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Earnings Call: Q3 2022

Oct 19, 2022

Matt Jozwiak
Investor Contact, Fulton Financial Corporation

Your host for today's conference call is Phil Wenger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Joining Phil are Curt Myers, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Mark McCollom, Chief Financial Officer. Our comments today will refer to the financial information and related slide presentation included with our earnings announcement, which we released yesterday afternoon. These documents can be found on our website at fult.com by clicking on Investor Relations and then on News. The slides can also be found on the Presentations page under the Investor Relations website. On this call, representatives of Fulton may make forward-looking statements with respect to Fulton's financial condition, results of operations and business. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, and actual results could differ materially.

Please refer to the safe harbor statement on forward-looking statements in our earnings release and on slide 2 of today's presentation for additional information regarding these risks, uncertainties and other factors. Fulton undertakes no obligation other than as required by law to update or revise any forward-looking statements. In discussing Fulton's performance, representatives of Fulton may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the supplemental financial information included with Fulton's earnings announcement released yesterday in slides 10 through 13 of today's presentation for reconciliation of those non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures. Now, I would like to turn the call over to your host, Phil Wenger.

E. Philip Wenger
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone. Earlier this year, I announced my intent to retire as CEO of Fulton Financial on December 31st. Since this will be my last earnings call with you, I wanted to take a minute to share my appreciation for your coverage of Fulton Financial. I have appreciated your interest in our company and the diligence you have displayed in learning about the company's activities to be able to provide sound advice to your investors. I've been with Fulton for 43 years, serving as CEO for the last decade. During that time, it has been my honor and pleasure to have worked with the thousands of Fulton team members who fully understand what it takes to fulfill our company's purpose of changing lives for the better.

As you know, Curt Myers will succeed me as chairman, CEO, and president on January 1, 2023. With Curt at the helm and the talented members of our senior management team adding their expertise, I am confident that Fulton will be in good hands. I look forward to continuing to serve on the holding company and bank boards of directors after I retire. Now I'll turn the program over to Curt.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Well, thank you, Phil, and good morning, everyone. Before I discuss the quarter, I want to thank Phil for the many contributions he has made to strengthen our company and for the legacy that he leaves behind. During his decade as CEO, Phil enhanced our company's financial strength by growing the bank significantly, doubling the quarterly run rate for operating earnings from $39.2 million a quarter to the $80.5 million this past quarter. This improvement allowed us to nearly double our quarterly common cash dividend from $0.08 to $0.15 per share over that time, plus provide shareholders with an annual special dividend almost every year over his tenure. Phil also focused on shaping our culture and empowering our team to change lives for the better.

He led the formation of our Fulton Forward initiative and the establishment and funding of the Fulton Forward Foundation. The foundation helps improve the communities we serve in the areas of affordable housing and homeownership, job training and workforce development, financial education and economic empowerment, and diversity, equity and inclusion. Phil executed on key strategic initiatives by consolidating our six subsidiary banks into Fulton Bank to improve our operating efficiency and position the company for growth. He also resumed our status as an active acquirer through the purchase of a number of investment advisory firms as well as Prudential Bancorp this past quarter. There are many more examples, but as you can see, Phil has made a tremendous impact. I, along with other members of our leadership team, are committed to driving future success.

Going forward, we will continue to lead your company prudently, pursue smart growth, and make the changes necessary for future success. We will remain committed to our customers, committed to our communities, committed to our employees, and committed to you, our shareholders. Thank you, Phil, for all that you have done for Fulton Financial and for me personally. Your positive impact is a lasting one that will be felt for many years to come. Now I'd like to switch gears, and let's talk about Fulton's Q3 performance. The Q3 of 2022 was another good result, and we are pleased with our overall performance. Operating earnings per diluted share, which excludes merger-related expenses of the Prudential Bancorp acquisition, were $0.48 and represent an increase of $0.06 over operating earnings last quarter and $0.03 above the year-ago period.

Operating earnings this quarter represent an all-time high for Fulton. Several factors helped drive this performance. Our net interest income benefited significantly from rising interest rates. We saw solid loan growth overall. We have the first full quarter effect of the Prudential Bancorp acquisition, and fee income was consistent with the prior quarter. These positives were offset by some of the realities of the current economic environment. Expenses continue to migrate higher due to wage pressure and elevated performance-based compensation accruals. Our provision for loan losses increased linked quarter. As of July 1, we completed the acquisition of Prudential Bancorp, and in early November, we expect the conversion to occur. We're excited to welcome Prudential Bank's team members and customers into the Fulton family, and we believe our opportunities for continued growth in the Philadelphia region remain strong.

