Earnings Call: H1 2025

Aug 13, 2025

Quarterly report

Summary

Strong organic growth in loans, deposits, and fee income continues, but higher deposit costs and competitive pressures have led to a downward revision of 2027 EPS guidance to $1.75-$1.83. Capital return is prioritized with an upsized share repurchase program.

Welcome to day 3 of Barclays 2026 Global Financial Services Conference. I am very pleased you could join us this morning. We have almost a full day of presentations today as well. We go through 2:45, concluding with Goldman Sachs. Kicking us off today, very pleased to have Huntington from the company of Steve Steinour, Chairman and CEO, and Zach Wasserman, Chief Financial Officer. Steve is going to kick us off with some remarks and some slides. They put out a deck this morning, and then we are going to do some Q&A. Steve, please kick us off. Jason, thank you very much, and thank you for 31 great years, and thank you to Barclays as well for hosting us. Welcome to everyone who is joining us today. This morning, I want to walk you through where Huntington stands today, how the operating environment has evolved over the course of this year, how our management team has responded, and why we remain confident in the earnings power and long-term value creation of our franchise. Let us begin on slide 3. There are four key messages that will frame the discussion today. First, Huntington's strategically well-positioned national franchise with scale in markets that are expected to sustainably grow above the national average and numerous value-added fee businesses. We expect to drive strong organic growth through the decade and beyond. Second, we are driving solid operating performance amidst an operating environment that is materially different and more challenging than we had anticipated at the start of the year. Third, our integrations of Veritex and Cadence are tracking at or ahead of our expectations. Fourth, all of these factors support our ability to deliver robust long-term value creation for our shareholders. Turning to slide 4. Today, Huntington is a super regional bank positioned for strong organic growth. We operate a powerhouse consumer and regional banking franchise across 21 states alongside a leading national commercial bank and have a comprehensive set of payment solutions, a full spectrum wealth management platform, and capital markets businesses with broad capabilities. Across all the elements of the franchise, we operate with an aggregate moderate to low-risk appetite. This combination of operating scale and risk management discipline is what enables us to sustain strong risk-adjusted growth. Turning to slide 5. Our company looks fundamentally different than it did a decade ago, and that is the outgrowth of deliberate execution of our strategic vision and substantial investments. In 2015, we had a strong share in the Midwest with $50 billion in loans and $55 billion in deposits. Our national presence, however, was very limited to auto finance and a few specialty verticals, and our fee businesses were largely nascent. Looking today, we have an expanded geography and substantial scale, $189 billion in loans and $222 billion in deposits. Combining Midwest leadership with meaningful and growing scale in Texas and the South. We are now present in 12 of the top 25 fastest growing MSAs in the country, positioning us squarely in some of the nation's most attractive markets. We have a leading national presence, including asset finance and 17 national specialty commercial lending and deposit verticals, and commercial clients across all 50 states. Our value-added capabilities have broadened across a full range of services, including an expansive payment suite, a wealth and private banking platform, and a full service capital markets business spanning advisory and investment banking, risk management, and capital raising and distribution. This is the result of sustained investment, organic expansion, and disciplined partner integrations. It has produced a franchise with greater customer relevance, multiple sources of organic growth, and greater fee diversification. These factors position Huntington to deliver sustained revenue growth with top-tier returns and value creation. Now on to slide 6. Our franchise investments are resulting in a highly differentiated performance. For several years now, our organic loan and deposit growth has meaningfully outpaced peers. This has been driven by the expansion of our national specialty verticals, accelerating performance from our consumer and regional bank, and our organic expansion into the Carolinas as well as Texas prior to our recent partnerships. This is clear evidence of our powerful investments in organic growth engines. Building on that same investment story, slide 7 shows that the growth engine is not limited to lending and deposit gathering. We have also broadened and accelerated strategic value-added fee businesses, which have grown at a 14% CAGR since the second quarter of 2024 on an entirely organic basis. Entirely organic basis, excluding the benefits of any acquisition. Unpacking this performance for a moment. In capital markets, we added a strong base of capabilities, expanding and syndicated in leveraged finance, debt and equity capital markets, and financial sponsor coverage, driving a 30% CAGR. In wealth and private