Beacon Financial Corp Q2 FY2026 Earnings Call

welcome to the Beacon Financial Corporation second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. And if you would like to ask a question during this time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dario Hernandez, Corporate Counsel. You may begin.

Thank you, Sarah. And good afternoon, Good afternoon, everyone. Yesterday, we issued our earnings release and presentation, which is available on the Investor Relations page of our website, BeaconFinancialCorporation.com, and has been filed with the SEC. This afternoon's call will be hosted by Paul Perrault, Carl Carlson. During the question and answer session, they will also be joined by our Chief Credit Officer, Mark Mickeljohn. This call may contain forward-looking statements with respect to financial condition, results of operations, and business of Beacon Financial Corporation. Please refer to page two of our earnings presentation for our forward-looking statement disclaimer. Also, please refer to our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which contain risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Any references made during this presentation to non-GAAP measures are only made to assist you in understanding Beacon Financial's results and performance strengths and should not be relied on as financial measures of actual results or future predictions. For comparison and reconciliation to GAAP earnings, please see our earnings released. At this time, I'm pleased to introduce Beacon Financial's President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Perl.

Thanks, Dario. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter earnings call. Our second quarter results reflect improved operating momentum and solid execution across the organization as we continue to move beyond merger integration activities and focus on realizing the full potential of the combined franchise. We took a clear step forward from the first quarter with stronger profitability and improved operating performance across several key measures. Gap earnings were 77 cents per share compared to 55 cents per share last quarter driven by higher net interest income increased fee income lower credit provisioning and the elimination of further merger related expenses return on assets improved to 1.17 percent while return on tangible common equity increased to 12.84 percent reflecting the earnings power of the franchise as integrated related disruption subsides while the operating environment remains competitive and economic uncertainty continues to influence client decision making we saw encouraging trends during the quarter our net interest margin expanded to 3.81 percent deposit growth resumed and non-interest income improved across several business lines these results underscore the value of our diversified business model and the resilience of our funding base. Loan balances declined modestly during the quarter, consistent with our expectations, as runoff in commercial real estate and equipment finance portfolios were partly offset by growth in commercial and consumer lending. Although overall loan demand remains uneven, client activity and pipeline levels are quite healthy. We continue to see opportunities across our commercial banking platform and remain optimistic production levels will continue to improve expense discipline remains a core strength excluding the benefits of completed merger related activities operating expenses declined modestly from the prior quarter as we realized additional efficiencies from system systems consolidation and facility optimization efforts our core efficiency ratio improved significantly to just over 54 percent demonstrating the benefits of the integration work completed over the past year or so credit performance remains manageable and generally in line with our expectations while non-performing assets increase modestly charge-offs were concentrated on a small number of previously identified credits which were reserved in prior periods we remain focused on active portfolio management and continue to believe our reserve levels appropriately reflect the current risks in the portfolio. Our capital position continued to strengthen during the quarter, supported by solid earnings generation and disciplined balance sheet management. Tangible common equity increased to 9.25% of tangible assets, and tangible book value grew 50 cents during the quarter to $23.98 per share. These results reflect the strong earnings generation capacity of the business while maintaining a conservative balance sheet posture. As we look ahead, our priorities remain unchanged. We are focused on driving profitable growth, improving operating efficiency, maintaining strong credit discipline, and delivering consistent value to our shareholders. With the merger integration completed and expense synergies fully realized, we believe we are well positioned to continue building earnings momentum through the remainder of 2026. I will now turn it over to Carl to discuss the financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Paul. Second quarter results reflect a meaningful improvement in profitability and operating performance as the organization moved beyond the merger integration period. Gap earnings totaled $64.4 million, or 77 cents per share, compared to $46.2 million, or 55 cents per share