Welcome to the M&T Bank Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on listen-only mode and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Brian Klock, Head of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Todd, and good morning. I'd like to thank everyone for participating in M&T's fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call, both by telephone and through the webcast. If you have not read the earnings release we issued this morning, you may access it along with the financial tables and schedules by going to our website, www.mtb.com. Once there, you can click on the Investor Relations link and then on the Events and Presentations link. Closed captioning has also been provided for webcast participants. Also before we start, I'd like to mention that today's presentation may contain forward-looking information. Cautionary statements about this information are included in today's earnings release materials, and in the investor presentation as well as our SEC filings and other investor materials. The presentation also includes non-GAAP financial measures as identified in the earnings release and in the investor presentation. The appropriate reconciliations to GAAP are included in the appendix. Joining me on the call this morning is M&T's Senior Executive Vice President and CFO, Daryl Bible. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Daryl.

Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. First, I'd like to begin with our purpose on Slide 3. M&T's success continues to be driven by our purpose, making a difference in people's lives. We do this by not only empowering our customers to meet their financial needs, but by supporting the communities where we live and work. As M&T continues to grow, we remain committed to our relationship-based model. We believe our unique knowledge of customers, capital, and community allows us to deliver customized solutions that make an impact. In 2024, this impact was evident across the footprint. In addition to the positive social, environmental and governance accomplishments highlighted on Slide 4, this December M&T issued our first sustainability bond in conjunction with the publication of our sustainability financing framework, which will guide future issuances. As highlighted on Slide 5, M&T continues to garner awards for our work in 2024, including recognition from the industry of our talent achievements and local charitable efforts. Now let's turn to Slide 7 and 8. Before we get into the fourth quarter, I want to pause and reflect on some of the highlights for 2024. First, I want to take a moment to recognize the hard work and dedication of our 22,000 colleagues who allowed us to have such a successful year. In 2024, we focused on four priorities, including building our New England and Long Island markets, optimizing our resources through simplification, making our systems and processes resilient and scalable, and continuing to develop and scale our risk management. The progress we made on these priorities and related enterprise initiatives will allow the bank to continue to grow and scale in coming years. Our focus on fundamentals is reflected in several of our financial accomplishments in 2024. We executed our financial plan for the year, and the results met or exceeded the outlook we discussed last January for NII, fee income, expenses, and average loans and deposits. We made significant progress on our CRE concentration, reaching what we believe is a target level. Our capital levels continue to grow through the year and remain strong, as we restarted our share repurchase program in the third quarter. We actively managed our interest rate sensitivity through our hedging program and securities portfolio to shift our balance sheet toward a more rate neutral position. We managed credit risk, meaningfully reducing nonaccrual and commercial criticized balances, and having net charge-offs come in largely in line with our expectations. Our focus on the fundamentals positions M&T for 2025 and beyond, and is reflected in our 2024 results with net operating earnings per share of $14.88, ROTA and ROTCE of 1.3% and 14.54%, and 11% growth in tangible book value per share. Turning to Slide 9, which shows the results for the fourth quarter. Our fourth quarter results reflect the continuation of a strong performance we have through the year. There are several successes to highlight. NII was largely stable compared to the third quarter, even considering 100 basis points in rate cuts since the start of the easing cycle in September. Average total loans grew for the fifth consecutive quarter, demonstrating our ability to more than offset the planned reduction in our CRE concentration. Average total deposits grew by over $3 billion sequentially, while interest-bearing deposit costs declined 24 basis points, reflecting the quality of our deposit franchise. We executed $200 million in share repurchases and grew our CET1 ratio to 11.67%. Fee income, excluding notable items, reached another high point for the fourth quarter, aided by strength in mortgage and trust. Asset quality continued to improve with a $1 billion reduction in commercial criticized loans and a $236 million reduction in nonaccrual loans. Now let's look at the specifics for the fourth quarter. Diluted earnings per share were $3.86, down from $4.02 in the prior quarter. Net income for the quarter was $681 million compared to $721 million in the linked quarter. M&T's fourth quarter results produced an ROA and ROCE of 1.28% and 9.75% respectively. The CET1 ratio remained strong, growing to 11.67% at the end of the fourth quarter and tangible book value per share grew 1%. The fourth quarter included several notable items, a securities gain of $18 million or $0.08 per share related to the sale of noncore investments and expenses associated with the redemption of certain M&T trust preferred obligations amounting to $20 million