Hello, and welcome to today's First Financial Banc orp first quarter 2023 earnings conference call and webcast. My name is Bailey, and I'll be your moderator for today's call. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for question- and- answer session at the end. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to pass the conference over to Scott Crawley, Corporate Controller. Please go ahead when you're ready.
Yep. Thank you, Bailey. Good morning, everybody, and apologies for any technical difficulties you might have had logging on this morning. Thanks for joining us on today's conference call to discuss First Financial Bancorp's first quarter 2023 financial results. Participating on today's call will be Archie Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jamie Anderson, Chief Financial Officer, and Bill Harrod, Chief Credit Officer. Both the press release we issued yesterday and the accompanying slide presentation are available on our website at www.bankatfirst.com under the investor relations section. We'll make reference to the slides contained in the accompanying presentation during today's call. Additionally, please refer to the forward-looking statement disclosure contained in the first quarter of 2023 earnings release, as well as our SEC filings for a full discussion of the company's risk factors.
The information we will provide today is accurate as of March 31st, 2023. We will not be updating any forward-looking statements to reflect facts or circumstances after this call. I'll now turn the call over to Archie Brown.
Thank you, Scott. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on our call. Yesterday afternoon, we announced our financial results for the first quarter. I'll provide a few high-level thoughts on our recent performance then turn the call over to Jamie to provide further details. The first quarter was a strong quarter for First Financial. I'm very pleased with our operating performance. The company achieved record revenue of $215 million. Net income and total revenue increased 70% and 46%, respectively, from the same quarter last year, with both increasing slightly compared to the linked quarter. Our quarterly results were driven by strong net interest income, moderate loan growth, an 8 basis point increase in our net interest margin, record leasing business income, and another great quarter from Bannockburn, and strong performance from our Yellow Cardinal Advisory Group .
We continue to effectively manage the significant increase in short-term rates, during the first quarter, the increase in our asset yields exceeded the increase in total funding costs by 4 basis points. Average deposit balances increased slightly from the linked quarter as an increase in retail and brokered CDs offset outflows in public funds and business deposits, which were primarily seasonal. The majority of these outflows occurred in the first two months of the quarter. The deposit beta from the first quarter of 2022 through the first quarter of 2023 was 21%. From a liquidity standpoint, our loan-to-deposit ratio was 82%, we also maintained flexibility through our investment portfolio, which was classified as 98% available -for -sale as of March 31st. Credit quality remained stable in the first quarter.
Net charge-offs were minimal. Non-performing assets declined slightly as a percentage of total assets from the linked quarter. Additionally, the ACL increased $8.6 million during the quarter, driven by loan growth, slower prepayments, and changes in economic forecasts. As a result, the ACL was 1.36% as a percentage of total loan balances, which was a seven basis point increase from the reserve ratio at year-end. We're very pleased with the strengthening of our capital ratios this quarter. Our strong profitability and the recent decline in market rates led to a 52 basis point increase in our tangible common equity ratio. In addition, tangible book value per share increased 8% to $10.76. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Jamie to discuss these results in more detail.
After Jamie's discussion, I'll wrap up with some additional forward-looking commentary. Jamie?
Thank you, Archie. Good morning, everyone. Slides four, five, and six provide a summary of our financial results. As Archie stated, first quarter performance was excellent, driven by an expanding net i nterest m argin, solid loan growth, elevated fee income, and stable asset quality. Our balance sheet continued to react positively to the current interest rate environment, with our net i nterest m argin increasing 8 basis points during the period. We anticipate modest margin contraction in the near term due to fewer rate hikes and expected deposit pricing pressures. We were once again pleased with loan growth during the quarter. Total loans grew 5% on an annualized basis, with the growth in the C&I, leasing, and residential mortgage books and stable balances in the other portfolios. Fee income remained strong in the first quarter, with record results on an adjusted basis.
