Provident Financial Services - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Record revenue and net interest income with EPS at $0.55; revenue of $221.7M and EPS both modestly beat S&P Global consensus (rev: $220.7M; EPS: $0.5425). Bold beat: revenue +$1.0M; EPS +$0.0075. Values retrieved from S&P Global. Actuals: Revenue $221.7M, EPS $0.55.
• Net interest margin expanded to 3.43% (+7 bps QoQ; +12 bps YoY), efficiency improved to 51.0% (from 53.5% QoQ, 57.2% YoY), reflecting lower funding costs and operating discipline.
• Loan growth led by C&I (+$149M QoQ) and mortgage warehouse lines (+$52M QoQ); deposits rose $388M QoQ (core +$291M), supporting record pre-tax, pre-provision earnings.
• Asset quality resilient: NPAs/Assets improved to 0.41%; net charge-offs annualized 0.11% with allowance/loans at 0.97%.
• Forward catalysts: CFO guided Q4 NIM to 3.38%–3.45% and core OpEx ≈$113M; dividend declared at $0.24/share payable Nov 28 after a correction, supporting capital return narrative.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Record revenue ($221.7M) and record net interest income ($194.3M) on continued earning asset growth and margin expansion; CEO: “record revenues and pre-tax, pre-provision earnings… growing earning assets and deposits”.
• Core deposit growth (+$290.8M QoQ) and total deposit growth (+$387.7M QoQ) improved funding mix; average total deposit cost held at a manageable 2.14%.
• Pipeline strength (~$2.87–$2.89B at ~6.15% rate) and diversified C&I momentum; CEO emphasized specialty vertical contributions and improved CRE concentration ratio to ~402% (adjusted).

What Went Wrong

• Provision for credit losses swung to +$7.0M (vs a $2.9M benefit QoQ), reflecting loan growth and a modestly weakened CECL economic forecast; net charge-offs rose to $5.4M (11 bps annualized).
• Insurance agency revenues declined -$1.1M QoQ on normal seasonality despite YoY growth; management flagged likely Q4 seasonality headwind in non-interest income.
• Competitive pressure notably in CRE (payoffs ~$348M) amid private and insurance capital; management sees stronger competition but maintains relationship lending discipline.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Thank you for standing by, and at this time, I would like to welcome everyone to today's Provident Financial Services third-quarter earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Once again, star one. If you'd like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. Thanks. I would now like to turn the call over to Adriano Duarte, Head of Investor Relations. Adriano?

Adriano Duarte (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Greg. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our third-quarter earnings call. Today's presenters are President and CEO Tony Labozzetta and Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Tom Lyons. Before beginning the review of our financial results, we ask that you please take note of our standard caution as to any forward-looking statements that may be made during the course of today's call. Our full disclaimer is contained in last evening's earnings release, which has been posted to the investor relations page on our website, provident.bank. Now it's my pleasure to introduce Tony Labozzetta, who will offer his perspective on the third quarter. Tony?

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

Thank you, Adriano, and welcome everyone to the Provident Financial Services earnings call. I'm happy to share Provident's third-quarter results today, which demonstrated continued strong performance and advancement on several strategic initiatives. Looking back over the past 12 months, we have made notable progress in driving consistent and diversified growth while also improving operational efficiency across our entire organization. Our hardworking team remains focused, contributing to our strong results by expanding our loan portfolio and pipeline, broadening our deposit base, and driving record revenues for the second consecutive quarter. During the quarter, we reported net earnings of approximately $0.7255 per share, which is consistent with the previous quarter. Our annualized return on average assets was 1.16%, and our adjusted return on average tangible equity was 16.01%.

While we are pleased with the bottom-line metrics, we are even more energized by the meaningful improvement in pre-tax, pre-provision revenues during the third quarter, which grew to a record of nearly $109 million. Our pre-tax, pre-provision return on average assets of 1.76% has improved substantially compared to the 1.64% in the prior quarter and 1.48% for the same quarter last year. We believe this improvement serves as a good indicator that we have consistently enhanced the underlying profitability of our business, even as we have accelerated and diversified our loan growth. One of our primary areas of strategic focus continues to be deposits, and during the quarter, our deposits increased $388 million, or an annualized rate of 8%. It is worth noting that this growth was primarily driven by core deposits, which increased $291 million, or 7.5% annualized.