or $0.09 per share. This action has a three-year earn back. Corporate real estate optimization related to expenses amounted to $27 million or $0.12 per share, and a pension-related credit within expenses amounted to $12 million or $0.05 per share benefit. Slide 10 includes supplemental reporting of M&T's results on a net operating or tangible basis. M&T's net operating income for the fourth quarter was $691 million compared to $731 million in the linked quarter. Diluted net operating earnings per share were $3.92 for the recent quarter, down from $4.08 in the prior quarter. Net operating income yielded ROTA and ROTCE of 1.35% and 14.66% for the recent quarter. Next, we look a little deeper into the underlying trends that generated our fourth quarter results. Please turn to Slide 11. Taxable-equivalent net interest income was $1.74 billion, largely unchanged from the linked quarter. NII for the fourth quarter was $25 million in nonaccrual interest compared to $12 million in the third quarter. The net interest margin was 3.58%, a decrease of 4 basis points from the prior quarter. The primary drivers of the decrease to the margin were a negative 10 basis points related to lower contribution of free funds, partially offset by a positive 3 basis points from the fixed rate asset repricing and a positive 3 basis points from higher nonaccrual interest. Turning to Slide 13 to talk about average loans. Average loans and leases increased $1 billion to $135.7 billion. C&I and consumer growth continued to outpace the decline in CRE, similar to the trend in the past several quarters. C&I loans grew 2% to $60.7 billion, driven by strength in dealer commercial services, fund banking, and corporate and institutional. CRE loans declined 4% to $27.9 billion. CRE as a percent of Tier 1 capital and the allowance is estimated to be 136% at the end of the fourth quarter. Residential mortgage loans were relatively unchanged at $23.1 billion. Consumer loans grew 5% to $24 billion, reflecting increases in recreational finance and indirect auto loans. Loan yields decreased 21 basis points to 6.17% as lower rates on variable loans were partially offset by fixed rate loan repricing, a smaller drag related to cash flow hedges, and higher nonaccrual interest. Turning to Slide 14, our liquidity remains strong at the end of the fourth quarter. Investment securities and cash, including cash held at the Fed, totaled $54.8 billion, representing 26% of total assets. Average investment securities increased $2.7 billion, and the yield on investment securities increased 18 basis points to 3.88% as the yield on new purchases exceeded the yield on maturing securities. In the fourth quarter, we purchased over $3.3 billion in securities at an average rate of 4.96%. The duration of the investment portfolio at the end of the quarter was 3.47 years, and the unrealized pre-tax loss on the available-for-sale portfolio was $205 million for 10 basis points CET1 drag if included in regulatory capital. Turning to Slide 15. We remain focused on growing customer deposits and saw solid deposit growth in the fourth quarter. Average total deposits rose $3.1 billion or 2% to $164.6 billion, reflecting a $2.6 billion increase in non-brokerage deposits. Deposit growth was concentrated in commercial, business banking, and institutional services, while consumer deposits declined, reflecting lower time deposit balances. Average noninterest-bearing deposits rose $0.4 billion to $46.5 billion, primarily related to trust demand deposits within our institutional services segment. Noninterest-bearing deposits were largely stable in our other segments. Excluding broker deposits, the average non-interest-bearing deposit mix in the fourth quarter was 30.4%. Interest-bearing deposit costs decreased 24 basis points to 2.64%. Continuing on Slide 16, noninterest income was $657 million compared to $606 million in the linked quarter. Trust income increased $5 million to $175 million from higher sales and fees from corporate trust and agency services. Mortgage banking revenues were $117 million compared to $109 million in the third quarter. Commercial mortgage banking revenues were the main driver, increasing $7 million from the linked quarter to $41 million, reflecting higher gains on the sale of commercial mortgage loans. Other revenues from operation increased $24 million to $176 million, supported by a $23 million distribution from M&T's investment in DLG and strong syndication and other loan and letter of credit fees, which increased $5 million. Security gains of $18 million mostly reflect the realized gains on the sale of noncore investments. Turning to Slide 17. Noninterest expenses were $1.36 billion, an increase of $60 million from the prior quarter. Salaries and benefits increased $15 million to $790 million inclusive of higher incentive compensation. Equipment and occupancy increased $8 million to $133 million from our new data center starting to come online. Other costs from operations increased $40 million to $168 million, reflecting the redemption of certain M&T trust preferred obligations, and expenses associated with corporate real estate optimization, partially offset by pension-related credit. The efficiency ratio was 56.8% compared to 55% in the third quarter. On an adjusted basis, when excluding notable items, the efficiency ratio was 55.3%. Next, let's turn to Slide 18 for credit. Net interest charge-offs for the quarter totaled $160 million or 47 basis points, up from 35 basis points in the linked quarter. The two largest charge-offs totaled $34 million in more C&I loans in unrelated industries: one, a marine dealer, and the other in manufacturing. Overall, CRE-related charge-offs remain modest. Net charge-offs for the full year were 41 basis points, which is in line with our expectations. Nonaccrual loans decreased $236 million or 12% to $1.7 billion. The nonaccrual ratio decreased 17 basis points to 