Operator: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to Southside Bancshares Inc. Q3 2026 earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Lindsey Bailes, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Lindsey, please go ahead.
Lindsey Bailes: Thank you, Melissa. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Southside Bancshares' Q3 2026 earnings call. A transcript of today's call will be posted on southside.com under Investor Relations. During today's call and in other presentations and disclosures, I will remind you, forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainties. Factors that could materially change our current forward-looking assumptions are described in our earnings release and our Form 10-K. Joining me today are President and CEO, Keith Donahoe, CFO, Julie Shamburger, and Chief Treasury Officer, Suni Davis. Keith will start us off with his comments on the quarter, then Julie will give an overview of our financial results, and Suni will end with comments on securities and funding. We will have a Q&A session following Suni's remarks. I will now turn the call over to Keith.
Keith Donahoe: Thank you, Lindsey, and welcome to today's call. Q3 results are highlighted by $0.93 earnings per share, a 1.27 return on average asset, a 16.31 return on average tangible common equity, and a 3.02 tax equivalent net interest margin. Our tax equivalent net interest margin benefited from improved loan and security yields and flat funding costs during the quarter. We expect the September Fed rate increase to be accretive to Q4 loan yields as approximately 55% of our loan book will reprice over the next 90 days. Q3 new loan production was strong, but largely offset by payoffs, resulting in a relatively flat loan balance during the quarter. Recognizing that commercial real estate originations may slow with recent rate increases and our expectation of continued payoffs, we are moderating our loan growth guidance to low to mid-single digits for 2026.
Keith Donahoe: Third quarter new loan production totaled approximately $400 million, of which $276 million funded during the quarter. Excluding regular amortization and line of credit activity, Q3 payoffs totaled $281 million. This was down slightly from Q2 payoffs totaling $297 million. Q3 payoffs were heavily weighted towards CRE and include four multifamily loans accounting for just over half of our payoffs. On a positive note, these payoffs resulted in a $15 million decrease in classified assets for the quarter. Our loan pipeline totals $1.2 billion today, down from the Q2 levels of $1.4 billion. We have issued term sheets on approximately $222 million of this pipeline, with $99 million in the closing process.
Keith Donahoe: Commercial construction loans and commercial lines of credit represent approximately 56% of the pipeline, while full funding term loans represent approximately 44%, a change from Q2 pipeline, when term loans made up approximately 52% of the total pipeline. C&I loans, including owner-occupied real estate loans, increased approximately 5% during the quarter and now represent 18% of our total loan portfolio, up from 16% at year-end 2025. In addition, C&I opportunities represent approximately 24% of today's total pipeline. Other notable Q3 items include a newly hired director of treasury management and the start of the second branch construction project. The new start is located south of Fort Worth in Burleson, Texas, and expands our commitment to the greater Fort Worth market. Additionally, the Celina Prosper construction project continues to move forward, with completion expected in Q2 2027.
Keith Donahoe: When considering our net income, earnings per share, and other financial results, we had an excellent quarter. Overall, the markets we serve remain healthy, and the Texas economy is anticipated to grow at a faster pace than the overall US growth rate. With that, I look forward to answering questions, and I will turn the call over to Julie.
Julie Shamburger: Thank you, Keith. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Q3 earnings call. For Q3, we are pleased to report net income of $28 million, a linked quarter increase of $1.1 million or 4.2%. Diluted earnings per share were $0.93 for Q3, up $0.03 per share linked quarter, a 3.3% increase. Loans increased slightly compared to Q2 to $4.96 billion as of 30 September, and the average rate of loans funded during Q3 was approximately 6.1%, consistent with Q2 and down from 6.3% in Q1. As of 30 September, our loans with oil and gas exposure were $54.6 million or 1.1% of total loans, a decrease of $21.5 million compared to $76.1 million on 30 June, driven by payoffs associated with one relationship.