banking, continued platform and capability investments have driven 10% growth in households, resulting in a 37% increase in AUM and a revenue CAGR of 10%. In payments, several initiatives, including bringing merchant acquiring in-house and expanding corporate treasury management capabilities, have driven a 9% revenue CAGR. Over the last several years, fee growth has meaningfully outpaced the organic growth in our balance sheet, a reflection of the sustained investment we have made in capabilities across these businesses and one that increasingly positions Huntington as a trusted resource for our customers. As a result, our expectation is to drive high single to low double-digit growth rates across all of these areas going forward. Turning to slide 8. Another significant area of management focus this year has been on our integrations of Veritex and Cadence, and that has been a huge success for us. We converted both banks onto our systems on accelerated timeframes with minimal issues, and we are achieving or exceeding the synergies we have targeted. Cost synergies are on schedule, with the $70 million target from Veritex achieved in Q2, and Cadence tracking toward $365 million run rate by the fourth quarter. More significantly, revenue synergies are tracking better than our original forecast, with our cumulative outlook now at approximately $600 million through 2028, compared with our original expectation of $500 million. It is also important to recognize future earnings growth associated with these partnerships. Our focused execution will provide additional earnings power and investment capacity beyond the franchise performance we are discussing today. I am turning to slide 9 for discussion of our performance year to date. Our execution against the priorities we laid out at the start of the year remains solid, even as the environment around us has changed. The key takeaway is that most of our key operational drivers are tracking in line or better than our expectations coming into the year. However, the impact of interest rates and competitive dynamics on deposit costs and asset yields have constrained our NIM expansion to a level below our original expectations. Double-click on this for a moment. Balance sheet growth is on track, with loan growth of approximately 36% year-over-year and deposit growth of approximately 33%, levels consistent with our growth expectations coming into the year. Fee income growth has accelerated to approximately 32% year-over-year, well ahead of our original 26.5%-29.5%. As we just discussed, our partner synergies are at or above goal. Where the expectation has changed is around net interest margin. We came into the year expecting significant NIM expansion, supported by a favorable yield curve and rational pricing conditions. Instead, higher short-term rates and elevated loan and deposit pricing competition have moderated NIM expansion, even as we continue executing against the Cadence deposit cost optimization. We've navigated this change in environment by managing the things we can control. I want to spend the next few slides explaining that change in the environment and our response to it in more detail, as well as our updated expectations. Turning to slide 10. There were two significant changes to the deposit pricing environment over the past several months. The first is the outlook for reference rates. As you all know, the market-implied Fed funds path has shifted sharply higher since the start of the year, swinging from expectations of rate cuts to expectations for rate hikes. That flatter higher for longer rate path has elevated deposit costs above the level we had anticipated at the start of the year. Compounding that dynamic is that deposit demand has intensified industry-wide. As a result, we've seen our effective cost of deposits inflect higher beginning in the first quarter after a long period of improvement, and has continued to increase through the course of this year, including by another few basis points after we reported the second quarter. In the midst of all of this, we continue to win customers, deepen relationships, and grow deposits across the franchise. The change, however, is that the economics of incremental growth have become tighter than we anticipated at the start of the year. Turning to slide 11. We're seeing similar dynamics impact both loan origination volume and yields. For example, industry loan growth has accelerated sharply from around 3% in June of last year to 7% in June of this year. This appetite for loan growth is evident across various asset classes. For example, indirect auto is a product area where increased competition is compressing risk-adjusted returns, as some large bank competitors have been ramping production at the expense of spreads. Rather than expand our credit box or cut yields to chase volume, we've held our underwriting and return standards. We've chosen to accept lower production where incremental spreads did not justify the additional lending, thereby conceding some origination volume but sustaining our overall returns for the portfolio. Commercial real estate's another area of pressure. We've seen payoffs in this portfolio accelerate as underwriting, deal structure, and pricing from some banks and private credit sources have moved to levels we consider uneconomic. In addition to that, the permanent capital