in the first quarter. Profitability metrics improved significantly. Return on average assets increased to 117 basis points from 84 basis points, while return on tangible common equity increased to 12.84% from 9.3%. The improvement reflects stronger revenues, lower provisioning costs, and continued expense discipline, resulting in positive operating leverage and a core efficiency ratio of 54.26%. Turning to the income statement, net interest income increased $2.4 million to $193.2 million. Our net interest margin expanded by three basis points to 381 basis points, benefiting from a higher yield on earning assets and continued improvement in funding costs. Interest bearing deposit costs declined eight basis points during the quarter to 249 basis points reflecting the repricing of deposits non-interest income totaled 26 million an increase of 2 million or 9 percent from the first quarter the increase was driven by stronger gains on loan sales higher loan level derivative income and continued growth in wealth management fees non-interest expense declined 13.6 million from the first quarter reflecting the absence of $13 million of merger and restructuring expenses recognized in the prior quarter. Excluding merger-related costs, quarterly core operating expenses were $118.9 million, which is favorable to our original target of $119.8 million when our merger was announced in December 2024. Turning to the balance sheet, total assets increased modestly to $22.3 billion, While loans declined $102 million during the quarter, we had originations of over $850 million with a weighted average coupon of 631 basis points, which lifted the quarterly yield of the entire portfolio three basis points to 599. Deposits increased $194 million during the quarter. Customer deposits increased approximately $93 million, while broker deposits increased $103 million. Payroll deposits were essentially unchanged. The growth in customer deposits represents a positive change from the seasonal outflows experienced during the first quarter and reflects the strength of our franchise and customer relationships. Borrowed funds declined by $184 million during the quarter as excess liquidity and deposit growth allowed us to reduce wholesale funding. Turning for credit, overall trends were relatively stable. Net charge Charge-offs were 14.3 million or 32 basis points annualized, compared to 13.6 million or 30 basis points annualized in the first quarter. Charge-offs were concentrated in a Boston office credit, a large industrial-laundry relationship at Eastern Funding, and two rent-controlled multifamily properties. Importantly, these exposures were fully reserved for in prior periods. Non-performing loans increased modestly to 86 basis points of total loans from 83 basis points in the prior quarter, reflecting slightly higher non-accrual balances within the equipment financing portfolio. Non-performing assets increased to 70 basis points of total assets from 68 basis points. The allowance for loan and lease losses ended the quarter at 238 million or 130 basis points of loans and leases, compared to 136 basis points at the end of the first quarter. Provision expense declined to $5 million from $7.9 million, reflecting modest balance sheet contraction, stable credit conditions, and the participation of an unfunded construction loan, which reduced our reserve on unfunded credits. As Paul mentioned, capital levels continued to strengthen during the quarter. Tangible common equity increased to 9.25% of tangible assets from 9.07% and tangible book value increased $0.50 per share to $23.98. There was no stock repurchased during the quarter and the $50 million authorization remains available for opportunistic purchases. I'll note that our board approved a quarterly dividend of $0.32.25 per share, reflecting a dividend yield of approximately 4.2% and continued commitment to returning capital to stockholders while supporting future growth opportunities. Looking ahead, we are encouraged by the positive trends that emerged during the quarter. Deposit growth resumed, margin performance improved, fee income strengthened, and expense synergies from the merger continue to support profitability. While loan growth was somewhat constrained by market conditions and client caution, our pipelines are robust, and we continue to expect modest loan growth in Q3 with acceleration into Q4 with integration activities behind us a strong capital position and continued progress on our strategic initiatives we believe the franchise is well positioned to continue generating improved financial performance and shareholder value in the coming quarters that concludes my prepared remarks thank you Paul thanks Carl and we will now be joined by Mark Michel John and we'll open it up for questions thank you if

would like to ask a question please press star one on your telephone keypad if you would like to withdraw your question simply press star one again your first question comes from justin crowley with piper sandler your line is open hey good afternoon guys yeah just um just want to start out on loan growth and the expectation here for a pickup over the remainder of the year.

You know, is that predicated on some of this runoff and paydown slowing or more function of activity just expected to pick up over the next couple of quarters? Can you walk us through the thinking there?

