KeyCorp - Q4 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, and welcome to KeyCorp's Fourth Quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Mauney, KeyCorp Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Brian Mauney (Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to thank you for joining KeyCorp's Fourth Quarter 2025 earnings conference call. I am here with Chris Gorman, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Clark Khayat, our Chief Financial Officer, and Mo Ramani, our Chief Risk Officer. As usual, we will reference our earnings presentation slides, which can be found in the Investor Relations section of the key.com website. In the back of the presentation, you will find our statement on forward-looking disclosures and certain financial measures, including non-GAAP measures. This covers our earnings materials as well as remarks made on this morning's call. Actual results may differ materially from forward-looking statements, and those statements speak only as of today, January 20th, 2026, and will not be updated. With that, I will turn it over to Chris.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Our fourth quarter and full-year results demonstrate the continued progress we are making with respect to our organic path to achieving consistently higher returns on capital. We reported fourth quarter earnings of $0.43 per share. Revenue exceeded $2 billion, growing 12% year-over-year on an adjusted basis, while expenses grew 2%. Both fourth quarter NIM and net interest income were above our previously communicated targets. Asset quality metrics continued to trend in a positive direction, with net charge-offs, NPAs, criticized loans, and delinquencies all declining sequentially. We have also committed to a more meaningful return of capital to our shareholders, which commenced in the fourth quarter. We repurchased $200 million of common stock, two times the original commitment we made in October at an average price of $18 per share. In spite of stepped-up share repurchases, we continue to maintain peer-leading capital ratios.

We ended the quarter with a 10.3% marked CET1 ratio. We intend to manage this ratio down to the higher end of our targeted capital range of 9.5%-10% by the end of 2026. Combined with our business momentum and meaningful ongoing capital generation, this puts us in a position to accelerate our repurchase activity further in 2026. We plan to buy back at least $300 million of stock in the first quarter and anticipate repurchasing similar amounts in subsequent quarters throughout 2026. Fourth quarter puts an exclamation point on what was a substantial year of progress for Key and positions us to achieve even greater success going forward. We met or exceeded all of the financial targets that we communicated at the beginning of the year.

We delivered full-year record revenue, which increased 16% compared to the prior year, with both net interest income and fee revenue growing greater than projected. Expenses grew 4.6%. As a result, we generated approximately 1,200 basis points of operating leverage and PP&R growth of about 44%. Loan growth outperformed, particularly C&I loans, which grew at 9%, and the recycling of lower-yielding consumer loans into commercial loans enabled us to manage our funding costs more proactively. Deposit dynamics were favorable, with client deposits up 2%, while we remained disciplined with respect to pricing. Fee income growth was 7.5% as all of our priority fee-based businesses grew at a high single or low double-digit rate. Expenses were within our targeted range, even as we made meaningful investments in our franchise throughout the year and compensated bankers for our strong fee performance.

We added nearly 10% to our frontline banker staff across wealth management, commercial payments, middle market, and investment banking. We invested an additional $100 million in technology, focused on customer-facing capabilities that make it easier for our clients to bank at Key. Lastly, we continued to maintain our strong risk discipline. Full-year net charge-offs were 41 basis points. Additionally, all leading indicators, non-performing assets, criticized loans, and delinquencies all moved in the right direction. These results would not have been possible without the talented team we have in place driving our strong momentum. Together, we delivered record revenue, strengthened our balance sheet, and met every commitment we set at the beginning of the year. Our team continues to demonstrate focus, resilience, and dedication, navigating a dynamic environment and delivering value to the stakeholders we serve: our shareholders, our clients, and our communities.

I want to thank each of our teammates for their contributions to our performance. As we turn the page to 2026, Clark will go through our financial guidance shortly, but I am confident we will deliver another year of outsized revenue and earnings growth and make substantial progress toward our commitment to achieve a 15%-plus return on tangible common equity by year-end 2027. The current environment plays well to our strengths. We expect to continue to grow our priority fee-based businesses at a mid to high single-digit pace as we capitalize on our strong pipelines and momentum. Additionally, we expect to see returns from our recent hires as they ramp up and further utilize our platforms, which we believe are under-leveraged. Coming off the second-best year ever in investment banking, we continue to feel good about the trajectory of this business. Our pipelines remain at historically elevated levels.

We raised nearly $140 billion of capital on behalf of our clients in 2025, retaining 20% on our balance sheet. The market environment remains favorable for continued new issuance in 2026. We anticipate middle market M&A activity to improve in 2026 after being muted for much of the past three years. We also expect financial sponsors who stayed largely on the sidelines with respect to middle market transactions last year but typically generate a meaningful percentage of our fees to be more active this year. In wealth, assets under management reached a record $70 billion. We achieved a third consecutive year of record sales production in our mass affluent segment. Since we launched this business in 2023, we have added 54,000 new households, nearly $4 billion of AUM, and $7 billion of total client assets to Key.

In commercial payments, fee-equivalent revenue grew 11% in 2025 as the investments we made in bankers, new geographies, and scaling embedded banking capabilities continued to build momentum. With respect to NII, we continue to have substantial tailwinds from fixed-rate asset repricing, as $17 billion of low-yielding swaps, securities, and consumer mortgages are expected to mature or prepay this year. Our loan pipelines remain healthy. Our outstandings in 2026 should benefit from the 9% commercial commitment growth we generated in 2025. We remain well-positioned for a variety of forward-rate curve scenarios. As a result, I am highly confident we will grow revenues at a high single-digit rate this year, with expenses growing approximately half that rate, indicating substantial operating leverage again this year. In summary, Key is very well-positioned as we enter 2026. Our trajectory has never been better.

