All right. Up next, we have First Horizon. I'm gonna get our regular disclosures out of the way first, which is, for important disclosures, please see the Morgan Stanley Research Disclosure website at morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures. The taking of photographs and use of recording devices is not allowed. If you have any questions, please reach out to your Morgan Stanley sales representative. And with that, we're delighted to have with us today Bryan Jordan, Chairman, President, and CEO of First Horizon, and Hope Dmuchowski, CFO of First Horizon. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thanks for having us. Feel like I ought to get our disclosures out of the way, too.
Go ahead.
No.
All right, so, Bryan, I, I wanted to start, big picture, you know, get some of your thoughts on the, on the macro environment. What is sentiment like in your markets? You know, what are you hearing from customers, and what's the expectation from customers for the economy near term?
Yep. In the recent few months, it seems to have slowed down a little bit. People are still generally positive, but loan demand has slowed, and whether that's a function of the fact that rates have not been cut at this point. People are generally optimistic, however, so I think, you know, we're in a good place. The economy in the South is extraordinarily strong. It continues to see an in-migration of folks in most markets, and customers are generally positive. But it seems to have slowed a little bit in the last couple of months.
Is it just a function of rates in your mind? If rates come down, that demand should pick up, or is it more than that?
I think rates has a lot to do with it. I think it's very clear that fewer transactions or investments pencil out with a 5.5 area of Fed funds versus something lower. I think at the end of last year, you got a little bit of optimism that rates were gonna cut a number of times over the course of the year. Inflation has been sticky, and as a result, I think people have pulled back a little bit in the near term.
So does it feel like you need a lot more rate cuts for things to pick up, or a few rate cuts down should start to get the economy moving?
I actually think it's the latter. I think if you get a couple of cuts, I think that will encourage people's optimism that there is a path and that the Fed is on it. I think, I personally am in the camp that if we get one cut late this year, I would be surprised. I think there's a real good chance that we don't get any cuts this year, given the overall stickiness that we're seeing with inflation at this level. Two days from now, we'll know more.
Yeah, I know maybe when I started drafting the questions a couple of weeks ago, the rate environment was a little bit different than it is right now. You know, you noted maybe you don't get a Fed rate cut this year, and I think you've been in that higher for longer camp for quite some time now. What do you think the Fed needs to see to start easing here?
I think they need to see... I think they've been very direct about it. They need to see sustainable progress that we're approaching that 2% target, and I don't know whether you measure that in months or quarters. They seem to be talking about months at this time. But I think, you know, you've got to see that over the next 2, 3, or 4 months, and then I think you'll see the Fed start to cut rates.
In your mind, given that you are in that higher for longer camp, do you think the next move could be a Fed rate hike? What would you assess is the probability of that?
I would say it's not off the table, in my view, but I think it's rather unlikely that the next move is an increase. I think you will have a whole lot of forecasting and verbal communication before that becomes a real possibility. I know there's been a little bit, but I don't think it's a real possibility today, and it really doesn't show up in the dot plot. I think we get a new dot plot this week, which in some ways is useful, but it also answers just one or two of the questions, not all of them. So I'm in the camp that you wouldn't get a rate increase without a whole lot more clarity from the Fed.
Got it. And, you know, maybe before we dig into, you know, some of the balance sheet items, just to get your sense more of another macro theme, is this whole interplay between quantitative tightening and the RRP balances, right? RRP has been a little bit more of a buffer to QT more recently. How do you see that playing out? And if RRP is a little bit less of a buffer here, do you see that starting to impact bank deposits and, in turn, bank deposit competition?
Well, I think, I think the tightening and shrinking of the Fed balance sheet has clearly impacted the competition for bank deposits. I think the RRP is down from $2 trillion area to $500 billion or so today. I think, I think deposit competition in a QT world is gonna continue to be intense, and I would say that if anything, you've, you've seen sort of in combination of people moving up and some folks moving down, like we have been. I think you've sort of reached an equilibrium in terms of deposit rates. I, I think, I think bank reserves at the Fed are still fairly significant, and I think that is probably less a reaction to what's going on in the economy, as it is just a necessary desire to have high-quality liquid assets available.
I think we're at a place where the tension in the deposit system is still moderately high.
So, so that's interesting. You know, I want you to, to hold that thought on the, on the HQLA, because I do want to dig a little bit into, into the liquidity side as well. But, you know, before that, maybe on the deposit side, question for, for both of you. I mean, as we, as we think about the liability side of the balance sheet, you ran a pretty successful deposit campaign last year, and you've been able to reprice a lot of those promotions down. You know, what should we expect on deposits from here? How competitive is the environment right now?