providers, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, are also in an accelerated refinance mode. And while this is creating a headwind to our growth, we view it as constructive to the desired risk profile of our commercial real estate portfolio. As we've discussed, we intended to lower the concentration of commercial real estate loan portfolio over the course of several years. We announced that at the beginning of the year. It's currently happening at a much faster pace than we envisioned. Turning to slide 12. What have we done to mitigate these pressures? First, we've not compromised our disciplined risk-adjusted returns. Second, across the balance sheet, we've continued to optimize loan mix and deposit pricing, and we've successfully driven fee-based revenues, including treasury management and capital markets. We accelerated our expense re-engineering program for this year with expectations of additional expense control in 2027. For example, we've increased our cost re-engineering target for 2026 and more than doubled it for next year. What has changed more recently? In Q3, the factors I noted on the prior two slides, deposit cost pressure and asset yield compression, have persisted beyond what we had recently anticipated, and accelerating pay downs in commercial real estate have increased. This has reduced our loan growth and net interest income outlook for this year beyond the level that could be offset by further fee growth or additional efficiency actions. For this reason, we're recalibrating our outlook for this year and 2027 to reflect the current operating environment. We continue to see strong demand across the franchise, and we remain disciplined in growing and allocating capital where returns meet our hurdles. This discipline supports credit quality, protects risk-adjusted returns, and allows us to keep investing in the capabilities that drive long-term value creation. Turning to slide 13 for a discussion of our updated outlook for 2027. With what we're seeing in Q3, we're revising our 2027 EPS target range to $1.75 to $1.83. The revised range reflects the current pricing dynamics, the near-term actions we're taking to mitigate some of the funding and asset yield pressures, and contemplates a wider range of operating outcomes than what we considered even a few months ago. Our outlook today reflects the continuation of prevailing macro and competitive conditions, sustained core funding, and stable credit. With slightly lower expected loan growth, we expect to upsize our share repurchase program by an additional $200 million to $1.3 billion-$1.4 billion next year. While a path to our prior target range still exists, we believe it's more critical to protect the long-term strength of the franchise, preserve the customer experience that differentiates Huntington, and continue investing in the competitive advantages that support our organic growth. Taking a step back for a moment on slide 14. Our revised outlook indicates substantial earnings growth, strong returns, and significant tangible book value accretion and programmatic capital return. We expect EPS to grow more than 20% versus fiscal year 2025, while steadily increasing our ROTCE. Tangible book value per share is expected to grow more than 10% off of today's level. On capital return, we've completed approximately $360 million of share repurchases year to date of the planned $550 million for this year. As I noted, we're upsizing the program for 2027. These metrics, even updated to reflect our revised earning expectation, still represent significant value creation. Concluding on slide 15. The events of this year have not changed our value creation model. The same flywheel that has transformed Huntington over the last decade remains intact. The flywheel has powered some remarkable outcomes, including de novo geographic expansion of our commercial, along with our consumer and regional banks into attractive new markets such as the Carolinas. Our commercial verticals, which are continuing to gain momentum in the market as they mature, and award-winning digital platform that serves as a source of customer acquisition and engagement. Following the integrations of our recent partnerships, our flywheel is helping to drive $600 million of anticipated revenue synergies and our ability to invest in high growth markets across Texas and the South. In closing, we're confident the franchise we've built is more diversified, more capable, and more relevant to our customers by far than it was a decade ago. We're navigating a more challenging operating environment with discipline, and we remain committed to delivering long-term growth, enhanced returns, and outstanding shareholder value creation. With that, can I now look forward to taking your questions. Jason, back to you. Thanks, Steve. I guess you took us through why you're making these changes to the 2027 earnings guidance. Can you just help us understand what's driving the magnitude of that revision? Well, the environment has evolved progressively with cumulative pressures increasing over the course of the year. In the third quarter, yet again, we saw incremental pressures that we've come to recognize we're not going to achieve. As a result, we've come to recognize we're not going to achieve the full year earnings expectations that we previously set. That's primarily a function