Good afternoon, and welcome to the River City Bank third quarter 2026 earnings call. Please note that this event is being recorded, and this is a closed conference call, and we encourage you to listen via the webcast. Before we begin, we would like to remind listeners that today's presentation may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please review River City Bank's earnings release and other applicable disclosures for additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties. I also call your attention to slide two of the investor presentation, which includes disclaimers regarding forward-looking statements, industry data, unaudited financial data, and non-GAAP financial information included in this presentation.
Reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP figures are included in the appendix to the presentation. The presentation may be referenced during this call but may not be followed exactly and is available for closer viewing on the company's website under the investor relations tab. I would now like to turn the call over to Steve Fleming, President and Chief Executive Officer of River City Bank.
Thank you for joining us today to review River City Bank's third quarter 2026 financial results. Our first as a public company. Our financial results were released last Friday after the Nasdaq market closed and are available through the investor relations section on the bank's website. Also joining me today is Brian Killeen, the bank's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before I begin with the quarterly results, I'd like to thank my colleagues on the River City Bank team for their continued dedication to delivering superior service and value to our clients, communities, and shareholders. As most of you know, the third quarter included an important milestone in River City Bank's 53-year history since its founding by Jon Kelly in 1973, as we completed our transition in August to being a publicly traded company through the IPO on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange.
During the IPO process, we had the opportunity to share with investors River City Bank's unique business model, emphasis on long-term relationships and decision-making, and differentiated approach to commercial banking. We outlined our strategy for disciplined growth, strong credit performance, operating efficiency, and focus on superior long-term shareholder value creation. We are delighted with the quality and composition of our new shareholders and look forward to building long-term relationships with them. At the same time, we greatly appreciate the long-term relationship we've had and expect to continue having with the Kelly family, including Chairman of the Board, Shawn Kelly Devlin, who remains the bank's largest shareholder. River City Bank reported net income of $30.6 million, or $2.16 per share for the quarter. Our quarterly results produced a return on average assets of 1.92% and a return on average equity of 21%.
The quarter reflected solid core operating performance with a quarter-over-quarter increase in net interest income from balance sheet growth and continued operating efficiency. As highlighted in the earnings release, the reported results included a $17 million pre-tax gain from changes in the fair value of undesignated interest rate swaps. The recognition of the mark-to-market gain is related to a portion of our interest rate swaps that do not qualify for hedge accounting treatment. These swaps have all been entered into to mitigate interest rate risk associated with the fixed rate exposure in our commercial real estate loan portfolio. The mark-to-market gain was a result of a significant increase in U.S. Treasury yields during the third quarter of 2026.
To be clear, we do not view these mark-to-market movements as indicative of core operating performance because the derivatives we're entering into for economic and risk management purposes and these mark-to-market fluctuations can both increase and decrease without being a true reflection of economic gains and losses. The mark-to-market was positive and large during Q3. It could be negative and large next quarter. Therefore, we believe that the financial results exclusive of the mark-to-market gains or losses highlight the true operating performance of the bank. Excluding the after-tax impact of that gain, adjusted net income was $18.3 million and adjusted earnings per share were $1.29 for the third quarter of 2026. Adjusted ROAA was 1.15%, and adjusted ROAE was 12.63% for the third quarter.
Core pre-tax, pre-provision income, which also removes these mark-to-market gains and losses, was $29 million for the quarter, compared with $25 million in the prior quarter and $28 million in the prior year quarter. The 15% increase over the trailing quarter demonstrates the strength of our underlying operations. Book value per share increased to $42 at September 30th, 2026, compared with $37 a year earlier, an increase of 14%. Compounding book value per share is a key financial metric by which we judge our performance. Total assets increased to $6.4 billion at September 30th, up $339 million or 5.6% during the quarter and $907 million or 16% from the prior year quarter end. Despite a very competitive market for loan originations, the bank increased loans outstanding by $172 million during the third quarter, or 3.7%, with gross originations of approximately $238 million.