1.25%, driven largely by upgrades out of nonaccrual as well as payoffs and charge-offs. In the fourth quarter, we recorded a provision of $140 million compared to net charge-offs of $160 million. The allowance to loan ratio decreased 1 basis point to 1.61%, partially related to the reduction in criticized loans, including those in nonaccrual status. Please turn to Slide 19. When we file our 10-K in February, we estimate that the level of criticized loans to be $9.9 billion compared to $10.9 million at the end of September. Improvement from the linked quarter was driven by a $302 million decline in C&I and a $691 million decline in CRE criticized balances. Within C&I, the decline in credit size was concentrated in the services, health services, and dealer segments. At CRE, criticized decline was primarily within office, retail, health care, hotel, and construction. Improved cash flows in many of the portfolios were impacted by COVID, namely health care, hotel, and retail, and an active refinance market helped drive the improvement in CRE criticized loans. Turning to Slide 22 for capital. M&T's CET1 ratio at the end of the fourth quarter was an estimated 11.67% compared to 11.54% at the end of the third quarter. The increase was due to continued strong earnings, net of $200 million in share repurchases. At the end of the year, the negative AOCI impact in the CET1 ratio from the available-for-sale portfolio and the pension-related components combined would be approximately 4 basis points. Now let's turn to Slide 24 for the outlook. Let's begin with the economic backdrop. The economy again remained resilient to the end of the year, and we estimate GDP growth will come in at 2.8% for 2024, with the fourth quarter data published. Consumer spending remains solid, though there will be challenges for some segments reflected by increasing credit delinquency. The labor market remained sturdy in the fourth quarter while job growth and wage growth supported consumer spending and continued economic expansion. We continue to see a soft landing as the most likely outcome for the U.S. economy. Inflation ticked up a bit in the fourth quarter, but we expect it will de-accelerate going forward. With the economic backdrop, let's review our net interest income outlook. We expect taxable equivalent net interest income to be $7.1 billion to $7.2 billion, with a net interest margin increasing through the year and in the mid-360s. Our interest rate sensitivity remains relatively neutral, aided by the balance sheet actions we took in 2024, including adding forward sorting hedges and building our securities portfolio. However, shifts in the shape of the yield curve will drive variability in the NII outlook. We expect full year average loan and lease balances to be $137 billion to $139 billion. This reflects continued growth in C&I and consumer with more modest growth in residential mortgages. Full year average commercial real estate balances are expected to decline in 2024, but we expect the balances to grow modestly in the second half of the year as we build the pipeline and begin to offset payoffs and paydowns with new originations. Full year average deposit balances are expected to be $164 billion to $166 billion. We remain focused on growing customer deposits at a reasonable cost and expect to reduce our reliance on noncustomer funding sources. Turning to fee income. We expect noninterest income to be $2.5 billion to $2.6 billion, a continued growth in noninterest income driven by growth in our core businesses, which we expect will drive higher revenues in mortgage banking, merchant trust, and service charges. Additional mortgage subservicing, which is included in our outlook, adds to our ongoing growth. The interest environment remains dynamic. However, our diversified product set should help provide relative stability from our fee income businesses. Continuing with expenses. We anticipate total noninterest expense, including intangible amortization, to be $5.4 billion to $5.5 billion. The outlook includes our first quarter seasonal salary and benefit increase, which is estimated to be $110 million. Also included in the outlook is approximately $43 million for intangible amortization. Our business lines remain focused on closely managing our expenses, allowing the bank to make targeted investments in projects and business opportunities that support our enterprise priorities. Regarding credit, we expect net charge-offs for the full year to again be near 40 basis points with continued normalization in the consumer portfolio and improvement of commercial credit costs. We expect a taxable equivalent tax rate to be approximately 24.5%. As for capital, we expect to reach an 11% CET1 ratio in 2025. With our 11.67% CET1 ratio at the end of 2024 and the expectation for continued strong capital generation, quarterly share repurchases are expected to be higher than the third and fourth quarters of 2024. In 2025, we remain committed to our four priorities, including growing our New England and Long Island markets, optimizing resources through simplification, making our systems resilient and scalable, and continuing to scale and develop our risk management capabilities. Continued progress and completion of these priorities will enable the bank to grow in the future, both organically and inorganically. To conclude on Slide 25, our results underscore an optimistic investment thesis. M&T has always been a purpose-driven organization with a successful business model that benefits all stakeholders, including shareholders. We have a long track record of credit outperforming through all economic cycles while growing within the markets we serve. We remain focused on shareholder returns and consistent dividend growth. Finally, we are a disciplined acquirer and prudent steward of shareholder capital. Now let's open the call to questions before which, Todd will briefly review the instructions.

