Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the SouthState Bank Corporation third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question- and- answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I would now like to hand the conference over to Will Matthews, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Matthews, please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome to SouthState's third quarter 2026 earnings call. This is Will Matthews, and I'm here with John Corbett, Steve Young, and Jeremy Lucas. We'll follow our typical pattern of brief remarks followed by Q&A. I'll refer you to the earnings release and investor presentation under the investor relations tab of our website. Before we begin our remarks, I want to remind you that the comments we make may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws and regulations. Any such forward-looking statements we may make are subject to the safe harbor rules. Please review the forward-looking disclaimer and safe harbor language in the press release and presentation for more information about our forward-looking statements and risks and uncertainties which may affect us. Now I'll turn the call over to you, John.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. SouthState delivered another quarter of healthy growth, strong profitability, and stable credit. There's an ongoing debate about the trade-offs between growing the balance sheet versus protecting the margin. I'm pleased to report that in the third quarter, SouthState did both. Loans grew 9% annualized with growth broad-based across our footprint and led by C&I up 12%. The Southeast and Texas are among the most vibrant markets in the country, and we're benefiting from strong underlying market growth. As planned, we've grown our commercial relationship bankers by 10% over the last year. These bankers have already originated about $1 billion in new loans and have a healthy pipeline. Deposits also grew 9% and without sacrificing margin, which held flat with the second quarter at 3.78%.
That net interest margin stability reflects a deliberate shift over the last couple of years towards more floating-rate loans. When we announced the Independent Financial deal in 2024, the percentage of floating-rate loans in the combined portfolio was only 28%. Today, we've moved the floating-rate loan percentage up to 39% of the portfolio. Recently, about 55%-60% of new loans are being originated with a floating rate. This strategy will help provide net interest margin stability, assuming the Fed continues its rate hiking path. Credit continues to remain solid with net charge-offs of only nine basis points. Capital markets activity, however, pulled back as treasury rates moved higher during the quarter. Steve will give you an update on that business going forward. We continue to see SouthState shares as a compelling value, and we're going to stay opportunistic with buybacks, as we were this quarter.
Over the last year, we've repurchased roughly 5% of our shares outstanding. Before I turn it back to Will, I want to thank our bankers for focusing on the fundamentals, growing loans, growing core relationship deposits, deepening client relationships, and staying disciplined on credit. Will?
Thanks, John. Our net interest margin of 378 basis points continued to be in line with our 375 basis points to 380 basis points guidance and was flat with Q2. Our cost of deposits increased by 4 basis points to 180 basis points, reflecting the quarter's rate hike. Loan yields of 592 basis points were up 1 basis point with accretion of $27 million, down $6 million. Accretion income exceeded CDI amortization expense by $6 million in the quarter, further narrowing the gap between the two purchase accounting items. This is illustrated on the NIM slide in our deck. Excluding accretion, loan yields were up 7 basis points, and NIM was up 4 basis points to 361 basis points.
Additionally, I only reference this because we've gotten so many questions about accretion income over the last couple of years, I'll point out that our third quarter PPNR per share, excluding all accretion income and CDI amortization expense, was up 10.5% versus the third quarter of 2025. The nine months year-to-date comparison of the same metric versus 2025 was up 13.9% to $9.10 for the first three quarters of 2026. Net interest income of $592 million was up $16 million from Q1. The impact of the extra day in the quarter was approximately equal to the decline in the accretion income versus Q2. As John noted, we had another good quarter for growth, both in loans and deposits, each up 9% annualized. Noninterest income of $94 million was down $3 million from Q2 due to a decline in our capital markets businesses.
NIE of $375 million was $17 million above Q2's levels, primarily due to employee compensation expense. Some factors in that increase include, one, higher incentive accruals, including for growth and production. Two, higher salaries with a July 1 merit increase date for much of the employee base. And three, lower deferred loan costs in the quarter. I'll note that our revenue producer hiring initiative has been very successful with the addition of some great talent and some great wins in terms of production. The total cost of this group of employees, including not just compensation, but also recruiting and business development expenses, is approximately $15 million year- to- date.
