Operator: Thank you for standing by, and welcome to First Western Financial's Q3 2026 earnings conference call. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press star one one again. I would now like to hand the call over to Lisa Fortuna, investor relations. Please go ahead.
Lisa Fortuna: Thank you, Latif. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for First Western's Q3 2026 earnings call. Joining us from First Western's management team are Scott Wylie, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Julie Courkamp, Chief Operating Officer, and David Weber, Chief Financial Officer.
Lisa Fortuna: We will use a slide presentation as part of our discussion this morning. If you have not already done so, please visit the Events and Presentations page of First Western's investor relations website to download a copy of the presentation.
Lisa Fortuna: Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that this conference call contains forward-looking statements with respect to the future performance and financial condition of First Western Financial that involves risks and uncertainties. Various factors could cause actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
Lisa Fortuna: These factors are discussed in the company's SEC filings, which are available on the company's website. I would also direct you to read the disclaimers in our earnings release and investor presentation. The company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call.
Lisa Fortuna: Additionally, management may refer to non-GAAP measures, which are intended to supplement, but not substitute, for the most directly comparable GAAP measures. The press release available on the website contains the financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today, as well as the reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Scott.
Scott Wylie: Thanks, Lisa, and good morning, everybody. We executed well in Q3 and saw positive trends in many areas, including loan growth, improving deposit mix, net interest margin expansion, trust and investment management fee growth, well-managed expenses, and improved asset quality. This resulted in another quarter of strong profitability.
Scott Wylie: Pre-tax, pre-provision net income increased 15% in Q3, that is not annualized, compared to the prior quarter and 27% compared to Q3 2025. We continue to maintain a conservative approach to new loan production with our disciplined underwriting and pricing criteria.
Scott Wylie: The new banking talent added over the past several years, and increasingly over the past few months, and our healthy economic activity across our markets fueled strong loan production that was diversified across markets, industries, and loan categories.
Scott Wylie: As a result, our financial performance and balance sheet management strategies, we continued to grow tangible book value per share this quarter. Moving to slide 4, we generated net income of about $6 million or $0.60 per diluted share in Q3, both of which were 88% higher, respectively, than Q3 2025.
Scott Wylie: With our prudent balance sheet management, our tangible book value per share increased by 3% this quarter to $26.28. Now I will turn the call over to Julie for some additional discussion of our balance sheet and trust investment management trends. Julie?
Julie Courkamp: Thank you, Scott. Turning to slide 5, we will look at the trends in our loan portfolio. Our loans held for investment increased $95 million from the end of the prior quarter, marking the sixth consecutive quarterly increase. On a year-over-year basis, total loans increased 8%. We continue to be conservative and disciplined in our new loan production.
Julie Courkamp: However, the higher productivity of the bankers added over the last several quarters is driving an improvement in loan originations. New loan production was $163 million in Q3 and was diversified across various markets and loan types with a focus on relationship-based lending. Additionally, we are attracting deposit relationships with these clients.
Julie Courkamp: We continue to be disciplined with respect to pricing, which resulted in the average rate on new production of 6.79% in the quarter, which was 42 basis points higher from the prior quarter and 53 basis points higher than the average rate of loan payoffs of 6.26% in the quarter. Quarter end loans outstanding were almost 3% higher than average loan balances for the quarter, which is providing strong momentum going into Q4.
Julie Courkamp: Moving to slide 6, we will take a closer look at our deposit trends. Our total deposits increased 2.5% from the end of the prior quarter, with growth in noninterest-bearing and money market accounts. On a year-over-year basis, total deposits increased 2.4%. Average noninterest-bearing deposits increased $14 million or 3.9% in the quarter, and 10% using quarter end balances.
Julie Courkamp: We remain focused on continuing to improve our deposit mix to drive further NIM expansion going forward. Now I will turn the call over to David for some additional discussion of our balance sheet.