We continue to remain focused on efficiently funding our strong commercial loan growth and have made investments in people and capabilities to support quality deposit growth over the intermediate term. Switching to loans, during the third quarter, our commercial lending team closed approximately $742 million in new loans, bringing our production year-to-date to $2.1 billion. As a result, our commercial portfolio grew at an annualized rate of 5%, driven primarily by C&I production. Our strong capital formation, combined with the growth and diversification of our loan portfolio, has reduced our CRE concentration ratio to 402% if adjusted for the merger-related purchase accounting marks. This compares favorably to the 408% in the prior quarter. Our loan pipeline grew appreciably to nearly $2.9 billion, with a weighted average interest rate of approximately 6.15% as of quarter end. The pull-through adjusted pipeline, including loans pending closing, is approximately $1.7 billion.

We are proud and encouraged by the loan team's performance and the strength of our pipeline as we approach the final stages of 2025. While we have worked hard to grow and diversify our loan pipeline, our commitment to managing credit risk and generating top-quartile risk-adjusted returns has remained unchanged. Non-performing assets improved three basis points to 0.41%, which compares favorably to our peers. We also saw a decline in non-approved loans during the third quarter, while our net charge-offs were only $5.4 million. Overall, we remain very comfortable with our credit position and our underwriting standards, and we continue to look for the risk-appropriate opportunities to grow our business. We believe it is worth reiterating that our exposure to rent-stabilized multifamily properties in New York City is modest, at $174 million, or less than 1% of total loans, all of which are performing.

Additionally, our credit exposure to non-depository financial institutions is limited to $292 million of mortgage warehouse loans. We are comfortable with the credit structure of these loans, including the controls we have in place to minimize risk. Furthermore, the customers we deal with are established and well-known counterparties to our bank. Another area of strategic focus is growing non-interest income, which performed well during the third quarter. Provident Protection Plus continues to drive consistent growth in our non-interest income, with revenues up 6.1% when compared to the same quarter last year. While normal seasonality drove a step down in revenues when compared to the late quarter, we remain optimistic about the high level of business activity occurring on our insurance platform. Beacon Trust saw revenue growth in the third quarter, increasing to $7.3 million.

We are excited to announce that Beacon's new Chief Growth Officer, Annamaria Vitelli, joined us in September and will bring her demonstrated track record of driving strategic growth to expand Beacon's market presence and deepen client relationships. We also continue to invest in our SBA capabilities, which have been a steadier contributor to non-interest income in 2023, generating $512,000 of gains on sale in the third quarter. Year-to-date, we have generated $1.8 million of SBA gains on sale, which is up from $451,000 in the comparable period last year. While our total assets have grown 3% year-to-date, our strong and consistent profitability continues to build Provident's capital position, which comfortably exceeds well-capitalized levels. As such, this morning, our Board of Directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.24 per share, payable on November 28.

I'd like to conclude my remarks by emphasizing how proud we are to see the results of careful planning and hard work translate into continued strong performance in the third quarter. None of these accomplishments would be possible without the dedication and commitment of our employees. We will continue to execute our key strategic initiatives aimed at sustaining growth in our core business while simultaneously making the necessary investments on our platform to ensure Provident is well-prepared for the future. Now I'd like to turn it over to Tom for his comments on the financial performance. Tom?

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

Thank you, Tony, and good afternoon, everyone. As Tony noted, we reported net income of $72 million, or $0.55 per share for the quarter, with a return on average assets of 1.16%. Adjusting for the amortization of intangibles, our core return on average tangible equity was 16.01% for the quarter. Pre-tax, pre-provision earnings for the current quarter increased 9% over the trailing quarter to a record $109 million, or an annualized 1.76% of average assets. Revenue increased to a record $222 million for the quarter, driven by record net interest income of $194 million and non-interest income of $27.4 million. Average earning assets increased by $163 million, or an annualized 3%, versus the trailing quarter, with the average yield on assets increasing 8 basis points to 5.76%.