This was a solid improvement from the first half of 2026, where loans only grew by about 1%. Given the seasonal pickup in our loan pipeline, we anticipate loan growth at the upper end of the mid-single-digit range for 2026. Total loans increased by $412 million, or 9.3% from September 30th, 2025. The loan growth has primarily come from commercial real estate loans. Total deposits increased by $239 million, or 4.4% during the quarter, and by $753 million, or 15% from the prior year quarter. The deposit growth in the current year has been evenly split between commercial depositors and the bank's clean energy sector clients. Additionally, the bank continued to operate with no wholesale funding at quarter end. Credit quality remained exceptional during the quarter, reflecting the strength of our conservative underwriting standards, disciplined risk management, and longstanding relationship banking approach.
As of September 30th, 2026, the bank had zero non-performing loans, virtually no delinquent loans, no charge-offs during the quarter, and no other real estate owned. We are particularly proud of our credit performance, a testament to our credit culture, which manifests with rigorous underwriting standards and a proactive portfolio management. Our allowance for credit losses on loans at quarter end was $111 million, or 2.3% of total loans, unchanged from the prior quarter end and slightly above 2.27% from the prior year period end. We recorded a $3.7 million provision for credit losses, including loans and unfunded commitments during the quarter, compared with $1.5 million in the trailing quarter. The growth in provision for credit losses was primarily due to the increase in the current period loan originations. The bank's North Star is to grow and enhance shareholder value.
As I noted earlier, the bank's book value per share rose by 14% over the last year to just over $42 a share as of September 30th, 2026. This compounding of book value is primarily a result of the bank's growth in retained earnings and partially offset by $15.5 million of shares repurchased during the period. During the current quarter, the bank repurchased $1.6 million of common stock at an average price of $51 per share. We believe disciplined capital allocation, together with continued earnings retention, share repurchases, and book value growth, supports long-term shareholder value. Another significant way that we have enhanced shareholder value was through the IPO process.
By raising the visibility of the bank's profile for the investor public over the past two years and increasing liquidity in the shares of our stock, the market cap of RCBC has increased for the benefit for both existing and new shareholders alike. As an example, the board decided to move forward with IPO planning in the fourth quarter of 2024, when the market cap of RCBC was around $450 million. Since going public, our market cap, as of today, is now almost $800 million. Capital ratios remained healthy. As of September 30th, our Tier One leverage ratio was 9.4%, our common equity Tier One ratio was 13.3%, and our total risk-based capital ratio was 14.6%. With that overview, I will turn the call over to Brian to discuss the quarter's financial results in greater detail.
Thank you, Steve, and hello, everyone. Net interest income was $37.8 million in the third quarter, an increase of $2.3 million, or 6.5% from the second quarter, and an increase of $751,000, or 2% from the third quarter of 2025. The primary driver of the increase in net interest income was due to the bank's balance sheet growth. Net interest margin during the current quarter was 2.39%, compared with 2.34% in the second quarter and 2.71% in the third quarter of 2025. The five-basis point linked-quarter increase reflected slightly higher yields on average interest-earning assets resulting from an increase in interest rates and a 3-basis point decline in cost of funds. The year-over-year decrease in net interest margin was largely a function of our balance sheet mix, as interest-bearing deposits grew faster than our loan portfolio and the bank has held excess cash or short-term securities.
The cost of deposits was 2.73% for the quarter, compared with 2.77% in the second quarter and 2.81% in the prior year quarter. Our cost of deposits decreased at a slower rate than many of our peers as our deposit growth was concentrated in interest-bearing deposits due to the lagged repricing nature of our public deposits. Total non-interest income was $19.8 million in the third quarter. As Steve discussed in some detail earlier, this amount included the $17.1 million gain from the change in the fair value of undesignated derivatives, compared with a $3.2 million gain in the second quarter and a $1.6 million loss in the third quarter of 2025. Additionally, during the current quarter, River City Bank recognized a $553,000 gain related to the sale of Visa shares received through Visa's B Shares tender offer. River City Bank does not view this as recurring income.
Excluding the fair value change on undesignated derivatives, core non-interest income was $2.7 million for the quarter, compared with $1.8 million in the second quarter and $2.5 million in the third quarter of 2025. Non-interest expense totaled $11.2 million, down $734,000, or 6.1% from the prior quarter, and up only $39,000 from the prior year quarter. The decrease from the trailing quarter was driven by lower professional fees. This is due mainly to higher IPO-related costs recognized during the second quarter of this year, as well as lower personnel expenses, mainly a reduction in stock compensation expense. Operating efficiency remains a core strength of River City Bank and a competitive advantage for the b ank. Our adjusted efficiency ratio, excluding the mark-to-market gain on the undesignated interest rate swaps, was 28%, compared with 32% in the trailing quarter and 28% during the prior year quarter.