David Weber: Thank you, Julie. Turning to slide 8, we will look at our gross revenue. Our gross revenue increased 2.8% from the prior quarter, primarily due to an increase in net interest income, partially offset by a decrease in noninterest income. Turning to slide 9, we will look at the trends in net interest income and margin.
David Weber: Our net interest income increased 5.5% from the prior quarter due to an increase in net interest margin and an $81 million increase in average interest earning assets. Our NIM increased 5 basis points from the prior quarter to 2.95%. This was primarily due to an increase in yield on average interest earning assets, partially offset by an increase in cost of funds.
David Weber: The yield on interest earning assets increased 7 basis points, driven by an increase in loan yields, while the cost of funds increased 2 basis points due to higher rates on money market accounts. Our net interest income increased 18% from Q3 2025 due to a 41 basis point increase in NIM and higher average interest earning assets.
David Weber: Turning to slide 10, our noninterest income decreased by $600,000 from the prior quarter. This was primarily due to a decrease in net gain on sale of mortgage loans, as origination volumes were negatively impacted by higher mortgage rates and a decrease in bank fees, partially offset by an increase in trust and investment management fees.
David Weber: Trust and investment management fees increased 2.6% from the prior quarter, driven by increases in investment agency trust and retirement fees. Now turning to slide 11 and our expenses.
David Weber: Our noninterest expense decreased $400,000 from the prior quarter. The decrease was primarily driven by a decrease in technology and information systems, as well as salaries and employee benefits. The decrease in technology and information systems was primarily attributable to a $400,000 non-recurring charge that we recorded in Q2 2026.
David Weber: The decrease in salaries and employee benefits was primarily driven by lower employer payroll taxes. Our efficiency ratio improved to 72%, compared to 74% last quarter and 76% in Q3 2025, as we continue to tightly manage expenses while also making investments in the business that we believe will positively impact our long-term performance.
David Weber: Now turning to slide 12, we will look at our asset quality. As Scott indicated earlier, we saw improved trends in the loan portfolio in Q3 with a decrease in nonaccrual loans driven by pay downs.
David Weber: Our nonperforming asset ratio decreased to 39 basis points in Q3. Increased loan volume contributed to a provision of $600,000 during Q3 2026. Our allowance coverage ratio was 74 basis points in Q3, down from 75 basis points in the previous quarter. Now I will turn it back to Scott. Scott?
Scott Wylie: Thanks, David. Turning to slide 13, I will wrap up with some comments about our outlook. Based on our Q3 performance and what we are seeing in our markets, we are encouraged and we expect further improvement in our financial performance in Q4 of the year. Overall, we continue to see relatively healthy economic conditions in our markets. We are seeing good opportunities to add new clients and banking talent through the ongoing disruption from M&A activity in our markets.
Scott Wylie: Our loan pipeline remains strong and should fuel solid loan growth going forward. We expect positive trends to continue across several key areas, including loan growth, deposit growth, deposit mix improvement, net interest margin expansion, and increased activity in our wealth management business.
Scott Wylie: Combined with a disciplined expense management, we believe continued revenue growth should drive even more positive operating leverage and further improve our financial performance.
Scott Wylie: We had a net interest margin expansion of 26 basis points in 2025 and another 24 basis points in expansion so far in 2026. This will continue. We remain disciplined with expenses, continuing to invest selectively in opportunities that can enhance long-term shareholder value.
Scott Wylie: Continued M&A disruption in our market is creating attractive opportunities to add experienced banking talent and new client relationships, and we are well-positioned to capitalize on those opportunities as they emerge.
Scott Wylie: Based on the trends we are seeing in the portfolio and the feedback we are getting from our clients, we are not seeing anything to indicate that we will experience any meaningful deterioration in asset quality through the rest of the year.
Scott Wylie: With positive trends across several key areas in the business, we believe we are well-positioned to deliver continued improvement in financial performance and create additional value for our shareholders. With that, we are happy to take your questions. Latif, please open up the call.