Julie Shamburger: Non-performing assets increased by $6 million, or 61.6% linked quarter, largely driven by a $5.2 million CRE loan that subsequently paid off in full on 1 October 2026. Non-performing assets remain low on a linked quarter basis at 0.18% of total assets at quarter end. Our allowance for credit losses increased to $50.4 million from $49.3 million on 30 June. Linked quarter, our allowance for loan losses as a percentage of total loans increased 2 basis points to 0.94% at 30 September. The securities portfolio increased $49.3 million or 1.8% to $2.83 billion on 30 September, when compared to $2.78 billion on 30 June. The increase was mainly driven by purchases of mortgage-backed securities and, to a lesser extent, corporate bonds during Q3.
Julie Shamburger: As of 30 September, we had a net unrealized loss in the AFS securities portfolio of $93.3 million, an increase of $83.5 million compared to $9.8 million last quarter, which was driven by the increase in longer-term rates. On 30 September, the unrealized gain on the fair value hedges on municipal and mortgage-backed securities was approximately $7.6 million, compared to $3.1 million linked quarter. This unrealized gain partially offset the unrealized losses in the AFS portfolio. Our AOCI on 30 September 2026, had a net loss of $149.8 million compared to a net loss of $92.1 million on 30 June 2026. The net loss was comprised of net losses on our securities and swap derivatives of $133.9 million and $15.9 million related to our retirement plans.
Julie Shamburger: As of 30 September, the duration of the total securities portfolio was 7.8 years compared to 7.2 years at 30 June, and the duration of the AFS portfolio was 5.9 years compared to 4.3 years on 30 June. At quarter end, our mix of loans and securities was 64% and 36%, respectively, consistent with Q2. Deposits decreased by $155.6 million or 2.5% on a linked-quarter basis. This was primarily driven by a decrease in public fund deposits of $200.2 million and an overall decrease in commercial and retail deposits of $4.8 million, partially offset by an increase in brokered deposits of $49.4 million. The net decrease in commercial and retail deposits resulted from the seasonal $99.1 million commercial escrow account that funded during Q2 and rolled off in July. We remain well-capitalized with strong capital ratios.
Julie Shamburger: Liquidity resources remain solid with $1.9 billion in liquidity lines available as of 30 September. We did not repurchase any common stock during Q3. However, since quarter end, we purchased 36,474 shares at an average price of $30 per share. Our tax equivalent net interest margin was 302, an increase of 12 basis points on a linked-quarter basis from 290 for Q2. Our tax equivalent net interest spread for the same period was 236, an increase of 10 basis points from 226. The increase in the net interest margin and the net interest spread is primarily due to the higher yield on securities and loans and flat funding costs in Q3. Suni will provide details on the higher yield in the securities portfolio during her remarks.
Julie Shamburger: For the 3 months ending 30 September, we had an increase in net interest income of $3 million or 5.2% compared to the linked quarter. Non-interest income decreased $271,000 or 1.9% for the linked quarter due to decreases in BOLI income and swap fees and equity fair value adjustments included in other non-interest income. Our trust and brokerage services continued to perform well this quarter. Trust fees increased $259,000, or 10.8% linked quarter, and increased $1.5 million, or 27%, for the 9 months ending 30 September 2026, when compared to the same period last year. Wealth management and trust assets under management increased to $1.8 billion on 30 September compared to $1.5 billion on 30 September 2025. Additionally, brokerage services income increased $137,000, or 9.8%, linked quarter and $795,000, or 22.6%, year to date compared to the same period in 2025.
Julie Shamburger: Non-interest expense was $39 million for Q3, an increase of $346,000, or 0.9%, compared to the linked quarter. The increase was largely driven by an increase in salaries and health expense. Our fully taxable equivalent efficiency ratio decreased to 51.55% as of 30 September from 52.96% last quarter due to the increase in net interest income, partially offset by the increase in non-interest expense. Our budget indicates average non-interest expense of approximately $40.5 million for Q4. We recorded income tax expense of $6.3 million, compared to $5.7 million in the prior quarter, an increase of $542,000, or 9.4%. Our effective tax rate was 18.3% for Q3, compared to 17.6% last quarter. Our current estimate for the 2026 annual effective tax rate is 18%. At this time, I will turn the call over to Suni. Thank you.
