Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for QCR Holdings, Inc.'s first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Following the close of the market yesterday, the company issued its earnings press release for the first quarter. If anyone joining us today has not yet received a copy, it is available on the company's website www.qcrh.com. With us today from Management are Todd Gipple, President and CEO, and Nick Anderson, CFO. Management will provide a summary of the financial results, and then we will open the call to questions from analysts. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that some of the information management we'll be providing today falls under the guidelines of forward-looking statements, as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. As part of these guidelines, any statements made during this call concerning the company's hopes, beliefs, expectations, and predictions of the future are forward-looking statements, and actual results could differ materially from those projected. Additional information on these factors is included in the company's SEC filings, which are available on the company's website. Additionally, management may refer to non-GAAP measures, which are intended to supplement but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAAP measures. The press release available on the website contains the financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today, as well as reconciliation of the gap-to-non-gap measures. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and will be available for replay through April 30, 2026, starting this afternoon, approximately one hour after the completion of this call. It will also be accessible on the company's website. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Todd Gipple at QCR Holdings. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today. I'd like to start with an overview of our first quarter performance, and then Nick will walk us through the financial results in more detail. We are pleased to deliver the most profitable first quarter in our company's history. This performance was driven by healthy loan and deposit growth, significantly lower non-interest expense, and modest margin expansion. We maintained excellent asset quality and generated meaningful growth in tangible book value per share while returning capital to our shareholders through opportunistic share repurchases. We also continue to make further investments in our digital transformation as we build a more modern, scalable bank for our clients and employees. Strong performance in our traditional banking and wealth management businesses partially offset the linked quarter reduction in our capital markets revenue. Capital markets results were in line with our expectations given typical first quarter seasonality and were equal to our five-year average for Q1 production. As a result, we delivered a very strong return on average assets of 1.40% and earnings per share growth of 31% compared to the same period last year, highlighting the strong earnings potential of our diverse business model. Our traditional banking business continues to deliver solid organic growth supported by healthy commercial and industrial activity across our markets. Our multi-charter model enables us to consistently gain market share with locally led community banks that build deep relationships with high value clients and communities where they live and work. Our digital transformation remains on track with the successful completion of the second of four core system conversions in early April. Modernizing our technology stack will deliver meaningful benefits for both our clients and employees, expanding our service capabilities, enhancing the client experience, and driving operating leverage. Our wealth management business also delivered very strong results with analyzed revenue growth of 14 percent. Our success in this business continues to be driven by the experience of our team and the power of our relationship-driven model, which connects our traditional banking clients and key professionals in each of our communities with our dedicated wealth advisors across our markets. We are deepening client engagement and reinforcing wealth management as a key driver of our sustained top-tier financial performance. Our LIHTC lending business also continues to perform as the demand for affordable housing remains robust, driven by a lack of supply and ongoing affordability challenges nationwide. We view LIHTC lending as a highly profitable, annually consistent, and differentiated line of business for QCRH, anchored by our deep network of developer relationships and historically high-quality assets our platform delivers. Our LIHTC business has consistently delivered strong results, demonstrating our success in navigating various interest rate cycles and dynamic market conditions. Our strong relationships with industry-leading LIHTC developers, combined with market demand, position us well to grow this business and further strengthen our financial performance. Given the strength of our pipeline in our traditional and LIHTC lending platforms, we are reaffirming our guidance for gross annualized loan growth of 10% to 15% over the final three quarters of 2026. We are also increasing the lower end of our capital markets revenue guidance by $5 million, now targeting a range of $60 million to $70 million for the next four quarters. In combination with our LIHTC permanent loan securitizations launched in 2023, we have also begun partnering with private investors in LIHTC construction loan sale transactions. These transactions enable us to expand our permanent LIHTC lending capacity, which will drive increased capital markets revenue. The ability to sell off these LIHTC construction loans allows our team to say yes when our developer clients would like us to provide the construction financing for their projects, in addition to the permanent financing that generates our capital markets revenue. This is allowing us to grow our market share in the affordable housing space. During the quarter, we identified a total of $523 million in LIHTC loans, both construction and permanent, for securitization and sale. The transactions are planned to close during the second quarter and will mark our fifth permanent loan securitization and our second construction loan sale. This is our LIHTC flywheel in action. Strong demand for affordable housing, reinforced by the federal government's commitment to increased LIHTC tax credits, combined with our deep developer relationships and our exceptional client service, positions us to capture market share from the larger competitors in this space. LIHTC industry's proven long-term performance drives investor demand for these assets, enabling us to execute LIHTC loan securizations and sales. These transactions allow us to proactively manage concentration risk, balance sheet growth, liquidity, and capital levels while generating increased capital markets revenue. We are building an asset-light, capital-efficient, and revenue-heavy business in affordable housing. While securitizations and LIHTC construction loan sales temper near-term on balance sheet growth, they enhance long-term profitability by creating more capacity. The balance sheet capacity created by these transactions is then rapidly redeployed into new originations, allowing us to replace the earning assets quickly and expand our capital market's revenue to more than offset the foregone interest income over time. These loan sales and securizations are also allowing us to strategically manage our total assets under the $10 billion asset threshold this year. We anticipate growing beyond $10 billion sometime in 2027, and we plan to be fully prepared for the associated organizational impacts by mid-2028, building on the planning efforts we began in 2023. Our company is executing at a high level across all three of our core lines of business. Our team has driven a five-year earnings per share CAGR of 14% and a five-year tangible book value per share CAGR of 12.5%. Our continued investments in talent, technology, and strategic growth combined with disciplined expense management position us to sustain this top-tier financial performance. I am grateful for our 1,000 teammates that take exceptional care of our clients, our communities, and each other as they deliver long-term value for our shareholders. I will now turn the call over to Nick to provide further details regarding our first quarter results.