Competition has stayed pretty high in this rate, especially as we think about how consumers have changed their mindset. They're very aware of rates now. They're aware their money's making money for them. We've seen, you know, it pretty much stable from last quarter. We said on our last earnings call, we thought we had walked back deposit rates as much as we could.
We've retained 90+% of the clients that we promo priced last summer. We're really focused on retaining the clients, and the clients just have less money sitting in their accounts today than they did a year and two years ago. You know, H.8 data is about 2% down quarter-over-quarter, and we're pretty much aligned with that.
Yeah, I, I think, I think that the competition for deposit rates has, has sort of reached that equilibrium point. I would say, you know, a year ago, 8 months ago, you still had a lot of, of institutions on what was self-described as risk-weighted asset diets. And, and over the course of, of the last 6-8 months, you've seen loan competition actually increase. You've seen loan pricing become more competitive, and as a result, deposit pricing has become more competitive. And so I think it will remain reasonably high. I think the ability to, to- in our case, to move rates down significantly from here is, is probably lesser today than it was 4-6 months ago.
Yes, some banks today have been talking about how they've been doing a few more targeted rate reductions on different deposit types or in different deposit regions. You know, one of your peers earlier today mentioned that you could see deposit pricing go down a little bit from here, even if the Fed doesn't cut rates. I guess you guys have already done a lot more in bringing those promotional costs down, but how do you think about that dynamic playing through if the Fed stays higher for longer?
I think if the Fed stays high for longer, as Hope said, people are very attuned to what is available in the deposit markets, and I think as a result, you've put generally a floor, broadly speaking, under deposit rates. Now, that's not to say that you couldn't move from long-term CDs to something shorter term, like savings passbook accounts or money markets, but at the end of the day, I think you broadly speaking, under the cost of deposits, you've probably seen most of the movement until the Fed starts cutting rates.
And as that move from CDs to money market deposits, is that essentially just a mix shift in line item without being a mix shift in rate, or does that come with a slightly lower rate as well?
It's a combination of things. It's really where you're choosing to advertise and what you're putting out there as special. It really is where you want to be on the yield curve and for what duration. In our case, a year ago, we were competing with 6-month promotional rates. We've shortened that to 3-month promotional rates with the idea that the next move from the Fed is down and having shorter promotional periods, and I think people are thinking about CDs in a similar fashion.
What has the receptivity been there in terms of both depositors on the consumer side as well as the commercial side? You know, what differences are you seeing on deposit behavior there, on the rate-sensitive deposits as well as on the core operational deposits?
Our core operational deposits are pretty much flat quarter-over-quarter. We're not seeing a whole lot of migration there. Excuse me.
So, so-
Bryan always gets choked up to talk about it. The money market and CD, we're definitely seeing a change. This time last year, we were offering 11-month CD rates. Now we're looking at much shorter terms and a lower rate. The difference in rate between CDs and money markets is getting much closer. So you're just not seeing the mix change that we saw a year ago. The closer we all get to that first rate cut, the duration's coming down on those rate offers.
Yeah, I would say in terms of non-interest bearing, we've sort of reached that point of inflection where it's more at that stabilized level, and, you know, you go look at what people are doing in terms of transactions in their account, ACH is where balances need to be. That has reached a more stable level, and there's much more stability in terms of rate fluctuations, even in the interest-bearing accounts. At the end of the day, you know, you're gonna have a little bit of seasonal inflows and outflows based on when tax payments are made, but I think you've seen much progress towards overall stabilization at these levels.
You know, you mentioned NIB has stabilized, and I think at earnings as well, you mentioned that NIB outflows had stabilized in Feb and March. So are you saying that it's kind of continued through this quarter as well?
Yeah.
You know, as we think about the different customer types, like between consumer and commercial, is there any differences there in how NIB has behaved or how deposit balances have behaved?
No major differences or seasonality when you look at when tax payments come in, when tax payments go out. Same thing with municipal money, so it's just seasonality.
Got it. Okay, great. You know, maybe let's move to loans. You know, that's been fairly topical as well. You know, when I look at the Fed H.8 data, loan growth has consistently stayed weak throughout this year. But you know, maybe on the other hand, your footprint includes some of the faster-growing regions in the country, and you know, of course, competition has also been growing. So can you talk about what loan growth and competition look like in your markets?