Suni Davis: Thank you, Julie. There were several factors that contributed to the linked-quarter increase in securities income, such as the average book balance increased approximately $11 million. Amortization expense decreased $638,000. Interest income on the fair value swap increased $163,000. Cash flows reinvested during Q3 brought approximately 35 basis points higher yields than those purchased in Q2. Also, various bank sub-debt bonds repriced from fixed to floating, and we received a one-time prepayment penalty on a CMBS of $65,000. The MBS purchases of $172.2 million in Q3 have coupons ranging from 5% to 6%, a duration of 6.9 years and yield 5.75%. These were purchased at slight premiums. Corporate bond purchases of bank sub-debt were $19.5 million and were new issues of investment-grade credits yielding an average rate of 6.63%.
Suni Davis: We expect to reinvest future cash flows from the securities portfolio into AFS, MBS, and potentially, to a lesser extent, into bank sub-debt while maintaining the balance of securities at approximately $2.8 billion. The principal cash flows we received during the quarter were $55.6 million, a decrease of $53.9 million linked quarter. The spot rate on our CDs was 3.62% at quarter end, a decrease of 5 basis points linked quarter. The average rate was 3.62% during Q3, a 7 basis point decrease from Q2. CDs totaling $517 million with an average rate of 3.63% will reprice in Q4. We expect to retain the majority of these deposits but believe there will be a near-term need to increase the rates offered due to competition. Additionally, $1 billion in CDs with an average rate of 3.64% will reprice in the next 12 months.
Suni Davis: We adjusted CD rates and high yield savings rates after the Fed funds increase in September, maintaining an approximate average beta of 35% on those accounts. Our public fund deposits decreased $200.2 million in Q3. Approximately $141 million was due to maturing CDs requiring renewal rates we were unwilling to pay. The remaining decrease was due primarily to construction draws from bond funds. We have certain non-maturity deposit accounts with exception pricing. There were no interest rate adjustments to these accounts in Q3 other than on an individual basis. We have seen a higher cost on recently acquired deposit accounts versus existing accounts. In Q3, new deposit accounts, including CDs, but excluding brokered and public funds, had an average rate of 2.64% versus existing accounts averaging 1.57%. Certificate deposits were $338.5 million at quarter end, a decrease of $21.6 million linked quarter.
Suni Davis: Many of these accounts are included in the exception pricing. Approximately 83% are commercial and 17% are consumer. Linked quarter, our wholesale funding increased $334.3 million to $1.7 billion. This includes an increase in broker deposits of $49.4 million. The increase was primarily due to a decrease in public fund deposits and an increase in the book value of securities. Our cash flow hedge notional remains at $615 million, with no maturities or additions in Q3. The next maturity is a $25 million notional maturing in November, currently at a rate of 4.75%. After this maturity and some amortization related to past unwinds is fully expensed in October, the rate on our current cash flow hedges will drop approximately 25 basis points, assuming current spreads. However, if we were to replace the Q1 2027 maturities at current rates, that $160 million would reprice up approximately 150 basis points.
Suni Davis: We have a notional of $291.1 million in fair value swap on municipal and MBS securities. This is a reduction of $67 million linked quarter due to an MBS maturity on 1 September. Approximately 37% of our loans have fixed rates and 63% have a floating rate, with approximately 82% of our floating rate loans having floors. We have approximately $318 million in fixed rate loans that mature or reprice in the next 12 months. $131.1 million of those are in Q4. Of the loans maturing or repricing in the next 12 months, $137.5 million have an average rate of 3.7%. We are currently modeling Fed funds to be flat for the remainder of 2026, as forecast by Moody's. Should rates increase in the short term, we could expect a positive impact on net interest income, since we are asset sensitive.