Wealth management and Summit both posted record quarters, and Bannockburn had another strong quarter. Higher rates have resulted in sustained headwinds for mortgage banking, with first quarter income relatively flat compared to the fourth quarter. Non-interest expenses declined from the linked quarter due to lower professional fees, tax credit investment write-downs, charitable contributions, and incentive costs. While expenses were slightly higher than we anticipated at year-end, this was due to elevated incentive compensation related to fee income. Asset quality was stable during the quarter, with de minimis net charge-offs during the period. Classified assets increased during the quarter, primarily due to the downgrades of three relationships. Additionally, we recorded $10.5 million of provision expense during the period, which was driven by loan growth, slower prepayment speeds, and economic forecasts in the model. As a result, our ACL coverage ratio increased by 7 basis points.
From a capital standpoint, our regulatory ratios remain in excess of both internal and regulatory targets. Accumulated other c omprehensive i ncome improved during the period. As a result, tangible book value increased $0.79 or 8%, and our tangible common equity ratio improved by 52 basis points. Slide seven reconciles our GAAP earnings to adjusted earnings, highlighting items that we believe are important to understanding our quarterly performance. Adjusted net income was $71.9 million or $0.76 per share for the quarter. Adjusted earnings exclude the impact of $500,000 of contract termination costs and $1.6 million of other costs not expected to recur.
As depicted on slide eight, these adjusted earnings equate to a return on average assets of 1.72%, a return on tangible common equity of 30%, and an efficiency ratio of 53%. Turning to slides nine and 10, net i nterest m argin increased 8 basis points from the linked quarter to 4.55%. This increase was driven by an increase in asset yields due to elevated interest rates and a more profitable mix of earning asset balances during the period. The increase in asset yields was partially offset by higher funding costs. As a result of rising rates, asset yields surged during the period, with loan yields increasing 62 basis points. In addition, investment yields increased 26 basis points due to the repricing of floating rate securities and slower prepayments on mortgage-backed s ecurities.
Our cost of deposits increased 49 basis points compared to the fourth quarter, and we expect these costs to increase further in reaction to sustained competitive pressures in the coming quarters. Slide 11 details the asset sensitivity of our balance sheet. We believe we are well-positioned in the near term as approximately two-thirds of our loan portfolio reprices fairly quickly. Slide 12 details the deposit betas utilized in our net i nterest i ncome modeling. Deposit costs increased with greater velocity in the first quarter, moving our current beta to 21%, with our through the cycle beta expected to be approximately 35%. Slide 13 outlines our various sources of liquidity and borrowing capacity. We continue to believe we have the flexibility required to manage the balance sheet through the expected economic environment. Slide 14 illustrates our current loan mix and balance changes compared to the linked quarter.
As I mentioned before, loan balances increased 5% on an annualized basis, with growth driven by C&I, equipment leases, and mortgage loans. The other loan portfolios were relatively flat when compared to period-end balances. Slide 15 provides detail on our loan concentration by industry. We believe our loan portfolio is sufficiently diversified to provide protection from deterioration in a particular industry. Slide 16 provides some detail on our office space loans. As you can see, less than 5% of our total loan book is concentrated in office space, and the overall LTV of the portfolio is strong. We believe that lending to borrowers with Class A and Class B assets in primarily suburban markets within our footprint mitigates our risk against the general stress expected across the broader industry sector. Slide 17 shows our deposit mix as well as the progression of average deposits from the linked quarter.
In total, average deposit balances increased $180 million during the quarter, driven primarily by a $662 million increase in brokered CDs. This increase offset mostly seasonal declines in public funds and business deposits. Slide 18 depicts trends in our average personal, business, and public fund deposits, as well as a comparison of our borrowing capacity to our uninsured deposits. While personal deposit balances were relatively stable in the first quarter, business deposits continued to decline. This decline is primarily related to a post-COVID decline from record high balances as well as seasonal declines typically experienced in the first quarter. While we saw some runoff in reaction to the recent bank failures, this was not a major driver of the business deposit decline.