Thank you, Todd, and good morning, everyone. We delivered net income of $33 million, or $1.99 per diluted share for the quarter. Net interest income was $67 million and increased slightly on a late quarter basis when adjusted for fewer days in the first quarter. Our NIM-TEY increased one basis point from the fourth quarter of 2025, which was below the low end of our guidance range. Our robust deposit growth came early in the quarter from our correspondent business, which carries higher pricing. And when combined with loan growth occurring very late in the quarter, margin expansion was muted. The increase in our margin was driven by significant improvements in the cost of funds, partially offset by a reduction in our earning asset yields. We continue to have a disciplined approach to deposit pricing, and combined with a liability-sensitive balance sheet, our cost of funds betas are more than one and a half times those of our earning assets during the current rate-cutting cycle. Since the Fed began cutting rates in 2024, our cost of funds have declined by 79 basis points, compared to only a 47 basis point decline in earning asset yields. While we continue to benefit from repricing lower-yielding loans into higher market rates, the opportunity is naturally moderating as the rate-cutting cycle matures. During the quarter, new loan origination yields exceeded those on loan payoffs by 22 basis points. However, loan growth arrived very late in the quarter, and average loan balances were down $109 million, contributing to the decline in the loan yield compared to the prior quarter. While our balance sheet has moved closer to neutral since the rate-cutting cycle began, we remain positioned to benefit from future rate reductions, with rate-sensitive liabilities exceeding rate-sensitive assets by approximately $900 million, providing upside to margin in a declining rate environment. For future cuts in the Fed Fund's rate, we estimate one to two basis points of NIM accretion for every 25 basis point cut in rates. If the yield curve steepens, we'd expect NIM expansion at the top end of that range. And if the yield curve remains relatively flat, we would expect NIM expansion at the lower end of the range. Supported by our late first quarter loan growth, we are guiding second quarter NIM, TEY, ranging from statics to an increase of three basis points, assuming no further Fed funds rate changes. Upside in our second quarter NIM is supported by repricing opportunities on approximately $163 million in fixed-rate loans currently yielding 6.2%, which we would project to reset nearly 25 to 30 basis points higher. We also anticipate continued CD repricing during the second quarter, with approximately $400 million of maturities, currently costing 3.7%, which we expect to retain and reprice nearly 25 to 30 basis points lower. We project investment yields to expand, supported by a solid pipeline of new municipal bonds priced well above 7% on a tax-equivalent basis. Additionally, we are planning to offtake approximately $523 million of LIHTC loans through the securitization and loan sale in the second quarter, which should be moderately NIM accretive and is reflected in our NIM guidance. Non-interest income totaled $23 million in the first quarter, including $11 million from capital markets revenue and $5 million from wealth management. Our LIHTC lending team closed 13 projects during the quarter, including three with new developers as we continue to expand our LIHTC platform. Our wealth management team delivered strong results this quarter, adding 80 new client relationships and $177 million in new assets under management. While market volatility pressured AUM levels, new client growth largely offset that impact. Wealth management revenue was up 3% from the prior quarter. This business continues to provide stability, recurring fee income, and meaningful diversification to our overall revenue mix. Now turning to our expenses. Non-interest expense for the first quarter was $52 million compared to $63 million for the fourth quarter. The $11 million decrease was primarily driven by a $5.5 million reduction in salaries and benefits expenses associated with variable compensation related to earnings performance. In addition, we experienced lower professional and data processing costs due to the timing of digital transformation activities and the impact of the debt extinguishment loss in the prior quarter. Our flexible cost structure, particularly variable compensation tied to performance, is designed to support operating leverage while preserving flexibility through various revenue cycles. As a result, expenses were well below our guided range, highlighting our expense flexibility. This structure closely aligns our underlying cost base with performance, supporting a pay-for-performance