Current macro conditions and client sentiment play to our strengths, given our differentiated business model and platforms. We anticipate that in 2026, we will successfully increase both our return on capital and our return of capital. And lastly, we will deliver another outsized year of revenue growth, earnings growth, and tangible book value growth. Before I turn it over to Clark, I want to cover some changes to our board that we announced just this morning. These changes reaffirm our board's commitment to strong corporate governance and long-term shareholder value. First, the board will nominate Tony DeSpirito and Chris Henson for election as directors at KeyCorp's 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Both candidates have impressive backgrounds in the financial services industry and bring capabilities that are directly aligned with Key's priorities. Tony DeSpirito most recently served as Global Chief Investment Officer for Fundamental Equities at BlackRock.

Tony has portfolio manager experience spanning over 30 years. He brings deep expertise in public markets, capital allocation, and long-term value creation. Chris Henson is a former senior banking executive with extensive experience leading large financial institutions. He most recently served as head of banking and insurance at Truist, and prior to that was president, chief operating officer, and chief financial officer at BB&T. We believe these additions will enhance an already highly engaged and very capable board as we drive the next phase of value creation for Key. Following the additions of Mr. DeSpirito and Mr. Henson, the board will have added eight new directors during my tenure as CEO. We also announced that the lead independent director role has transitioned from Sandy Cutler to Todd Vassos. Todd, who currently serves as the CEO of Dollar General, has served as director of Key since 2020.

Todd has been an excellent contributor to our board, and I look forward to working even more closely with Todd in his new role. Sandy Cutler will continue serving as an independent director to ensure a smooth transition to Todd. I would like to thank Sandy for his exemplary service, dedication, and significant contributions to Key as our lead independent director. Sandy has been a steady and principled presence in the boardroom, providing independent oversight as Key transformed and navigated periods of significant industry change. Additionally, Carlton Highsmith and Ruth Ann Gillis have informed us of their plans to retire from the board effective at the annual meeting. As we announced last week, David Wilson has retired from the board effective immediately due to health considerations.

We are deeply grateful to David, Carlton, and Ruth Ann for their meaningful contributions and dedicated service to Key during their time on the board. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Clark. Clark?

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Thanks, Chris. Starting on slide five, our fourth quarter results demonstrated continued strong momentum across the franchise. As a reminder, the 2024 fourth quarter results were impacted by securities portfolio repositioning, and all comparable periods included FDIC special assessment impact. As such, all year-over-year comparisons are on an adjusted basis. Fourth quarter earnings per share were $0.43 or $0.41 when adjusted. Fourth quarter revenue was up 12% year-over-year, while expenses increased by 2%. Tax-equivalent net interest income was up 15% year-over-year. Non-interest income increased 8% year-over-year, reflecting broad-based growth across our high-priority fee-based businesses.

Loan loss provision of $108 million included net charge-offs of $104 million and a very modest $4 million build. The build was largely a result of increased commitments, partially offset by reductions in NPAs and criticized loans. The fourth quarter net charge-off ratio was 39 basis points. Tangible book value per share increased 3% sequentially and 18% year-over-year. Turning to slide six, Chris touched on our full-year earnings performance earlier, but just to add a little more context, both net interest income and fees outperformed our guidance this past year. Net interest income increased by 23% versus our original expectation for 20% growth as commercial loan growth was stronger and deposits were better from both a balance and beta perspective.

Fees grew 7.5% versus our original expectation for 5%-plus as investment banking fees were up 13%, even without the benefit of expected levels of M&A activity for much of the year. Wealth, commercial payments, and commercial mortgage servicing all grew at high single-digit to low double-digit rates this past year. Expenses grew roughly 4.6%, primarily due to the hiring of frontline producers and the strong fee momentum. We achieved nearly 1,200 basis points of total operating leverage and 280 basis points of fee-based operating leverage in 2025, both better than we had expected coming into the year. Moving to the balance sheet on slide seven, average loans were relatively flat sequentially, reflecting a $1 billion increase in C&I loans, offset by the intentional runoff of $550 million of low-yielding consumer loans, as well as some net paydown activity in CRE.

On a spot basis, commercial loans grew by about $1.2 billion, with growth in both C&I and CRE. Growth was primarily from the power and utility sector and from broad-based middle market growth across all of our regions. C&I line utilization decreased by approximately 1% sequentially to 30%, driven by an increase in commitments. C&I loan balances outstanding increased by $900 million. Turning to slide eight, average deposits increased by approximately $300 million sequentially, with $2 billion of commercial client deposit growth, partially offset by a decline of $1.3 billion of higher-cost brokered CDs. Brokered CDs averaged $2.5 billion in the fourth quarter. Average non-interest-bearing deposits grew 1% sequentially and remained stable at 19% of total deposits, or 24% when adjusted for our hybrid accounts. Total deposit costs declined by 16 basis points to 1.81%.

Our cumulative interest-bearing deposit beta declined modestly, as expected, to 51% through the fourth quarter, reflecting some impact from the recent Fed cuts that we would expect to pull through more fully in the coming months. We've taken proactive actions in repricing deposits this past year by entering the year with a low loan-to-deposit ratio, limiting our incremental funding needs by remixing loans from consumer to commercial, and by gathering lower-cost commercial deposits, particularly in payments, while managing deposit costs and consumer as we actively rotated maturing CDs into money market deposits. Overall, interest-bearing funding costs declined by 22 basis points, resulting in a cumulative interest-bearing funding beta of 67%. Slide nine provides drivers of NII and NIM this quarter. Tax-equivalent NII was up 3% sequentially, driven by client deposit growth and continued balance sheet optimization efforts.

We grew relationship commercial loans at relatively stable spreads to the existing book while running off lower-yielding consumer loans. On the funding side, the commercial client deposit growth enabled us to allow the maturity of approximately $2.4 billion of higher-cost brokered CDs, long-term debt, and other short-term borrowings. We exited the year with a net interest margin of 2.82%, an increase of 7 basis points sequentially, and above our previously indicated target of 2.75%-2.8%. Our balance sheet remains positioned to be fairly neutral to additional Fed funds cuts as we move through 2026. Turning to slide 10, adjusted non-interest income increased 8% year-over-year. Investment banking and debt placement fees were $243 million, an increase of 10% year-over-year. Growth was driven by debt capital markets and commercial mortgage debt placement activity.