of the interest rate environment and the competitive environment that I noted in my prepared remarks. But we've also made choices of how we want to allocate capital and risk returns versus risk and returns. The '27 EPS guidance reflects cumulatively what we've seen. We've tried to be very thoughtful about how that may continue to manifest itself going into next year. We've taken expense actions. We've done deposit pricing and loan optimization. We've adjusted the mix, and we'll continue to do a number of these things. What we won't do is change our credit discipline. We're going to be very disciplined about our risk-adjusted returns. We believe that continuing to invest in the businesses, particularly in these newer businesses and markets, will pay huge dividends for us going forward. The strategies are working, the core execution is strong. As we talked about, we're delivering the loan deposit fee growth at or above the levels we expected as we came into the year. We still expect to drive a significant EPS and tangible book value growth going forward for 2027. The things we can control directly, we think we are responding to. We're going to have a 17-plus percent return on equity next year at these levels. Maybe Zach could be a little more specific. Thanks, Steve. Good morning, everybody, and Jason, thanks for having us. As Steve noted and prepared remarks from just now in that question, clearly over the course of this year, we've seen a gradual increase in headwinds against the net interest margin outlook for the business, not only in 2026, but also forecasting out into 2027. Our objective has been to continually offset those and solve for those pressures, not only this year but into next year. It's been a variety of factors we've done to do that. One, very much a focus on deposit cost optimization. We've discussed over time the fact that Cadence coming into our business represented the opportunity to optimize deposits, and we've been leaning into that. Optimizing where we're generating loan growth, accelerating fee growth strategies, which have accelerated fee growth above our plan this year and would then carry on into 2027. As Steve noted, very significantly increasing the expense re-engineering plan. Those largely offsetted those pressures as we were operating throughout the year. What we saw in the third quarter, and really as we saw the results for late in July into early August, and then we saw again in August, another step down in terms of several factors. One was lending volumes, and as Steve noted, an acceleration of the pressures in CRE in residential mortgage and a meaningful acceleration in terms of the competitive environment in terms of indirect auto that caused us to want to reduce production. To give you a sense of magnitude, my expectation now for the third quarter is we'll see lending volumes on an ADB basis, on an average basis, actually lower by about one-half of 1% in the third quarter versus the second quarter. That'll be the first time we've seen ADB decline sequentially in a number of quarters. We did see lending production increase and firm up in the back half of this quarter as we're operating right now in September. I do expect on an end-of-period basis to actually be higher in the third quarter versus the second quarter. Seasonally, typically, the fourth quarter for us is a very strong quarter, and I expect to see, again, sequential growth there. However, the run rate of our organic loan growth had been between 8% and 9%. It's running right now around 6%. We think it's prudent at this point to plan for that level, at least at the low end, as we think about next year. The other factor that we continue to see, as Steve noted, was pricing in both the deposit and loan yield environments, which is making us believe that planning on a more flat NIM path, again, at least at the lower end, is appropriate as we go into not only the back half of this year, but next year. Lastly, I would say, as we considered adjusting the earnings expectations for 2027, what was critical to us is that we had very strong confidence in our ability to achieve those results, hence, capturing a wider range of the interest rate environment, a wider range of the outlook and potentialities around the competitive environment, and of course, the geopolitical and other environments that are affecting the industry at this point to factor those in into a wider range of potential results. Jason, if you don't mind, I'll just add a little color to it. Commercial real estate rates going up, you would expect to see a surge in refinance activity where you could to go from floating, generally with us, to fixed. We expected a certain amount of that. We're seeing twice, 2 times what we expected to see. That's from both the legacy Huntington as well as our new partnerships. We're very big in auto. We've been very disciplined for decades in this. A year ago, we were generating about $850 million in auto loans at a mid-high teens return. Now we're probably 500-ish at a 12% return, and that's our absolute minimum. We're not going to go below that. Yet the new sales and used sale volumes are essentially the same. So there's been a market dynamic shift that has occurred. Again, a couple of large banks buying the market. Typically, we would see that for one quarter, maybe two, over a period of time. We're now in