Yeah. Loan growth, as I mentioned earlier, has slowed some. There's clearly not as much demand. Competition, I would suggest, has picked up as over the last several quarters, you've seen much more competition on the rate side of things, not as much on the structure side at this point. But it is clear and evident that there is less demand in the marketplace, and that the demand that is out there is significantly more competitive than it was two or three quarters ago.
So it's interesting you say that, because one of the questions that I had just generally across the space is, we're hearing several of your peers talk about how they're moving away from CRE and focusing more on C&I. So are you seeing more competition on the C&I side of things than on CRE?
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely more on the C&I side. There are not as many CRE deals that are coming up in this environment.
So, you know, maybe is this the right time to maybe lean in a little bit on some of the better structured CRE deals, or not quite, given where we are in the environment?
Well, we have a real strong view that any time you have an opportunity to pick up a well-structured, long-term relationship opportunity, you lean in. So we are leaning in, and we're focusing on those areas where we think, one, we can protect the integrity of the balance sheet, but we can greatly improve our customer relationships over the long term by leaning in. So yes, we'll even do it in CRE. Again, though, there's just not that many opportunities.
So then how do you think about loan growth as you get into the back half of this year? You know, do you see it staying pretty tepid until we get something in 2025, we get past the elections?
It feels to me like it's gonna be reasonably tepid. I think we'll be in the ranges that we've laid out. I think we'll be towards the lower end of those ranges, just given what we're seeing in terms of activity today. But all in all, I think it will take some sort of catalyst, whether it's the elections, whether it is the Fed cutting rates and causing people to be more optimistic about the direction of the economy. I don't know what the catalyst will be, but I think we need some sort of catalyst.
So as I think back to the start of this year, I think several banks were talking about how loan growth should pick up in the back half. So it feels like the banks are positioning their balance sheets to ahead of that loan growth. So if that loan demand doesn't come through, is that kind of having an impact on spreads at this stage, or is that not quite happening just yet?
It has an impact on growth in a NII. The yields on the asset side of our balance sheet will continue to improve as securities at lower rates continue to mature and roll into higher yielding assets. Fixed rate loans do the same thing. But it does have an impact on net interest income growth in terms of the aggregate level.
Got it. Okay. And, you know, I think one of the more unique aspects of First Horizon's business model is your specialty business line, so, you know, mortgage warehouse, asset-based lending. You know, can you talk about how are those businesses performing, and do you kind of approach them differently in this environment?
Those businesses have continued to perform very well. They have done an excellent job of managing credit, credit quality, and have overall strong relationships. Demand is somewhat softer there as well, but we're still seeing opportunities to pick up long-term relationships in our specialty businesses as well. And I think in terms of our ability to generate higher yielding, long-term relationships, they're still very, very attractive in terms of driving our ability to perform, producing higher returns over and throughout cycles.
Maybe if you can dig in a little bit on, you know, mortgage warehouse versus asset-based lending, franchise finance. Are any specific areas doing better than the other?
Well, in mortgage warehouse lending, for example, it's largely a purchase money market. There's very little to no refinance activity. It tends to be seasonal. Second and third quarters, people do more moving, buying new homes, et cetera. So it's picked up a little bit. Asset-based lending has continued to be fairly steady. Our restaurant business is affected by what's going on in terms of traffic in the restaurant space. But overall, those businesses continue to do very well in the first couple quarters of this year.
How do you think about those businesses as bringing a more holistic relationship to the bank? Is there, do some of these businesses bring in enough on the deposit side? Are you kind of leaning in a little bit more to bring in that holistic relationship?
Well, clearly, we have made a tremendous amount of progress in growing deposits in our specialty businesses. They tend to be very high loan-to-deposit businesses, and said another way, they generate significantly more assets than liabilities, but they generate very high-yielding assets. And so if you were to create a waterfall from high to low of higher returning, high return on equity, high-yielding assets, your specialty businesses would be on the left side or the high side of that waterfall chart. So they're very, very attractive to us in terms of driving very strong returns on capital.
So, there's no change in how you'd approach those businesses as you get to $100 billion in assets?
Well, as we get to $100 billion in assets, we have a little bit of time, and clearly, it would benefit us all to have more clarity about what Basel III Endgame looks like, what that means. will there be tiered supervision or across the industry? And it gives us some flexibility, but we don't have enough information to know what the structure of that balance sheet needs to look like. We have the levers that we can pull, and we're confident, comfortable over the next, call it 2-3 years as we approach $100 billion organically, that we have the ability to pull the appropriate levers on the balance sheet.