Operator: As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question. Sorry, one moment. Our first question comes from the line of Hannah Wynn of KBW. Your line is open, Hannah.
Hannah Wynn: Good morning, guys.
Scott Wylie: Morning, Hannah.
Hannah Wynn: I wanted to start on loan growth. I know you had talked on the call last quarter about expecting to see strong loan growth in H2, so it was great to see that 14% number this quarter. Just wondering if you could give us a sense of how pipelines are shaping up for Q4 and into 2027. Curious if you think we could expect to see another double-digit growth quarter to end the year.
Scott Wylie: Well, I am always reluctant to say, "Well, this quarter is going to be this percent," because it does bounce around a little bit. There are definitely favorable trends that we have seen progressing through the year, which we expected. We said we were going to be investing in more talent in the H1 of the year, and that would produce more growth in the H2 of the year. That is exactly what we are seeing.
Scott Wylie: I was actually talking to the team this morning. We have seen more loans in our credit working group, which meets three times a week, to preview upcoming credits, and then also credit committee over the past several weeks now than we have seen in the H1 of the year. Pipelines are stronger and continue to be strong.
Scott Wylie: The actual work in process that we are seeing and the activity we are getting from our frontline folks is stronger. I do think that we are going to see positive trends. I feel like our forecast for this year kind of 10%-ish growth. It seems like we are on track for that, and I think a 15% run rate here going into 2026 seems like a 2027, I mean, seems like a reasonable indication of what we are seeing.
Hannah Wynn: Great. That is really helpful. Next, just wanted to touch on mortgage. I know the rate environment has been a bit of a headwind there. Just curious how you see activity trending from here if rates continue to rise.
Scott Wylie: Mortgages, as a percent of revenues for us, is a small number. We just are in that business primarily because we think it is strategically important for a private bank to be able to play good defense with our clients that want mortgages, and to use that to play offense to attract jumbo mortgage clients that we can turn profitably into full relationships.
Scott Wylie: Definitely the production nationwide has fallen off the cliff. We actually looked with our mortgage team earlier this week to see how we were doing relative to the overall secondary market, and we are outperforming. I think that is because we are doing the things we can. We cannot control, obviously, the 10-year Treasury. We cannot control demand for mortgages, which is way down nationally.
Scott Wylie: What we can control is the fixed expenses in that area, which we have cut, and the quality and productivity of the MLOs that we have in place who are commission-based, so there is not a significant direct cost to them on an ongoing basis. But we have had a lot of success over the last year adding MLOs.
Scott Wylie: So that helps with our strategic benefit, but it also helps when the market comes back, which eventually it will. We will be able to take advantage of that. But it is a little bit of a sideshow. I actually think the more interesting part of the fee income story this quarter, and we kind of glossed over page 7 of the deck, so I just want to go back to that for a minute. Is it page 7? The fee income this quarter was down thanks to insurance and mortgages.
Scott Wylie: Actually our TIM fees. The AUM was down. So it looks all negative but we said that we have done this restructuring of our PTIM folks and completely reorganized that business for the future over the last couple of years. We brought in Brandon Summers from Goldman Sachs, and he is leading that team now, and we said we are going to see some results of that in 2026.
Scott Wylie: In Q2, we talked a little bit about green shoots, and now we see that was up. Our trust and investment management fees were up over $100,000 in Q3, which if you look at that on a growth rate basis, that is 2.6% increase or annualized. That is, what, 10.4% and up 5.1% from a year ago. So those are trends that we have not seen in years here. I think that that is really a very bright spot in our fee income story that is kind of buried in some of the headwinds from mortgages and our insurance sales.
Hannah Wynn: That is great. Thanks for all the color there. Thanks for taking my questions. I will step back.
Scott Wylie: Thanks, Hannah.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Clark of Piper Sandler. Your line is open, Matthew.
Matthew Clark: Good morning, everyone.
Scott Wylie: Morning.
Operator: Morning.