Yeah, it's a few things. The first six months of this year, our markets were awfully quiet. And I check ourselves by looking at our competitors and what was going on at the other institutions. And everybody had terrible loan growth at that time. and we were saddled not only with conditions in the market but also with our conversions and also with some portfolio runoff activity which had been planned and so now that we've sort of turned the corner i can't see a lot of it yet but i can certainly feel it and i love the names that we have on our pipeline reports these are great names in the different regions that that we operate that i'll look forward to having them on as customers now how quickly all of that takes place is is more up to the customer than it is up to us but they're there they're committed

and we are beginning to see that come to fruition so i'm i'm optimistic as we go into the second half of the year here carl you want to add anything to that that's good okay and then i guess maybe just to put the numbers around it do you have where the commercial pipeline was it at the end june and maybe how that compared to where you were um back at the end of march uh i've got my pipeline as of as of june uh i don't recall exactly what it was at the end of march uh but it is up substantially from there um so yeah i think right now our commercial pipeline is about 1.3 billion uh if you approve if you include uh loans that are you know basically you know, not yet approved, but in that pipeline, I'd say it's closer to $1.9 billion.

Okay, gotcha. And then, Paul, you kind of mentioned, you know, a slower first quarter for the whole market. You know, I guess part of that, you know, with rent control in Massachusetts, you know, being struck down by the courts, any early thoughts here on how that might impact or help just the overall level of activity?

Well, while that was going on, it was going on in massachusetts as well as in rhode island um and obviously for our west chester county region our hudson valley region there they have some exposure toward the new york feelings so it was pretty widespread and so there really wasn't very much going on um that has turned some but not entirely because i don't think that property owners and families that deal in multi-family real estate think it's it's totally gone away but at least we're beginning to see a little bit of activity gotcha and then maybe just one last one um can you just update us on where you stand on the buyback

and potentially getting active there um you know is that something we could see um perhaps this year as capital continues to to rebuild and just with the creed concentration continuing to come down so as i said we we haven't uh purchased any stock during the quarter uh during the second quarter uh and uh it gives it gives us the flexibility to take advantage of the market if we if we see the opportunity um i'll kind of leave it at that okay would it be fair to say you don't see that opportunity at present it's fluid it's a fluid situation fluid okay got it i will leave there thanks so much thank you your next question comes from david conrad with kbw your line is open yeah good afternoon um i want to talk about talk about expenses a little bit congrats on beating your target but maybe just uh some thoughts on the next couple quarters where expenses might trend i think i think uh we'll see expenses trend trend right right along this i I think from now to the end of the year, not significant growth or declines either way, just based on the visibility we have right now. I think for next year, we'll provide better guidance for 2027, probably later this year.

Okay. And then maybe just to follow up on loan yield, you know, the driver for the increased loan yield is on the consumer side. Maybe, you know, we're still seeing declines on CRE and commercial loan yields as you start to grow the pipeline and the loans, you know, come on the balance sheet. What are your expectations for, you know, those two categories in terms of loan yields coming, you know, into the NIM?

Well, like I said, we had originations of a little over $850 million during the quarter with a weighted average coupon of 631 basis points, which is substantially higher than the portfolio. We'll continue to see a yield curve that seems to be steepening as we speak. So I think that there's continued benefit uh on on on loan yields as we go forward uh particularly as we see uh originations pick up uh so i feel feel good about where that's that's headed uh now you know spreads may come under a little bit of pressure uh we are seeing some pretty pretty competitive uh but i'd call those more one-off situations not necessarily wholesale type of you know, across the board situations. I think it's just, there's some very attractive credits in the market that we're very happy to participate in. And so we look at those. So I'll kind of leave it at that.

Okay. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Carl Shepard with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon.

Just to pick back up on loan growth i think i hear you loud and clear on robust pipelines a question is is that cni focused or is it broader based and includes kind of all the categories and all the geographies it's pretty broad based um you know because of our success in reducing the concentration in real estate we have put those guys back out there to get to work and so that is to get that takes a little while to happen. And so it is, it is happening, but I'd say it's pretty broad based. Um, but commercial and commercial real estate would be most of it. There's a little bit of, of highly specialized consumer stuff. We, we, we help some of the money managers around town. Uh, we do the banking for their, for their customers. Um, and that's an interesting business that has been growing very nicely. Uh, but we are not major players in residential.

And so that comes from time to time as we take care of our customers so cni and cre would dominate yeah i would say the numbers that i was i provided uh and i hate providing these numbers by the way but uh the numbers i provided that was strictly uh commercial and commercial real estate doesn't include small business doesn't include residential and consumer doesn't include eastern funding uh those are smaller, smaller portfolios, you know, small business is pretty good, but those numbers were strictly the C&I side and the commercial real estate.