Yeah, I guess my question was more on the, on the specialty business lines, despite the fact that they're high loan-to-deposit ratios. Because the returns are pretty high on those businesses, there wouldn't be any change in how you'd manage those businesses?
Well, yeah, I was trying to answer it and say, we don't know enough. It's one of the levers that we have to pull.
Fair enough. All right, so then, you know, maybe, you know, putting that all together on the loan side and the deposit side, at earnings, you spoke about NII growth being at the low end of the 1%-4% guidance range this year. Is that still roughly how you're thinking about it?
Yeah, we're still thinking that 1%-4% as loan growth. As you mentioned earlier, we had anticipated that loan growth would be higher in the second half of the year, particularly in the mortgage and mortgage warehouse business, and mortgage warehouse being one of our highest-yielding assets that would have put us on the higher end of the 4%. So we'll probably come in lower on that guidance, but still well within that guidance at this point.
You know, maybe the forward curve has also changed, and I know it really depends on the week when you look at the forward curve, but it seems like there's only one more rate cut or one rate cut coming in December. Does that change how you think about that NII guide?
No. Whether we have one rate cut, no rate cut, three rate cuts, we've modeled it, and we still believe we'll be in the 1%-4%. The biggest changes for us this year are the loan growth just coming in a little bit lower on the guidance side than we'd had previously, and without a rate cut, just from the deposit cost competition. We had originally thought that we'd walk it back probably every quarter as we announced on Q1 the competition with the rates, not expecting that first drop till later this year, has stayed higher than we had anticipated earlier in the year. But we feel strongly that we can come in within the 1%-4%, regardless of which interest rate environment we have for the rest of this year.
We still remain asset sensitive. We've migrated closer to neutral as deposit rates have come up, but we're still asset sensitive, and our balance sheet benefits from higher for longer.
I don't want to ask you a 2025 question, but maybe I'm going to ask it indirectly. You know, how do you think the balance sheet is positioned? You know, if we do go back to a falling rate environment and you get, you know, maybe 2, 3, 4 rate cuts in 2025, how do you position the balance sheet ahead of that?
Well, we believe that the balance sheet needs to be positioned to manage it from asset sensitivity. How much asset sensitivity is really a function of where your liability costs are in the near term. But when you think about our business, it's—you're only looking at half the story if you think about the net interest margin in isolation. While the net interest margin would be hurt slightly by falling rates, the offset is in our specialty businesses, particularly our mortgage warehouse lending business, our fixed income business, and our mortgage banking business. Through various cycles, we've had significant offset in those businesses, so we're much closer to neutral than looking at one side or the other would indicate.
Got it. You know, before we move on to some of the other line items in the income statement, anything else to point out on the broader guide for fees or expenses for the full year?
No, we still stand behind our guidance that we gave at the end of Q1. In our Q1 earnings call, we actually increased guidance on our fee income side, leaving, you know, both expenses and NII unchanged. We feel strongly that the back half of the year is going to be a strong finish for First Horizon.
All right. Perfect. So maybe on fees, last year was a tough year for the fee income business on the fixed income side. And now you have higher for longer rates, and, you know, presumably, an inverted yield curve also impacts the business and impacts volumes a little bit. So can you talk about the outlook for that business, both this quarter as well as for the full year?
Yeah. As we expected, 2Q has softened up from 1Q. The market has just been unpredictable, so, as the 10-year Treasury keeps moving kind of intraday, you know, intra-hour, it's been a little softer than we saw in Q1, but we still expect to see 500K ADR around that benchmark this quarter. We're continuing to see the momentum, and it's really not a month-by-month or a week-by-week, it's a day-by-day as the market's trending. We'll have a good day, and then we'll have a bad day, but it's averaging out throughout the, you know, first two months of the quarter. But as Bryan said, we have an asset-sensitive balance sheet with countercyclical businesses. I think we really proved that in Q1, and we're seeing it again in Q2.
What's the perfect environment for that business? Is it less volatility on the rate side? Is it more of an upward-sloping yield curve?
Upward-sloping yield curve and rates falling.
All right, fair enough. Okay, moving on to the expense side. During earnings, you reiterated your full-year expense guide of 4%-6% growth this year. You know, I know that number included a series of strategic investments that you're making on the business. Can you, you know, give us an update on what you're doing there, and how those investments are coming along?