Looking to the fourth quarter, with qualifiers around variable expenses that are hard to predict, such as commissions, deferred loan costs, et cetera, we expect Q4 NIE to approximate or perhaps be slightly above Q3 levels, bringing the full year NIE pretty close to the level we got it to at the beginning of the year. Recall that we got it to 2026 NIE growth of approximately 4% over 2025 levels, with approximately 100 basis points of that increase due to our revenue producer hiring initiative. We've enjoyed more recruiting success than we expected, so that component will be higher than the 1% impact, but we should basically be in line with the approximate 4% increase guidance we gave for the year.
Looking ahead to 2027, we're still early in our budgeting process and these thoughts could change, but we'd estimate an increase to NIE in the 3.5%-4% range at this stage. As always, our commission-based businesses and our recruiting success could cause their increase to be slightly higher. We'll refine our modeling through the fourth quarter and provide further 2027 expense guidance in the January earnings call. The third quarter's nine basis points of net charge-offs makes nine out of the last 10 quarters at a level below 10 basis points. Our provision expense of $20 million was primarily driven by the quarter's loan growth. Asset quality trends remain stable to improving, and we continue to feel good about our credit quality. Turning to capital, we repurchased 250,000 shares in the quarter for a 40% total payout ratio, including dividends.
This brings our year-to-date total to 2.75 million shares repurchased for a 67% total payout ratio year- to- date, and a trailing 12 months total payout ratio of 75%, both of which are slightly above our longer-term guidance of 40%-60% for a total payout ratio. Capital levels remain very healthy. CET1 ended at 11.1%. TCE of 8.4% and TBV per share of $58.19 were both reduced slightly by the impact of the move in treasury yields on AOCI. Operator, we'll now take questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and the number one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by for a moment while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of John McDonald from Truist Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you. Good morning. I was hoping Steve could give a little bit of color on the correspondent capital markets income this quarter. What drove that down, and then also whether you can get back to that $25 million guidance range you talked about previously.
Sure. John, good morning. Yes, as you mentioned, if you look on page 12, correspondent income this quarter was at $20.1 million versus $24.8 million or a $25 million guide. I think I mentioned on the call last quarter, we were thinking that $25 million would be the number absent a wacky, I think what I said, wacky rate scenario, and I guess that's what we got in the fourth quarter. The five-year treasury went up 87 basis points in a quarter, and 60 basis points of that was in September. It did move a lot. I think based on that shock in rates in the third quarter, I think what I would expect for the next quarter or so is more in line with where we were in the third quarter before.
At some point rates will settle back down, and then we'll head back toward $25 million. But I think that's probably where we are for the next quarter or so, is that that'll be a little bit more muted until rates settle down a little bit.
Steve, so that's kind of between where you were this quarter on the $20 million and the $25million. Is that what you're pointing to?
That is right. Yeah, that is our expectation right now.
Okay. Maybe any updated thoughts.
Just to further that comment, there are two businesses that really sort of make up most of that income. One is the fixed income business and one is the interest rate swap business. When the curve gets steeper, the interest rate swap business has a little bit more of a challenge, whereas the fixed income business does a little bit better. We are seeing the handoff from the swap business to the fixed income business, and that is not always exactly linear, but eventually it happens and should happen this quarter.
Okay, great. Maybe just to follow- up on Will's comments on the expense front. Sounds like something in the $375 million ballpark in the fourth quarter, Will, and then growing 3.5%-4% next year. That is inclusive of your hiring plans next year and everything else? I know it is an early look. Just the thoughts behind that.
Yeah, John. If you look back to the beginning of the year, we did guide to the 4% increase for the year, and that was a normal 3% inflationary type growth plus an estimate of 100 basis points for the new hires. It's hard to predict, of course The level of your success and the timing of your success when you're hiring new revenue producers. We're pleased that we're ahead of pace there. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we spent $15 million year- to- date on that, and that's on an annual budget of about $14 million. For the full year, that number is probably $21 million, $22 million attributable to that effort. We would not call that a miss, though. We would call that we were more successful in that. I think those folks have been productive as some of their non-solicits burn off.
I think they'll continue to be productive and maybe even more so. That's a little bit on this year. For next year, it looks like consensus right now is in that BM525 to BM530 range, which would be right in there with that 3.5%- 4% range that I gave you. We're still finalizing budgets, of course, and there could be some slight tweaks here or there, but that feels like a pretty good number from where we sit today.
Okay. Understood. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Jared Shaw with Barclays Capital. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks. Good morning. I guess maybe just sticking with the relationship manager hiring, and you called out the $1 billion of growth from that team. How should we be thinking about loan growth going into the beginning of the year? Could that accelerate as more of those new hires, like you said, start hitting their stride?