Thank you. And then as a follow-up, I wanted to check in on credit for a second. The charge-offs this quarter sounds like were things you all had visibility into, at least for a few quarters, but on MPAs, the increased slow, should we be expecting kind of a crest here, or do you have a few more things that you guys are watching that could migrate the next couple of quarters.

Well, I'll comment on that. I mean, we're watching everything pretty closely right now, and we're particularly focused on, you know, office, lab, and some other sectors. But, you know, when we look at credit, you know, we're comfortable where we are with a reserve standpoint, and, you know, based upon the visibility we have, we think we're well-reserved and positioned to handle the problems we're aware of.

But, you know, the market is tough right now, and you know to the extent you know we see new issues we will deal with them as we see them but where we sit today we're pretty comfortable okay thank you very much your next question comes from steve moss with raymond james your line is open uh good afternoon hey paul um maybe just following up on credit here just kind of curious where are you guys where you're criticizing classified trends for the quarter um just kind of get a feel for underlying credit metrics there?

Well, I think generally speaking, we considered a pretty flat quarter. We did see a little bit of, you know, very slight deterioration in our criticized and classified bucket. And we did see a little bit of an increase in NPAs. That increase was really driven by smaller dollar accounts, eastern funding, particularly in the specialty vehicle portfolio, which, you know, I think we've mentioned before is in runoff at this point. It's a business we decided to exit a couple of years ago, and it's running off nicely. But, you know, it still continues to be plagued by some credit problems. Again, smaller dollar, and that was really what contributed to the NPA growth this quarter.

Okay. I hear you on that. And then I guess just kind of thinking about the charge-offs going forward here. You know, I realize there's, you know, office charge-off, which seems fairly sizable. And then the laundry from Eastern Funding, which I feel like has been around for a little bit. Just kind of curious, you know, how do we think about the level of charge-offs here going forward? Like, is this kind of the peak? And maybe we're in moderation, or is there still some more content in the pipeline for the second half? Maybe you guys are looking to clean things up this year.

Well, so just a couple of comments. You know, I'll talk about it in general. But then specifically as it relates to this quarter, you know, the largest component of the charge-offs was the three credits that Carl mentioned. The Eastern Funding Credit has been a long-term workout. It's in litigation at this point. And we are just, you know, with our charge, we're reacting to the current conditions and where we feel that credit sits at the moment. With respect to the office loan and the rent control loan, we took those charges ahead of what we believe the resolution is. So we try to be proactive on both of those relationships are expected to be paid out in the current quarter. So we wanted to kind of get ahead of that a little bit. We know sort of the financial settlement where it's going to end up. The deals are inked this point so we took those charges early so you know similarly we did the same thing last quarter with an office credit we had so you know I feel pretty good about being proactive you know and looking forward to some resolutions that we have coming up over the remainder of the year as it relates to charge off levels you know I think we've guided here in the past but we expect provisioning and I think Carl provided some guidance in this package but we expect provisioning to be moderate over the remainder of the year if credit quality you know sort of stays where it is today but i do expect charge-offs will be elevated over the remainder of the year as a lot of those things have been paid for either through the credit mark or through specific reserves that we have in place on known problems so you know as it sits today we're sitting with about 75 million dollars in specific reserves on about 400 million in classified assets so we think that positions us very well to absorb any losses in the portfolio over the coming quarters.

Okay, great. Appreciate all that color there. And then maybe just kind of, you know, turning over to just the deposit funding here, you know, good to see the deposit growth this quarter and, you know, definitely see funding costs come down.

Just kind of curious, you know, obviously a pretty competitive environment and just kind of curious as to you guys are thinking about uh deposit costs going forward and and thoughts along those lines yeah i think uh right now we we don't anticipate rates uh going up uh you know we did you know the fed didn't move rates the last meeting but there's probably a bias to going up uh we don't we don't exceed that right now that's not our expectations for the balance of the year uh but we are we are positioning our cd book uh to to be a little you know start to extend out uh it's gotten fairly short uh extend out those types of maturities so we are offering a slight premium for a little little longer longer rate but i don't think that's going to meaningfully move move our deposit costs to be quite honest uh but we are going to be out there doing that uh so you might see a few basis points uh i i just don't see uh much more relief we've been seeing uh rates continue to come down uh repricing uh in our in our deposits and certainly on our our borrowings i just don't see too much more uh room going down at this point i think the benefit that we're seeing in the margin will be continued from repricing and and in growth on the on the interest earning asset side okay

Great. I appreciate all that and I'll step back in the queue. Thank you very much.