With the Prudential Bancorp acquisition closed, we have doubled our loan portfolio and expanded our deposit base threefold in the Philadelphia market. Turning to the quarterly business results, our overall loan growth was strong for the quarter at $776 million or 16.4% annualized. Excluding our acquisition of Prudential Bancorp, loans still grew $232 million or 5.2% annualized. Commercial loans were essentially flat for the Q3 as we experienced consistent originations but accelerated prepayments. Consumer loans still produced solid overall growth as we continue to book adjustable rate mortgages in the portfolio and experience slower prepayment speeds. Turning to deposits, on an ending balance basis, we achieved total growth for the quarter of $233 million. Included in this total was $400 million of customer deposits from the Prudential Bancorp acquisition.

Excluding that impact, we did see a decline of $167 million during the period, driven by declines in non-interest bearing demand accounts as well as time deposits. To date, declines in deposit balances are driven by inflationary spending pressure, rebuilding of inventories and CapEx spending, and are not related to customer attrition. Commercial and consumer households both showed modest organic growth during the quarter, but a decrease in average balances per account led to an overall decline in deposits. From a rate perspective, we continue to actively monitor and price our deposits in order to both retain and grow deposit customers. Moving to our fee income businesses, we were pleased with our overall performance despite a challenging economic environment for some of our businesses.

Total fee-based revenue was up $771,000 from the prior quarter or 5.3% annualized. Our card and payments businesses grew during the quarter, as did our capital markets. These positives offset a decline in wealth management and mortgage banking revenues. Moving to credit, our provision for credit losses of $19 million included $8 million related to our acquisition of Prudential Bancorp and the CECL day one charge. Excluding this, our provision increased by $11 million, despite showing net charge-offs for the quarter of only $100,000. Factors contributing to this increase include growth in the overall portfolio, a few accounts migrating to non-performing, as well as an increase in the reserves of our office building portfolio. Now let me turn the call over to Mark to discuss our financial performance and outlook in a little more detail.

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Thanks, Curt, and good morning to everyone on the call. Unless I note otherwise, the quarterly comparisons I will discuss are with the Q2 of 2022. The loan and deposit growth numbers I will be referencing are annualized percentages on a linked quarter basis. Starting on slide 3, operating earnings per diluted share this quarter were $0.48 on operating net income available to common shareholders of $80.5 million. This is up from $0.42 in the Q2 of 2022. The operating results exclude $15.5 million of merger-related charges reported during the quarter, with $7.5 million of this reported in operating expenses, and intangible amortization, and $8 million reported as additional provision for credit losses under CECL merger accounting rules.

Moving to the balance sheet, commercial lending, excluding the impact of Prudential, was relatively flat linked-quarter. Within commercial, organic loan growth was $51 million within C&I lending, while commercial real estate declined $71 million during the period. Commercial line utilization increased slightly during the quarter to 22.5%. Consumer and small business lending produced organic growth, excluding Prudential, of $262 million or 17% during the quarter. Residential mortgage loans grew $210 million as we saw home buyers shift to adjustable rate products during the period. Application volumes did decline 35% linked-quarter due to the sharp rise in interest rates, so we would expect residential loan growth to moderate going forward.

As Curt noted, total deposits grew $233 million during the quarter, and excluding the acquisition of Prudential Bancorp, total deposits declined $167 million, consistent with broader market trends. You should expect to see our deposit betas increase at a faster pace in future quarters versus what we have seen thus far in the cycle. With respect to the investment portfolio, balances declined modestly during the period, decreasing $181 million to $3.9 billion at quarter end. As part of our overall asset liability strategy, we've opted to pare back on securities growth in the near term. Putting together all of those balance sheet trends on slide four, our net interest income was $216 million, a $48 million increase linked quarter.