Hey, Jared. It's John. Good morning. It was a great quarter for loan production and loan growth in the third quarter. We had nearly $5 billion of production. That's up 45% from a year ago, and a decent amount of that's attributable to these new hires that joined our team. Last quarter, we mentioned we thought we'd see strength in the C&I category for the back half of the year, and we have. C&I category is up 13% year-over-year. As we're heading into next year, we're looking at the pipeline has backed off just a little bit when the rates came up. Our full year guidance for 2026 was mid to high single digits. Last few quarters, it's felt like we'd be in the high end of that based on the pipeline. We've grown 9.5% year- to- date.
I would imagine with the spike in rates and the pipeline dipping a little bit, we're probably more like the mid single digits in the fourth quarter. Still, for the year, I think we'd be in the high single digit range. Next year, I think our guidance is pretty much the same in that mid to high single digit range. You really can't tell quarter to quarter, but I feel like the current pace and current guide stays with us into 2027.
Okay, thanks. I guess just sticking with that theme, what's been the client sentiment as you've been out there speaking with commercial borrowers? How are they feeling with the rate environment and the macro backdrop?
Yeah. If you're in a real estate-oriented business, the rate increase has a little bit more impact on your business. We're seeing some pullback in those areas. The pipeline's down about 14%. We started the year with a $5 billion pipeline. It shot up to about $6.4 billion in the first quarter. A lot of that's getting pulled through into closings, and now we're right back to about the $5 billion range. The C&I activity still feels good, feels strong. CRE is a little bit weaker.
Thanks.
Your next question comes from the line of KBW. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hey, great. Good morning, guys.
Morning.
Morning.
Hey, John, I wanted to go back to a comment you made initially in your prepared remarks. Just your ability to protect NIM while still showing an attractive level of loan growth. That is frankly quite a differentiating trend compared to some of the other results we have seen with some of the higher growth Southeast banks out there. I guess the question, though, is do you feel like this trend is durable in this kind of higher for longer rate environment? We kind of live in this high single digit or high 370s NIM range, but can still show high single digit growth. Maybe if you could just give us your high level views on maybe those two dynamics.
Sure. Will, this is Steve. I will just kind of talk a little bit about NIM. As you mentioned, it was stable in this quarter at 3.78%, and we grew our interest earning assets $1.1 billion, which is sort of in that mid to upper single digit range. So really happy with that. Deposit costs increased 4 basis points, which was within our expectations. As we think about going forward, I will kind of lay out where we see the pluses and minuses there to NIM. If you think about the four different areas, it is interest earning assets. For us, John just mentioned it, we think mid to upper single digits all the way through 2027. Best we can tell, that is sort of where we think that will be. If you look at the average for 2027, that would be around $66 billion.
That is sort of how we are thinking about it today. The rate forecast changed from June. We had no rate hikes, and now in our models, we have two total Fed rate hikes, one that is already in September, and then one more in December. Then we are using the same yield curve that we had at 9/30. So the five-year is roughly about 5%, which is where we do a lot of our fixed off of. Then, as it relates to deposit costs, we have 40% of the existing beta of the book on the up beta. Then of course, we have new deposits that will be on a little higher. So we use a 50% total beta on the growth and the existing book. Then, loan accretion really has been pretty steady over the last year.
I think we said at the beginning of the year, $125 million for 2026. That seems about where we are going to be, maybe half of that for next year. Based on all those assumptions, we expect NIM to be between 3.75% and 3.85%. This range is 5 basis points higher than last quarter. It is really due, to your question, to a couple different things. It is due to the Fed rate hikes, and we are a little bit asset sensitive when we have the floating rate loans that John mentioned in his prepared remarks versus our exception-priced deposits. The second is the higher yield curve for fixed asset repricing. Then the third is just new production on the steeper yield curve. So based on all those assumptions, our models, we expect this range to stay in effect through 2027. So, it is a positive story for us.
A lot of that's driven by our asset sensitivity and really the fixed asset repricing that we've talked about last quarter.
Great. That's very helpful, Steve. I appreciate all that color. Maybe just to dig a little deeper into deposit costs this quarter. Obviously a really great result there. Again, very differentiating relative to some other high growth names out there. Could you talk just a little bit about your deposit strategy in the quarter? Maybe just how you were able to achieve 9% growth while balancing and managing cost of funds so well. Are you incentivizing differently? Are you looking and tapping some of your less expensive markets for deposits? Just how are you attacking deposit growth in this environment?