Suni Davis: We are modeling a beta of 39% on non-maturity deposits. Thank you for joining us today. This concludes our prepared comments, and we will now open the line for your questions.
Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Brett Rabatin with StoneX Group. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Brett Rabatin: Hey, good morning, everybody. Thanks for the questions. Wanted to first start off on the margin and the securities yield. It sounds like there was a lot of noise in the linked quarter change in the yield. I was trying to write down all the numbers that you guys were mentioning about the various line items that impacted that. Does the security portfolio yield hold at these levels, or could there be some atrophy? Then I guess I am just curious, you are talking about being asset sensitive, but it does seem like you have done a great job managing the funding costs here, particularly in Q3, but it sounds like maybe the Q4 might be somewhat higher in terms of the funding costs.
Brett Rabatin: I was just hoping to encapsulate all of the variables there that I know the margin is hard to predict, but was just trying to understand a little bit better what might happen from here.
Suni Davis: Okay, so on the securities portfolio, of course, we had the one-time CMBS prepayment of $65,000, and some of that fair value swap income, the $163,000, is related to ineffectiveness. That was an expense to us in the H1 of the year. It flipped. So it was now income in the Q3. So in the Q4, I do not see the same amount of change. As far as the yield on the purchases, I see that holding because our prepays have slowed down. It was a $638,000 decrease in our amortization expense linked quarter. So I see that being consistent in the Q4. Not down another $638,000, but being flat in Q4 to Q3. Because we have not seen the huge prepayments that we saw in the Q1 and into April of this year.
Keith Donahoe: On the loan side, we have spent a lot of time over the last 2 years making sure that the new real estate transactions we are booking, for the most part, are floating rate transactions. Customers are always interested in interest rate protection, so we are putting them into back-to-back swaps, and we have done a really good job of that in the last couple of years. So 55% of our book is floating, and actually floating is a little bit higher, but 55% of our book will be repricing, and most of that repricing has now happened since the Fed moved in September. We only had 2 weeks of that benefit in Q3. So I am pretty bullish on the fact that if rates continue to move up, we are going to see the benefit.
Keith Donahoe: There will be somewhat of a lag, but most of that loan portfolio is priced at a floating transaction. It is 30-day SOFR plus a spread.
Suni Davis: On the funding side, we will see some increase in our CDs that are coming up for repricing because they are going to be pricing probably into the 390 range from an average. They are averaging right now in the low 360s. On wholesale at quarter end, our non-swapped wholesale was 403. I see that increasing. I am going to try to keep it around 410, but it could creep up to 415. But I think these are smaller dollar amounts, and the betas on those CDs for sure are smaller than the betas on the loan side. The loan amounts are higher, and the betas are 100%.
Brett Rabatin: Okay. That is good color. I saw that you had the Pascu payoff and classifieds down to 245 from 260. Was just hoping to get any additional color. I know there are several multifamily projects in Austin that you guys have been working on. Just was hoping for maybe any update on those and how you guys see asset quality from here. You obviously had no charge-offs this quarter, so credit continues to be fairly benign, but was just hoping for some additional color on those properties.
Keith Donahoe: Yeah. I guess I kind of want to reiterate, we are very conservative with our risk rating, and that comes from a lot of experience in the real estate market in particular, where we know the sooner you identify struggles, the easier it is to manage. We are pretty good and focused on making sure that we are identifying issues early. As a result, you saw somewhat of a spike in our classified assets earlier in the year. We did not and still do not see any true losses coming out of those larger real estate transactions. As indicated by the fact that we have not seen the charge-offs, and we continue to see a reduction in our classified assets. Many of these assets, so the four that paid off, the four multifamily assets that paid off in Q3, two of them were refinanced by life companies.
Keith Donahoe: One was, I think, refinanced by a debt fund, and one was an open market sale. It is a sign of a healthy real estate portfolio in spite of the fact that we are pretty critical on our risk rating. So I anticipate more of the same. There is nothing that is sticking out for sure in the near term that causes me any concern. There are always surprises, but we hope that we are engaged with our lending staff early and often to identify those. But right now, there is nothing on the horizon that indicates any major issues.