This increase was a function of both sharply rising interest rates as well as the Prudential Bancorp acquisition. Loan yields expanded 65 basis points during the period, increasing to 4.21% versus 3.56% last quarter. Our cost of deposits increased 7 basis points to 18 basis points during the quarter. Therefore, our net interest margin for the Q3 was 3.4%, 3.54% versus 3.04% last quarter. The 50 basis points of linked quarter increase resulted primarily from loan betas being higher than deposit betas during the period. Going forward, I would expect our net interest margin to expand with additional rate increases, but at a reduced rate due to both higher deposit betas as well as changes in the composition of our funding.

Our loan to deposit ratio increased from 89.5% at June 30 to 92.1% currently. Curt gave you an overview of our credit quality results. I would only add that our allowance for credit losses to total loans increased 4 basis points during the period, ending at 1.35% at September 30. As always, our allowance for credit loss trends could change in future periods based on new loan origination volumes, our loan mix, net charge-off activity and larger and longer-term economic projections. Turning to slide six, I'll provide some additional color on fee income business results. Commercial banking fees grew $450,000 to $20.8 million, with increases in cash management and capital markets leading the way, driven by interest rate swap activity.

Consumer banking fees grew $800,000 to $13.3 million, led by increases in payments and overdraft fees. As a reminder, in June, we announced some changes to our overdraft products and services. These changes will be effective in the Q4 of 2022. They are not expected to have a material impact to 2022 results, less than $1 million, and this reduction is reflected in the 2022 guidance provided at the end of my comments. Wealth management revenues declined during the quarter to $17.6 million from $18.3 million the prior quarter. New business activity did continue, with all of the revenue decline due to a decrease in the value of managed assets as of the beginning of the quarter.

As of September thirtieth, the market value of assets under management and administration increased modestly to $12.7 billion, up from $12.6 billion in the prior quarter. Mortgage banking revenues declined and were driven by a decline in mortgage loan sales, offset in part by an increase in gain on sale spreads to 202 basis points during the Q3 versus 190 basis points last quarter. Moving to slide 7, non-interest expenses excluding merger related charges were approximately $162 million in the Q3, up $14 million linked quarter.

This increase was driven by the following factors. Additional performance-based compensation accruals of $2.6 million, additional expenses of $3.6 million related to Prudential Bancorp, a $1 million contribution to our Fulton Forward Foundation, an additional calendar day during the Q3 which added approximately $1.3 million and additional technology cost of $1.7 million due to the timing of certain projects. A material amount of the cost savings in the Prudential Bancorp acquisition will not be realized until later in the Q4 due to the timing of our systems conversion. We do expect operating costs to come down in the Q4, and this is reflected in our refreshed guidance at the end of my remarks. Slide 8 provides more detail on our capital ratios.

As of September 30, we maintained solid cushions over the regulatory minimums, and our bank and parent company liquidity remain very strong. Accumulated other comprehensive income decreased $139 million during the quarter. This impacted our tangible common equity ratio as well as our tangible book value per share, offset by strong net retained earnings. Our tangible common equity ratio was 6.7% at quarter end, down from 7% last quarter. Excluding the impact of AOCI, our tangible common equity ratio increased during the quarter to 8.3%, up from 8.2% at June 30. During the quarter, we did not repurchase any common shares. Our $75 million share repurchase authorization remains in place before expiring at year-end. With Prudential Bancorp now completed, we are currently weighing macroeconomic conditions and their possible impact on AOCI and tangible capital.

As a result, we will likely pause until deeper in the Q4 before we would reconsider repurchasing the common shares. On slide 9, we are providing updated guidance for 2022. Our guidance now assumes a total of 125 basis points of additional Fed funds increases occurring in 2022 as follows: 75 basis points in November and 50 basis points in December. Based on those assumptions, our revised guidance is as follows: We expect our net interest income on a FTE basis to be in the range of $770 million-$780 million. We expect our non-interest income, excluding securities gains, to be in the range of $225 million-$230 million.

We expect non-interest expenses to be in the range of $615 million-$620 million for the year, and note that this operating expense guidance excludes merger-related charges related to the Prudential Bancorp acquisition. Lastly, we expect our effective tax rate to be in the range of 18% ± for the year. Many of you look at pre-provision net revenue or PPNR as a key metric to assess the profitability of core operations. Our version of this metric is included in the financial tables of our press release. PPNR has increased 25% year-over-year and 27% linked-quarter as a result of our 2021 balance sheet restructuring, earning asset growth over the past year, and core margin expansion from our asset-sensitive balance sheet.