Our first question will come from Manan Gosalia with Morgan Stanley.

Daryl, can you unpack your comments on capital and buybacks? I think you've said previously that you can stay above an 11% CET1 ratio and do about $2 billion in buybacks. I don't know if I should be reading too much into the tilde 11% guide on CET1. Does that imply you can do more than $2 billion and bring that capital ratio down from 11.7%?

So, Manan, we feel comfortable that we can basically operate our company at 11% where we are today and what the economy looks like and all that. So our plans are to bring our ratios down throughout the year. We'll be opportunistic from that, but it's also going to be driven by our RWA growth, how much our loan growth is, and all that. We aren't going to push and make loans that don't make sense. We're going to do what we always do to serve our customers and communities. But it's fluid right now whether we're going to have strong loan growth in '25 or something maybe not as strong. So, we'll have a lot of flexibility there to do that. But if the plan came out, and we actually hit our plan that we expect for '25, we'd probably do a little bit over $2 billion with that loan growth. If we have less loan growth, we'll do more share repurchase. If we have more loan growth, we'll do less share repurchase.

Great. Very clear. And on criticized loans, they were down nicely, about $1 billion. The question is what is driving that the most right now? And what matters most for that to continue to come down in 2025? Is it the short end, the long end? Is it getting updated financials from your borrowers and the upgrades that come from that? What's most important from here?

Yes. For the fourth quarter, what really drove our performance was the significant decline in the yield curve around August and September, which allowed us to secure many placements with our customers in the RCC business. The majority of the reduction in our criticized balances came from full payoffs, followed by upgrades. Many businesses are still improving. We previously mentioned that some COVID-affected industries now have much stronger profit and loss statements, contributing to this improvement. Additionally, we experienced some partial paydowns and charge-offs. The main factor was the yield curve. Looking ahead to 2025, the yield curve is currently much steeper than it was at the end of the third quarter. If it remains around that level, with an increase of over 90 basis points, we might see fewer loans cured through permanent placements. This could slow down the pace of improvement in criticized balances. The anticipated Federal Reserve rate reductions, projected at one or two in 2025, are beneficial for our C&I portfolio, particularly in leverage lending. If those rates decrease even further, it would create more positive conditions. We still expect improvements in our criticized commercial loans. However, based on current observations and projections for the Fed and where the yield curve stands, we anticipate a smaller reduction in criticized loans compared to 2024. The positive aspect is that we've managed to exit many higher-risk credits, and the remaining criticized balances are of better quality. We feel confident about our current position.

So it sounds like from a credit perspective, from a charge-off perspective, your outlook hasn't really changed. And I know in the past, you've said that you've been a lot more punitive on classifying those criticized loans. So if the base of decline in the criticized loans slows, does that change how we think about the actual impact to the income statement from the credit of the portfolio? Or is that still pretty much in line with how you thought about it before?

Yes. So from a charge-off perspective, I know that's not through the income statement. Our retail consumer portfolios are normalizing. So we think that's going to be a little bit higher than what it was in '24. But we believe that our commercial credits, both C&I and CRE will continue to come down in net charge-offs. Now from a provision perspective, I think provision-wise, we feel really good at our current allowance levels. When you look at what we could see in the future, we would expect allowance levels to basically, based upon the growth that we have in loans, coupled with the economic conditions that basically impact these industries. Right now, the economic conditions from what we're seeing from the models and the projections are pretty tame, but we're having some loan growth, so we're providing to it from that perspective. Depending on loan growth, we'll provide more on day one. If we have less loan growth, we'll have less provision.

Our next question will come from Bill Carcache with Wolfe Research.

I wanted to start off on the progress you've made in reducing your CRE exposure. It's been well reflected in your declining stress capital buffer. But as you reflect on that improvement, what's been the response from the client side? You're there for them, but have they noticed a difference as you've actively taken that concentration ratio from 136% down to 136%, 183%?

I would say Peter D’Arcy and his team have done a tremendous job really managing through what we've been going through the last couple of years. We've been basically doing more placements in some of our customers. We did a few sales as well over the last couple of years. But those have been more, what I would call, noncore customer-related relationships for the most part. So our core customer base is still intact. Even though we weren't really lending much in CRE over the last couple of years, they are now aware that the pipeline is open and we're now working with them. If you actually look at the pipeline in CRE, we have about $1.5 billion in pipeline now there, which is starting to build, which is nice. But I'd say, overall, I think our core customers are still very loyal and supportive of M&T, and the ones that haven't been supportive of their credits or more financial-oriented were the ones that we were kind of more aggressive on trying to put them out of the bank.