Yeah, absolutely. I'll also mention that we reiterated our expense guidance, even though we have increased our FHN Financial fee income for the year. So we're offsetting the commissions that come with that fee income with the number of initiatives we've announced this year that have brought savings back into the run rate, which is what we said we would do at the beginning of this year. We're gonna continue to look at ways to not just invest, but how do those investments increase the operational efficiency of our business? We announced a three-year, $100 million roadmap with technology. We have quite a few projects that have already completed, and 2 big ones that are set to complete the end of this year. And as we get through the next group of technology investments, we're looking at how do we create operational efficiencies?
How do we improve the experience for the clients? And so, all of our investments are meant to either improve the client experience or find a way to create a more efficient bank.
I'm really pleased with the progress that our technology teams have made over the course of the last 12 months. I expect by the end of this year, most of the heavy technology lifting will get completed this year. So the team has worked extraordinarily hard, and they've covered a lot of ground. I expect by the end of this year or early in the next year, we will have the vast majority of that work done. It'll hit the expense base on a rolling fashion, but the progress has been very good to date.
You know, as these projects get done towards the end of this year, there should be more you can bring out of the expense line next year in refund or some other project-
Yes.
to be expended?
Absolutely.
Yep.
All right, perfect. You know, I'll move on to credit, you know, because that's been pretty topical for the industry so far. You know, how are your clients holding up? What are you hearing from them? And how do you expect that credit performs in the near term?
I think credit performance will continue to be very good. As you would expect, the economy, with intention by the FOMC, has been to slow, so you see more downgrades than you would see in a more benign interest rate environment. But borrowers are holding up very well. One of the benefits of our business is that our relationships are very deep and go back a long way, and borrowers have been very active in shoring up projects and putting additional cash into transactions. And we're encouraged by what we see in terms of credit performance, and I would expect the second quarter of this year to look a lot like the first quarter, and I don't see anything about the back half of the year that gives me any concern today.
Is that a C&I loan comment, a CRE loan comment, or both?
Yes, both.
Both, okay. So, you know, in terms of if you could dig in a little bit more on the commercial real estate side, you know, anything you can share about your portfolio and what you're seeing in that industry?
Well, we're in extraordinarily good markets, and our portfolio is one, geographically diverse, it's diverse by collateral type. And I mentioned it a minute ago, we have very deep and broad relationships. And from an underwriting perspective, we had very low initial loan-to-value. Easy for me to say. Loan-to-value on the commercial real estate side. So those portfolios continue to perform very well. As you would expect in an interest rate cycle, you're gonna see things be more stressed than anyone would have anticipated on day one, but they continue to perform very, very well. And as a result, we are very confident in our outlook for credit over the remainder of this year.
Anything to call out in terms of change of the margin over the last two to three months? You know, whether it's not just for your portfolio, but just what you're broadly seeing across the market.
Nothing unusual. As I said, there are not as many commercial real estate deals. You're still seeing a lot of competition for C&I. Pricing competition has picked up in the C&I space. Collateral, excuse me, structure and underwriting has not become more competitive, and I expect that at some point. We just haven't gotten there yet.
Any pressure outside of office in your markets? Anything to call out on multifamily?
No. No.
Got it. Okay, you know, maybe moving on to capital and regulation. You know, as we finish up here, I wanted to discuss your perspective on just the new capital rules that are being announced. But you know, before that, just on the buyback side, you announced a $650 million share buyback authorization earlier this year. I think you retired about $150 million or so of stock in the first quarter. What's your plan for the remainder of that repurchase authority?
Yeah. As we sit here today, we've bought back something like 212 million quarter to date, including a 6.5 million share block that traded last week. We think with the capital generation that we have in the organization, the absence of significant asset growth, we have the ability to continue to buy back stock. We've said very publicly that our expectation is, we'll remain, as we look at the rest of this year, with a CET1 ratio of around 11%. We think we have the ability to return a fair amount of excess capital, at the same time, maintain a strong, healthy capital base, which enables us to deal with any inflection that might come in the economy.
And 11% is certainly stronger than most of your peers as well. So, now I get that maybe you would go down to that 11% level in the near term, but as you think about the longer-term level of capital, what would make you more comfortable going below that 11% ratio?
Well, you said you were gonna come back to regulations, so-
Yeah, fair enough.
... Basel Endgame, but I would tell you that it in a steady environment with where we are today, we believe that we can operate the company somewhere between 10 and 10.5, and you might go a little bit below that even if mortgage warehouse activity is very strong, for example. We think, at least on a regulatory capital base, given the risk in it, that asset in particular generates or attracts more capital than is necessary. But call it 10 to 10.5 area through the long term.