Matthew Clark: Just on the deposit cost side. Maybe if we could just start with getting the spot rate at the end of September and then the beta assumption we should use on interest-bearing deposits assuming we get one or two more rate hikes here.
Scott Wylie: Yeah, Matt, the spot deposit rate for total deposits was 2.86 at the end of September. From a beta standpoint, the way I look at the deposit portfolio is really focusing on the money market accounts from a beta standpoint. We have $740 million in indexed money market accounts, which would translate to 100% beta.
Scott Wylie: Then we have $760 million in standard money market accounts. That is how I refer to them, which that is where it is more of a standard type of beta. We saw a 28% beta on that September hike. We think that that is certainly what we are targeting going forward. Just to add a little bit of strategic overview on that too, Matt.
Scott Wylie: We have focused on building our deposit base. I thought we saw some really nice progress in Q3 on that, not only in the growth that we saw, but also the mix. David and his team did a drill down on that, and there are really three components that seem to be driving that. Our business development focus that we are working on the deposit side. We brought in this new deposits 9 months ago now.
Scott Wylie: The focus we are doing there seems to be working. Then we have restructured and rebuilt our treasury management team. We have always had a competitive treasury management offering, but we have really changed that pretty significantly and upgraded that. Then the third area is we require relationships with every loan we do. We have been doing that for, I don't know, a year and a half now, something like that.
Scott Wylie: We literally write into every loan document a requirement that the borrower use us as their primary bank. Those three components are driving deposit growth. They are driving a deposit shift into more DDAs, noninterest-bearing deposits, which of course is an area full of opportunity for First Western.
Matthew Clark: Got it.
David Weber: Matt, one data point I should also mention is we do have $200 million notional of cash flow hedge on the deposit portfolio, and that's a pay-fixed swap. So that effectively takes that 740 of index money markets down 200 basis points or 200 million. Sorry.
Matthew Clark: Yep. Okay, great. Then just wanted to ask about the borrowings at the end of the quarter. It looked like on average they were down, but up a decent amount at the end of the quarter. You expect margin expansion to continue. Can you just provide some color on those additional borrowings and whether or not they might stick around? I would think that would be a headwind for the margin in Q4.
David Weber: Yeah. On an average basis, we expect that to normalize. We do have internal liquidity policies and things of that nature that drive some of the borrowing at the end of the quarter. But like I said, on an average basis, we do expect that to normalize.
Matthew Clark: Okay. Similar to where you were, is what you're implying?
David Weber: Yes.
Matthew Clark: Okay. Then just on profitability, any thoughts on when you think you can achieve a 1% ROA, and I think we all know how you can get there, but any thoughts on timing there?
Scott Wylie: We have been working on our plan for 2027, and I think if we define that as kind of short term here, we do think that we will be operating at 1% ROA during 2027. Whether that is mid-year or the average for the year or the full year, I would be reluctant to say today.
Scott Wylie: I think from the progress we have seen now over the last three years, and then these trends that I talked about, which seem to be accelerating in Q3 that are so positive, I do think that that is something we can achieve over the course of 2027. The other interesting question that I have been wondering about and asking David and his team about is when we were doing $0.54 in 2023, we are thinking, boy, with our EPS, we got to get back to 1% here.
Scott Wylie: Is 1% any kind of a ceiling for us? And our new three-year forecast that we use internally, we can see a line of sight to 1.5% ROA just based on stable, healthy markets, upward-sloping yield curve, relatively stable rates, healthy economy. If those sorts of things continue, I think that that is something that we can look forward to in the medium term to drive shareholder value here.
Matthew Clark: Great. Thanks again.
Scott Wylie: Thank you.
David Weber: Thanks, Matt.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Liam Coohill of Hovde Group. Your line is open, Liam.
Liam Coohill: Thank you, and good morning, Scott, Julie, and David. Thanks for taking the questions.
Scott Wylie: Morning, Liam.
David Weber: Morning.