Our decline in public fund balances has been driven by customers moving excess investable balances to funds managed by states in addition to some seasonal outflows. On the bottom right of the slide, you can see our adjusted uninsured deposits were $2.9 billion at March 31. This equates to 23% of our total deposits. We are comfortable with this concentration and believe our borrowing capacity provides sufficient flexibility to respond to any event that would stress our larger deposit balances. Slide 19 highlights our non-interest income for the quarter, which was another record quarter. Both Summit and Wealth Management had the best quarter in the history of those businesses, and Bannockburn posted another strong quarter. Consistent with the fourth quarter, mortgage demand remained soft due to higher rates. Non-interest expense for the quarter is outlined on slide 20.
Excluding Summit, expenses declined $4.9 million compared to the linked quarter due primarily to lower professional fees, incentive compensation, and charitable donations in the current period. Turning now to slide 21. Our ACL model resulted in a total allowance, which includes both funded and unfunded reserves of $162 million and $10.5 million in total provision expense during the period. This resulted in an ACL that was 1.36% of total loans, which was a 7 basis point increase from the fourth quarter. First quarter provision expense was driven by loan growth, economic forecasts, and slower prepayment speeds, which increased the duration of the portfolio. Despite the increase in provision expense, credit quality remained stable. Net charge-offs were de minimis during the quarter.
However, classified assets increased to $159 million due to the downgrades of three relationships. We continue to expect our ACL coverage to increase slightly in the coming periods as our model responds to changes in the macroeconomic environment. Finally, as shown on slides 23, 24, and 25, regulatory capital ratios remain in excess of regulatory minimums and internal targets. During the first quarter, tangible book value increased $0.79 or 8%, and the TCE ratio increased 52 basis points due to our strong earnings. Accumulated other c omprehensive i ncome improved slightly compared to the linked quarter but remains a drag on our capital ratios. Absent the impact from AOCI, the TCE ratio would have been 8.54% at March 31 compared to 6.47% as reported.
We also included slide 24 this quarter to demonstrate that our capital ratios would remain in excess of regulatory targets, including the unrealized losses in the securities portfolio. Our total shareholder return remains robust, with 31% of our earnings returned to our shareholders during the period through the common dividend. We believe our dividend provides an attractive return to our shareholders and do not anticipate any near-term changes. However, we will continue to evaluate various capital actions as the year progresses. I'll now turn it back over to Archie for some comments on our outlook going forward. Archie?
Thank you, Jamie. Before we end our prepared remarks, I want to comment on our forward-looking guidance, which can be found on slide 26. Loan demand remains solid, and we continue to expect Summit to be a significant contributor to loan growth early this year. We're being more selective in certain segments and expect overall growth in the mid-single digits in the near term. Regarding securities, we will continue to utilize the portfolio cash flows to support loan growth. We expect deposit balances to stabilize in the near term as seasonality subsides and our pricing strategies gain additional traction. There's still uncertainty around Fed rate management, loan demand, and deposit pricing competition. Our asset-sensitive balance sheet has driven substantial margin expansion thus far in the cycle.
We expect modest contraction moving forward with the second quarter in a range between 4.35%-4.45% based on one additional anticipated interest rate increase. Specific to credit, much uncertainty remains regarding inflation and the impact of higher rates to the economy and our customers. Over the second quarter, we expect continued stability in our credit quality trends and ACL coverage to be slightly higher. We expect fee income to be between $57 million and $59 million in the second quarter, with growth in the leasing business being the primary driver. Specific to expenses, we expect to be between $118 million and $120 million, which includes the depreciation expense from the leasing portfolio. Excluding the leasing expense, we expect expenses to be slightly lower in the second quarter.
Lastly, our capital ratios remain strong, and we expect to maintain our dividend at the current level. The quarter's had its challenges for the industry, and there's still near-term uncertainty regarding the economy. We're extremely pleased with our results and how we have managed the challenges to date. Overall, our first quarter performance was outstanding and record-breaking on many levels, and we believe we remain well positioned to manage future uncertainty due to our profitability, net interest m argin, ample liquidity, and strong levels of capital. We've made the strategic efforts to diversify our business lines in recent years, and we believe those efforts continue to position us to deliver industry-leading services to our clients and consistent, sustained industry-leading returns to our shareholders. We'll now open up the call for questions. Bailey.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by two . Again, to ask a question, please press star followed by one. As a reminder, if you are using a speakerphone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking your question, and please ensure that you have unmuted locally. Our first question today comes from the line of Daniel Tamayo from Raymond James. Daniel, please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody.