As we noted through our recent IPO roadshow process, being a low-cost producer allows for the b ank to operate quite profitably, despite having lower net interest margin than many peers. This allows for us to originate the highest credit quality loans, which tend to have lower yields. Having a low efficiency ratio also allows for us to be very competitive on both loan and deposit pricing. We also believe that being operationally efficient will enable the b ank to grow in a scalable fashion.
The bank's liquidity profile remains strong. At quarter end, the b ank maintained approximately $1.5 billion of cash and investment securities, together with approximately $2.3 billion of available borrowing capacity. As of September 30, 2026, River City Bank has $2.6 billion worth of total notional in interest rate swaps outstanding. Approximately 84% of these are designated as fair value hedges under hedge accounting, and the remaining 16% are undesignated.
That is, their volatility flows through the income statement. Importantly, the b ank has been systematically utilizing interest rate swaps to mitigate interest rate risk since 2012. In addition, and by design, we generally keep our investment portfolio duration very short, and therefore it has performed well in the current interest rate environment with an unrealized loss position of only 1.5% as of September 30, 2026. Lastly, River City Bank's provision for income taxes increased by $4.6 million compared to the prior quarter, primarily due to an increase in taxable income. The effective income tax rate was approximately 28% for the first nine months of 2026. Overall, the third quarter reflected net interest income and net interest margin expansion, disciplined expense management, loan and deposit growth, and continued exceptional credit quality. I will now turn the call back to Steve for some closing remarks.
Thanks, Brian. River City Bank's emphasis on driving shareholder value resulted in strong earnings and continued compounding of book value during Q3. Our operating efficiency remained exceptional, credit quality pristine, and our liquidity and capital positions continued to position us for growth and enhanced shareholder returns. As we move to the end of 2026 and into 2027, we remain focused on serving our clients with a high level of responsiveness and expertise that defines River City Bank. We will continue to apply disciplined underwriting, maintain our efficient operating model, manage interest rate risk and liquidity risk conservatively, and allocate capital with a long-term view. I want to especially appreciate our shareholders at this time. As I noted before, many have been longtime investors in the bank, and your ongoing support is valued by our team.
We are also very happy to have many new shareholders who recently made the decision to invest in River City Bank and this management team through the IPO. We appreciate you very much, and we hope to continue to perform well for your benefit as we move forward. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or a comment at this time, please press star one one on your telephone. If your question has been answered and you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press star one one again. We will pause for a moment while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Gary Tenner with D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.
Thanks. Good morning, everybody.
Good morning, Gary.
I wanted to start on loan growth a little bit. The number came in quite a bit stronger than I think the expectations were as you were going through the IPO process. Based on what you said for the full year, the fourth quarter looks like it will be solid as well. I guess two questions there. One, what changed in terms of the ability to generate new loan originations to the degree you did? What does that suggest, at least preliminarily, for 2027?
Yeah. Thanks for the question, Gary. We were happy with the loan growth in the third quarter after a sluggish first half of the year. The first half of the year was essentially flat. It was up 1%. Not very strong, certainly by our standards. 3.7% growth there in the third quarter. Our expectation is that there will be pretty good growth, albeit not as strong in the fourth quarter as we had in the third quarter. I would say a lot of the acceleration that we experienced in the third quarter and will carry into the fourth quarter is due to seasonality. We typically originate about 65% of our loans in the second half of the year. It is about a 65/35 split. So there is just a natural seasonal cycle to our loan origination business. That manifests there in the third quarter.
The markets though continue to be highly competitive. I don't think that's changed much. Certainly, we are seeing competition on all fronts, which is putting pressure on pricing.
Thanks for that. Then just follow up, if you could provide the yield on the loan production for the third quarter.
Yeah. So that was about 5.6%, Gary.
Great. Thank you.
Yep.
One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Jackson Laurent with Stephens. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning. This is Jackson on for Andrew Terrell.
Hi, Jackson.
Hey. If I could just start off on deposits. Obviously a very strong quarter. Was just wondering if you could give some color on what drove the strength and balances there. Then maybe could you just remind us if there's any seasonality in the deposit base?