Liam Coohill: Good morning. One of the highlights for me this quarter was definitely the noninterest-bearing balance growth. Curious to hear about what you think some of the key drivers are there, especially given how difficult it is to grow noninterest-bearing balances in this rate environment.
Scott Wylie: Yeah. At First Western, we have always focused on business owners and those individual entrepreneurs and their families and their charities. I think what has changed here, and I mentioned some of this a minute ago, but the business development focus, our treasury management focus, our relationship-based lending that we require for each borrower, those are all positives.
Scott Wylie: Some of what we saw in Q3 was also just fluctuations in operating accounts we already have. A big driver of all this for us today, and I think going forward for the foreseeable future, is all of this market disruption. It is really profoundly affecting the competitive environment here in a way that I have not seen in my 40 years of banking in our own banks here in the market. Where that translates into is our ability to attract really outstanding talent.
Scott Wylie: This quarter, we added Bill Sullivan as our head of strategic planning here. Bill is a really interesting guy. He has been around Denver forever. He has got a great reputation among our target markets and among bankers here because he is so well-known and well-liked. He built the Colorado State story.
Scott Wylie: He was the former CEO of Bank of Oklahoma here, and they bought Colorado State Bank and Trust, which is where a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of personal trust business went over the years. Then 10 years ago, Bank of Oklahoma bought Colorado Business Bank, which was another place just full of our type of clients.
Scott Wylie: Bill knows that market really well. He is actually working on some really interesting strategic initiatives for us. It is not just Bill. It is Brandon that we brought in from Goldman. It's 14 hires now we've made of senior folks out of what used to be First Bank. These folks, a number of them have a C&I focus.
Scott Wylie: All of them have a focus on our type of clients and providing that kind of community-oriented, team-based service that's something that First Bank was so good at and that we believe in here.
Scott Wylie: Of those 14 hires, they're all hitting the ground quickly and having a big impact here, and really feel comfortable in the culture of First Western and how similar it is to some of the really great qualities that First Bank had over the years. All those things I think are going to drive deposit growth, deposit opportunities, and DDA treasury management relationship banking opportunities for us.
Liam Coohill: Thanks for the color. That's helpful. Especially the last point you made there about the new hires impacting loan growth. We definitely saw that in the quarter. Originations were really strong. One question I did have was payoffs did tick up a little bit, and I was wondering how you expect payoffs to trend in a higher rate environment. Are those mostly variable rate loans that are paying off?
Scott Wylie: Yeah. That's a great question. David, I think you took a look at that to see if there was anything in particular there that stood out.
David Weber: Yeah. No real trends to call out. Our clients do tend to be episodic at times, and I think that's just what we were seeing this quarter.
Scott Wylie: The payoff number seems to be about $100 million a quarter. We've commented on that before. Was higher this quarter. Do we expect that to go back to $100 million for the next few quarters? Yes. But will it bounce around? It historically has, yeah. But there's no big trend.
Scott Wylie: The other interesting point there is these higher rates are actually creating opportunity for us with this disruption. Like yesterday, we were out on a call and we heard this story from a client where their loan was maturing at another bank, so they were having a discussion with the bank about their new pricing.
Scott Wylie: When you find out your coupon, your loan's going to go from 3% or 4% to something like 7% or 8%, if another bank delivers that bad news and they're already mad at that other bank, and they come here to see what we'll do, and it's similar, that's opportunity for us. So I think it actually helps create opportunity for us to see that kind of impact going on in the financial markets.
Julie Courkamp: I maybe would just add in on the yield side, the payoff yields were about 6.26%, while origination yields were at 6.79%. So they're not that low really for us, and it's creating a nice bump in our NIMs.
Scott Wylie: That actually is a great point, Julie. I was thinking about this. There's five different ways right now that are driving higher asset yields for us. So one would be new production. So when we see that yield that Julie's just talking about there, that's on all the new loans that's coming in at that average rate. Then of course you're replacing the low rates that are maturing or prepaying, or that's a second source, and that's $100 million.