the third quarter, and no signs of abating. I don't know that that changes in the foreseeable future. As we put the lower end of this range together, it's with a view of some continued pressure, particularly in certain asset classes. I think Steve, in your remarks, you talked about the Cadence and Veritex synergies running in line to better than expected. So one would surmise maybe these issues are more prevalent in kind of a heritage Huntington footprint. Is that a fair characterization? Well, it is really a NIM expectation that is adjusting. The volumes are generally in line with the exception of commercial real estate, auto, and resi mortgage. Those three asset classes in line with. We are going to have a $7.5 billion commercial origination quarter this year, which will be one of the higher ones. Our fourth quarter looks good, but we are swimming against the tide of refinance or lower consumer activities, including. In some cases, the book is actually declining on the consumer side as well. The core is performing well. The partnerships are performing very well. We increased the revenue outlook, synergy outlook for Cadence and Veritex. We have a number of areas that are off to very strong starts in Cadence in particular, and we are optimistic about how this will come together. It is just we have got a 5 to 10 basis point NIM change. Okay. Then maybe, Zach, we can maybe unpack a bit the 2026 guide. You pointed to $1.50 to $1.54. Maybe as we think about the back half of the year, setting the stage for next year, you can talk about 36% loan growth, 32% deposit growth, slightly lower than the 22 guides. Maybe expand upon what has changed. Sure. Well, as I noted, I think the organic run rate we are seeing in loan growth has gone from around 8%-9%, and that was what we saw throughout the course of 2025, entering 2026. Running around 6% right now. That should leave us on a full year basis, inclusive of the impact of the two partnerships running with loans at around 36% year-on-year growth. To be clear, that is within the growth range that we had originally set for the year. With that being said, if you had asked me coming into Q3 based on what we were seeing throughout the early part of the year, our expectation was to be above the growth range for loans. This is a modest reduction back into that growth range. From a deposit perspective, I would expect to land at about 33% growth year on year, which again was within the growth range we had given before. Ultimately, our approach to deposit gathering is to core fund loan and asset growth. If loans are going to be a little lower, we will bring deposit gathering down a little lower. Again, those are both within the ranges we had set. Ultimately, from our perspective, this is a capital allocation decision, and we want to be very disciplined stewards of capital. If we are not seeing the appropriate returns at the margin, we will modestly bring down loan growth, match funds with deposit growth, and ensure that the overall return on capital profile of the company is maintained. As Steve noted, our expectation is to gradually improve that. I know you talked to, I didn't see a NIM on this slide, but in the past you talked to a NIM rise in the back half of the year to low to mid 320s. I guess, how are you thinking about that now? Yeah. When we came into the, in the third quarter call in July, I noted that we were expecting our NIM, which was 321 in Q2, to rise into Q3, and then to further continue to rise thereafter. We are seeing the increase into Q3, so that's encouraging, into the low to mid 320s. However, my expectation now will be at least at the lower end scenario at that same level, low to mid 320s in Q4, and continue to track at that level as we go into the back half of next year. The drivers are very similar to what we've been discussing over time. We're benefiting from fixed asset repricing given the higher yields curve, both in terms of loans and importantly in securities where we're seeing securities cash flow being reinvested at higher rates. However, our expectation is that this interest rate environment will continue to drive a gradual increase in deposit costs over the course of time, and those things will largely offset each other in that lower scenario. There are clearly scenarios, and we think it'll be favorable if the Fed changes interest rate posture. Frankly, either higher or lower would benefit us in terms of the flexibility and the mechanisms to drive optimization. There are scenarios where NIM is higher into the mid to high 320s potentially as we go into next year. And that's the source of that range. Got it. Then maybe anything on fee income or expenses to call out? Yeah. Fee income has been an area, as I noted, that we've really leaned into and worked to accelerate our growth initiatives. The teams are executing exceptionally well. We're seeing on an organic basis, not including acquisitions, double-digit year-over-year growth in revenues driven by payments, wealth management, and capital markets. Exceptional execution by the team. In fact, our outlook for this year is 4% higher fee growth than we set our targets initially as we came into 2026. My expectation for the third quarter, we're seeing another strong quarter in fee growth this quarter. We'll end somewhere in the $730s in terms of fee revenue for Q3. Q3 is seasonally