With that, we'll now turn the call over to the operator for your questions. Norma?

Operator

Thank you. To ask a question, you'll need to press star one one on your telephone. Please wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. One moment for our first question. Our first question comes from Frank Schiraldi with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Frank Schiraldi
Senior Research Analyst, Piper Sandler

Hey, guys. It's Frank Schiraldi. Good morning.

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Hi, Frank.

Operator

Good morning.

Frank Schiraldi
Senior Research Analyst, Piper Sandler

Morning. Just first, I want to congratulate Phil on his coming retirement as well. Phil, it's been a real pleasure and good luck with everything from here.

E. Philip Wenger
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Oh, thanks, Frank.

Frank Schiraldi
Senior Research Analyst, Piper Sandler

Just to follow up on your comments, Mark, about the growth in the card and payments business. Do you know, could you talk a little bit more about opportunities there and whether you see that as a significant offset to the change in overdraft that'll, you know, flow through more in 2023?

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Yeah. Yeah, I think we do, Frank. When you know, when you look at our payments businesses in total, I mean, they show up in a couple lines on our income statement. When you look at the merchant and card within commercial banking, you know, as well as consumer card, you know, that's a business that, you know, through three quarters is $40 million in revenue for us. We think going forward, you know, that the changes to overdraft, you know, again, less than $1 million this quarter. Now we're implementing those sort of mid-October. If you annualize that, you know, that gets to maybe around a $5 million impact for next year.

When we made that assumption for that guidance, you know, that was based off of incident levels that were occurring earlier in the year. As you saw here in the Q3, we did, you know, have an increase in overdraft just based on increased incident levels. I think exactly where that number ends up for next year will be reflected in our 2023 guidance that we give in January. But definitely, as you've seen, you know, the momentum in both consumer and commercial card, you know, those are both up, you know, between 4% and 8%, you know, over last year. We think there will be continued growth as the economy continues to reopen.

Frank Schiraldi
Senior Research Analyst, Piper Sandler

Okay, great. The real driver there, I guess, is overdraft income then, is that right? Not overdraft income, interchange rather.

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Correct. Yeah. Interchange, you know, on merchant and then on the consumer side, you know, also based on, you know, just instant levels of usage.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Frank, it's Curt. I would just add, too, we're really focused on growing the customer base, adding accounts, adding transactional accounts that add overall, growth in all of those transactional fee areas that help offset that lost income in overdraft. As you see, you know, linked quarter overdraft was up. It was up because of, you know, increased accounts and increased activity within those accounts.

Frank Schiraldi
Senior Research Analyst, Piper Sandler

Okay. Just given your commentary around buybacks and TCE levels, wondered your updated thoughts on further M&A here. Is that something that's also unlikely in the near term, just given you know likely impact of marks on things like TCE? What's your appetite there for further M&A?

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Yeah, Frank, I think it depends on opportunities. Obviously, it is a factor as we look at M&A going forward. You know, we would look at our good M&A opportunities and work through the math on that. We'd like to continue to be active at least in smaller transactions as we look forward, given you know, some of the dynamics in the marketplace.

Frank Schiraldi
Senior Research Analyst, Piper Sandler

Okay. Could you just remind me, is there you know, a threshold in terms of the tangible book dilution that you'd be willing to take with the deal?

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Yeah. Yeah, Frank, you know, that really always depends, obviously, on the relative size and then the relative earnings accretion, you know, that comes back from that. You know, we've been wanting to, you know, announce tangible dilution earn back within three years generally. I mean, in the Prudential deal, I think it ended up being 1.1 years. You know, but, you know, out of the gate dilution, you know, is gonna be a function of the size of the deal. If we stick to that sort of $1 billion-$3 billion transaction size, then you're generally, you know, gonna see dilution in that, you know, kind of 1%-4% kind of range. You know, an earn back within three years generally.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Great. Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Thanks, Mark.

Operator

Thank you for your question. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Daniel Tamayo with Raymond James & Associates. Your line is open.

Daniel Tamayo
Vice President, Raymond James

Thank you. Good morning, guys.

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Good morning, Dan.

Daniel Tamayo
Vice President, Raymond James

Let me just start on deposit betas. Mark, I get your commentary on expecting those to accelerate going forward. Can you just let us know kind of how you're thinking about what those may be or what the forecasts are internally kind of through the cycle? How are you thinking about those or how we should be thinking about them?