Your next question comes from Lori Hunsicker with Seaport Research. Your line is open.

Yeah. Hi. Good afternoon, Paul, Karl, and Mark. Just wanted to go back to credit here. So looking at slide 15 here, the 21% or 200 and round number 50 million that's maturing in the next two quarters, Is any of that uncriticized? And if so, how much? Or maybe asked a different way. Is any of the $198 million uncriticized maturing in the next two quarters? And how do we think about that?

So, Laurie, when we take a look at that, and, you know, I think we covered this last quarter, too. You know, we have one, over the next couple quarters, with all the maturities that you mentioned, there is one substandard loan that is maturing this quarter. it's in the process of being extended um the uh there is a potential resolution in play on that property it's a good outcome and um that loan is in the process being extended so we should we feel pretty good about that one um and i think you know and what what is the balance on that one around 21 i believe 21 million yeah thanks okay um and then um we had noted um last quarter that there was a large office maturity it is not a uh substandard loan it's a special mention loan uh that's maturing in the fourth quarter uh that loan is in connecticut uh we expect to be able to we're working on it now we expect to be able to extend that for a couple of years based upon some increased occupancy and some good news that they've had with uh with lease up and that's in stanford connecticut okay and what is the balance on that one i think it's around 16.

16 okay great and then a little less than that sorry a little less okay okay and then the the jump that you had in criticized um in the class b that was sort of the biggest jump there um going from $100 million of criticized Class C last quarter to $126 million. Was that one or two properties or any color that you could add there? Any other things to suggest?

Yeah, we had a loan in one of our regions that was a single tenant occupant and the property vacated. So that resulted in a downgrade, and we're in the process of working with the sponsor to sell that asset now.

Okay. And so that's about $26 million or so?

It's a little less than that.

Okay. Okay. Great. And then on charge-offs, or just maybe thinking about it a different way, so of the $7.5 million in Cree charge-offs, $3.7 million were multifamily. Your New York City multifamily properties, and you started discussing this last quarter here, I know there's only a handful left. Can you just remind us how many rent-controlled New York City multifamily properties you have, and then what the balance is now that we're past that $3.7 million or so in charge off?

Yeah, so last quarter, I think the number, I'm doing this from memory, Lori, but I think it was $17 million last quarter. and we took about three and a half to four million in charge on the single credit. It's two properties. It's a single name during the quarter. So that would bring that number down into the sort of low teens. And as I mentioned to an earlier question, that charge down we took was in anticipation of a sale of those notes in the coming quarter.

Okay. Okay. Great. And then And just two more questions. Jumping over to expenses, I just wanted to drill down a little bit more. $11.3 million. So that included $1.1 million of REO workout expense?

Yes. Well, the increase was $1.1 million in workout expenses, quarter over quarter.

It was 1.1 million increase. Gotcha. Okay. And so, I mean, how should we think about that other, other line? That was a big jump from 8 million last quarter to 11 million. I mean, it seems like you have room to beat your number. Can you help us think a little bit more about that, Carl?

Like, I look at that 11 million, where should that be running? uh yeah i i don't i'm not providing you know exactly what the run rate is going to be on that because there are some items in there that that fluctuate quite a bit quite frankly whether it's fraud or uh things of that nature that that flow through that number uh i do do want to highlight you know we do look at the whole the whole uh of of expenses and and every line we look at and try to try to uh optimize that uh you will notice that your market expenses are down or significantly lower than what what we expect them to be on a go-forward basis uh and so we i do expect market expense to increase uh we okay pretty good we had a very good uh quarter for fee income which had some pressure on our incentive clients and we love we love when our costs for incentive plans come in higher than planned. So that's a good thing. So we'll see some movement, I won't say volatility, but movement in some of these numbers. But overall, I think we're in very good shape on how we're managing the overall expenses for the company.

Okay. And what was the workout expense number?