Julie Courkamp: We have quite a few of those coming through 2027.
Scott Wylie: Yes. The third area is floating rate. We have about $1 billion in floating rate loans and bonds. That did not really even show up in Q3 because that fed funds increase was actually on 15 September. So you will see that benefit really for the first time in Q4. So that is $1 billion out of our 3.2 or whatever it is today.
Scott Wylie: You have also got, to Julie Courkamp's point, $370 million in loans either maturing or ARMs that are repricing through the end of next year. On top of that, you have got another $400 million in fair value cash flow swaps that we have on our books. So you add all that stuff up, and it really gives us a lot of protection on an up rate. It really puts First Western in the position we want to be in, which is a relatively neutral balance sheet.
Liam Coohill: Thank you for all that color. That is really helpful. Just one more from me. This is more of a housekeeping question, but I believe this is the case, but that tax benefit looked like a one-time benefit to me. Do you expect a normalized rate to kind of be back around 23% or so?
David Weber: Yes. It was a one-time in the quarter. Not to say that we won't explore those opportunities again, but without those, the 23% effective tax rate is a reasonable estimate.
Liam Coohill: Thank you for taking all my questions. I'll step back.
David Weber: Yep. Thanks, Liam.
Operator: Thank you. Once again, to ask a question, please press *11 on your telephone. Our next question comes from the line of Bill Dezellem of Tieton Capital Management. Your line is open, Bill.
Bill Dezellem: Thank you. A couple of questions. First of all, relative to the dynamics setting you up for loan growth, are we hearing you correctly that both the underlying dynamics and factors that will lead to loan growth are accelerating in addition to the loan growth itself, so the flywheel has begun? Is that what we're hearing?
Scott Wylie: I think so. We talked last quarter about green shoots, and we said we're seeing some green shoots on the banking side. We're seeing some on the B10 side. Now those green shoots seem to be sprouting a little bit more and showing up more in the numbers. I think those are going to create opportunities for us going into 2027, Bill.
Bill Dezellem: Not to get too far out over our skis here, are the characteristics setting up such that you could see quarters ahead where the year-over-year loan growth is in the 20% sort of range?
Scott Wylie: I do not know that that's a goal for us. I think that mid-teen growth is a great place to be. If you can produce the kind of operating leverage that we have been, I do not see any reason that changes. We've seen our operating expenses bump up from $20 million a quarter to $21 million a quarter.
Scott Wylie: I think that's a good number for us today. I think we can still drive a lot of earnings gains. I talked about kind of our three-year outlook and where we think we can get to. So I'd like to see us continue on in the mid-teens for now. What that lets you do is be picky. In today's market, that's a good thing.
Scott Wylie: We were in a credit committee last week, and a couple of the relationship bankers were talking about loans being priced at 90 and 95 basis points over comparable Treasuries at competitors. We have seen this cycle before. We know that when somebody comes in, does a big acquisition, they want to show that they are able to protect the client base and stuff like that. They will do that kind of thing.
Scott Wylie: It does not make any sense. We can buy floating Ginnies at a yield like that. In fact, we have been. I think then you have something that is no credit risk and no capital requirement and a really attractive yielding asset for it. That is built into that NIM story we told you. I think if we are seeing more demand that could produce 20% to 25% loan growth, don't need to do it. You can just be more selective and get the relationships and the terms and the rate that you want.
Bill Dezellem: That is very helpful. Thank you. In the press release, you referenced a roughly $10 million redemption of notes. Walk us through the background of that, please.
David Weber: Those were subordinated debt notes that we had issued in November of 2020. They were eligible for call. We went ahead and decided to call those which will give us a benefit from a NIM perspective. We are comfortable with where our capital ratios are. So saw no real issues on that side either.
Scott Wylie: Just to be clear, those are subordinated notes that are Tier 2 capital at the holding company level. It is just part of a capital management thing. But it actually reduces our debt load at the holding company, which is a good thing.
David Weber: Yeah.