As a follow-up on your earlier credit comments, Daryl, could you frame stress in the portfolio if we were to get no more cuts from here versus 2 to 3 more? Is it going to be enough relief for some of your borrowers if we didn't get any more cuts from here?

Yes, Bill. I mean, obviously, if rates stay where they are, there will be some stress in the system. We still are concerned with office, but office is going to play out over a longer time period. We had a nice reduction in our office criticized this quarter. But that doesn't remove all the risks that you have out there. The fundamentals are still really getting better. Our construction book seems to be on track and doing really well. Our other parts of CRE, if you look at it from a hotel, retail, and multifamily basis, all seem to be performing well and as expected. So I'm not going to say we aren't going to have any more increases to criticized or no more charge-offs. But from what we see today and what we've basically been able to move off the balance sheet already, we think we have a much better criticized book than we have and will have less of an impact moving forward on our financials.

If I could squeeze in one last one. Your comments on capital return are very clear, and the relationship between whether we get faster or slower loan growth being a driver of the level of a buyback. But if we did get any kind of acceleration in loan growth, how much of that would you expect to drop to the bottom line and ultimately drive greater positive operating leverage versus the level that you'd look to reinvest in the business?

I'm basically just going to tell you, we're going to basically be at an 11% CET1 ratio. It's going to be driven by our RWA growth. And depending on that, we'll determine how many share repurchases we do this year.

Our next question will come from Ebrahim Poonawala with Bank of America.

I guess a couple of follow-up questions. When we think about the margin outlook and the margin guidance, if we don't see any move from the Fed and if we remove loan growth, like how do you think the trajectory of the NIM plays itself out from here? Should we think about it as the back book repricing should continue to be a tailwind and deposit costs are stable to lower? Or is that not the right framework to think about what NIM would do in a static balance sheet?

Yes. So high level, Ebrahim. We feel pretty good that our net interest margin should continue to increase throughout 2025. If you look at where we are and what makes us say that, when you look at our received swap portfolio, we already have locked in, and it's going to increase. If you start with the fourth quarter of 2024 and look at fourth quarter 2025, we have over a 50 basis point increase in that book, and that's a given. If you look at our fixed-rate repricing assets on the asset side of the balance sheet, the investment portfolio, consumer loans, and residential mortgage loans, it's going to be dependent on what the shape of the curve is there. But I feel pretty good that the investment portfolio from point to point, from the fourth quarter to the fourth quarter, should be up 20 to 25, 30 basis points, depending on the shape of the curve. Consumer loans and residential mortgage loans should increase by maybe 10 to 20 basis points over that time period. So that's all really good. If you look at the other side of the balance sheet, we ran our models with two Fed cuts out there. These are really driven by Fed actions. We still believe that we will have good repricing going down in our nonmaturity deposits successfully. We think our deposit betas will reach 50% in 2025. High deposits will have almost a 100 basis point improvement point-to-point in that cost, which is really positive. Wholesale funds will also see a nice large improvement. So I feel pretty good with the trends that we see and the trajectory of where our net interest margin is going to go. But a lot depends on the shape of the curve. And you saw yesterday, there was a big move back down and all that. So it's a volatile environment, but we're really neutral from a short end perspective from a Fed move and really just really looking at the longer end. But truly, we're trying to manage through and do things that make sense for our balance sheet and our customers.

That's helpful. And just a separate question on the four priorities you laid out on Slide 23. As we think about the expense outlook for this year, you have some larger tech projects going on, does that set the stage for sort of lower expenses, more efficiencies over the next few years? Or do you think the level of investment spend is likely to continue for the medium term as we think about where efficiency ratio or op lev are headed?

Thank you. When we examine our expenses, I want to express my gratitude to my colleagues in the company. In 2024, we invested significantly in several important projects, and we will continue that approach in 2025. We are staying disciplined and focused on what is best for the company's overall interests. Currently, we have six major investments underway. Of those, three are substantial projects that occur only once every few decades. For example, we are establishing three new data centers, which is not a frequent occurrence—typically every 10 to 20 years. We are also implementing a new general ledger system that has a similar timeframe. Additionally, we are nearly finished with our corporate services and risk management processes, with further work on commercial services to follow, which should remain stable for about a decade. These are indeed significant investments. Once completed, we expect those costs to decrease. At the same time, we are also making investments in data and analytics, which are essential for serving our customers effectively. Our digital capabilities are fundamental, and we must continue to enhance our digital services. Ongoing investments in treasury management and other client support areas will be part of our continuous strategy. Overall, we are currently navigating significant projects, along with other initiatives that will likely impact our expense run rate.

Our next question will come from Gerard Cassidy with RBC.

