that is the first and foremost screening factor. Numbers are basically irrelevant if we are going to dilute the quality of our balance sheet or our business by a meaningful amount. I think that is the first and foremost hurdle. I will say it is also probably a little bit harder today to price somebody's assets given that nobody knows what is going to happen with their clients on the commercial side in particular. Maybe that is a small bit of a headwind. We probably just need to factor in a little bit more cushion on that side.

If there's a quality franchise, again, to us, quality balance sheet, liquidity, low concentrations in markets we care about, always open for business.

Okay. Understood. Just last one. Expenses came in a touch lower than I was thinking. Maybe some thoughts on the outlook for the remainder of 2025.

I think, Matt, do you want to take that, Brian? Go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Oh, no. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I think with respect to kind of the core, I'll call it, increase in operating expenses, it's kind of mid-single digits for us. We'd like it to be kind of in that 3% or 4% range on a normal run rate basis. We are continuing to invest in the franchise, which includes some of the marketing expenses around De Novo, which probably puts us more in kind of the mid-single digit range going forward. As we've kind of proven, I think over the last couple of years, our OpEx is a little bit up over where it was traditionally, but it's also beginning to pay off pretty significantly on the revenue side of the business. I think we're going to continue to kind of incur operating expenses kind of in that mid-single digit range or increases year over year.The intent there is obviously to continue to grow the company across all lines of business.

Great. I'll leave it there. Thank you for taking my questions.

You're welcome.

Frank Schiraldi (Analyst)

Thank you. Again, if you wish to register for a question, please press star, then one. Our next question comes from Chris O'Connell from KBW. Please go ahead.

Hey. Morning, Dimitar, Joe. I'm Aria.

Dimitar Karaivanov (CEO)

Morning.

I was just hoping to start off on some of the fee businesses. In particular, I guess if we if the market stays where it is here on the wealth side, I know there's a little bit of seasonality into Q2 typically, just how you see that progressing throughout the year. Then given the strong start to the insurance business, does that kind of change your outlook here for the revenue growth for 2025 there as well?

I think, Chris, on our last call, we spoke about mid-single digit growth in the fee-income businesses. I don't think we're changing that today. That is our expectation. I fully expect that all the businesses are going to grow this year over last year, regardless of the market environment. It may just be a little bit different in the aggregate. To your point, insurance is off to a good start. That 27% growth is not going to be the rate for the year. That is going to moderate down. It is going to be probably higher than mid-single digits. That might pull the aggregate up a little bit while some of the market-sensitive businesses may be a little bit closer to low single to lower middle mid-digit rates. We will see where it shakes out.

I think in the aggregate, when you look at that $200 million plus in revenues, we think that's growing still in the mid-single digits for this year.

Okay. Got it. Despite the market conditions in the first quarter, you still think mid-single digit aggregate for those businesses is kind of the right place?

Yeah. Assuming where we stay today, I think we're going to get there.

Okay. Great. That's helpful. Then on the margin, I thought the deposit cost control here this quarter was really strong with the asset yields continuing to reprice up. Any change in the overall NIM outlook of three to five basis points a quarter, give or take, absent further rate cuts?

No. No. We see that anywhere from two to seven basis points. You are in the right range. As we look at the portfolio and continue to just operate and take the health of the businesses, which are very strong, we believe that that will continue.

Okay. Great. Just want to circle back on the expense discussion. As far as the cadence throughout the year to get to the mid-single digit, is it more that from the first quarter, which I think came in pretty solid flat to the fourth quarter, that we'll see the balloon up with the De Novo costs in 2Q, 3Q, and then kind of end 4Q to 4Q closer to the mid-single digits?

I think that's about right, Chris. That's how I would think about it. We're going to be above that rate most likely in the third quarter and kind of moderate back down in the fourth quarter.

Great. As far as we roll into next year, is any additional kind of related De Novo cost pretty much fully baked into 2025, or is there a little bit that'll trail into 2026 here?

I think it will be negligible for 2026. I think we should exit 2025, fourth quarter of 2025, with a pretty decent run rate with a reconfigured branch network.

Okay. Got it. That's all I had. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Manuel Navas from DA Davidson. Please go ahead.

Hey. Good morning. You're talking about the credit box, I think more in the context of auto. Are you actively seeing loans not kind of meet your credit box, or are you just anticipating that that could be the case going forward? Just trying to think through what your customer base is seeing.

Dimitar Karaivanov (CEO)

I think, Manuel, what we're seeing is just people being more aggressive on both rate and credit. Some of the things that we saw this quarter that kind of impacted some of our numbers were even assets that, for us, are criticized being refined away by larger and smaller competitors. People willing to take on a little bit more risk to try to make up for multiple years of not being present, that's okay with us. We've got maybe some other criticized assets we want to share as well. That's kind of what I mean. Our credit box really hasn't changed. If we feel great about a particular credit, we're going to lean into it as much as we can. If there's other things that don't fit our box, they don't fit our box. We don't need to stretch.

Okay. I appreciate that. Bigger picture, how much of the kind of this uncertainty that you're discussing could be tied to regional concerns on the CHIPS Act? There's been some pushback from the administration. Just wondering what is your perspective on that?

I think very little. We don't really believe that much of the CHIPS Act activity has really come to our markets yet. I think very little. It's really more about people literally not knowing what their cost of goods is, right? Most of our clients, a lot of them, import something of something, and they don't exactly know what it's going to cost. When you don't know what your goods cost, you kind of have trouble pricing your product on the other end. People are working through inventories and doing the best they can, trying to plan ahead. It's hard to lock in pricing for those that import a lot of their goods. I think there's some of that. On the building side, it's also not clear what some of those projects are truly going to cost. You're going to start seeing some cost overruns.

We're kind of starting to see some of that. We have clients that also rely on foreign labor. They're seeing some impact off of that, where folks that were temporarily able to work for them are not able to work anymore. There is a whole bunch of undercurrents, which is why when we say uncertainty, the pipeline is pretty good, the dialogue is pretty good. It's just we have to be a little bit extra cautious, and our clients are a little bit extra cautious as it relates to major CapEx.

I appreciate the commentary. Thank you.

Welcome.

Frank Schiraldi (Analyst)

Thank you. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Dimitar Karaivanov for closing remarks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Shigar. Thank you, everybody, for joining our call. We look forward to speaking with you in July.

Frank Schiraldi (Analyst)

Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.