culture and value creation for shareholders. Our significantly lower non-interest expenses resulted in an adjusted core efficiency ratio of 57.7% for the first quarter. For the second quarter, we are guiding non-interest expenses to be in the range of $55 to $58 million, which assumes capital markets revenue and loan growth are within our guided ranges, while also continuing to invest in our digital transformation initiatives. This outlook reflects our disciplined approach to expense management aligned with our 965 strategic model, which targets non-interest expense growth of less than 5% annually while enhancing operating leverage and profitability. Moving to our balance sheet, total loans grew $145 million for the quarter, or 8% annualized, excluding the planned runoff of the M2 equipment finance portfolio. There are $523 million of LIHTC loans identified for securitization and sale included in the held-for-sale category. These loans consist of a $207 million pool of LIHTC construction loans identified for sale to a new private investor and a $316 million Freddie Mac LIHTC tax-exempt permanent loan pool securitization. Continued execution of our LIHTC off-take strategies has increased our confidence to supporting larger transactions and a broader range of developer opportunities. Complementing our loan growth, core deposit growth accelerated during the quarter, increasing $409 million, or 23%, on an annualized basis. Average deposit balances only rose by $31 million, or 2% annualized, compared to the fourth quarter as we actively managed our excess liquidity off balance sheet to optimize balance sheet efficiency. We remain highly focused on expanding core deposits and improving the deposit mix across our markets. Our deposit mix improved this quarter, driven by higher non-interest-bearing balances and a reduction in higher-cost CD and broker deposits, further strengthening our funding profile. Asset quality remained excellent during the quarter. Non-performing assets totaled $43 million, a decrease of $439,000 from the prior quarter, which resulted in the NPA to total asset ratio remaining static at 0.45%. The ratio of criticized loans to total loans and leases was 2.01%, remaining well below the company's long-term historical average and near the five-year low of 1.94% established in the prior quarter. The marginal increase in criticized loans was primarily driven by one large credit, which is expected to be resolved favorably later this year. The company recorded total provision for credit losses of $2.5 million during the quarter, down from $5.5 million in the prior quarter, primarily due to the reclassification of LIHTC construction loans to the held-for-sale category as these loans are expected to be sold at par. Net charge-offs were $4 million during the first quarter of 2026, a decline of $300,000 from the prior quarter. Between the start of the first quarter and April 20th, we returned almost $25 million of capital to shareholders with about 288,000 common shares repurchased at opportunistic valuations. Since we began repurchasing shares in August of last year, we have repurchased 566,000 common shares, returning a total of $46 million to our shareholders. These repurchases demonstrate our capital allocation flexibility, enabling opportunistic repurchases when they create value and align with our strategic and financial priorities. We delivered another quarter of strong growth in tangible book value per share, which rose $1.33 to over $59, reflecting 9% annualized growth. Over the past five years, tangible book value has grown at a compound annual rate of 12.5%, highlighting our continued strong financial performance and long-term focus on creating shareholder value. Our tangible common equity to tangible assets ratio decreased two basis points to 10.31%. The common equity Tier 1 ratio increased two basis points to 10.54%, and our total risk-based capital ratio decreased 19 basis points to 14%. These quarterly changes reflect the combined impact of strong earnings and share repurchases during the quarter. The total risk-based capital ratio was also impacted by a reduction in subordinated debt capital treatment on our 2019 issuance and lower ACL balances. Finally, our effective tax rate for the quarter was 7%, down from 8% in the prior quarter, reflecting lower pre-tax income and an increase in the mix of our tax-exempt income relative to our taxable income. Our tax-exempt loan and bond portfolios have continued to support a low effective tax rate. Assuming a revenue mix in line with our guidance ranges, we estimate our effective tax rate to be in the range of 8% to 10% for the second quarter of 2026. With that added context on our first quarter results, let's open the call for your questions. Operator, we are ready for our first question.