Sequentially, M&A activity also picked up after industry middle market volumes had been tepid for the first nine months of the year. We're encouraged by our M&A pipelines and at this point feel good about our ability to deliver investment banking fee growth in the first quarter off of what had been a record first quarter in 2025. Trust and investment services income grew 10% year-over-year, reflecting record positive net flows and higher market values. Assets under management reached a new record high of $70 billion. Service charges on deposit accounts and corporate service fees increased by 20% and 17% year-over-year, respectively. The increase in service charges was driven by momentum in commercial payments, which grew fee-equivalent revenue at 12%, while corporate services income was driven by higher loan commitment fees and client FX and derivatives activity.

Commercial mortgage servicing fees were $68 million, flat year-over-year and down $6 million from the third quarter, reflecting the impact of lower rates on fees for lower interest-earning advances and successful resolutions within our special servicing book. Beginning this quarter, certain of our clients have elected to collectively hold a little over $1 billion of escrow deposit balances with us in lieu of paying fees. This will have a de minimis impact on total revenue, but will benefit net interest income and NIM with an offsetting impact to fees of approximately $40 million annually. We expect commercial mortgage servicing fees to run at about $50-$60 million per quarter in 2026. On slide 11, fourth quarter non-interest expenses were $1.3 billion, up 7% sequentially and 2% year-over-year.

There were roughly $30 million of unusually elevated expenses in the fourth quarter and therefore would not use this quarter as a run rate moving forward. Versus the year-ago quarter, growth was primarily driven by higher personnel expense related to frontline banker hires, higher employee benefits costs, and higher incentive compensation related to the strong revenue performance. Sequentially, expense growth was driven by investments in technology and talent, higher incentive compensation, seasonality in areas such as employee benefits costs, contractor and professional services spend, and marketing, as well as certain elevated expenses in the quarter. As shown on slide 12, credit quality is broadly improving. Net charge-offs were $104 million, down 9% sequentially, and were an annualized 39 basis points of average loans. Full-year net charge-offs of 41 basis points were toward the better end of our full-year target range of 40 to 45 basis points.

Non-performing assets declined by 6% sequentially, and the NPA ratio improved by 4 basis points to 59 basis points. Criticized loans declined by $500 million, or 8% sequentially, with broad-based improvements across C&I and commercial real estate. Turning to slide 13, our CET1 ratio was 11.7% at quarter end as net earnings generation was offset by RWA growth associated with loan mix and commitments growth and capital return from share buybacks and dividends. Our marked CET1 ratio, which includes unrealized AFS and pension losses, was flat sequentially at 10.3%. As Chris mentioned earlier, we plan to repurchase at least $300 million worth of shares in the first quarter and at least $1.2 billion for the full year 2026. Slide 14 provides our 2026 guidance relative to 2025 and reiteration of our medium and long-term targets.

We expect revenue to be up about 7%, driven by net interest income growth of 8%-10% and non-interest income growth of 3%-4%. Adjusting for recent business decisions that net net will have no impact on earnings, we expect non-interest income to grow 5%-6%. Within that, we expect investment banking fees to grow about 5%, wealth fees to grow in the high single digits, and commercial payments fees to grow in the low double digits. We expect expenses to be up 3%-4% this year, or half the rate of revenue growth, which implies substantial positive operating leverage of approximately 300-400 basis points in 2026. We expect average loans to grow 1%-2%, with commercial loans growing at about 5% as we continue to remix the runoff of consumer loans into higher-yielding relationship-based commercial loans.

We expect full-year net charge-off ratio to remain stable at 40-45 basis points. Finally, we expect the tax rate to be approximately 22% or 23% on a taxable equivalent basis. In summary, subject to the usual macro caveats, we're confident that we will deliver another year of outsized organic revenue and earnings growth for our shareholders. With that, I will now turn the call back to the operator to provide.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove your question, please press star followed by two. If you are streaming today's call and would like to ask a question, please dial in and enter star one. As a reminder, if you are using a speakerphone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking a question. We will pause here to allow questions to register. Our first question will go to the line of Ebrahim Poonawala with Bank of America. Ebrahim, your line is open.

Ebrahim Poonawala (Analyst)

Hey, thank you. Good morning. I guess maybe first for you, Chris, so you talked about the capital plan, the board changes to the board this morning, all very clear. As we think about just from your standpoint, what's sort of from an organic perspective, what are the strategic priorities as we think about where you are spending your time? Is it about getting to that 15% growth fee at a faster rate, banker hiring? Just talk to us where you're focused on as we think about 2026, which could lead to maybe better growth, better ROE for Key. Thanks.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Sure. Well, thank you for the question. So first and foremost, I'm thinking about growing the business organically.

And anytime we talk about that, we talk about really kind of the three key areas. One is middle market and payments. The others are investment bank. And then lastly, wealth and specifically mass affluent. That's where we've made a ton of investments. We think we have a great opportunity. Frankly, there's a lot of market disruption that's there to be had. And so what I'm focused on as we sit down with our teams every single week is we've added all these people, we've onboarded them, we inspect what they do, and making sure we're out there in the marketplace. We have a right to win and we have a way to win, and we focus a lot on that. Next is, of course, the return on capital. And as we've talked about, we have a lot of levers that we can pull to get there.

We've talked about 15%, but it's on the path to 16%-19%. A lot of that is mechanical, but there's a lot of things that we can do in terms of growing the business and generating those kind of returns. Next, we obviously think about return of capital. I think we were pretty clear this morning as to what our path is in terms of return of capital. So we're working on that. Then lastly is to continue to position the business for the next leg of growth. We've made all these investments. We announced some pretty significant changes to our board of directors today. We've hired a lot of people. We're in the marketplace right now, hiring people. We're investing heavily in AI and technology. Our investments in tech and ops have gone from $800 million to $900 million last year to $1 billion this year.