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Yeah, yeah. Through the cycle, I think we're gonna be, you know, in the 30% range. To get to 30% range, you know, from where we are, you know, today, you know, depending on how you calculate it, you know, if you're just looking at the quarterly levels that we report, we've gone from, you know, 11 basis points to 18 basis points, so that's seven basis points on 300 basis points a rate move. That's a beta, you know, kind of at least on a quarterly average basis of 2.3% to date. You know, so that would imply that to get to a 30% beta, we'd obviously, you know, be ramping that up a lot more, you know, in the back half of the cycle.

When I say cycle, I guess I usually think of it as, you know, kind of a full year after, you know, the Fed would reach a terminal Fed funds rate.

Daniel Tamayo
Vice President, Raymond James

Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you. I guess just, you know, not meaningful numbers by any means, but non-accruals have ticked up for a couple of quarters in a row here. Looks like this quarter it was primarily in commercial real estate. I was curious if you have any more color on the type of credits there, that drove that, and then how you feel about the rest of that book.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Yeah, Dan, it's Curt. Just a little more color. As we look, you know, throughout this year, we had an uptick last quarter and an uptick this quarter as well. It's really been individual accounts. We have account in healthcare. We have an account in C&I, and an office account that are the bigger numbers in there as we look through the overall year. They tend to be, you know, individual accounts with, you know, supply chain issues or leasing issues, things like that. So that's really what's driven the non-accrual increase as we monitor those portfolios. Office overall, referenced on the last quarter, relationships over $10 million, that portfolio aggregated to about $560 million, 65% loan to value.

That portfolio stands at $553 million at the end of this quarter. We continue to closely monitor that, you know, as leases come up and the composition of that office space changes. You know, we do expect certain accounts to have challenges. That's the portfolio that we're paying particular attention to.

Daniel Tamayo
Vice President, Raymond James

Okay, that's great. Thanks, Curt. Lastly, just in terms of reserves, just curious how you think about the amount of qualitative within that, the total bucket in terms of, you know, how much maybe wiggle room you'll have to adjust those numbers when we start to get changes in macro forecasts. Thanks.

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Well, yeah. Yeah, Daniel. I mean, overall, you know, we have qualitative factors on several items. You know, we've taken since we've implemented CECL. I mean, we had COVID reserves, related reserves at one point, qualitatives. We do have an overlay qualitative reserves related to our office portfolio, and we'll continue to monitor that. If we think it's prudent to add more in future periods, we will. You know, but based on our best estimate of the economic outlook today, and with the overlays that we have as a part of that as of September 30, we feel our reserves at the right level.

Daniel Tamayo
Vice President, Raymond James

Okay. Thanks for the question there. Thanks for the answers, guys. Appreciate it. That's all for me.

Operator

Thank you for your question. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Chris McGratty with KBW. Your line is now open.

Chris McGratty
Head of U.S. Bank Research, KBW

Hey, good morning. Mark, maybe a question for you on just deposits. It's the $64,000 question at the industry level. Can you just help us dig into what at this point might be risk of outflow or I guess further migration? Just trying to get a sense of balance sheet size.

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Yeah. I think our loan-to-deposit ratio. I think it's safe to say that that's gonna continue, you know, to drift upward over the next couple of quarters. One of the things, Chris, when you look at the Q3 for us, you know, we have historically a municipal deposit portfolio that fluctuates between about $1.6 billion-$2.2 billion. Generally, from trough to peak, and you'd see that peak in the Q3, there'd be about a $600 million increase in September. You know, that was about half that this year. You know, we felt that we had, you know, room to hold, you know, the line a little bit more on pricing, you know, but in that portfolio.

As a result, we did not see as much inflow, you know, that we would see in past quarters. Now, you know, you said 64, I think it's a million-dollar question or more, but, you know, is how much, you know, of that portfolio and others do we see outflows, you know, in the next couple of quarters? As Curt referenced, you know, we did see growth in both consumer and commercial households, and both in consumer and commercial checking accounts, from June to September. What we're experiencing right now is not a loss of households or customers, we're experiencing a loss of, you know, deposits per customer.

That's, you know, again, really to be expected when the government stop their stimulus and people are spending money again.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Okay, great. Maybe a follow-up. What's the monthly or quarterly cash that's coming off the bond portfolio? And is the assumption you just take all of that and put it into the loan book or you maintain the size of the investment portfolio?