I’d like you to see if you could frame out first the expansion. You talked about the focus on New England and Long Island. And through organic growth, how long do you think it will take you to get to the levels or the contribution to the consolidated numbers that you've targeted for these areas? And then, saying that, how big do you think they could get as a percentage of the total pie? What's the ideal kind of exposure?

Yes. Well, Gerard, what I would look at is what we had in Baltimore. We got into the Baltimore market with the all-first transaction about 20 years ago. If you look at that and where we are today, 20 years later, we're a dominant player in the Baltimore market. Our plans are to be very similar to that in the New England market. Whether it takes 20 years or whether it's something shorter, that really depends on if we have inorganic growth in those periods. But right now, we're increasing our business bankers, we're increasing commercial lenders, increasing wealth managers, and people are starting to notice us there. We were actually one of the larger players in SBA in 2024, even with a really small branch distribution. So we're having an impact, but I think our impact will continue to increase and grow as we continue to put more investments there. And then if we have opportunities at some point to do inorganic, that will just speed up the process here as well.

Very good. And then, obviously, you've got some great years of experience, and you've seen how regulatory changes have taken place over the years. Any thoughts on what to expect as we all know, with the incoming administration, there'll be a new controller of the currency, new head of the FDIC as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and then the big news, in my view, at least, was the resignation and the Vice Chair of safety and soundness at the Fed. Any thoughts or comments on the way you guys are looking at all of this?

Yes, Gerard, I think we're very optimistic. I think we're hopeful that the new administration puts people in place that are more balanced, really focus on their true risk of the industry. You look at Governor Bullman’s speech that she gave last week in California. Her priorities right now are to prioritize safety and soundness risk, which is really critically important, to commit to tailoring, and still make sure that happens and also to ensure increased transparency throughout the industry and how things are done, specifically stress testing, but other things as well. We think that at M&T, we have our fundamentals on how we run the company. We're very much aligned with that type of thinking. We think you can run a really good, successful bank if you just focus on the fundamentals. That’s what we try to do each and every day, and we think that's really important. So we're optimistic and feel really good about it, and we'll just see what happens when the President gets in office Monday and starts making some decisions on regulatory people in these spots.

Our next question will come from John Pancari with Evercore.

On just on credit, if I could just go back to that. I appreciate the color you gave on that front. Just based upon your outlook, if credit trends play out as you had noted, you expect a bit more stress but some improvement elsewhere. Do you expect that you could see continued reserve releases through 2025? I know you've said the reserve declined a bit this quarter, very modest, but could you expect continued release if credit plays out as you had described?

We definitely believe from a commercial CRE perspective, as things continue to improve, and we have less criticized loans and less nonaccrual loans out there, that you're going to see improvement in the allowance. On the other hand, we are changing the mix of our investment or loan portfolio. The new mix of the loan portfolio has more consumer assets associated with it. For those consumer assets that have a little bit higher allowance, we're really building a very diversified balance sheet and diversified revenue stream from that perspective. So I'm not going to say we can definitely release a lot of allowance because of that mix change that's happening. But I think within that mix change, you're seeing the commercial side of it definitely improve and get better. On the consumer side, we get paid for these higher yields and higher returns that we're going to receive on that. So it makes sense all in all, in the long run.

Okay. Separately, regarding the capital and M&A topic, you mentioned that when assessing your markets of interest and broader expansion, pursuing inorganic opportunities could accelerate the process. Could you provide an updated perspective on whole bank deals, especially considering the changing regulatory environment? You just referenced the forthcoming administration.

Yes. I think we're optimistic. We'll see what happens when people get into the seats. For us, we are really focused on our four priorities. I firmly believe as we execute on these priorities, and we get things accomplished, people will want us to actually be more important or grow into other markets. I think we'll have people pushing us or pulling us into those markets, and there will be a demand for an M&T Bank. When you look at M&T, I think of us as being in the sweet spot. You have smaller banks in many of the markets that are also community-oriented, but they don't have the platform or the scale to really offer what we can over that time period and what we do, how we go to market. Then you have the bigger banks while they have the scale and the products and services, they tend to be more line of business-oriented. We feel M&T's community bank-oriented structure is a great fit for the New England markets. We think that's a great bank there, and we'll have a lot of success on how that plays out. We're excited to continue to grow, and we actually believe the markets will push us into those other markets to make us be successful.

Our next question will come from Peter Winter with D.A. Davidson.

Daryl, can you talk about borrower sentiment today in terms of loan demand? And what you think it will take to get them to be more aggressive in terms of demand?