Good morning, Dan.
Maybe we start first on just the NII and NIM expectations. Appreciate the near-term guidance. Just curious your thought on how you see that playing out in the back half of the year with? You mentioned the 35% deposit beta. If you could give us a little idea of how you're thinking that cadence plays out throughout the year?
Yeah. Daniel, this is James. Yeah, we gave the outlook kind of near term in the earnings deck on our margins. You know, I mean, we think our. Still our, we've moved up a little bit, I would say our overall outlook on the deposit beta just with from what's been going on here over the last, you know, 30, 45 days or so. You know, before that, we were saying we thought that the overall deposit beta. When we say deposit beta, just wanna make sure for everybody, we're talking about our total deposit beta, not just our interest-bearing deposit beta.
Our total deposit beta, you know, before kind of, you know, 60 days ago, we were talking about a total deposit beta somewhere in the low 30% range, about 30%-32%. You know, with everything going on in the last, you know, 30-45 days, we think that has moved up a little bit and in the mid-30% range. Call it 35%-37% range. I think, you know, moved up a little bit, but our margin will obviously be impacted that. I think what it did is it accelerated some of that movement that we were expecting to see anyway from a deposit pricing standpoint. It just, it moved some of that forward into the next couple of quarters. I think we get close to the same spot, maybe a little bit higher from a cost of deposits and total cost of funds standpoint. Not significantly different. It just kind of moved everything forward.
Okay. Then on the deposit mix itself, you accessed the broker deposit market in the quarter. Loan-to-deposit ratio is still relatively low, at least when you look at that compared to other banks in low 80% range. Is that something that was, you know, kind of driven by what happened in March with this environment, or do you expect to continue to access the brokered market going forward? Just overall thoughts on how you think the deposit mix shakes out from a non-interest-bearing perspective and the rest of that portfolio. Thanks.
Yeah. Dan, this is Archie. Maybe Jamie and I will tag team this a little bit. I, you know, I think our view was, you know, if you were to go back, we've been layering in some brokered deposits for probably two quarters now. We just continued that in the fourth quarter and into the first quarter. Most of that that occurred in the first quarter occurred actually before March 1st. It was, you know, primarily to support kind of the loan demand that we were anticipating, along with, we knew there were some seasonal outflows coming. We've left, if you can tell, we've left some of our other sources, primarily something like FHLB, we've left those kind of flat this quarter.
We like that source of funding. We think it's part of our primary source, and, well, we hold that for later when needed. I think low 80% range is kind of, it's gradually moving up. As deposits stabilize, with moderate loan growth, it's going to continue to move some. I think, I guess in that order, that's how we see the picture.
Danny, I mean, when we looked at the deposit flows during the quarter, I mean, about. We were expecting some seasonal drop in the deposit base, you know, coming into the first part of the year. We were expecting that anyway. That was in our internal forecast. Obviously what happened in March, you know, it maybe exacerbated that. When we looked at the deposit trends coming into the year, we were expecting some seasonal outflows, both on the business side and the public fund side.
About, you know, if you look at our month-to-month deposit trends, about two-thirds of the drop in those, and really the in those two categories, public funds and then business side on the NIB side, about two-thirds of that drop occurred in January and February. The other third obviously occurred in March. A lot of it is really those accounts. We didn't lose accounts.
It was just, customers and public funds, you know, lopping off that top, you know, they call it the investable balance, not their operating balance and moving it out of the bank to potentially get some more yield, you know, diversifying and/or, you know, we also saw some movement over into our wealth management side.
Yeah. Dan, slide 18 that Jamie covered, it was a good slide because it shows you. I think you recall in the last quarter, we always have a seasonal uptick in public funds in the fourth quarter. There was some of that in the balances that rolled off i n the first quarter.