Well, it's really no new strategy here. It's continuation of existing strategy. Certainly the focus has changed and gotten more precise. But where we're seeing a lot of really good wins this quarter, we saw a lot going on in the treasury management area. I think we opened up new accounts for new clients to the bank, new treasury management accounts, that was a little over $700 million. But in the middle of that, we had quarterly tax payments go out for half a billion dollars, and we had public funds down $250 million. So it sort of wiped out the temporary parts of that. But what's going on in the underlying bank is we're growing real relationships with new money at great rates.
If you look at sort of our new money, if you look at all the money that's new to the bank from a customer perspective, we're raising money somewhere. If you look at CDs, money markets, DDA all together, it's a little less than 3%. So that's where the new money's coming in. But I would say no huge change in strategy. I just think we're seeing a lot of momentum, particularly on the treasury management side, but we're also seeing it throughout the bank, and we're also seeing new geographies like Texas and Colorado, where they didn't have that product a year ago. We're starting to see some momentum there.
Will, you did ask about incentives, and that's to say that we did tweak a little bit our intercompany crediting to maybe re-emphasize the importance of deposits, so that there's a little bit of an incentive change in that regard, too.
Yeah. Okay. That's helpful, guys. Thank you. Maybe just one clarification on the margin, the kind of increased guide there, Steve. Is it really a steeper curve that kind of gets us to the upside case there, the 385 basis points?
Yeah. Sure. Yeah, no, it is. It's both. Obviously, treasury, I just mentioned it's the negative to the fee income side on correspondent. So we got an 80 basis point shock in the five-year, but it's a positive to NIM. We have, as I mentioned last quarter, we have about $1 billion a quarter over the next five quarters. Through the end of 2027, that will reprice on the SouthState legacy loan book, and those are fixed rate repricings, and they come in around 515 basis points. That's about where the Q bond is. We think those will move up somewhere around 150 basis points if rates don't move a whole lot, and that's a significant tailwind to fixed rate repricing into NIM.
We also have securities that will reprice that are maturing, that are about $1 billion, a little over $1 billion over the next five quarters. That probably will have an increase of about 2%. So that fixed asset repricing is significant. I'd also say it's a combination of that. It's a combination of the Fed rate hikes, where our floating rate loans are outpacing the margin increase. That's probably 1-2 basis points versus our deposits. Then we also have new production that in theory will be a little bit higher. But those three things kind of make up that guide.
Got it. Okay. Excellent. I appreciate that color, Steve. I'll step back. Thanks for the questions.
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Rose with Raymond James. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to get a thought on buybacks here. Obviously, you guys bought back a decent amount this quarter, but a little bit less than in prior quarters. Can you just talk about the thought process here and capital levels and maybe what the tailoring rules will do for CET1? Thanks.
Sure, Michael. It's Will. We have in the last year, as we said, been above our expectations for the long-term total payout ratio, which we've said is 40%-60%. If you look back, Q3 was at 40%, year-to-date it's been 67%, trailing 12 months been 75%. So we've been more active over the past year. I'd say we still think that 40%-60% makes sense for a company that's a growth company in growth markets like ours. Given that we've been more active in repurchasing over the last year, I'd say looking ahead to 2027, without the benefit of a crystal ball, we're likely at the lower end of that payout ratio range in 2027.
We were 40% in the fourth quarter, so we are probably the lower end of the 40%-60% in 2027, recognizing that in 2026 we have been north of the top end of that range. With respect to the tailoring rules and whatnot, while that will benefit our CET1 if it becomes finalized by reducing the risk-weighted assets, today we do not see us changing our capital risk appetite, if you will, in light of that. So we still think that CET1 in the 11%-12% range makes sense for us for all the reasons about growth and just being a company with a bit of a margin of safety sort of philosophy. But if those did pass, you would see our CET1 improve probably by about 85 basis points or so.
Very helpful, Will. Then maybe just one follow-up for Steve. Just as we think about kind of the 3.5%-4% expense growth, how should we think about that toggle with the fees to average assets? I would assume if we get another rate hike or two, the correspondent will continue to be a little bit depressed here. So kind of the way to think about it is you would be towards the lower end of that expense growth if the fees to average assets are at the lower end and then would scale upward if that were to revert higher. Is that the toggle we should contemplate as we are thinking about fees and expenses? Thanks.