So, in between now and the long term, okay, there's mortgage warehouse in there as well, but is Basel III Endgame the bigger piece of the puzzle here?
Well, Basel III Endgame will clearly have an impact in how we think about it. I don't know enough about the moving parts. You know, is there gonna be interoperable between TLAC and Common? Today, it appears that you got to have one and the other, and so some of those moving parts playing out, but I think it probably necessitates more capital than less over the long term.
So, you know, maybe on that question, just on the long-term debt rules, do you have more you need to do there? How are you thinking about managing through that?
Well, in our case, I've been fairly public, Hope's been fairly public about if you look at a Basel III Endgame, we would have a tremendous amount of total loss absorbing capital, or TLAC, that we would have to issue something on the order of $4 billion of debt. Cost of that, in terms of negative carry, is something like $75 million-$80 million on an annual basis. I'm hopeful that that proposal gets right-sized, but it has it is the biggest portion of the $100 billion cost hurdle that we would deal with. It's something like $25 million-$50 million in terms of just complying, stress testing, living wills, all of the other elements, and then you put TLAC, that's another $75 million-$80 million.
Somewhere between $100 million and $150 million. TLAC is probably the one that seems most unnecessary at this point, from our perspective.
Are those numbers, the $25 million net TLAC, is that, you know, everything from, like, an NII impact, to an expense impact, to a capital impact? Like, is that all factored in there? Is that it-
Yeah, that's all in.
That's an all-in number.
Yeah, it's mostly in negative carry.
Got-
It's issuing debt and parking it in some nature of securities or the Federal Reserve.
and I guess that would, that would add to your liquidity as well. So I guess the, you know, the third part of the, the rules coming in is LCR. And, you know, as you... I, I know you, you wouldn't have LCR requirements until you approach Category IV levels-
Yeah
... but, you know, some of your peers are also preparing for that eventuality. You know, what are you hearing from regulators, or at least, you know, how are you positioning your balance sheet and the amount of liquidity you're holding ahead of any new requirements?
We're not making any significant shifts in the way we're thinking about it today. There's still too much up in the air, and the regulators have said they continue to process through the comments, and Vice Chair Barr and others have testified about how they're working through the process. So it seems premature at this point, given that we're at $82 billion today, to start making a lot of significant changes.
Got it. Okay, great. And before I move to the room for any questions, maybe you know, last one on M&A. You know, we’ve seen a handful of deals announced recently in the market on bank M&A. You know, I know with everything you went through last year, you aren’t eager to participate in that M&A market, but do any of these recent developments change your view at all?
No, my view is very much the same as it was six months ago. We have a lot of opportunity in our existing franchise and footprint. We are really focused on delivering shareholder value, and given the uncertainty in the regulatory approval process, coupled with the fact that the purchase accounting marks are very difficult, and finally, that I'm not sure what problem you solve if you're $20 billion or $50 billion or whatever billion bigger. So we're gonna focus on the blocking and tackling to manage our business and doing it on a high-quality fashion, growing on an organic basis, and deploying capital in some of the best markets in the U.S.
Got it. Are there any questions in the room? Well, then, maybe to wrap up, you know, a question for both of you: is there, you know, any part of the First Horizon story that you think people are missing?
Go ahead.
I feel as if Bryan has been out here telling the story over and over again, but I think the biggest part missing is a question you keep asking, is M&A, M&A, M&A. It's, it's not our focus. We know it's many of our peers' focus, and with what happened with TD, people think that we were for sale. We were not. We have a franchise that we love running in the best markets in the U.S., and as we've shown, we can give guidance. You know, in June last year, we held an Investor Day in 30 days and hit the guidance. We gave you guidance in January of this year. We're gonna hit it again this year, and actually increase our guidance in first quarter. And so we are proud of the company we have.
We are running it well, and we're excited about our future. We are celebrating our 160th anniversary as a bank this year, and we're excited to add 5, 10, 15 years on top of that in the coming years.
Yeah, as we've said, we hit the ground running last May, and our franchise and our bankers and our customer relationships are some of the best in the industry, and we're very, very confident that we can create a lot of value. And in that effort, we're gonna keep stacking up one good quarter on top of the next and just deliver the results.
That's well said. You know, on that note, we'll leave it there. Thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you.
Thank you for having us. Thanks, everybody.