Then we had a seasonal uptick in business deposits in the fourth quarter. You can see that it looks like it's about $80 million- $90 million in Q4 that rolled out along with just, as James said, the general outflows that, you know, from what we call the COVID surge. Again, these are things that we mostly anticipated. There was a little bit of certainly after the news on the two bank failures, there was a little bit of money that moved out of some of our deposits and primarily into our Yellow Cardinal Advisory Group , where they laddered in, you know, typically treasuries. It was a little, I'd say less than 1% of our overall deposit base.
Terrific. Archie , I appreciate all that.
Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Chris McGratty from KBW. Chris, please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Oh, great. Good morning. Jamie or Archie, can you just, hey, good morning. Can I get a little bit of more color on the three credits you were talking about in your prepared remarks?
Yeah, Chris, I'll have Bill here give you just a quick color. Bill.
Yeah. You know, when we take a look at what was downgraded through the quarter, what we're really seeing is some businesses that are really tied to the, some COVID hangover, mostly in the, you know, over-inventory due to fear of missing out, during supply chain issues, as well as some hospitality assets, that haven't rebounded, as some of the other hotel properties. There was one small office in the three, that really launched, you know, right in the midst of COVID, that has struggled to lease up during this period. Most of it is, like I said, very much tied to the remnants of COVID.
In terms of you guys have been building reserves, I mean, how much of this quarter, the last couple of quarters have been, I guess, specific to these three? How should I think about just the incremental, potential loss on these credits?
Yeah. Maybe I'll cover the first part, Chris, in terms of the reserve. I would say the incremental amount due to the downgrade of these credits is relatively insignificant. I mean, there's a small piece of it as things get downgraded to substandard. The more significant piece really over the last couple of quarters in terms of the reserve build is due to really, I would say two factors. Just the overall macroeconomic environment and then the forecasts that are coming through, you know, impacted the model a little bit.
The bigger thing though is what we're seeing is as rates have moved up and prepayment speeds have slowed, you have a, you know, a longer duration on the loan portfolio, which then that, you know, under CECL, when you're looking at the life of the loan, it obviously then spits out a higher required reserve. Those have really been the two bigger factors in terms of, you know, how the model is reacting to the environment and why that you're seeing that reserve build. Maybe Bill, you can address the, like, any potential losses or whatever. Like, Chris was asking about potential losses in those three credits at this point.
I mean, at this point, you know, we have various treatment strategies on each of them. We don't anticipate any material charges at this point on the assets. You know, we're still-
Great. Thanks very much.
- in the workout process on them. Yep.
Great. Thanks.
Yep. See you, Chris.
Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Scott Siefers from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead, Scott. Your line is now open.
Morning, guys. Thank you. Jamie,
Hi, Scott.
Hey. I just wanted to revisit the deposit mix question again. Your non-interest-b earing levels have come down but are still around 30% of the total. I think it was like 25% prior to the pandemic. Do you see, are we going to go back to that level or, you know, do we blow through it a little, just sort of in this new regime for bank deposits wider? How do you think about that?
Yeah. I think we slowly get close to those levels. I mean, when you look at where we, you know, our deposit acquisition strategy at this point, I mean, we have money market specials out and CD specials. You know, you're going to see that shift over to, you know, a higher percentage of interest bearing, you know, maybe, you know, back to those levels and that 30%- 31% starts to migrate down. I mean, where it ends, you know, two to three years from now, I'm not 100% sure. I think it does start to bleed down to those, you know, in those general levels.
Okay, perfect. Thank you. Wanna make sure I understood your response to a couple questions ago just regarding where the margin ends up drifting. I think previously you'd had sort of kind of 4.10%-4.20% would be sort of a good floor for the margin eventually. Are we gonna maybe get back down there a little faster? Just given the higher betas, do we maybe lower the floor a bit of where the margin could go?
Yeah, I think the floor, I think the floor comes down into the high- 3% range and that. You know, the 4.10%-4.20% was really a, you know, where the margin. When we were talking about that spread, where it kind of migrated to before, that would have been, you know, maybe in that, in the fourth quarter of this year. I think just given the higher betas that we're gonna see, that floor comes down a little bit more into that. You know, it eventually settles. This could be even out into, you know, the first quarter of 2024 and maybe, you know, the second quarter of 2024. Migrates down into that, you know, into that 3.90% - 4.00% range.