Thank you. And as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to join the question queue, please press star than one at this time. If you'd like to remove yourself from queue, it's star than two. Once again, that's star than one if you have a question. Today's first question comes from Daniel Tomeo with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, guys. Good morning, Danny. yeah maybe maybe first on the capital front um you've got the two securitizations planned for the second quarter i i apologize if i missed it but do you have a sense for how much capital that will add to uh to the stack and then uh the follow-up is is on the buyback side just you know do you plan to use that in buybacks or or you know you're at i think ten and a half percent CET1. Is that a good bogey for you guys to settle near going forward or you want to keep growing?

Thanks. Yeah, thanks, Danny. Appreciate the question. Actually, through the perm loan securitization, we don't really free up regulatory capital because we're retaining B pieces historically, and that's okay, but it does free up gap capital. As you noted, we're getting into the mid-10s in terms of total risk space and CET1. And so 25 basis points gets freed up from the construction loan participation, and that will allow us to continue to be fairly opportunistic with respect to buybacks. So we're getting up to really above our long-term target in terms of capital ratios, and so we would continue to be opportunistic. As you know, there's really four things to do with capital. Retain it for organic growth, and that's a little less demand for us as we're going more asset light and capital efficient in the LIHTC business. M&A is not a current priority for us, so then you get to returning capital. We did raise our dividend modestly, and it remains a modest dividend, because we believe at current valuations, the stock repurchases, buybacks, are really the best use of capital. And so we're very pleased to have accomplished what we have already. And really, the answer is we would continue to be opportunistic when it comes to buybacks at current valuation levels. It makes sense. And we tend to not just look at where we're at on a current price-to-tangible book or price-to-earnings. We really look at where earnings in TBB are headed. And considering we're growing those at a more than 10% CAGR, it gives us even more confidence to be buying shares. So kind of long answer to your short question, but frees up about 25 BIPs, and we would continue to be opportunistic in share buybacks.

No, that's great, Todd. Appreciate all the color there. And then maybe one on the margin. So we've got the guidance for the second quarter. It feels like maybe we're approaching stability. Curious for your thoughts on that. And then, you know, longer term, do the securitizations continue to be kind of modestly accretive every time you do them? Or is there a point where they are, you know, break-even or, you know, don't impact the margin as much as we look forward for future securitizations?