Yes. If you look at it from a borrower perspective, what we're seeing right now in the marketplace is a mixed bag, to be honest with you. If you look at our specialty businesses that we have, and look specifically like in corporate institutional fund banking, dealer financial services, all those seem to be pretty robust and going very strong. If you look at our middle market businesses that we have throughout our footprint, not as much so there. It tends to be a little bit more soft. I think waiting for more certainty to come out from the administration and how things play out. From our perspective, we actually think 2025 and 2026 is going to be really good years. The administration seems to be very much pro-business, growing the economy. We think as the economy and they're successful doing that, loan demand will follow at some point down the road. So we're optimistic; but right now, I would say it's probably a mixed bag.

Got it. And then just as a follow-up, can you talk about positive competition? And would you say DDA migration has stabilized and actually could start growing in '25?

Yes. We definitely saw all of our business lines, with the exception of ICS, were pretty flat. So the disintermediation seemed to have basically gone away, and I think that's run its course. ICS had a really great quarter and should have a great 2025 and actually contributed, and we had positive growth in our noninterest-bearing deposits. We feel very positive from that perspective. When you look at the growth that we had in deposits for the quarter, linked quarter, we were up about $3 billion in deposits. That is really good. It was all customer-oriented growth. It is competitive in the marketplace, but I think it comes back to when I got the question earlier, just M&T's model and how we go to market and how we serve our clients. People want to have relationships with one place that can fully serve their needs. I think we're being very successful in accomplishing that, and we're seeing really good traction there. We expect our core deposit growth to be up a couple of percent, 2% or 3% this next year. I'm not saying it's not competitive, but we think that we can win with our services and competitive rates that we will pay out in the marketplace.

Our next question will come from Frank Schiraldi with Piper Sandler.

Just trying to work through some of the numbers you talked about just on the call here in terms of margins such as pickup in swaps and repricing security loan book and the deposit betas. Just curious if we think about the exit rate for 2025, just curious if you’d be willing to discuss any guardrails there. It seems like you could perhaps get to the sort of a 380 number. And so just curious there, or maybe just updated thoughts on more normalized NIM as we move through the year.

Yes. I would love to tell you that, Frank. But it really depends on the shape of the curve and what's going on in the marketplace. Like I said earlier, we're pretty neutral on the short end of the curve. We have an upward sloping yield curve. I think we'll have a much higher net interest margin. That's a good environment for margins. If it stays more flattish, it'll be less so from that perspective. It's really hard to tell from that. But I'm optimistic as we start 2025. I feel that we have a lot of good things in place and have a lot of confidence in my teammates out there that are going to make things happen and really make us successful. I'm optimistic that all that's going to play out. Whether it's going to be 380 or some other number, I can't really tell you today, but feel really good about how it’s going.

Okay. I have a follow-up question regarding stock buybacks. It seems like you are still progressing through CCAR and are comfortable with the 11% CET1. I’m curious if, aside from the potential for loan growth to exceed or fall short of expectations this year, there are any plans to delay repurchase activities for later in the year. Should we anticipate a steady pace throughout 2025?

What I would tell you is we feel comfortable operating the company at 11% of where we are today. That's kind of a short-term capital target. What I believe is our long-term capital target is probably going to be around 10%, and I think that's probably going to play out over the next year or two. As far as when we've repurchased shares and all that is really going to be dependent on what we think the timing is and whether we're opportunistic or not. We aren't going to basically tell you guys. You guys can calculate how much we're going to buy back. I don’t really know when we're going to buy back. We're going to be opportunistic and just see how it plays out from that. But I don't think 11% is done in '26 and '27; things continue to improve and all that. We can continue to push our capital ratios down closer to 10%.

Our next question will come from Erika Najarian with UBS.

And just a follow-up on that line of questioning, Daryl. I think it's an off-cycle year this year for DFAST for Category IV banks. Are you planning to maybe address that stress capital buffer this year by opting to participate? Also maybe I'll ask the second question here. How should we read into the Federal Reserve press release that was issued in December 23, essentially saying that they were going to look to improve the transparency of the stress test and also sort of the bank lawsuit and how that could sort of impact your path from, you mentioned like 11% this year to over the long term 10%?

Yes, we have opted into the stress test, and the Fed has approved it. We are conducting the stress test again. Given the reductions we’ve seen in commercial real estate and our criticized and nonaccrual balances, along with our PPNR performance, we expect to perform better than we did in 2024. It's worth noting that in 2024, we were one of only three banks that did not pass out of 30 surveyed. We aim to continue reducing our metrics. Our stress capital buffer remains higher than we would like, and we need to decrease it further this year. Regarding the Fed's recent announcements, we appreciate Chairman Powell's transparency and acknowledgment of areas for improvement. It’s important that we all strive to improve, and we believe these efforts are moving in the right direction. We look forward to enhancing this process.

Our next question will come from Christopher Spahr with Wells Fargo.