All right. Wonderful. That's good color. If I could sneak a final one in. Archie, you guys sort of fall outside the purview of sort of the size banks that regulators might target for explicitly tighter regulation. You know, I guess aside from what's going on with rate expectations, then industry deposit mix issues, you guys haven't really been impacted by last month's events. Even so, do you feel that there are changes that you are, or, you know, more broadly other banks your size might make to become just sort of more conservative or bulletproof, just generally speaking going forward, even if you're not required to?
Scott, I don't know that we would contemplate anything there. My sense is, you know, we already are a little bit different in how we manage the securities book and how it, you know, in terms of making it available-for-Sale. I would tell you even before what happened in, you know, mid-March, we were already, I think, just taking a more conservative view of where the economy was going and how we thought about credit. I think we alluded to there probably some segments in particular in our commercial real estate book that we, you know, even during COVID and before COVID, we were slowing. There's probably more conservatism there. I don't know that it changes really our view of how we manage liquidity, you know, specifically.
We'll see how this unfolds for the industry. You know, we'll continue to take a measured kind of, I think, conservative approach to how we manage the balance sheet in general.
Okay. All right. Perfect. Thank you very much.
Yep.
Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Terry McEvoy from Stephens. Please go ahead, Terry. Your line is now open.
Hi, everyone.
Hey, Terry.
Maybe, hey. Maybe a first call. Could you maybe provide a refresher on the lease business revenue accounting? As it'll kind of be the growth of fee income and also drive some expenses. I had it from when you made the acquisition, about 1/3 of the yield went through the residual realization. Maybe a discussion of what current yields are and how essentially those fees are generated. Then on the expense side too, is there an efficiency ratio you target? Just so we can build that out accordingly.
Maybe I'll touch on that, Terry. It's Jamie. They are obviously generating both finance leases and operating leases. You know, currently they're doing roughly 75% or so, finance leases, and then the rest operating leases. The operating leases, you know, we put that in. That runs through other assets. They typically have about a four -year life. Those get depreciated, then we run the rental income through the fee income. I guess overall to answer your question about yields. When we look at the yield kind of all in. Well, I guess maybe in two parts. When we look at kind of the quote coupon yield of our leasing business right now, it's somewhere in the 7% range.
Depending on the month, but in that 7%-7.5% range. Then on the backside, they will get residual income that will bump that yield up, call it around maybe 9%. Then that residual income obviously then also runs through the fee income section. When I look at that kind of the relative ratio in the fee income and the expense side, I mean, you kind of look at generally a kind of a 1.5x to 1x ratio of fee income to expenses down there.
Great. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.
And to carry on efficency-
And then-
Sorry, just on efficiency, I don't know that we're there yet to probably give you the right with what that looks like yet. They're still building. We went from a company that when we bought it was primarily originating and selling to building the balance sheet. It's gonna be a couple more years to get that balance sheet built to get to kind of a more stabilized, you know, look at what the efficiency ratio will be. It's gonna be a lot more efficient than what you're seeing today, though, as that balance sheet builds.
Okay. Thanks for that. very helpful. Maybe just as a quick follow-up, appreciate the details on the office portfolio. I'm sorry, average LTV of 64%, was that at origination or has that been updated or refreshed since then?
Yeah. That's been updated as loans mature. We're pretty early in that process. You know, over the next, you know, several months, you know, we have very few maturing, but they get updated as they go. It's probably weighted more towards origination at this point.
That's great. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Terry.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. The next question today comes from the line of Jon Arfstrom from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead, Jon. Your line is now open.
Thanks. Good morning, guys.
Hey, Jon.
Hey. just wanna say this is a good quarter. We've struggled through a lot of releases and y ours looks good.
Thanks.
I wanted to go back to the margin. Yeah, go back to the margin. You know, you've had a couple of monster increases in the margin sequentially. Then you've got in slide 11, you've got the rate cut margin impact of down 106.3%. Do you guys do anything to protect the downside if the Fed starts to cut rates later? You know, or is it just let it ride, or how do you think about that, Jamie?