Our reported net interest margin increased 7 basis points versus the trailing quarter to 3.43%, while our core net interest margin increased 1 basis point. The company maintains a largely neutral interest rate risk position but anticipates future benefits of the core margin from recent Fed rate cuts and expected steepening of the yield curve. We currently project a NIM in the 3.38%-3.45% range in the fourth quarter. Our projections include another 25 basis point rate reduction in December of 2025. Period-end loan sales per investment increased $182 million, or an annualized 4% for the quarter, driven by growth in mortgage warehouse and other commercial and multifamily loans, partially offset by reductions in construction and residential mortgage loans. Total commercial loans grew by an annualized 5% for the quarter. Our pull-through adjusted loan pipeline at quarter end was $1.7 billion.

The pipeline rate of 6.15% is accretive relative to our current portfolio yield of 6.09%. Period-end deposits increased $388 million for the quarter, or an annualized 8%, while average deposits increased $470 million, or an annualized 10%, versus the trailing quarter. The average cost of total deposits increased 4 basis points to 2.14% this quarter, while the total cost of funds increased 1 basis point to 2.44%. Asset quality remained strong, with non-performing assets declining to 41 basis points of total assets. Net charge-offs were $5.4 million, or an annualized 11 basis points of average loans this quarter, while year-to-date net charge-offs were just 6 basis points of average loans. Current quarter charge-offs reflected the resolution of several non-performing loans and the write-off of related specific reserves.

Our provision for credit losses increased to $7 million for the quarter as a result of growth in loans and commitments and minor deterioration in our SECO economic forecast. Our allowance coverage ratio was 97 basis points of loans at September 30th. Non-interest income increased to $27.4 million this quarter, with solid performance realized from core banking fees, insurance, and wealth management, as well as gains on SBA loan sales. Non-interest expenses were well-managed at $113 million, with expenses to average assets totaling 1.83% and the efficiency ratio improving to 51% for the quarter. Excluding the amortization of intangibles and the related average balance, these ratios were 1.73% and 46.72%, respectively. We project quarterly core operating expenses of approximately $113 million for the final quarter of 2025. Our sound financial performance supported earning asset growth and drove strong capital formation.

Tangible book value per share increased $0.53, or 3.6%, this quarter to $15.13, and our tangible common equity ratio improved to 8.22% from 8.03% last quarter. That concludes our prepared remarks. We'd be happy to respond to questions.

Operator (participant)

At this time, I would like to remind everyone, if you would like to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your touch-tone keypad. Once again, star one. We will pause just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Okay. Looks like our first question today comes from the line of Tim Switzer with KBW. Tim, please go ahead.

Tim Switzer (VP of Equity Research)

Hey, thank you for taking my questions. I hope you guys are doing well.

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

Hey, Tim.

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

Hi Tim.

Tim Switzer (VP of Equity Research)

My first question is, on the margin, I think you guys have—I understand kind of the interest rate impacts on the floating rate book and your deposits there, but I think you guys also have quite a bit of loan backbook repricing as well. Can you maybe update us on the quantity of loans that are fixed-rate repricing over the next 12 months or so, and then what kind of uplift you would expect on the yields just at current rates?

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

I think I can give it to you in pieces, Tim. The total repricing is just under $6 billion, say $5.9 billion. Within that, the floating book is about $4.95 billion. The balance is either longer-term adjustable repricing in the period or fixed rate.

Tim Switzer (VP of Equity Research)

Got you. Do you have kind of what the blended yield is on that fixed rate and adjustable portion?

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

I do not. I mean, the margin projection reflects all of that, so you can see the increase based on the expected new on rates of 6.15% that's in the pipeline. I don't have it at my fingertips, the current portfolio rate for that piece, that segment.

Tim Switzer (VP of Equity Research)

Gotcha. Okay. There has been some discussion on other conference calls about increasing loan competition on pricing. Could you maybe discuss what you've seen in your markets and then kind of dissect that between commercial and industrial loans and then the commercial real estate market?