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Yeah, we've been letting that run down the last two quarters. It's not much, it's about $25 million a month is our current cash flow. You know, but our intent would be, you know, at least going into the Q4 here to continue to allow that to you know, shrink a little bit. Going into you know, 2023, at some point, you know, I'd expect us to then just grow the portfolio commensurate with you know, growth in overall earning assets.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Great. Thank you.

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Yep.

Operator

Thank you for your question. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from David Bishop with The Hovde Group. Your line is open.

David Bishop
Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst, The Hovde Group

Yeah. Good morning, gentlemen. Hey, David.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

David, good.

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Good morning. Yeah, the funding side of the equation. I think I heard maybe I misinterpreted on the preamble. Do you see in terms of as you move into 2023, the funding mix changing in terms of how you view funding anticipated loan growth? Do you do more wholesale or brokered, or do you just see the ability to fund that through sort of the commercial and consumer channels? I don't necessarily see a large, you know, increase in wholesale deposit channels.

I would expect if you go back historically to sort of where we were, you know, pre-pandemic, before we received a lot of the stimulus money, it's normal for us to either have both FHLB advances, of which we've had none for a long, you know, couple of years running now, and/or, you know, overnight borrowings, as well. Got it. As it relates to loan growth, it sounds like commercial line utilization up a little bit.

As you look at your crystal ball and talk to the commercial clients, as we head into the last quarter of the year and the next year, do you think you'll maintain or see a potential pickup as you move into the Philly region with greater exposure on the commercial side? Or, I'm just curious what you think the outlook is there in terms of loan growth on the commercial side heading into next year.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Yeah. As we look at our pipeline quarter-to-quarter comparison pipelines pretty much exactly the same as it was. We are seeing that pull-through rate of that pipeline we expect to come down because we have customers saying, "Hey, I'm gonna delay this project 'cause of the cost. Can't get employees." There's still headwinds in spending on projects. I think our pull-through rate's gonna come down. Our, you know, our loan growth on the commercial side is, I think, going to be consistent as we look forward with the benefit of increased line utilization. At this point, really, line utilization has not moved at all, but we're seeing the outflows of average balances on deposits, which, you know, customers are gonna spend their own money first and then borrow.

That combination of eventual increased line utilization and pretty consistent pipeline and origination, we think is gonna keep us in a consistent range of organic commercial growth.

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Matthew Breese with Stephens. Your line is open.

Matthew Breese
Managing Director, Stephens

Good morning.

Good morning, Matt.

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

I was looking to touch on Mark, your NIM commentary. You know, first, you know, what is kind of the NIM outlook these next couple of quarters? I know you'd mentioned that it would expand, but less than the pace we saw this quarter. It's just a pretty high bar considering the NIM was up 50 basis points. Secondly, you know, given your rate outlook, when and where do you see the NIM kind of peaking in 2023? Yeah. Yeah, great question, Matt. For the month of September, margin was 3.60%. You know, month of September obviously didn't have the full impact of the last 75 basis point rate increase.

You can expect to see in the Q4 certainly margin expand some from the Q3. You know, and again, with our assumption that there's gonna be a 75 basis point rate increase coming here in a couple of weeks, first week of November. You know, as far as when the margin peaks, you know, I think that's really, you know, depends on your bias of when you think terminal Fed funds are achieved.

You know, if we hit a terminal Fed funds rate in the Q1, which I think the dot plot currently shows that, then I would expect that either, you know, deep in the Q1 or sometime in the Q2, you know, maybe on an individual month basis, is when you'd see your max on margin. As your deposit beta starts to catch up, you know, to that loan beta, which will be tempered somewhat by repricing of fixed rate assets that mature. But clearly you're gonna see deposit betas. You know, we think right now in our own forecast, deposit betas will be faster than loan betas in the back half of 2023.

Matthew Breese
Managing Director, Stephens

Okay. Maybe touching on the loan yield side of things. You know, first, could you either provide a blended loan yield for the pipeline or maybe bucket by bucket CRE, C&I? What are you getting for loan yields today? The other question I had is, you know, if I look at loan yields relative to Fed Fund moves, you know, you're looking at about a 75 basis point increase in loan yield versus 300 basis points of Fed hikes. It feels a little light to me. When do you expect to see a ramp-up in loan betas? You know, I think 50% of your book is floating rate. When do you expect to get to see the full reprice there?