Brett Rabatin: Okay. That is really helpful. Thanks so much.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Woody Lay with KBW. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Woody Lay: Hey, guys. Wanted to start out on the margin again. If I think back to last quarter, we had talked about the potential for additional NIM pressure unless we get a rate hike. Well, we got the rate hike, but it came kind of at the end of the quarter. So it feels like the margin outperformed expectations, and I was just curious on from you all's perspective, what were the biggest surprises in your view that allowed for this positive snapback?
Keith Donahoe: I think one of them is we were pleasantly surprised that we won a couple of loan transactions that have slight premiums, which helped. But in addition to that, I think Suni and her team has done a great job on managing the funding cost. Suni, you want to add anything?
Suni Davis: No. We've just been very diligent about it, and we've moved our sources. As you can see, we went back into the brokered market some. We've continued to do that in Q4 just because those rates have come down, and we've seen they're advantageous over borrowing from FHLB. We've maxed out our collateral at the discount window and continue to borrow there because that is the cheapest rate that we can get wholesale-wise. Unfortunately, we had to let some public funds go, and so that was due to rate. So we're just watching and just being opportunistic with funding and being cautious with our exception pricing as well. We get requests multiple times a day for exception pricing on deposit accounts, and we set some parameters around that, and I think we did well with that in Q3.
Keith Donahoe: That help, Woody?
Woody Lay: Got it. Yeah, no, that is really helpful. I guess because you all have been very active on the liability optimization to find the best rate, sometime it can be a little bit tough from my seat to get a sense of the core deposit trends, given some of the movement. I was just curious if you all had a spot rate cost of deposits at the end of the month and just general expectations for deposit costs from here post-rate hike.
Keith Donahoe: I am looking at Suni. I do not know if we have that specific number.
Suni Davis: On cost of deposits, Woody, they were 1.89 in Q3 versus 1.94 in the June 30 quarter.
Woody Lay: Yeah. I just did not know if you all had a spot cost post-rate hike.
Suni Davis: Oh
Woody Lay: the direction that is trending.
Suni Davis: I have it for CDs. It was 3.62% for CDs, and then our existing deposit base was 1.57%, including CDs, but not including brokered and public funds at quarter end. The newly put-on deposits was the higher, what was it? 2.62% during the quarter.
Keith Donahoe: Deposit competition is real, and we are going to see upward pressure on our pricing. We do have some initiatives in place that they are not going to move the needle tomorrow, but over time they will. One reason I highlighted the growth in our C&I business is because we truly believe that C&I business drags in more deposits, stickier deposits, and a lot of times cheaper priced deposits because you get larger non-interest-bearing accounts. We are very focused on that as an organization, and as we grow into the metro markets, our growth pattern is going to lead with C&I. We have got real estate covered, and we will continue to grow that book, but the C&I is really about its loan growth, but it is also deposit growth geared.
Woody Lay: I appreciate the call. I guess just last for me, it was good to hear you all positively surprised on some of the loan yields you all are getting on a couple of credits, and just curious how that pricing and spread has held up so far in October.
Keith Donahoe: Yeah. Don't get me wrong, it is still competitive out there. Where you may see some lift, I do not have these numbers, but we booked quite a few construction loans that over the last 18 months that are going to start funding up. The ones that were booked a year ago to 18 months ago had significantly higher spreads, so we will benefit from that over the next six months as they start to fund up. So maybe before the next call, I will have some color on what we anticipate from a construction draw funding because those spreads are higher. But it is still hand-to-hand combat, both on loan spreads as well as deposit pricing.
Woody Lay: Yeah. All right. Well, great. Thanks for taking my questions.