lower than Q2. Our expectation, we'll see that rise again on a sequential dollar basis into Q4 and continue to drive high single to low double digit year-over-year growth in fee revenues, which is also consistent with our expectation as we go into next year. On expenses, the overall expense model continues to be executed very well. Underlying very rigorous expense discipline. We're re-engineering baseline operating costs. As Steve noted in the prepared remarks, increasing that re-engineering program meaningfully in both 2026 and for 2027. We've got now full line of sight to the 2027 program. That should drive overall expenses this year to stay within the range we've given before, 32.5%-33.5%, and should end Q4 with an efficiency ratio somewhere in the 55.5%-56% range. Got it. I want to run through 2007 EPS, but before I do that, Steve, let me go back to you. You talked about just a more competitive environment that you're operating in. You talked about deposit cost, asset yields, loan originations in select categories impacting results due to competition. From a long-term perspective, how confident are you that Huntington can compete in this more competitive landscape? We're quite confident we can compete. We're choosing to allocate capital versus follow the industry in certain categories. I think the end result that we expect to be in line with our commercial real estate concentration around year-end, about a year and a half sooner than we expect will put us in a position where we'll be more front-footed in '27 and beyond. We're facing a capital allocation set of decisions, and we think we're making prudent ones in that. Increasing the buyback, particularly where the stock's trading right now versus deploying it for marginal returns given this current competitive dynamic. You've been around a long time. You see these cycles, and so we're going to be a little tighter with what we're doing at the low end of the cycle or if we felt, which we don't, but if we felt there was a significant risk change on the near-term horizon. Then open it up when we see a lot of opportunities. You look at the last few years, our loan growth has been more than double the averages. Our fee growth has been excellent. There's a timing issue on the capital allocation risk and return phenomena. I think as it's been in the past, it'll be present for a short period of time. But we are really well poised. The franchise is in great shape. Core franchise. We really like the partnerships and how they position us. I spent a lot of time in Texas. Brant, Des and some of the rest of the management team. We're off to a very good start in some of these markets, Texas in particular. All right. Zach, $1.75 to $1.83, the guide for next year. I guess within that range of loans up between 6% and at the low end, 7%-8% at the high end. Maybe what pushes you to high end, low end? Yep. Great question, Jason. Yeah. What we're seeing in overall loan production tends to be quite encouraging, frankly, particularly in the commercial and industrial categories. We're seeing strong growth in production in our large market corporate verticals, which as Steve has noted on a number of occasions, are not mature. We've built a number of new specialty verticals. There's significant continued growth to be garnered there. In our broad middle market franchise, we're seeing strong performance across most of our regions and we're really encouraged by, for example, some of the new geographies that we'll be entering into benefiting from revenue synergy opportunities and investments as well. Our regional banking teams focused on both smaller end of the middle market franchise are performing exceptionally well. We're seeing great performance there. Clearly where there's some incremental headwinds is in commercial real estate, residential mortgage, and indirect auto. That's really the thing that would drive the difference between the range. Ultimately, if those environments in those sectors change, we could see ourselves back to this historical run rate of something like 7%, 8%, could potentially even be higher. But the range we've given is somewhere between 7% and 8% at the high end, 6% run rate at the low end is our thought process. Feel like that's a really appropriate range, as Steve noted, to optimize capital allocation for returns. I guess similarly on interest margin, low to mid 320s on the low end, mid to high 320s on the upper end. Maybe kind of walk us through what determines which end. Yeah. As I noted before, I think on one hand, if the environment continues to be this uncertain interest rate path with no changes in Fed funds, we would expect to see kind of a continual gradual increase in deposit costs. This is effectively back book pricing, just sort of gradually resetting. Of course, a relatively competitive front book environment as the industry seeks to gather core loans to fund, core deposits, excuse me, to fund loan growth. Although that would be offset by the benefits coming through fixed asset repricing on both loans and securities. That's the sort of relatively flat path in the low to mid 320s to the extent that the environment is somewhat more favorable. As I said a minute ago, we do think that if there's changes in Fed fund policy, that actually opens up opportunities. We'll of course see what happens today, for example. That's one of the