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

Sure. Yeah. I think that's a fair statement that we've seen some increased competition in the lending market, for sure, mostly on the CRE side with what either the private space or insurance agencies are doing. In fact, we had about $348 million of payoffs this quarter. Some of that had to do with that. Some of it had to do with loans just selling. On the commercial and industrial loan side, we're not seeing the same level of competition that we are on the CRE side. I would say it's a fair statement to say overall, the competition has grown stronger. However, I would like to end that by saying that our team is still building a pipeline that's kind of record high at $2.9 billion. In our pull-through, I'd say we're closing about 65% of the things we touch. Those are good, consistent metrics for us.

We're careful about what the economy looks like. We're doing good loans to good sponsors under good terms. We're aware that there's some pricing competition or structure competition out there.

Tim Switzer (VP of Equity Research)

Got it. That's helpful. If I could have one more follow-up, could you maybe add some color on how some of your new specialty verticals like asset-based lending and healthcare are contributing to the loan growth?

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

I think, as we might have mentioned on the written prepared comments, this quarter, the C&I reflected most of our growth, which includes healthcare. ABL warehouse lending did very well for us this quarter. In fact, those were all double-digit growth in some of those categories, where our CRE was relatively stable because of some of the prepayments, unanticipated prepayments we saw in that class. Those are good. That's the areas that we are strategically focused on scaling up. We're doing it very well. We're very proud of that. We have the good teams to handle that. It's also driving a good result on our CRE concentration ratio, as I mentioned. It's having all the strategic effects that we desired.

If CRE picks up, I think this quarter, while I said that loans grew 5%, the effective production would have been somewhere around 7%, 7%+ if the prepayments were not there in the CRE space. I'm pretty proud of the productivity this bank has right now. Our focus will continue on those verticals, which we put in place strategically. We expect them to be high single, double-digit growth because the scale of that book is not substantial, so all the productivity is going to be substantial. While CRE will run in that 5% space.

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

Tim, the other thing I could add, if it helps with the projected loan mix, is the pipeline breakdown. Commercial real estate represents about 42% of the pipeline. The specialty lending category, which includes the asset-based lending and healthcare you were referring to, is about 14%. There's 5% in resident and consumer in the balance as the other commercial loan categories, middle market and other commercial lending.

Tim Switzer (VP of Equity Research)

All right. Got it. Thanks for taking my question.

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

Sure, we're good.

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

Thanks, Tim.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Feddie Strickland with Hovde. Feddie, please go ahead.

Feddie Strickland (Director in the Research Department)

Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Just wanted to touch on non-interest income. The guide seems to imply about a $1 million step-down link quarter. Is that just an expectation of lower loan prepayment fees plus maybe some seasonality on insurance?

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

Yeah, you got it, Feddie. It's maybe a little conservatism in there as well. The prepayment fees, again, subject to some volatility, were about $1.7 million this quarter. We scaled that back, but who knows what we'll see. Personally, I'd rather hold the loan and leave the fees out. That and the seasonality in the fourth quarter is not necessarily the strongest for insurance. We see it going into Q4 too. Q1 is where we see the pickup.

Feddie Strickland (Director in the Research Department)

I guess along the same lines with non-interest income, can you talk about the opportunity on the wealth side as we enter 2026 and whether you're working to bring on additional talent there?

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

As I mentioned on a call, we've hired Anna Vitelli. She's the Chief Growth Officer. She's charged with growing and service and retainage of, in a way of extraordinary service in that space and deeply integrating it with the bank. We think there's a lot of great opportunity. Anna will build out her needs, adding more sales and production staff and organizing herself in a fashion that will give us the things that we're looking for. Certainly, these investments are aimed at, one, growing new AUM and deepening connections that we have within the organization already.

Feddie Strickland (Director in the Research Department)

Got it. Just one more quick one from me on capital. Hoping to get your updated thoughts on how you think about capital and about deployment via dividends versus buybacks versus organic growth while still managing the CRE concentration piece as well?