Keith Donahoe: Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Michael Rose with Raymond James. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Michael Rose: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to go back to some of the comments you made, Keith, on loan production and pipelines. I think you said the pipeline was down about $200 million from last quarter. Obviously, you've had some payoffs, and rates probably going to move higher at least one more time. We'll see. But how should we think about the payoffs? I know, obviously, just given what you've had over the past couple of quarters, the loan growth for the full year is a little bit subdued versus your prior expectations. But as we kind of contemplate next year, with likely some continued CRE payoffs and ongoing growth in other parts of the business, is the low to mid-single digits the way we should at least initially think about growth for next year? Thanks.
Keith Donahoe: Yeah. I wouldn't expect a drastic change in 2027. We are putting in place. We've got a couple of initiatives to help even out the loan growth, if you will. Historically, we've not spent a lot of time on the retail side of the business. We have an effort in place right now to grow our consumer lending business. Some of that's going to come through a home equity line of credit product that actually is out and available to customers today. Just started in the last 30 days. So we're hopeful that helps move some needles. We are also focused on just general consumer lending, and if you go back and look at our numbers over the last 10 years, that portfolio has just declined every year. We're going to try to turn that around.
Keith Donahoe: I'm not telling you we're going to book $100 million worth of that next year, but it is something we're focused on. In addition, we are actively engaged with potential team lift-outs in different markets. As everybody knows, there's been a lot of disruption in the metro markets in particular, although we've also seen it here in the East Texas market. Many of those folks are not in a position to make that move yet, but I do think early 2027 and throughout 2027, those opportunities are going to come our way, and we are actively looking. Those won't have an immediate impact on loan growth, but they will over the next 24 months to 36 months.
Michael Rose: That's helpful color, Keith. I appreciate all the commentary. Maybe just as a follow-up, it was good to see you guys repurchase some stock after quarter end. Capital levels, obviously still very strong. I know the TCE impacted by the AOCI impacts that you and others are facing. How should we think about buybacks from here? I know you previously talked about M&A. Just any updated thoughts there? Thanks.
Keith Donahoe: Yeah. I guess one way to say it is, unfortunately, when you see us buying stock, it is because our stock is trading below where we think it should be. So we will continue to be opportunistic with those purchases, and an acquisition is still something that is likely in our future. I continue to meet folks and have discussions, but there is obviously nothing active today. But we do think in 2027, there may be some opportunities that come our way.
Michael Rose: All right. Thanks for taking my questions.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Matt Olney with Stephens. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Matt Olney: Hey, thanks for taking the questions. Wanted to ask about your loan deposit ratio is now, I think, a little over 80%, the highest we have seen in a while. Curious, kind of, your expectations here. Can this continue to move higher? Just any thoughts there? Thanks.
Keith Donahoe: I cannot tell you it is not going to go a little bit higher, but it all depends on our ability to go gather deposits. Broker deposits might have a positive effect on that ratio as we move back into that market. Again, we are pretty opportunistic, and Suni's team really literally daily manages that funding side. That was probably the biggest hit. As you could tell, we were not outstripping loan growth from our deposits. We just moved out of broker deposits earlier this year that spiked that ratio.
Matt Olney: Got it. Keith, on the brokerage side, is there any strategic target or percent of deposits that you are targeting for broker versus non-broker?
Suni Davis: We have internal limits, but no, there is not a target. It is just as long as we need wholesale, we are just looking for the best rate.
Matt Olney: Okay. Appreciate that. Keith, you mentioned the strong C&I growth, and it sounds like some good pipelines there. Any more color? I think you made some nice hires over the last few years. I would assume some of this pipeline growth is from those new hires. Any more color on the C&I performance?
Keith Donahoe: Yeah. Some of that is coming from the Houston team that we have now been together a couple of years. So they really are starting to get their footing. A lot of that growth also came right out of our East Texas markets. As I have pointed out a number of times, we have long done C&I throughout East and Southeast Texas, and we do it really well. And we have had some hires here in the East Texas market that has really helped drive some of that. And we are anticipating a handful of other hires in the East Texas and Southeast Texas markets that can help do that as well.