Yeah, thanks, Danny. I'll answer several data points here maybe for that question. And when you think about our Q1 average earning assets, we were about $8.6 billion, considering, you know, the Q1 loan growth being back-end loaded. And then assuming we hit the midpoint of our loan growth, call it 12.5% here for the rest of the year, assume roughly middle of the quarter for off-takes, we expect Q2 average earning assets would be down about $200 million. So, I'm going to translate that then into NII and NIM. Our core margin, we continue to expect to grind higher by a couple basis points with loan and CD repricing plus. And then to your other question, the offtakes here in Q2, they are expected to be slightly accretive. And I'm going to call that about a basis point here for Q2. In addition, when it comes back to full circle to NII, we've got an extra day in Q2, and all that leads us. I think we're going to feel pretty confident about holding Q2 NII static. When you think on the go-forward picture on future offtakes, I don't think we're going to anchor every transaction to being perfectly neutral quarter-to-quarter. future LIHTC rotations likely to be less dilutive than it was in Q4. Q4 was – we had a fair amount of well-priced assets that were part of that package transaction. Some of the transactions here in Q2 are at lower yields, and so we also are combining that with our securitization. So we get a little bit of upside between the two transactions. So I think, you know, anytime we're taking decent assets off the books, you know, if we can hold neutral, great. I think our expectations might be a little dilutive, but certainly not to what we experienced, you know, during Q1 with the impact from the Q4 transaction. Okay. Very helpful, Nick. Thank you. All right. I will

step back. Thanks for the answers. Thanks, Damien. And our next question today comes from Damon

Del Monte at KBW. Please go ahead. Hey, guys. This is Matt Rank, filling in for Damon. Hope everybody's doing well today. My first question, thanks for the comments on the digital transformation, but just curious if any of that modernization includes anything with artificial intelligence, And maybe if you guys have identified any use cases, like could that technology speed up the LIHTC flywheel, so to speak, or help with wealth management, anything like that?

Sure. Matt, thanks for joining. Give our best to Damon. We are really excited about the digital transformation that we're undergoing here. And I'll give you a little background to get to your AI answer, but we're halfway done. The first core conversion was, candidly, our most simple, and that was last October when we went from a Jack Henry product to another Jack Henry product where we've landed at Jack Henry Silver Lake. The one we accomplished just after the end of the quarter, first weekend in April, is, candidly, our most rigorous one. It was the first one going from Pfizer Signature to Jack Henry Silver Lake. It went really, really well, and we really wanted to accomplish that first one and have it go well. Of course, we've got another one coming up in October and April. So in April of 27, we expect to be all done, and the answer to your AI automation question is really about the decision we made a couple years ago to partner with Jack Henry for our new core. We believe them to be the furthest along with respect to AI, with respect to automation opportunities. The open architecture that they have has allowed us to integrate it with roughly 30 other, a little over 30 other products that link to our core. That's gone really well. It's been a lot of hard work. But they are, we believe, furthest along in terms of giving us and their other bank clients a lot of capabilities when it comes to AI. That will come from our large third-party vendors. We're not going to be standing that up ourselves, but they are well down the path. With respect to how that impacts us in the future, I think it's going to be more about our retail and commercial banking. I do think there will be some artificial intelligence, certainly, that will help us in the wealth management space. When it comes to LIHTC assets, there are some conversations more around blockchain with respect to tracking those assets and the securitization and sale of those assets being more efficient with blockchain. So it's more about blockchain when it comes to LIHTC. So thanks for the great question. We are really excited about our digital future, and we're about halfway done, a little over halfway done with the core conversions.

Okay, great. Thank you for all that color. And then just one more question for me. The loan loss reserve came down this quarter, so just wanted to get your thoughts on how we should think about that level going forward.