Yeah. Deposits, as we've always said, are a little bit hard to predict quarter to quarter. There's some episodic nature to them, and you can get some large swings with individual depositors in any given quarter. But our growth so far this year of about 8% is solid. We're happy with that. I don't know if there's anything else, Brian, you might want to add to that.
Yeah. I would just say, Jackson, you might see in the press release that our average non-interest-bearing deposits increased pretty significantly in the current quarter. That is a little bit seasonal, particularly with our community choice aggregation customers. We are not necessarily anticipating that we will see a trend line of improvement on non-interest-bearing deposits, but likely remain about flat in this fourth quarter.
Got it. That is helpful. Thank you. Then maybe switching to deposit costs. Pretty well managed in the third quarter. Can you just talk about the cadence of deposit repricing you are seeing so far in the fourth quarter, and then maybe just thoughts around deposit beta expectations?
Yeah. We will expect to see a slight increase, I would say a mild increase in deposit costs during the fourth quarter. As you know, we have a pretty significant about $2 billion, which are tied to an index for public depositors. With the increase in rates in late September, and if there is further rates in the fourth quarter rate increases, we would expect that to increase marginally during the fourth quarter. In terms of the cadence, we have a deposit pricing committee internally that can meet as often as monthly. Probably at this time we would with kind of rate uncertainty as it is going on. But we continue to be able to lag many of our other deposits outside of those that are tied to a particular index.
Got it. Thank you. That is very helpful. Thank you for taking the questions.
Thank you, Jackson.
One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Woody Lay with KBW. Your line is open.
Hey. Thanks for taking the questions. Wanted to start on, or maybe follow up there on the margin. It sounds like deposit costs just naturally with the rate hike will be coming up a little bit. But just any expectations for the margin overall over the coming quarters?
Woody, I would anticipate, as you might remember, we're a bit asset sensitive, so even though we do expect to see slight increases on the deposit costs, we're going to see as well with the increase in both U.S. Treasuries and then Fed hike increases, kind of immediate implications in both our cash and short-term investment side as well. The other component to that is we have a number of $2.6 billion worth of interest rate swaps, which are tied to SOFR. Within 30 days or so of Fed increases, whatever is maybe 25 basis points based on the September rate it hiked, we start to see that positively help our margin. We had a 5- basis point margin increase in the third quarter. I would anticipate it will increase a couple of basis points in Q4.
We're anticipating margin to be somewhere in the 240-245 basis points range for 2027, at least based on our expectations at this time. All of that's subject to change, of course. That's where we see it right now.
Great. That's great to hear. Then maybe shifting over to expenses. We've seen just the quarterly expense run rate come down pretty significantly from where we were at the start of the year versus now. Can you just share some color on how you expect that run rate to trend over the coming quarters?
Sure. Part of that has been now with the IPO being successfully completed. There was a lot of costs associated with getting ready for that entire process. Those costs have been fully expensed. We did have a little bit of an over-accrual, which we were able to release in the third quarter. Not that significant, but anyway, that helped as well. I would think that our current run rate of $11.2 million is probably a little low. We did some other true up of accruals in the current period. So, probably somewhere in the middle of where we started the year versus the current quarter, Woody, is probably the right expectation.
Okay, great. Then just last for me, the loan growth was great to see, especially considering some of the interest rate volatility that we saw over the past quarter. As you talk to your borrowers, it feels like the demand is still there on the loan side, even given some of this rate volatility?
Yeah. It's a really interesting topic because I think what we saw in the third quarter were some of the borrowers that had been holding off on refinancing with an expectation that rates were coming down. As those hopes started to fade, I guess you could say they capitulated and decided to lock in their rates now, growing more concern that rates could be higher in the future, and they were willing to give up the hope that rates could be lower. So there was a little bit of an increase in demand for refinancing as a consequence of that. At the same time, we've seen a pretty big shift in borrower behavior away from what the vast majority were doing certainly in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, which was locking in 10-year fixed rates when rates were low.
Today, there are some that are doing that, but that's now become the minority, and we're seeing a lot more five-year fixed rate and a lot more floating rate than we previously saw, as the borrowers want to maintain the optionality to refinance if rates do come down.
That's really great color. Well, I appreciate you all taking my questions, and congrats on the great quarter.
Yeah. Thank you.
One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from David Feaster with Raymond James. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning, everybody.