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

Yeah. I think our first preference remains organic growth at profitable levels. Again, recognizing the strength of our pipeline, that's where our energy has been focused. That said, we are at comfortable levels of capital now. We're close to 11.90% on CET1 at the bank level. There's opportunities for us there. We certainly think we're trading at an attractive price at this point. With regard to dividends, we kind of like to get back to a 40%-ish payout ratio, somewhere in the 40%-45% range. I think that's when we look at that more carefully. The other thing is we're in the middle of budget season here, which is why we didn't give a lot of forward guidance. We want to wait till January to give everybody a full year update.

That'll help inform our capital decisions as well as we get more confidence around our asset growth and capital formation projections.

Feddie Strickland (Director in the Research Department)

All right. Great, thanks for the color. I'll step back.

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

Thank you.

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

Thanks, Feddie.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Dave Storms with StoneGate. Dave, please go ahead.

Dave Storms (Director of Equity Research)

Good afternoon, and appreciate you taking my questions. Just wanted to start with some of the decrease in deposit costs and maybe get your thoughts on how much more room there might be to run here and what that looks like from a competitive landscape.

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

Decrease in deposit costs? We saw growth in non-interest bearing, which was helpful to us. The overall cost of funds was only up one basis point to 2.44% this quarter. There was a little bit of shift in mix. While deposit costs were up, it was still at an attractive rate in terms of funding advantage relative to the wholesale borrowings. That's really what we try to manage, obviously, is the overall cost of funds. That all said, we had the Fed rate cut at the end of September, the 17th, I think it was. This most recent one, just yesterday, I guess. We're going to see the benefit of both of those cuts in Q4. The September cut was effective October 1st, and the most recent cut will be effective November 1st.

In terms of data overall, I think we conservatively model something in the 30%-5% range on deposits.

Dave Storms (Director of Equity Research)

Understood. That's very helpful. Thank you. Just one more, if I could. It looks like your efficiency ratio is hovering right around that 50% mark. Curious as to how much of a push there is to get that under the 50% and maybe what that would entail.

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

I don't think it's necessarily a push, but rather our desire to continue to make prudent investments and build for the future. I think where we are is a really attractive level. If you look at a pure overhead management, the OpEx ratio at 1.83, and that's inclusive of some fairly significant intangible amortization, is really quite well managed. I don't know that there's a lot of room we're going to look to take down on that, just because I think there's investments that we want to continue to make to support growth.

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

I would argue that we've been steadily making the requisite investments in our business to build out the platform for our future. The efficiency ratio, we will see that come down further by enhanced revenue opportunities. You might see a blip up with further investments. Obviously, we'll get the positive operating leverage, and you'll see it move back down. That's kind of the trend we've been watching. I think Tom says it's in this area. It can go down another point if we're building the revenue base. That doesn't factor in future investments.

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

Yeah. Tony made a really good point. I was focused on the expense side, but I think the revenue opportunities are there. You saw two consecutive quarters of nice growth and record levels for us. We do project core margin expansion over the next several quarters of, say, in the 3 basis point-5 basis point range each quarter. We talked about some of the investments that we hope to see returns on in the fee-based businesses over the course of the next year. A lot of room there.

Dave Storms (Director of Equity Research)

That's great commentary. Thank you for taking my questions, and good luck with Q4.

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

Thank you.

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

Thanks, Dave.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Gregory Zingoni with Piper Sandler. Gregory, please go ahead.

Gregory Zingoni (Analyst)

Hey, guys. Good afternoon.

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

Hey, how are you?

Gregory Zingoni (Analyst)

Good. How are you? Quick question. How frequently are you bumping into private credit firms nowadays?

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

I'm sorry, Greg. Could you say that again? We had difficulty hearing you.

Gregory Zingoni (Analyst)

I asked, how frequent are you bumping into private credit firms nowadays?

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

Yeah. We know that's out there. It's not really been a factor for us at all. Most of the business we're doing is relational. Clients are not that reticent to go to private credit for one transaction, knowing that the whole relationship is important to them and us. We are very cognizant of it being out there and the scale of it. However, it has not been a factor in us building our pipeline or getting our deals closed.

Gregory Zingoni (Analyst)

Awesome. At first glance, your average fee in wealth management of 72 bps seems kind of high. Have you felt any pressure on pricing recently?