I think we're doing well with respect to implementing AI, but there's a lot more that we can do. We've done it in certain areas like our call centers and certain areas like internal things, but there's opportunities to really rethink our entire business. For example, loan underwriting and processing. We can look at those whole horizontal areas and apply a lot of technology. It'll be money-saving, and by the way, it'll be a better experience for our clients. So that's kind of what I'm focused on day in and day out. Thank you for the question.

Ebrahim Poonawala (Analyst)

That's helpful. And I guess maybe one follow-up. Clark, I think you mentioned investment banking fees should be up from a year ago. It looks like you're resetting and just everything that you all have talked about, sponsor activity, middle market activity, picking up that investment banking should be much stronger. Your fee guide seems conservative. Just tell us how the assumptions underpinning that fee guide and why investment banking in the low 200s or the low to 200 or mid 200 range per quarter is not a reasonable sort of run rate going forward. Thanks.

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Yeah. Thanks, Ebrahim. So maybe a couple just specific comments on that area. So we talked about a 10% banker hire target for last year. We achieved just over nine. So again, the 10 is a guidepost. We didn't want to hit 10 just to do it. We were picking the right people in the right markets at the right price. In investment banking, it was closer to five. And again, that market, we added some excellent people, but it's competitive, obviously, and heating up. So we didn't stretch too far for people that weren't the right fit for us.

That goes to the 5% guide, and while we saw our first, I think, pop in middle market M&A here in the fourth quarter, and we'd expect that to roll into the first quarter, we don't have a ton of visibility throughout the rest of the year that that'll continue. If we see that, we think there's clear upside to that guide, but at the moment, we're a little bit hesitant because we just haven't seen that trend continue for more than a quarter of the time at this point.

Ebrahim Poonawala (Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Yep. Thank you, Ebrahim. Our next question will go to the line of Ryan Nash with Goldman Sachs. Ryan, your line is open.

Ryan Nash (Analyst)

Hey, good morning, guys.

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Good morning, Ryan.

Ryan Nash (Analyst)

Maybe as a good morning. Maybe as a follow-up to the last question. Obviously, 7% revenue growth, the exit run rate maybe looks a tad slower. You just talked in your remarks about hiring a handful of bankers. So can you maybe just expand on your expectations for growth? Do you think that we could see a pickup as these bankers start producing? Really just trying to get a sense for how you're thinking about the conservatism of your growth guidance, both in 2026 and over the medium term. Thank you.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Sure. We've done a lot of hiring. We're going to continue to hire. We've been very successful in doing that. We've always said that the burn-in is about 12-18 months. By the way, we hired a bunch of people in the middle and late last year. So obviously, that will take a little bit of time. Having said that, for example, some groups that we brought on at the very end of 2024 were extremely productive in 2025.

I think the market is going to be hospitable to getting deals done. So I look at our backlogs, and I look at the people we've hired. We have more people. We have more clients today than we've ever had. We have more people on the street with the Key business card than we've ever had. And we have a pretty good market. And our backlogs are at historically high levels. So I'm optimistic as we look forward.

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Hey, Ryan. So this is Clark. I might just add a couple maybe contextual points to that. So as I mentioned in the last answer, we hired just above 9%. If I break that out and think about where we hired folks in our consumer bank, that number would have been more low double digits.

What they're going to drive is kind of 8% growth in the year across the areas of consumer that they drive. There's a bunch of fees in consumer that aren't connected to these hires. Wealth, as we said, up high single digits. Manage fees in wealth, which we're transitioning away from transactional fees to manage fees, should be up low double digits. Just to give you a flavor for that, middle market and payments, we're up about 8%. We're going to see FER growth, fee-equivalent revenue growth and payments up low single or low double digits. As I said, in investment banking, 5% hires and up 5%. The one, maybe a little bit more color on what I said in the last response, there are some elements of potential here that we haven't included. I mean, one, we haven't included a macro deterioration.

But on the other side, we haven't assumed for the full year that middle market M&A will return. That is both a lending and a fee opportunity. We haven't incorporated any cuts beyond the two that are in the forwards today. And we haven't really incorporated significant CapEx increase from things like the bonus depreciation. We've talked to clients about that. They're talking about it. We just haven't seen it manifest yet. If it does, I think there's a lot of opportunity there for us to grow a little bit faster.

Ryan Nash (Analyst)

Got it. And Clark, maybe as a follow-up, when I look at the 4Q exit run rate guidance for net interest margin, average earning assets, it looks like the run rate for average earning assets is a little bit lower from the current level. Maybe just talk a little bit about what's causing that. Obviously, we know that there's the consumer runoff, but anything else? And when can we expect average earning assets to bottom and begin to grow again? Thank you.

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Sure. So we did show actual loan growth this year. So commercial will continue to be strong at 5% or so. We'll see 1% to 2% loan growth in the year. So I think we've seen the bottom on earning assets, and we'll start to see that elevate over time. Maybe two quick comments on just the composition of the balance sheet that I think are important. One, we've talked pretty frequently about the remixing of C&I loans away from residential real estate primarily. So long-dated, low fixed-rate assets into broad-based relationship commercial assets. So that'll continue. And then secondly, on the deposit side, we continue to remix from brokered CDs and deposits into client deposits.

So you'll see deposit balances for the year relatively stable. But we will take brokered deposits basically to zero by the middle of this year and replace that completely with client deposits. So again, it's really just creating much more efficiency in the balance sheet and sustainability. And I think the other component to your question, Ryan, is just the seasonality of the quarters. So every first quarter is our low point in NII. We'll see that again this year. We'll grow throughout the year. And I feel pretty confident that we'll exit the year with an NII that's $1.3 billion or more. So a little bit above, I think, the math you were doing there. But that sort of owns the seasonality and growth throughout the year.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Ryan, the only thing I would add to that is just to remind people our business model is a bit differentiated from others. When the markets are wide open as they are right now, we only put about 20% of the capital we raise on our balance sheet, which obviously manifests itself in fees, but it certainly doesn't in balance sheet growth. So I would just add that.