Yeah, I think generally, Michael, I think this quarter we did $94 million on fee income. That was 54 basis points of assets. So our guide has been 55-60 basis points, but like I said, the next quarter or two, that is probably going to be on the lower end of that, maybe similar to where we were in the third quarter. So that is probably accurate. Then, as I mentioned, the NIM guide has gone up. So as we kind of think about the balance of the two, total revenue really does not change in this environment, and we are headed towards 10% PPNR growth year-over-year. So, if you think about just big picture, how we are thinking about it, that is how we are trying to land all of those moving parts.
Totally get it. Thanks, guys. I will step back.
Your next call comes from the line of Janet Lee with TD Cowen. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning.
Morning.
It seems like you obviously raised the NIM guide, which is positive, and seems like you held the line pretty well on deposit costs this quarter as well. You are pointing to, if I heard it correctly, 50% total deposit beta through the cycle. Are you able to share where those new deposits are coming into the bank as it stands? Just a follow-up question to what was asked earlier, how you are able to bring in those deposits at such low cost. Are you able to share where these new deposits which seem to be coming in at a slightly higher price versus before?
Sure, yeah. Janet, it is Steve. The new customer money, so if you just look at new non-CD money, which would be DDAs, money markets, savings accounts, I think those came in around $230 this quarter. If you add the CDs, which is a real part of what we are doing, as you know, that moves the new customer money up in the $295 range for the quarter. That was for the third quarter. If you add any wholesale, that could be closer in the $330-$340 range. If you peel back the onion, that is the way the pricing for the third quarter went. Of course, most of the quarter, there was not a Fed rate hike until the very end. My guess is it will go up a little bit, and that is part of the guide of the betas and all the stuff.
But that's sort of where the third quarter fell out at. I think if you looked at our new money markets accounts, if you just look at that granularity, we raised new money about $670 million at 3.12% for the quarter. If you look at new and renewed CDs, I think it was $1.65 billion at 3.62%. So that kind of gives you more color behind that new customer money. But those are kind of the parts and pieces. But if you kind of summarize all that new customer money at 2.95% is where we saw that come in.
Got it. Thanks for all the color. In terms of capital deployment, can you give us an update that stands on M&A? Is this something that's still on the cards, or is it not an attractive option in a current environment?
Hey, Janet, it's John. Nothing's changed on our thinking there. The bank's performing great. We're growing talent. The balance sheet's really growing well. We got strong earnings. As we think about capital priorities, the first priority is keep growing our dividend alongside of earnings growth. That'd be one. Number two is the organic balance sheet growth in the fastest markets in the country. So we're blessed with a great pipeline. Number three would be share repurchases, as long as the valuations are as attractive as they are now. And M&A would be the lowest priority.
Got it. If I could squeeze one more. Are there any certain markets or categories within your lending? Is there any spread compression that you're seeing in any one particular area? Depending on who you talk to, some people are pointing to some multifamily spread compression in Texas. Wondering if that's something that you're seeing in any particular ways.
Yeah, Janet, where we've seen spread compression is probably a result of the yield curve moving up as quickly as it is. Unlike the capital markets business, a lot of these loans come with a fixed rate commitment from the time of the commitment to the time of the closing, which might be 45 days or so. If the rates move up significantly, sometimes the competition, sometimes we don't raise the rate as quickly as the yield curve, so you do wind up seeing some spread compression. My guess is most of it's tied to the fact of how rapidly the yield curves moved up. If the yield curve stabilizes, I still think there's attractive spreads in the markets that we're lending into.
Got it. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Gary Tenner with D.A. Davidson. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning. You've talked a little bit about kind of the beta assumption on the deposit side with high rates. I'm just curious, the last hiking cycle, you weren't in Texas yet. I'm just wondering if you're contemplating any differences through that franchise on a combined basis going forward.
Yes, sure, Gary, this is Steve. That is all included in that guide. I think if you remember before the merger with Independent, I think SouthState Legacy was somewhere around 30%, maybe 32%, 33% up betas, and then Texas and Colorado were in the mid-50s. So that combined was about 40% on the existing. So that is sort of part of that guide just for the existing book. Then if you kind of play that out over a couple of rate hikes, we were around a 175 cost of deposits maybe the second quarter, somewhere in there. So if you use 50% over the next couple of quarters, you get to maybe by the end of the first quarter, if those rate hikes come through, you are close to two. That is kind of how we are thinking about modeling it.