I think it was around half a million dollars in Q1, and it was up $1.1 million. So So it's 1.6 in total in Q2.

That's helpful. Okay, great. And then just last question here, your tax rate of 26%, it seems like maybe there would be some room at some point to bring that down, just sort of comparing you guys to some of your peers. How do you think more broadly about tax rates as we look forward into 2027?

Well, we don't do a lot of funny stuff with the tax rate, to be honest. It's, you know, we do participate in a lot of things that are tax-advantaged from whether it's in low-income housing. Low-income housing, you know, that's for the most part. We do also have BOLI income that has a positive impact on that number. But we don't participate in solar credits. We stay out of all those types of things.

And so we're not trying to manage that. that we don't manage the tax rate just to manage the tax rate okay great thanks for taking my questions okay laurie see you once again if you have a question it is star one your next question comes from david bishop with hub day group your line is open yeah a quick question on the on the loan pipeline i appreciate the uh the color there just curious uh do you have any sort of details where that breaks you know geographically you know ie is uh you know what percent might be coming from some of the legacy of state new york berkshire franchise just curious if you have any color around the uh the geographic uh dispersion of the pipeline yeah i do i have i have dramatic all kinds of details behind the pipeline uh you can keep it high level it's not something we're going to share not even region msa type stuff no sounds like albany versus that okay um got it and then um saw the stability in the payroll deposit um balances um remind us you know should we expect you know obviously we came off a quarter we had significant volatility in the first quarter remind us you know you know is there a line of sight into that potentially repeating should we build that into sort of the modeling here as we move through the year? Are there any sort of, you know, quarters where you expect to see that volatility?

The payroll deposits, David, are continuously very volatile, and they range anywhere from four or five hundred million to over two billion at any point in time. And so, it depends on the day that the quarter ends. I think Q1 and Q2 just happen to have a similar number, but it should not be viewed as reflecting less volatility on a day-by-day basis. Now, obviously, our Treasury areas understand all these movements. They track it very, very carefully. So we don't employ in our day-by-day operations much more than the core amount at the maybe $400 million or $500 million. The rest stays at the Fed. We earn a few basis points. and life goes on. This is mostly a fee business, but we just happened to hit a time when on the same day at the quarter end, they were unusually close.

Yeah, too many dollars different. Yeah.

Yeah. The next day, it might have been a billion and a half.

On average, those deposits were about 1.1, I think it's 1.127 million for the quarter. And the cost of funds was $3.05. I'm going to want to break that out in the future. We'll start breaking that out in our financials at some point.

Got it. But as you look at, like, the third or fourth quarter of the next year, I mean, you guys can map it out, right, in terms of when these payrolls are ending so you have a sense when these deposits are going to obviously leave the balance sheet. just curious if there's, you know, any of those sort of, you know, big outflows are sort of looming from a calendar perspective. Thanks.

Well, we're talking daily. These are daily, daily occurrences. So, Thursday, I think it's Thursday, is the highest day of the week for deposits. We may have $2 billion on a Thursday in deposits, over $2 billion in deposits. But Wednesday, it might have been $400 or $500 million. So the funds come in from hundreds, hundreds of different companies, wire their money in or ACH their money in, and then we ACH the money out to employees of those companies. And so that happens on a weekly basis. And there are tax money, there's taxes, and there's bonuses and things like that. So it does vary throughout the year. But in general, on average, we have those funds. So we can't put those funds to work. I want to be very clear on this. There's only so much that we feel very confident to say, hey, this supports the balance sheet. We can put these in investment sort of fund loans with it. The rest just basically sits at the Fed. So you'll see a lot more cash on our balance sheet than you might see at another company, just because on average or at any particular day of the month, it's just sitting at the Fed earning the Fed effective rate. And we pay a certain amount to the payroll companies for those funds. And so there's a little bit of spread that we make on the funds. But as Paul said, it's a fee-income business. The team does an incredible job. They've been doing this for decades now. And so I think they've really got it done well and take care of these payroll companies to fill the payroll needs that they need. appreciate the color okay david you're welcome this concludes the question and answer session i'll turn the call to paul poro for closing remarks thank you sarah and thank you all for joining us today and we will look forward to talking with you again next quarter have a good day this concludes today's conference call thank you for joining you may now disconnect