Ryan Nash (Analyst)

I appreciate that. Thanks for the color, guys.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Ryan. Our next question will go to a line of John Pancari with Evercore ISI. John, your line is open.

John Pancari (Analyst)

Good morning. As a follow-up to that, regarding your margin and NII expectation, could you maybe give us your deposit beta assumption that underlies that margin exit rate to 3% to 3.05% by the end of the year?

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Sure. So right now, we ended the year at a low 50s.

That came down slightly from the third quarter as we expected, just given the cuts in the fourth quarter and the timing it takes to get primarily some of the consumer rates through the system. We'd expect to pick that up this year. But we do expect kind of low-to-mid 50s beta throughout the year on a relatively stable deposit base, as I said. But that is a remixing of brokered deposits into client deposits. And that brokered deposit balance in the fourth quarter average was about $2.5 billion.

John Pancari (Analyst)

Thanks. And on the 15% that you reiterated for year-end 2017, can you maybe give us some color on the components? How are you thinking about the margin underlying that? And then also, you talked about the growth dynamics impacting the balance sheet and the remix. How do you think about the growth that gets you to that routine as you think about it for 2027 and maybe the thoughts on efficiency components as well? Thanks.

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Sure. Thanks, John. So we have guided to 3 plus NIM in fourth quarter 2026. Feel very good about that. Similarly, 3.25 plus in the fourth quarter of 2027. And really, I think about that as having three components. One would be just the stabilization as we bring on this remix of C&I loans at higher yields and run off the consumer. So that's sort of the organic rotation in the loan book. There is a bunch of fixed asset repricing going on, about $17 billion in 2026 and probably a similar amount in 2027 that will roll over into better returns. So those two components. And then I think ongoing solid deposit growth and deposit management.

I'd say about 75% of 2026 growth is mechanical versus organic, and it starts to get a little bit closer to 50/50 as we move through that two-year cycle, but I think overall, the biggest driver of that is just the NIM expansion that we've talked about. Our view this year, and there's some moving pieces on the fee side, but fees basically growing in line with or slightly better than expenses. I think as you get into 2027, we can continue to deliver positive fee-based operating leverage, which will drive a little bit more returns, and then we'll, again, continue to manage expenses, and we've talked about the capital return in 2026.

We haven't committed to what that looks like in 2027 at this point, but presuming a constructive macro environment and expected performance in our credit book, you could see us pull some levers there that would allow us to comfortably get to that 15 or beyond.

John Pancari (Analyst)

Got it. Thanks for all that color, Clark.

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, John. Our next question will go to a line of Mike Mayo with Wells Fargo Securities. Mike, your line is open.

Mike Mayo (Analyst)

Hi. You made several changes to your board. I guess you added Tony and Chris to your board, and you changed the lead director. And I just want to. I know you've covered this in the past, but as far as your appetite for bank acquisition, where is that? Given these board changes, different boards are going to have different views. And then separately, as far as a non-bank acquisition, such as to propel your capital markets, investment banking, M&A business. And if you just clarify, do you have some visibility past the first quarter? I know you said first quarter should be up versus your record first quarter last year, but how do you see that playing out? So a few questions in there. Sure.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Mike. And good morning to you. So a few things. Our capital priorities are unchanged. We've been pretty consistent about communicating them. I think I was unambiguous about our capital priorities at Goldman. Those, again, are first and foremost to support our clients. Secondly, to continue to invest in people and technology. And some of those are groups of people. I already touched on our investments in technology, which we're leaning into. Third is obviously to pay the dividend. That goes without saying.

Fourth, our complementary fee-based and capability-enhancing acquisitions, which was part of your multi-part question. The answer is yes. We're keenly interested in adding groups of knowledge workers, whether those are group hires, individual hires, or boutiques. And you can assume that we're out there and having discussions, and we see probably everything that goes on out there. And then lastly, what's left over, and we covered that today as well, are the buybacks. And obviously, the buybacks are sort of a product. We're generating a lot of capital. And we started with a lot of capital. So as you can imagine, the ability to have a pretty aggressive buyback program is there. The last part of your question was visibility past the first quarter. I would say, look, it's the deal business. I would say we have very good visibility through quarter one.

Also, our backlogs are at historically high levels. So our view on that, frankly, is rather conservative. In this business, you can't have a great year without having a great start. And we will get off to a great start, and we have good backlogs. Let's hope the markets stay in place, and we can revisit it as the year develops. And as far as the bank acquisition question part of it. I thought I hit that head-on twice. I'll do it again. We were unambiguous, Mike. That is not something we're focused on. In spite of the fact that we have made some board changes, that doesn't change our philosophy of basically what our capital priorities are.

Mike Mayo (Analyst)

And just one last follow-up. You're calling for middle market M&A has been muted for three years, all right? We see the biggest players. They're really starting to go gangbusters. It hasn't really trickled down yet. You're saying it's trickled down. Sponsors should be more active. You have historically elevated levels. What's causing the delay, and why is it turning now, and why don't you have visibility past the first quarter if you think it's back?

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Well, I mean, we do have visibility. It's just that it's the deal business, and there's just a lot of uncertainty. The reason it's been muted for three years is basically what we've all lived through. And a lot of it, from the financial sponsor perspective, was the assumption of rates. And obviously, the forwards had been so wrong for so long. There were going to be seven cuts, and then there were going to be five cuts, and there were going to be three cuts. And that does not really facilitate a lot of financing.