Thanks. I appreciate that. Then on the correspondent banking business, just thinking of the kind of the variation margin. Obviously, the gross number was lower this quarter, but the variation margin increased as well. So just wondering how to think of that more from a net basis. You have talked about the gross a little bit, but just like thinking about the net.
Yep. No, that is good. And we look at that number. It is sort of, I guess, somewhat related to that income, but really not a lot, and we can talk about that offline. But basically, that number tracks two things. It is the rate of the 10-year treasury and then also the fed funds rate. So it moves around with that. But I think in the third quarter, the average 10-year treasury rate was up from 442 basis points to 475 basis points, so it was up 33 basis points. And of course, it is really spiked at the end of the quarter. So that is where you see the variation margin times the fed funds, which also went up at the end of the quarter, come up. So our expectation, I think this quarter, it was in the $5.5 million range negative.
I would think it is probably, if things kind of go as we think for 4Q, maybe it is in the $6.5 million-$7 million range, somewhere in there would be our expectation on a negative basis just for the variation margin.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Anthony Elian with JPMorgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. On correspondent, earlier this year, you talked about some new products that could provide a lift of fee income. Has the timing on rolling out some of those new products changed given the higher rate backdrop? When we could potentially see that $25 million of income turn into $30 million?
Sure. No, great question. Yes, we are moving forward on those projects, really a couple of different products that we're offering out. One is a new FX platform, one is a commodities platform. Those, we're doing some test trades on commodities now, and we see that to be rolled out probably on a real basis in the first quarter. Then also on the FX side, I think that project's gotten delayed a little bit maybe to April 1st. So we'll see some benefit to both of those. But I think that both of those, if you add them together, are probably on a full run rate basis at $10 million and the $15 million range in year one, once they're fully established. So, maybe it's a couple million dollars a quarter or something like that once they're fully instituted.
Thank you. On capital, what exactly is driving the expectation for 2027 total payout ratio to be at the lower end of your 40%-60% guide? I get that this year will be above that range, but you still have a lot of buyback remaining. Your CET1 is within the 11%-12% range you provided, and you potentially have tailoring coming. Thank you.
Yeah. Tony, I'd say two things. One, the tailoring today is not part of the equation for us. It may become as we study it further, but today it's not. We don't have firm plans we put in place and say, lock and load, that's where we're going to go with buybacks for the next 12 months. But looking at again, the long-term total payout ratio and where we've been the last year, we think it makes sense to be at the lower end of the range this year. Our CET1 appetite is to be in the 11%-12% range. We're just shy of 11.15% to end this quarter. We've got, we think, good growth prospects ahead of us.
From a priority standpoint, while capital return through repurchases is certainly on the list, we think growth at appropriate returns on capital levels is superior in terms of long-term shareholder value to share purchases. Right now, we think that's probably where we'll be investing more capital next year.
Okay. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of David Chiaverini with Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. This is Brian Violino on for Dave. Thanks for taking the question. Just on credit, obviously, it's been fairly strong, at least over the past few quarters. Just wondering, with the five-year up as much as it is, if you're foreseeing any potential incremental stress on CRE borrowers as they come to their resets or maturities next year?
We're not at this point. Brian, you're seeing the classified, criticized asset trends are all kind of improving. We're talking to our credit folks. We don't really see any material changes to the charge-offs in the near term. And those CRE loans that you're referencing, a lot of these were originated coming out of COVID in 2021, 2022, and the weighted average loan to values are around 55%. So there's just a lot of margin in those deals, and they're either right-sized at maturity or if the cash flow is a little less, or they're able to move it to another lender, permanent lender. So, so far, we're not seeing issues. Naturally, if the long-term treasuries continue to move up materially from here, that could create issues, but right now we're not experiencing that.
Great. Thanks for that. And just on the loan-to-deposit ratio, I think in the past you've quoted looking to stick no higher than 92%. I guess just wanted to see if that's still the same focus going into next year or if there's some potential wiggle room around that number.
Yeah. No, that is right. I think for us, sort of target is around 90%. There might be a quarter or two that move higher than that for a little bit, but not much higher than 92% in any particular quarter. But the target would be 90%. That is how I would model it. You saw that this quarter. You saw that in the second quarter we grew loans, I think 11%, deposits 3%, and that got us to 90%, and this quarter is 9% and 9%. I would expect as we continue to grow loans mid to upper single digits, that deposit growth would stay in check there to keep that 90% over the medium term.