Yeah. I would say it's two things. I mean, there's a little bit of, you know, call it the let it ride philosophy there. I mean, there's also some work that we are doing in terms of providing what I would call significant down rate protection. You know, to buy protection for down 100 basis points just doesn't, you know, isn't really feasible. For what I would call severe down rate protection, and putting in some, in some floors, you know, we can, we can do that. If you look back to where our margin really got, really had some significant pressure back in, you know, the beginning of COVID when rates plummeted .
We're trying to protect against that and putting in some floors where, you know, our margin went down to that 3.15% , you know, during that, during that period of low rates. So, you know, we're looking at providing some protection for the, what I would call the extreme rate cuts, you know, not just Not buying protection for marginal, you know, Fed movements.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Good. Just to clarify this, it's probably annoying to get asked this every quarter, but that 4.35%-4.45% margin range you're talking about, that's Q2, and that compares to the 4.39% core that you did last quarter. Is that right?
Well, that would be 4.55% all-in margin and compared to the range that we gave in the outlook. Yep.
Okay. That guidance is fully loaded, the 4.35%-4.45%?
All in. Yep. Yep. All in.
Okay. Okay, good. Yep. We're good.
Yeah. At this point now, I mean, Jon, the variability of the other, of the other things are, you know, we don't have a ton of accretion income anymore, and-
Yeah, 15 basis point. Yep
-the variation we have is really in loan fees, which are fairly steady at this point.
Okay. Archie, any changes in corporate behavior, and kind of the mood of the borrowers over the last, you know, you know, you could say six weeks, but over the last couple of months?
Jon, I think you mean in terms of just their outlook and how they're doing?
Yep. Yeah, I'm thinking more about like that you know, kind of 40% of the book that's like commercial, small business, franchise, that kind of stuff.
Yeah. I can tell you know, we're showing kind of moderate loan growth expectations in the near term. It's gonna come primarily from commercial, you know, our equipment leasing group, Oak Street Funding, a little bit of mortgage as well. They're still doing well. They still have good current demand. I think the outlook when we talk with them is a little more negative the further you go out. When you look at where they are over the next few months, there's still some really nice, you know, we think some decent loan demand coming from those types of companies in the next few months.
Okay, good. They're probably like us waiting for the big one, and don't know when it's gonna hit, I guess.
I think that's good, everybody.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Just kind of following up on Terry's question on take out leasing on non-interest income. You guys have a lot of records, and I think Bannockburn was a record last year as well. If you take out leasing, what do you expect from some of the bigger line items in non-interest income, maybe kind of near to medium term? Thanks.
Sure. Start with Bannockburn. You know, I think we're, what, probably in that $14 million-$16 million range a quarter, kind of just generally as you go out. I think, you know, we're probably thinking $14 million-$15 million coming up in the near term. They're hitting a level that seems a little more sustainable at this high level. Added a couple more sales people here, one recently, another one coming on. You know, we think that they can kind of run at that level more consistently. You know, wealth is doing well, it's not as large of a line for us, doing well and will continue to do, I think do well as long as the market is holding up.
Service charge income is, I think fairly stable for us. It may have some slight movement up. It's not going to be a big grower, but it's, it seems pretty stable as well. Mortgage, as you know, has been soft. We do expect to see some seasonal improvement in mortgage as we get into the middle part of the year. There's a lot of uncertainty about where that's going to go. You know, some of that's availability of inventory, some of that's interest rates. I do think we'll see a little bit better mortgage performance than we've seen in the last couple of quarters. I think those are probably the bigger line items.
Okay. All right. That helps. I appreciate it, guys.
Yep. Thanks, Jon.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. There are no additional questions waiting at this time, so I'd like to pass the call back over to Archie Brown for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Bailey. I want to thank everybody for joining the call today and hearing more about our quarter. We're really pleased with the quarter overall and look forward to reporting to you again next quarter. Have a great day. Bye now.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.