I think it's pretty clear now that the 10-year, in spite of the turbulence, even in a day like today, that the 10-year is kind of range-bound, call it 4 to 4.3, something like that. And you can transact very, very significantly there. So what happened last year is there was a lot of strategic deals, and then there were some very large financial sponsor deals. And what we see, based on the actual discussions we're having both with the financial sponsors and at the portco level, is we think that's going to break free. As long as there's an inverse relationship between the holding period and the cash-on-cash return, I think there's going to be a lot of people looking for liquidity this year.

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Mike, I just add that last year, lower percentage of our capital markets fees came from M&A advisory and financial sponsors, as we would normally expect. We saw a little bit of reversion to the long-term mean in the fourth quarter. We would expect that again in the first quarter. The challenge in that market, particularly given the prevalence of private equity, has been more fund-to-fund transfers than actual outright sales. So what we need to break is them not trading across funds or within funds, but actually moving the properties across GPs, basically.

Mike Mayo (Analyst)

All right. Thank you.

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Mike. Our next question will go to a line of Gerard Cassidy with RBC Capital Markets. Gerard, your line is open.

Gerard Cassidy (Analyst)

Hi, Chris. Hi, Clark.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Hey. Good morning.

Gerard Cassidy (Analyst)

Chris, can you share with us, when you look at your average loans in slide seven, there's some nice pickups after the first quarter of 2025, which, of course, all the uncertainty around Liberation Day in the spring of 2025. Can you share with us what your commercial C&I customers are feeling today versus nine months ago and their outlook? Are they just more comfortable living with the uncertainty that we're getting out of Washington when it comes to the policies this administration is pursuing?

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

It's a great question. I think there's a couple of things that have happened in the last nine months. One, people have gotten used to having a fair amount of uncertainty, and I think people have adjusted to that. But there's been some significant hurdles for middle market companies that have been clarified. The first was Liberation Day.

The tariff, absent what's going on this weekend, the tariff thing has sort of played out, and I think most companies are very comfortable with it. The second thing that has played out, and it played out, obviously, not until early July, was the new tax bill, which allows you to pull forward all of this accelerated depreciation, which is CapEx. We constantly interview our clients, and 60% believe that their business will be helped by the tax bill that passed in early July. So I think it's a combination of things. One, the recession that everyone had been predicting as imminent forever didn't happen. So that's one thing. You got greater clarity with respect to tariffs. You got a tax break. In the meantime, these businesses, Gerard, are doing very well. They're generating a lot of cash.

So you put all that together, and I'm actually pretty optimistic as we look forward.

Gerard Cassidy (Analyst)

Very good. I appreciate that, Chris, and then you also gave us good details on your NDFI portfolio, slide 19, and can you just remind us? I know the quality of it is very strong, but what are you guys seeing there in terms of growth, and has there been any changes in trends on quality? It doesn't appear to be that way, but how about any further color on slide 19?

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Sure. Just, I'll give you a couple of comments, and I'm going to turn it over to Clark. One, the biggest piece of that is something we call SFL, which we've been in 20 years, and I think we've had one charge-off. Very, very high quality.

The next biggest piece are investment-grade REITs, which we're lending to the entity, not to the project, which I think is a really important point. 40-something loan to value. The next piece of it is a lot of insurance companies. And as you well know, insurance companies are sort of required to keep a certain amount of capital. So I feel really, really good about the portfolio. You're asked about the trajectory of growth. There is some growth there, but a lot of it is sort of a reclass in the way that we're reporting it. Clark?

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Yeah. And so I know you're familiar, Gerard, with all the regulatory reporting changes. We did not see an enormous amount of growth, particularly in the second half of that book.

And I would say it's largely because in our specialty finance lending business, we were turning away deals that we just did not think fit the structural integrity of what we're trying to do there. And if the head of our business was here, he'd say he turned down more deals in 2025 than he has in the prior decade and a half to two decades. So if we see a reversion to what we think the right standards are, you will see growth there. But to the extent we don't, we're happy to stay on the sidelines and wait to clean it up later.

Gerard Cassidy (Analyst)

Very good. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Gerard. Our next question will go to a line of Chris McGratty with KBW. Chris, your line is open. Good morning. Thanks for the question.

Christopher McGratty (Analyst)

Chris, Clark, the CET1 target, the 9.5%-10% over time, I'm interested in kind of the walk from where you are today at 10.3%, the consumption of it, right? You talked about buybacks of $1.3 billion-plus this year. I would imagine at some point, there's going to be a handoff to on-balance sheet growth versus syndicating more out. But any thoughts there would be great. Thank you.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Sure. So kind of from a perspective of where we are and where we're going, you're exactly right. On a marked basis, we're at 10.3%. On a reported basis, we're 11.7%. We will burn down in 2026 from 10.3% to 10%, hence the share repurchases. There will also be, as you know, we're finally going to get some finalization on the capital rules. And this is a dynamic thing.

We'll continue to revisit what we think is the right target for us at the right time. So that's kind of the big picture.

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Yeah. And Chris, the components I might just give you, just 10-3 to 10, call that $500 million. We'll distribute another $700 million or more throughout the year. So we will pay out likely above our target payout ratio of 70%-80%, which is dividends and buybacks in 2026. So again, that gets us to the top end of the range, as Chris said. We'll keep an eye out for what changes occur on the regulatory front. The other two components or three components will be loan growth, which obviously is our top priority, and we'll continue to support that where it makes sense. The second will be just the macro environment and overall credit performance.

So obviously, the capital is there to support any issues there. And then the third is around just the rating agencies and where we need to be relative to that, although we feel, again, very good about where we sit today. So I think job one in 2026 is to get us to the top end of that range and then take a look at where we are and how strong we feel about our own performance in the economy and then decide where we want to be in that range going forward.

Christopher McGratty (Analyst)

Great. And my follow-up would be on slide 14. You may have hit it, but I want to make sure. The walk between the 15-plus ROTCE and 4Q of 2027 and that 16%-19%. I'm interested in kind of the timing. I don't think you've given a timing for that 16%-19%. And also, what do you think the biggest what do you need to do to get into that range beyond the 15% next year? Thanks.