Great. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Timur Braziler from UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Just a couple follow-up questions from me. On the deposit side, do you have the spot rate at the end of the quarter?
I don't have it in front of me. We typically don't disclose it. But it wasn't dramatic. I don't remember the quarter exactly where we started, where we ended, but we were only up 4 basis points, so it was a kind of a ratable thing as I recall, but I don't have the number in front of me.
Okay. I've been getting some questions, some investor kind of pushback over the course of the quarter on correspondent banking. Looking at where those levels were during the last hiking cycle versus where they are now still implies some downside. Maybe just talk us through what's changed in that business, and why the levels that you saw in 2024, end of 2023, early 2024, why that's kind of off the table here in this rate hiking cycle.
Yeah, I think a couple things. One is, in 2024, there was a bit of a liquidity situation going on in the banking industry. Of course, we serve a lot of bank clients, and so loan growth really went down to very little in that environment. Remember, we do interest rate swaps on particular loans, so there's a lot more volume going through the pipe. Even if the yield curve's not perfect for that business, there's still volume. As it relates to fixed income, same issue. Remember in 2024, everybody was talking about AOCI and how significant it was, and it was because rates shocked up so significantly. This certainly was a bit of a rate shock, but not near anywhere near a 300-basis-point shock. So what we're seeing clients do now is clients are investing.
People look at this opportunity, and they see three- and four-year duration paper in the 5.5%, sometimes as high as 6% range, which is a lot steeper and a better place to invest than a few years ago.
Great. Just last from me, you brought up the success you're having hiring. Any color you can provide on which institutions you're having most success hiring from?
Yeah, it's very diverse based upon the market, but we're getting a lot of bankers out of the regional banks and some out of the money center banks. Where we're having the most success, I think I mentioned before, is in Texas. The total relationship management sales force in Texas is up 22% from the same period last year. So that just pleases us as we've integrated that bank over the last couple of years. Dan Strodel leads it for us. They've not only just drank the Kool-Aid of the SouthState culture, they're out selling the SouthState Kool-Aid. North Carolina's up 19% year-over-year. Atlanta is up 16%. So in the geographies overall, we've increased the sales force by 13%.
Great color. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Christopher Marinac of Brean Capital. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for hosting us today. Steve, just want to go back to the deposit comment you made a little while ago about the near 3% all-in. Does that number go up further from here this quarter, or can you manage it to be about the same?
Yeah, it's a good question, Chris. If you looked at the last several quarters and you looked at that number, it ticked up. I don't have the all-in number from last quarter, but I'm thinking about the money market rates were up maybe 20 basis points or so from last quarter, but that doesn't reflect the whole thing. My expectation is rates are up, so I would expect it to come up some. I just don't have a great prediction on what that would be in the next quarter. But I do think based on our modeling, that beta is probably pretty accurate. If you think about, there's the new money part, which is what you're referencing, and then there's the existing book.
The existing book, the way we manage that is mainly through exception pricing, and we have already, for the September rate hike, already factored that into the fourth quarter guidance. But I would expect it to probably be somewhere in that 3% range. But it's a little early to be able to tell that going into the next quarter.
As you have success on the treasury side, particularly in your new markets, that's also going to drive that new money or hold back the new money rate as well.
It should. Our job is to grow treasury management accounts, treasury management balances, small business accounts, small business balances in retail and checking. Our focus in the way the incentives are set up in the offices as well as in the RM level is very much pro checking, and that is where we believe the relationship exists, and that is where we are focused.
Sounds great. Thanks for that additional color. I appreciate it.
Sure. Thanks, Chris.
We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I would now turn the call back to John Corbett for closing remarks.
All right. Thank you, Tracy. I just wrap up by sa ying that we are in the middle of the budget season now, and so far, we are liking what we are seeing for 2027. For several years, we have been focused on investing in technology and infrastructure, but now we are investing in people and expanding the sales team, and that is a lot more fun and rewarding. As you have seen in our balance sheet growth, it is working, and our net interest margin is stable, and it is headed in the right direction with the backbook repricing, more floating rate assets, which gives us confidence headed into 2027. So I want to thank you for joining us this morning. If you have any follow-up questions, do not hesitate to reach out. Have a great day.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.