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

A couple of things on that. First, with respect to our loan book, right, we have a $19.5 billion loan portfolio now. You know, about $8 billion of that is variable. $1 billion of that was hedged, you know, because we had kind of excess asset sensitivity, you know, a year and a half ago. You know, so you have about $7 billion, you know, which is about 42%, you know, or so of the loan book is truly variable. Then we got another $4.9 billion, you know, that is adjustable. And then the remainder, about $6 billion is fixed, you know, or about a third of the portfolio is fixed.

You know, when you think about just to give you a sense on some what we're getting on new loan yields coming in, you know, for in the Q3, you know, overall blended yield for new assets is, you know, in the 5% range. You'll take that going back to where we were in the Q1, you know, where it was blended closer to 3% for new originations in the Q3. So we're up pretty significantly, you know, by just taking kind of either new originations or increases to existing loans.

You know, we've gone from, you know, blended around 3% range in the Q1 to blended, you know, just a shade under 5% in the Q3.

Matthew Breese
Managing Director, Stephens

Right. Do you have the pipeline yields, understanding what you put on the books this quarter.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Yeah. Matt, this is Curt. The going forward pipeline yield, we really don't track yield in the pipeline until we get to the pricing point of new origination. You know, the visibility there are credit spreads we are pretty committed to. You know, what changes that is just a change in interest rate based on the underlying index. You know, we really don't track yield until it gets to, you know, commitment that is going into then the loan book.

Matthew Breese
Managing Director, Stephens

Okay.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Within, you know, that 3-30 days.

Matthew Breese
Managing Director, Stephens

Got it. Okay. Last one for me is just, you know, in a static environment, looking at the AOCI, is the recapture the $25 million that Chris talked about a month? I'm just curious, you know, how much that you looked at. You would think you'd get back if nothing else changes on a quarterly basis.

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

We would recapture, you know, all of that AOCI hit, which over the last two quarters combined, Matt, in our prepared comments, was $130.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

139 this quarter.

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Yeah, 139 this quarter, and it was roughly the same amount, I think, the last quarter as well. Of that amount, with, you know, all other things being equal, you would get that back over the duration of the portfolio, which, you know, with rising rates, you know, the effective duration of our investment book is going from, like, 4.5 years to 5.5 years. All other things being equal, you would recoup that over the 5-year period of time. You know, that's, what? You know, roughly $50 million a year.

Matthew Breese
Managing Director, Stephens

Perfect. Okay. That's all I had. Thanks for taking my questions.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

You bet.

Operator

Thank you for your question. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, that's star one to ask your question. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Manuel Navas with D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Manuel Navas
Senior Vice President and Equity Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson

Hey, good morning.

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Hey, good morning. Nice to meet you.

Manuel Navas
Senior Vice President and Equity Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson

I guess a little bit on the follow-up on the NIM trajectory. Is there a point where you'll take more steps to kind of protect it? Is it more of a consideration when you feel that Fed funds

Mark McCollom
Chief Financial Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Purchased floor and sold cap. We are considering that and executing that in a small way to shave some of the edges off of our net interest income volatility and to give us protection on the downside. In addition to that, I mean, we have several billion dollars of loans today that have floors. Numbers about $6.5 billion today that already have floors. We would be doing this costless collar to give us additional protection for loans that do not currently have a floor.

Manuel Navas
Senior Vice President and Equity Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. As a follow-up, can you kind of describe where you're seeing the most competition in your markets on the deposit side?

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Yeah, sure. More color on that. We're really seeing it across the board in each market. We monitor each of the markets very closely. Some markets are more CD-driven, some are more money market-driven. We manage that across the board. I would say, the markets that are most competitive are the markets that have banks that have a really high loan-to-deposit ratio and really need to grow deposits to fund their loan growth. Those markets tend to be more competitive right now.

Manuel Navas
Senior Vice President and Equity Research Analyst, D.A. Davidson

All right. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Yeah.

Operator

I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to hand the conference back over to Mr. Myers for any closing remarks.

Curtis J. Myers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fulton Financial Corporation

Well, thank you again for joining us.

Matthew Breese
Managing Director, Stephens

The conference.

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