Matt Olney: Okay. Thanks for the color. I will step back.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Scouten with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Stephen Scouten: Hey, appreciate the time here. Thank you. Maybe going back to the NIM outperformance here in the quarter. It is great to see cost deposits down 5 bps seem to be the primary driver. Is the kind of anticipated pressure on funding costs, is that primarily dependent on loan and overall balance sheet growth? Is it just that you were able to shrink deposits this quarter because of the lack of loan growth that kept that pressure from manifesting? Is that kind of the right way to think about it?
Keith Donahoe: Do you want to answer?
Suni Davis: I don't know that that is the
Keith Donahoe: Yeah. We had a seasonal deposit relationship that spiked in Q2, paid off in Q3. Not paid off, it moved out in Q3, so some of that contributed to our deposit reduction. But I think because of the effort we've done with moving to a more floating rate book, so far, our loans have repriced at a higher rate than what our deposit cost increase has been. We anticipate that to continue. I know I would love to say that we can keep it at a 15 basis point delta, but as long as we're able to reprice the loans faster, which this is different. Something that everybody ought to be aware of, the last time rates rose, we were not in a position to reprice our loan book as fast as we're able to reprice our loan book today.
Keith Donahoe: In addition, Suni pointed out we've got about $131 million in loans that come up for maturity or repricing in Q4. Those rates right now in that book is about 474, I think you said, 475. We anticipate moving those to more market rates that will help also improve the loan yields.
Stephen Scouten: Got it. Have you guys quantified at all the impact of each potential 25 basis point hike on the NIM if we get these 2 more hikes that the forward curve suggests? Is that a couple basis point per hike, or do you have a number that is a proxy there?
Keith Donahoe: We have not run that number specifically. We are making a note. We will see if we can get that out to you.
Stephen Scouten: Okay, great. Then just thinking about the securities book, it sounds like you guys are increasing the duration of the securities book a bit. Can you talk to me about the strategy there or maybe what that signals, where you think rates could be going over the longer term, maybe? Just some color there would be great.
Keith Donahoe: That had more to do with the rising rate environment stretching out the duration than intentional movement by us. In a perfect world, I would love to see a 3 to 4-year duration on our entire securities book, but with almost half of it in HTM, we are not able to do that. Hopefully that answers your question.
Stephen Scouten: Yeah, that is good. Then just lastly, with the move to more C&I loans on your books, and in the pipeline as well, should we expect to see the loan loss reserve as a percentage of loans increase kind of in tandem with that increase in C&I loans? Do you hold more reserves against those loans than the CRE loans?
Keith Donahoe: I have not dug in specifically on that. I do not anticipate it having a material effect, and one reason is because as tight as we are on real estate credit, we are probably a little more tighter on C&I credit. So I will look at that number, and maybe provide some guidance on that on future meetings. But right now, it is not something that I anticipate to be a material increase in reserves.
Julie Shamburger: About 111 on the commercial, the pure commercial, not any real estate. Just-
Keith Donahoe: Yes.
Julie Shamburger: - pure commercial.
Keith Donahoe: I don't know if you heard that.
Julie Shamburger: Probably not.
Keith Donahoe: But Julie said that we have a 111 coverage on just pure commercial. It does not include commercial owner-occupied.
Julie Shamburger: Yeah. No, it does not.
Keith Donahoe: Including owner-occupied.
Julie Shamburger: Those are higher.
Stephen Scouten: So maybe a little bit higher then, but not materially because you guys remain very tight on that credit box. That is great to hear. Okay, fantastic.
Keith Donahoe: Yep.
Stephen Scouten: Well, thanks for all the color today. I appreciate it.
Keith Donahoe: Thanks, Steven.
Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Keith Donahoe, President and CEO, for closing remarks.
Keith Donahoe: Thank you everyone for joining us today. We appreciate your interest in Southside Bancshares, along with the opportunity to answer your questions. We are optimistic about 2026 and moving forward into 2027, and look forward to joining y'all on the earnings call in January. Thank you.
Operator: This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.