So Daryl, you have a lot of comments about the investments you're putting into the company, and yet, when I look at the expense guide, it seems to be relatively measured. So I'm just wondering what are the sources of the cost savings or the offsets that you're getting within the franchise? And how repeatable those may be?

Yes. Chris, what I would tell you is one of the things when I joined M&T and I knew the company pretty well from the outside looking in, but what are the gems that you have here that I think is really important is our business leaders that we have throughout the company that run their groups. They're all really entrepreneurial. They don't like to be told what to do, but they are really good at executing what and how they do it. I give all the credit to my peers and how they look and restructure their groups and make them more efficient and automated. I think that's really important, and we don't want to lose that. I think that what makes us really unique in how successful we are when we go to market. If you look at our performance in 2024, what we were able to accomplish was pretty amazing. I think '25 will be better than '24 as I look out. I feel really good. We definitely have more opportunities, Chris, optimized throughout the company, and we will continue to execute and do that. I know my peers around the company will help make that happen.

What are the main factors contributing to the savings? Is it mainly due to a reduced workforce over time and fewer manual operations?

With headcount obviously being the highest cost on our expense base that would definitely have some type of impact. But automation, new ways of doing things. What we've done in the company, and I don't know how many other entities have done this, but we have trained now people throughout our whole company to work in an agile form. When I was in other places where I worked, Agile was more of a technology thing and as technology people go off and do this stuff. We've trained all of our business leaders throughout the whole company. We call it the way we work and how they basically work with technology and with other drivers of how the company works and really work together as teams to make us better each and every day. Everybody is empowered to improve how they operate. It could be as simple as moving things from an Excel worksheet onto Alteryx and all that. We've had dozens of those things in our finance area where we save hundreds of hours doing that. Or it could be more complex, where we're offshoring some people into other jobs from lower-skilled positions or whatever. So we do a whole mixture of things, Chris. I'm not going to be too specific about that. I'm just going to hope that we continue to deliver really good numbers for you and you're satisfied with that.

Okay. And then one last follow-up. Your office count shrunk a little bit over the last year. Do you expect that to expand going forward?

From an office count perspective, I think we're kind of real close. It's within 100 FTE, if I remember looking at the numbers year-over-year or something like that. When you look at just how much our vacancy rate is, our vacancy rate is much larger than that. We could have some volatility in those numbers and I really look at what expenses they're going to hit for the year and not so much the FTE they got.

Our next question will come from Matt O'Connor with Deutsche Bank.

Just a question on fees. I mean the trends have been good. The outlook is solid. But do you feel like you need maybe a broader product set, both to boost the contribution of fees to overall revenue? And then I guess I'm thinking specifically like in capital markets, where more of your peers have geared into that over the last several years, and you're still relatively small in some of the hedging services you provide and things like that.

Yes. We actually are growing out in that area. Peter D’Arcy and his team have put some investments in talent over the last couple of years, and we'll probably continue to do that in the next couple of years, but we are really focused on growing out the capital markets and investment banking pieces that make sense to serve our customers and the communities that we serve from that perspective. We also see some nice growth within our CRE platform. One of our people that work for Peter has really done amazing things, giving us relationships with other nonbank entities out there. We have a relationship now with Blackstone, and it's connected to our RCC business so that Blackstone can originate and actually do placements through the agencies now. We're going to continue to do more of those things that will generate more fee income. We plan to continue to serve our CRE customers but think that our choices and options that we have now won't be just on balance sheet. We have a lot of off-balance sheet and growing off-balance sheet alternatives that can really help drive and serve them as well as to serve our fee income. I think we're headed in a really good direction. As far as mortgage goes, Matt, we've continued to hire producers, both in commercial and residential. One of the things you may not know about us is that we have a really strong subservicing sector. We do subservicing for some of the largest mortgage originators in the industry and we're really good at it. We actually love the more challenging stuff from a servicing perspective because of our expertise there. If you look at our ICS business, they've had tremendous growth in the last couple of years. I expect to have really good growth. We're expanding in Europe now. That's something we're following our customers. Our customers have asked us to follow them to Europe, and we're following them and serving their needs there. I think our fee income area is actually very positive, has a lot of good momentum, and will continue to grow and be a good positive revenue for us. That said, I think net interest margins are also going to go up. So maybe from a mix perspective, you may not see the benefit, but I think we've got a lot of good revenue momentum going on at M&T right now.

Thank you. At this time, we have no further questions in queue. I would like to turn the call back to Brian Klock for any additional or closing remarks.

Again, thank you all for participating today. And as always, if clarification of any of the items in the call or news release is necessary, please contact our Investor Relations department. That's area code (716) 842-5138. And have a great day.

This does conclude the M&T Bank Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Please disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day.