contributing factors that could take us to the higher end. Right. I guess you were originally pointing to an 18%-19% ROTCE for next year. Now you're talking 17%-18%. Is 17% and 18% the right way to think about it looking out, or is this a higher return franchise? Yeah. As we're running right now, we're in the high 16s. I think it will be roughly 17% as we exit the year. Our expectation for next year and the range we've given in terms of earning expectation would correlate to low 17% return on capital to higher 17% return on capital. That's the ROTCE outcome of that range. As I think about the business model longer term, I believe that we can and should be targeting 18% plus over the longer term for Huntington. If you think about the drivers of that continual gradual increase, it's balance sheet optimization. We're continuing to find ways to make the balance sheet work harder, drive a higher fundamental ROA out of the balance sheet. Secondly, it's fee income businesses that are growing faster than the balance sheet, that are capital light and are accretive to return on capital. Then third is positive operating leverage. We've shown the ability to continually drive positive operating leverage into the business even while we're driving industry leading growth rate in investments that are offensive, that really drive sustainable competitive advantage and help to sustain our flywheel of value creation. So from our perspective, the model of driving high revenue growth, very strong sustainable earnings growth at a great return on capital that compounds tangible book value is a very powerful value creation model. One that we think from our perspective, that's where we're staying disciplined. We will drive that and we will see the value creation outcomes from it. And just to add onto that, Jason, we've invested a lot in certain regional markets like South Carolina, for example. The partnerships have positioned us in eight new states. We're bringing a lot more services and capabilities to the customer base there, and they are growing dynamically much faster than the core Midwest, where we've had pretty good results. On top of that, we now have an additional nine new national verticals, none of which are mature. We should be able to drive performance at a high level, higher level, increasingly higher level, for the foreseeable future. Got it. I mean, what gives you confidence to step up the buyback at the same time you're kind of bringing down earnings expectations? How do we think about the buyback contribution next year? Yeah. Our capital allocation priorities are very well-defined and have not changed. First and foremost, it's fund high return organic growth. Secondly, support our dividend, and over the longer term, grow that dividend at the growth rate of earnings. Third, all other uses, including share repurchases. As I noted just a minute ago, from our perspective, this calibration of loan growth is all about capital allocation discipline. To the extent that loans will be modestly lower in terms of loan growth, that will mean that there's more excess capital available. In that scenario, we want to provide that back to shareholders, and that's effectively what we're doing. That lower loan growth should equate to roughly $200 million more capital released. Our intention is to put that back into the share repurchase program. We're well down the track of a programmatic share repurchase program this year. Our expectation is to continue that program as we go into next year. Got it. I guess maybe, Steve, in conclusion, you brought down the earnings expectations for next year. I think consensus is already kind of below the dollar to now $1.93. I think your stock kind of lagged as people thought you weren't going to get to that $1.90, $1.93. Now that you've kind of maybe reset the expectations, just what do you think kind of catalyzes stronger performance from here? First of all, we're the only bank I think out there that's talking about 2027 with specifics. We've been on this track now, treadmill for a while in terms of expectations. To answer your question, we have some engines that are just early stage. We only completed the conversion in Cadence at the end of June. July, August are typically slow months. We haven't seen what they can do yet. We have a lot of investment we're putting in there. There's very little wealth. There's very little treasury management capability in these markets. That's all being injected with the hiring that's going on now. I'm very, very optimistic about what we'll do in those markets, in addition to the Carolinas, which are going very well and building out quickly. We've got these national businesses. The core itself is performing very, very well. If we look at just the core this year, greater than 10% PPNR growth. Credit is performing well. We expect that to continue. As we came into the year, there was a lot of concern. Could we convert to banks without losing focus? Did we understand the credit? We've almost checked everything off that. We got caught with a different expectation of the interest rate environment and the competitive dynamics. We've now, I think, right-sized that, and our expectation is to outperform. My expectation of the company is that we will outperform going forward. Great. On that note, please join me in thanking Steve and Zach for their time today.