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

I wouldn't say recently. It has actually come down. I can remember us being as high as 77 basis points probably two years ago or so, but it's been pretty stable. Sorry.

Gregory Zingoni (Analyst)

Go ahead.

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

Go ahead, Greg.

Gregory Zingoni (Analyst)

I was just going to ask on top of that, where are new relationships coming on today?

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

I would say similar levels because it has remained steady at 0.72% for quite a few quarters now.

Gregory Zingoni (Analyst)

Lastly, for us, M&A picking up in the industry, it seems like a pretty good time to ask you guys, what are you looking for in your next potential acquisitional target?

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

I would actually answer the M&A question a little bit differently, right? I think our primary focus here is on the organic growth strategies that we outlined. We're pretty excited about the buildouts and our advancement into the middle market space. We think there's a huge opportunity for us to create shareholder value and one that we think is most relevant. That being said, we're always evaluating opportunities that might be out there. I think we've proven that we have great merger DNA, and we can get stuff done. We have the right platform to do that. We'd love to see our currency trade at a place where it's more reflective of what we're worth. We'll always evaluate opportunities from every direction, but it's a wonderful place to have the optionality, and we're creating that by having an organic growth and focusing there first.

Gregory Zingoni (Analyst)

Awesome. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

All right. Thanks, Greg. Our next question comes from the line of Steven Moss with Raymond James. Stephen, please go ahead.

Steven Moss (Director of Banking)

Good afternoon, guys.

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

Hey, how are you?

Steven Moss (Director of Banking)

Maybe just starting on purchase accounting here. I realize it's probably elevated from the prepays this quarter, but curious as to how you guys are thinking about that going forward. Also, on the subject of prepays, just kind of curious, do you think those will continue to be elevated in the near term, or do we, from the fee income comment, think we're going to moderate down to more typical levels?

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

I think the prepays, usually, if we look at past trends, the third quarter seems to have a heightened pickup, which is the summer months. We expect that to normalize. Maybe $150 million-$200 million range, I would say, is more normalized. You always have in that number that I gave, there's a lot of businesses that sold as much as they—it wasn't a huge, huge number of refinancing elsewhere, probably $90 million of it refinanced elsewhere. There's always going to be activities, companies selling, companies coming. We just have to have an organizational capacity to grow at a level to make up for that. If I were to put a number on it, I would say $200 million, $150 million, $200 million is probably a good place to be.

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

With regard to purchase accounting, Steve, I'd say our normal number runs about 40 basis points-45 basis points of the NIM. I would expect that to persist throughout the next four quarters.

Steven Moss (Director of Banking)

Great. On the theme of organic growth and hiring, I heard you guys' comments around the efficiency ratio. Just curious how you guys are thinking about hiring for 2026. You definitely made a number of investments over the last 12+ months. Curious if there's maybe another step up in terms of bringing people over in the new year or just probably around that.

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

Yeah. I mean, I think we have a pretty good visual to our strategic planning process of what our needs are to give us the productivity in future years, particularly in areas of focus. It is our expectation that we'll continue to invest. If you look at what insurance does, we hire roughly 10-12 new producers every year to keep pace with that. We're expecting that to happen in the Beacon space. Our commercial platform continues to hire not only in new geographies, but in verticals that we're investing deeper in. I would expect more investment in the middle market space for us next year. All of those things, we have clarity of what the positive operating leverage will be derived from that. It is part of our process in terms of forecasting and strategic planning.

We'll build all that out for you guys in the first quarter, and you'll get better clarity of the investments against the returns.

Steven Moss (Director of Banking)

Okay, great. I really appreciate all the call here, and I'll step back. Thanks, guys.

Tom Lyons (Senior Executive VP and CFO)

Thank you.

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

You're welcome.

Operator (participant)

Thanks, Steve. It looks like there are no further questions at this time, so I will now turn the call back over to Tony Labozzetta for closing comments. Tony?

Tony Labozzetta (President and CEO)

Great. Thank you, everyone, for your questions and for joining the call. We hope everyone has an enjoyable end of the year and a holiday season. We look forward to speaking with you again soon. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thanks, Tony. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Have a good day, everyone.