Bill Dezellem: Was the entire issuance available to call and you just chose the $10 million and you can do the remainder later? Or are there specific dates, I have actually not looked at the details, when you can then call incremental pieces?
David Weber: It was a $10 million note. The entire note was eligible, and we decided to call the full $10 million.
Bill Dezellem: Great. Thank you very much.
David Weber: Thanks, Bill.
Bill Dezellem: By the way, congratulations on a great quarter.
Scott Wylie: Thank you. Appreciate that.
Operator: Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference back to Scott Wylie for closing remarks. Sir?
Scott Wylie: Yeah. So one of the things I didn't get to highlight was a story actually from yesterday. Julie and I were out on a client call yesterday. I tell our people frequently, we can compete on value, we can compete on price, and guess which one we'd rather see you out competing on? We were visiting this client, been a long-term client, and he's an entrepreneur in a very niche, interesting business, C&I. Really has had a great experience at First Western.
Scott Wylie: He's telling us a story which interestingly, I didn't know this story, which tells you it's kind of a culture thing here, not one-off. The story was that he had had his CFO look at doing an acquisition of a supplier that had run into trouble with their bank and was trying to sell to this upstream commercial business.
Scott Wylie: The CFO came back and said, "Well, that doesn't really make sense." The principal that we were meeting with, the owner of the business, took a look at it and he decided, no, this is a great thing for us. It's going to lower our cost. It's going to help us with vertical integration. It's going to be great for our business and makes a ton of financial sense.
Scott Wylie: He calls us and says, "Hey, I've got one day to get this loan done. Is that possible?" We turned around, approved the loan in one day, funded it in three days. This guy said, "What bank in America is going to be able to fund an acquisition loan for a business we want to acquire in 72 hours?"
Scott Wylie: I think it just tells you a lot about the position we've put ourselves in, the quality of people we have here, the infrastructure that Julie and our teams have built here, and our ability to be responsive and drive value instead of price in the market here. I think what you're seeing here is us taking advantage of these extraordinary market conditions.
Scott Wylie: We've never seen market disruption like this. We've really been able to take advantage of that. We set up that disruption task force we told you about a year ago, and they're having a heyday with recruiting and with sales and marketing initiatives.
Scott Wylie: Prospects today want a stable, local expert team and an institution that can deliver that, especially in our niche servicing entrepreneurs and their businesses and their families. Our small market share we have in these growing markets creates a lot of opportunity for us. We have strong, healthy economies, and our new hires, as we said, are already having an impact.
Scott Wylie: The investments and changes we've made over the last couple of years are really paying off. We were hoping to see evidence of that in Q3, and in fact, we did. The PTIM restructuring that we did is working. The increased attention that we've given to the planning, trust, and investment management area, each has had significant impact and is showing some nice results.
Scott Wylie: I said last quarter there was no real magic bullet to our earnings gains, that it was driven by five different things, and they are all progressing nicely. Those five things, number one, organic growth. That was up at a 14% rate in Q3. Number two was continued NIM improvements. We talked a lot about that on the call.
Scott Wylie: Number three, fee income, which looks bad in the headline because of mortgages, but is actually, I think, a really great turnaround story for us there that will play out in 2027. Expense control, of course, and then asset quality, which was another great story in Q3 for us. That is going to drive ongoing improvements in core earnings.
Scott Wylie: Our pre-tax, pre-provision numbers, which we were asked about in the H1 of this year, that is now turned around up $1 million quarter-over-quarter, which is 57% annualized in Q3 and 27% year-over-year. Those are great numbers. We are headed back to this 1% ROAA in the near term. I just want to give a special shout-out to our board, to the leadership team, to the organization changes that we have made over the last couple of years with Julie's leadership.
Scott Wylie: Our associates, I think, are doing a great job of taking advantage of this environment. Of course, our clients for supporting all this change. I just feel like there are great things to come here, and really appreciate people's time and attention dialing in for our call today. Thank you.
Operator: Today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