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Sure. So the first answer to the first part of the question, we have not given a time that we will hit to our long-term goal of 16%-19%. But I can tell you this. The big hurdles, we say of half of it to get to 17% is to get to 15% is mechanical. Obviously, as we go forward, more and more of that will have to be business-generated, and we'll have to do that. And the other thing that you always have to do when you're talking about returns is we have to maintain our credit quality. There's nothing that and by the way, I'm quite confident that we will based on our model, but that's the other thing we're focused on.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. And I would just say, Chris, we've been a little bit on this balance sheet optimization path for the last couple of years. That'll continue for the most part in 2026. I think the two real opportunities are going to be getting that more efficient balance sheet, which is reflected in a NIM that looks like 325-plus, and then growing the balance sheet from there sustainably with good client relationships. It's going to be growing fees at or above our expense growth rate, which, again, I think provides a little bit more leverage, and then managing capital to the right level. So I think pulling all three of those dials as we go forward gets us into that 16%-19% range.

Christopher McGratty (Analyst)

That was great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Chris. Our next question will go to a line of Matthew O'Connor with Deutsche Bank.

Matthew O'Connor (Analyst)

Matthew, your line is open. Good morning. It seems like commercial real estate, kind of broadly speaking, has inflected with growth starting to pick up, at least kind of industry-wide. And I was hoping you could talk about what you're seeing across your customer base there and how you think about the leverage to Key. And I understand it's both a lending and fee opportunity. Thanks.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Matt, thanks for the question. And I actually think our real estate platform is probably one of our very best platforms. We have not seen loan growth per se. I think if you look at our guide, basically what we're saying is that it'll be flat on an average basis this year, and it'll be up 3% from the fourth quarter of 2025 to the fourth quarter of 2026.

That's a business that's an interesting one because we only have about $12 billion or so on our balance sheet, and in a typical year, we'd probably place even more than that into the markets. And so that's a business that I think is really poised to grow. And I think it's poised to grow because there really hasn't been a lot of transactional activity. Most of it's been refinanced. And I think we're at a point now where the bid and the ask are coming together, and I think you're going to see a lot of activity. So I think that's some upside for us as we look forward.

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Yeah. And it might, Matt, just give you some high-level views. So we would think our CRE business in its entirety will grow probably 6%-8% this year.

I'd break that into our sort of traditional banking businesses, lending, and capital markets, and then just separate that from servicing, which we've talked a lot about and had a record year in 2025. That will be down this year just given a couple of components. From a total revenue standpoint, it'd be roughly flat to down maybe low single digits. On the fee side, that will be down somewhat significantly, owing really to three things. One is a movement of some deposits, which were previously placed, going to our balance sheet, which produces NII. That's kind of a net neutral. We do see rates on advances coming down as Fed funds and so forth come down, so that does impact the business. And then obviously, as the market resolves, we see less special servicing and, again, coming off a record high.

All in all, again, down for the year, but coming off a fantastic 2025. It's a business we love and feel very good about, and we think to the extent CRE, as a broad market player, comes back, we'll have more and more opportunities to grow our primary servicing. But net net, we continue to love the commercial real estate business. I just wanted to give a little bit of context on the components.

Matthew O'Connor (Analyst)

Okay. Thank you. That's good detail.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Matthew. Our next question will go to a line of Ken Usdin with Autonomous Research. Ken, your line is open.

Ken Usdin (Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning. As you move past 2026, you mentioned you've been doing a lot of hiring this year, and that puts against a really good revenue start because of the baked-in stuff you mentioned earlier. As you think about getting past this year when it's a little bit more of a 50/50 kind of baked-in versus kind of just what the market gives, how do you think about just what the right natural expense growth rate of the company is, and given the pace at which you're leaning into hiring this year? Thanks.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. So thanks, Ken. We've talked about really long-term sort of 2%-3% expense growth, and that is always going to include some meaningful component of continuous improvement where we're finding efficiencies and then reinvesting them. You saw us at about 4.5% in 2025. We're talking about 3%-4% this year, and I think we'll just step down over the next year or two to get to that longer-term growth rate.

Ken Usdin (Analyst)

Okay. And just one follow-up on the consumer book. You mentioned that you still expect some runoff for the year. So relative to the $30 billion or so consumer loans at the end of the year, do you have a view of when and where that bottoms as your runoff comes to or heads towards the bottom? Thanks.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

So we've talked about this. Every quarter, we run off, and obviously, it depends what the rates are. Just to refresh everyone's memory, most of this runoff are mortgages to doctors and dentists. They yield about 3.3%. So we think their money good, but obviously, from a balance sheet perspective, the runoff is just fine. We think the runoff will be, as I said, about $600 million a quarter. And I would suspect it depends on rates, but I would suspect it would bottom out in the next couple of years.

Ken Usdin (Analyst)

Perfect. Total for the whole consumer book. Okay.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Yep.

That's correct. And what we're doing, just so you know, what we're doing to try to get some consumer loan growth is we're really building out our home equity capabilities. 50% of our customers have significant equity in their homes. And so slowly but surely, we're replacing that mortgage product with home equity. And then the other thing that we have that will kick in at some point as the rate cycle plays out is we still have our student lending platform that refinances federally issued student loans, but obviously, both the vintage and the interest rates have to be right for that.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Ken. Our next question will go to a line of Erika Najarian with UBS. Erika, your line is open.

Erika Najarian (Analyst)

Hi. I know it's a busy day for investors, so just one clean-up question. Clark, implied in the earlier questions is that the investor base is thinking that the guide is a little bit sort of "softer than high expectations." The good deed goes unpunished. But just to level set, you did mention that there's a level of conservatism embedded in the guide in terms of the macro backdrop. And so it feels like I guess that's a good conclusion to have that there's some conservatism in the guide relative to what the macro could be in 2026.