Morning, David.
Just staying on the loan side since we are talking about it. Looking at it, your growth was extremely diversified across your footprint. But it looks like you saw some especially nice growth across some of your Southwest markets, Texas and Colorado. I am curious what you are seeing there and just how you think about your footprint today and potential for further geographic expansion from here and just your hiring efforts.
Yeah. David, I wouldn't read too much into swings quarter to quarter in geography for originations. I think law of small numbers is impacting that. If we get a couple of large loans in one area and in one quarter, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's any shift in terms of demand coming from those markets or in our performance relative to those markets. We think there's just great opportunity across the current target market, which as you know, is kind of Texas to west. I still think there's a lot of opportunity in the San Francisco Bay Area. There's a tremendous opportunity in Southern California. Southern California is 2/3 of the economy for the state of California. So even though we've been there for many years now, and we've expanded geographically outside of California, I don't see any less opportunity within the state of California.
But having said all of that, these are big markets. Texas is a big market. State of Washington is a big market. I don't think we need to expand the target market to get loan originations. I think we've got plenty of opportunity within the markets that we're operating in, and we'll continue to try to do as well as we can within those markets.
Okay. I guess specifically, within your asset classes where you're seeing the most opportunity, it looks like still a lot of multi-family and retail CRE. It touched on the demand side. I'm curious, what are you seeing in both of those asset classes? Or are there any other asset classes where you're seeing some opportunities just either pulling back on or see more opportunity for growth, just kind of given some of the market dynamics we're seeing?
Yeah. As you know, we primarily stick to the major food groups, and multi-family is the biggest segment of our CRE portfolio, followed by retail. Retail being largely grocery-anchored shopping centers and some non-anchored, but largely anchored. Then industrial. Then office, of course, we really shut off the spigot there six years ago when COVID hit. We'll do the odd medical office building now and then. But for the most part, we've been out of the office business for six years now. We do some self-storage, and had some growth there. But we're not shying away or particularly targeting any sectors beyond those. I think it's pretty well documented that multi-family had pretty significant new supply across the board geographically over the last couple of years.
But that's now going in the other direction with new construction for multifamily more difficult and, therefore, more new supply languishing somewhat. So we expect to see rents and occupancies there to improve going forward. But we haven't seen anything, knock on wood as I say it, we haven't seen anything problematic in any of the asset classes that we've been lending into. At some stage, industrial is going to turn down. That's pretty cyclical business. It's been hot for, I don't know, 15+ years now. Really ridden a pretty strong growth trajectory. When the economy does turn down, who knows when that is and how severe that's going to be, but it will happen at some point. When that does happen, I would expect industrial to get hit harder than the other groups.
Okay. That's helpful. Just last one. Going back to the funding side. Again, that was one of the most impressive aspects of the quarter in my mind. Obviously, we touched on the CCA. There was some seasonal aspects of that. But even outside of that, deposit growth was solid. So I was hoping you could give us a pulse on some of the non-CCA deposit initiatives that you've been working on. The deposit-only C&I, some of the brokerage expansion and other sources. Curious how those expansion efforts are going and kind of where we are in the build-out and growth stages of those.
Well, we've got to have the deposits to fund the loans. It's pretty simple business. So we're like that child that didn't have enough food in the house when they were young. Even when they're old, they never stop worrying about where the next meal is going to come from. We're kind of that way as it relates to deposits. We're always on the lookout for those. Frankly, not a whole lot different than most banks. I'm sure if you talk to most bank CEOs, they tell you that they'd like more deposits. As I mentioned earlier, the growth that we get there can fluctuate from quarter to quarter without really representing any change in our appetite for those deposits.
We are, of course, not just competing for deposits with other depository institutions, but we're competing with the money markets as investors could short-term funds into money market mutual funds and directly into securities portfolios with U.S. Treasury bills, commercial paper, bankers' acceptances, and the like. That really hasn't changed much, and we'll continue to compete for funds in order to fund our loan growth.
I would just add on, David, that in Q3, outside of the CCAs, almost all of that deposit growth was existing commercial customers, C&I depositors, which have been many who have been with us for many, many years. So continued growth in their businesses adds to our deposit base.
Terrific. Thanks, everybody.
Thank you, Dave.
I am not showing any further questions at this time. This concludes River City Bank's third quarter 2026 earnings call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.