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Yeah. So maybe I'll make a couple of comments, and then you can tell me if I was responsive here. But the first point, and I think you made it there, is the strength of our 2025 results obviously impacts the year-over-year comparison.

But what I would say is the guide we're providing here is a little bit better than we would have expected a quarter or two ago in terms of absolute dollars. The growth rate obviously starts with where we ended the year. But I'd say overall, as we mentioned, we feel good about the numbers. There's obviously a lot of moving pieces for Key in the economy here. But as you saw last year, I think we're pretty dialed in on running these businesses. And with regard to our forecasting, as pieces come into clear focus, we'll share the updates throughout the year. So as of now, this really reflects the visibility we have in front of us.

But our ability to outperform our guide last year was driven by the compelling trajectory of the businesses here and our ability to seize opportunities as we see them, and we'll continue to do them. But I would just underscore that we continue to be very confident in the guide and very positive about the direction of travel.

Erika Najarian (Analyst)

Got it. All I needed. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Erica. Our next question will go to the line of Manan Gosalia with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Manan Gosalia (Analyst)

Hey, good morning. So I just wanted to follow up on all the comments made on the commercial loan growth side this morning. It feels like there's some strong momentum there. Rates are lower, 60% or more. Expect that they will benefit from the OBDA. CRE is starting to look better. I think you noted in your deck that lines grew nicely in the quarter as well. So I guess the question there is, given the guide for commercial loans to grow at about 5% year-on-year next year or in 2026, is there room for growth to accelerate as we go through the year? And is there some upside there as well?

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Yes, I think there is. I mean, if you think about commercial at 5%, you've got C&I in there at, call it, 7%. And I already talked about CRE. So I do think there's an opportunity for the guide to go up as the year develops, and we'll see how it plays out.

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Yeah. And I'll mention to add on, from a, again, risk perspective, we are not adjusting our risk appetite. So we think we can achieve this growth with prudent underwriting just as we have. So again, we're not loosening our standards to achieve this growth.

Manan Gosalia (Analyst)

Great. And then, Chris, you spoke about how much more there is to do on AI, and you also continue to hire more frontline bankers. So I guess when we look at the expense guide of 3%-4%, can you just break out what level of investment spend that includes and what the ongoing efficiencies you're generating from the business are?

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. So it's too early to be able to claim a lot of efficiencies yet with respect to AI. But I can tell you, I said we've stepped up $100 million in each of the last three years. And we also, by the way, have found through continuous improvement about $100 million in savings each and every year.

And so I think that it's one of those things as we properly reconfigure Key and start to look at these horizontal teams and use technology, I think we'll actually be able to fund a lot of it. So it's early to claim some kind of cost savings. Obviously, I could give you specific ones like a call to a call center costs $0.25 using AI, and if a human picks it up, it costs $9. Those are small, very focused things. We're focused really on more transformational activities.

Manan Gosalia (Analyst)

So for me, thanks very much.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. You're welcome.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Manan. Our next question will go to a line of David Chiaverini with Jefferies. David, your line is open.

David Chiaverini (Analyst)

Hi. Thanks for taking the question. So I had a follow-up on balance sheet growth over the medium term. So you're guiding to flat-ish average earning assets. And in 2026, what's a reasonable growth rate in average earning assets as you hit your stride, say, over three years? Is GDP plus the right way to think of it as your investments kind of take hold?

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Yeah. So the way we tend to think about that, David, is in our four industry verticals, when the market is open and we like the risk profile, we think we can grow GDP plus because of our focus and expertise in those areas. I think broadly, commercial loan growth at sort of GDP with maybe a little bit of upside is right. And then consumer probably running slightly below GDP. So I think overall, your combined loan growth probably looks in that zip code of GDP. It's just that you'd have to break out the composition and probably understand which is moving in which direction.

David Chiaverini (Analyst)

Thanks for that. And then my follow-up is on credit quality, good trends in non-performing assets, and criticized loans. Remind us of your ACL comfort level and reserve build outlook, and then any areas you're watching more closely.

Clark Khayat (CFO)

Yeah. So let me start with the reserve, and then Mo will maybe comment on the areas he's focused on. So generally, we've seen very good credit trends throughout the year. We had a very solid fourth quarter in terms of NPAs, NCOs, and CRIT coming down. We built reserves over the course of the year, about $40 million. I think two things there. One or maybe three. One is loan growth drives reserving in general. And we've had that on the C&I side.

The rotation from residential to C&I over time will require a little bit more reserving because C&I loans are going to, all our things being equal, have a little bit more credit cost than our super prime consumer loans. And then the third piece is we just are still reflecting some macro uncertainty that continues to be out there. I think there is some potential for relief throughout the year if we get more clarity on that or the economy just gets visibly more stable broadly, things like geopolitical risk, etc. But that's really what's reflected in that reserving at this point.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. I think that's well said, Clark. And again, overall, benign economic environment from our perspective. Just a few watch areas that we're considering consistent with our culture of early risk identification. So consumer discretionary, that's about a $5 billion portfolio.

One of the areas we're watching, probably not surprising given probably what you all see also in the macro environment. Some parts of healthcare, again, had some ups and downs, but again, we don't expect a lot of loss content. And then lastly, agriculture, again, an area we're watching, but again, a relatively small portfolio. So overall, I think our outlook is still pretty sanguine, but again, consistent with a strong culture of early risk identification. We do have some areas that we're watching.

David Chiaverini (Analyst)

Thanks very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Thank you, David. With no additional questions registered at this time, I'll go ahead and turn the call back over to you, Chris, for closing remarks.

Christopher Gorman (Chairman and CEO)

Certainly. That concludes our fourth quarter earnings call. Thank you for all of your interest in Key. To the extent people have additional questions, please do not hesitate to reach out directly to Brian Mauney. Thank you so much and have a good day. Goodbye.

Operator (participant)

That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. Enjoy the rest of your day.