Sure. So, Matt, while provision was down, that was really due to the reclassification of the LIHTC loans to help for sale. So, we used some of the provision or the ACL in that regard, but we did, and we believed it was important, we did hold our coverage ratio static at 1.26%. So, while our provision was down, we maintained the same level of reserves that we had previously. So, just, I appreciate the question because it will help be clear that we didn't soften reserves, we didn't lighten reserve levels, we kept those static. The reduction in provision was about reclassifying a fair amount of loans to help for sale.

Gotcha. Okay, thank you for that. I'll step back.

Thanks, man.

Thank you. And as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star than one on your telephone keypad. Our next question today comes from Nathan Race at Piper Sandler. Please go ahead. It appears that we're not receiving any audio from Mr. Race's line here, so we're going to move on to our next questioner, which is Brian Martin at Jannie Montgomery. Please go ahead. Hey, guys.

Good morning, Brian.

See, Nick, can you just, maybe I missed what you were saying there in terms of just, I think I got the big picture on the, you know, being kind of neutral, but just kind of where the earning assets land the next couple quarters as you kind of roll through the growth and the offtake in terms of, you know, it sounded like it might be down 200 or so next quarter in the second quarter, given what happens. And then thereafter, it's stable to growing with the balance of the portfolio, or just, you know, second and third quarter, just as you – if it happens mid-quarter, just kind of have to think about those next two quarters from an earning asset – average earning asset standpoint.

Yeah, thanks, Brian. Certainly a lot of noise here in Q2 as you think about the transaction and trying to model some of that out. But, yeah, you are correct. When you think about Q2 average earning assets, we're thinking about that being down about $200 million, but that assumes we're hitting a pretty strong loan growth for the quarter, and then we also then have the offtake kind of pegged up for mid-quarter of Q2. Now, when you get to Q3, you know, when we think about some of the noise, that temporary noise associated with the transaction, you know, you'd start to see that to stabilize and to see some growth from there.

Gotcha. And just the margin, obviously you gave some comments about next quarter's margin, but just the longer term, I think maybe the question earlier is just about if we're in a period of stability here, the bias would be trending upward. I mean, you had some nice improvement on the funding side this quarter with the deposits. Yeah, I don't know that, just the timing of the loan growth coming on and, you know, I guess any additional improvement on that funding side. But it feels like the margins, you know, kind of flat to up rather than down. Is that, as you kind of look in the out quarters without putting words in your mouth, does that seem like how we should be thinking about it?

Yeah, Brian, that is how we're thinking about it. And we continue to grind out every basis point from our core margin. And as you mentioned, a lot of that is coming from our loan and deposit repricing. We continue to drip deposit pricing on our non-index deposits, drip lower here as we can. But, yeah, our expectation is that we can continue to grind out, you know, every basis point here, even into Q2 with all the activity going on, but beyond that into Q3. I think something else that will contribute to that is our expectation on the stronger loan growth as well.

Gotcha. And the loan-to-deposit ratio, I guess, as you kind of move through all the noise here, I guess, where do you expect that to kind of settle out, you know, over the next couple quarters, given the dynamics here? There's just a lot of moving parts in there.

Yeah. So we did drop quite a bit to 87% this quarter. Certainly, that's below our historical. When you think about Q2, we're expecting that to fall more into a range between 90% and 95%. I'd probably land at 92.5% longer term here.

Gotcha. And then last two, just I know you talked about the buybacks being the most, you know, opportune, biggest opportunity short term. But as you kind of roll through the modernization of the technology and you're more asset-lighter, you know, I guess, does M&A become a bit more important or more interesting, I guess, or more likely as you kind of look out into 27? I mean, you managed below $10 billion this year, but going over, I know it doesn't have a big cost negative to you guys, given the planning you've done, but just in terms of going over with more size, is that something you would think about as you go into 27?

Yeah, Brian, that's a fair question. I appreciate you asking. Our interest in M&A will grow a bit after we get all the way through this digital transformation. I've been careful to say in the past we're not necessarily in blackout with respect to that because of the conversions we're doing. We would certainly have the ability to do something if it made a lot of sense. I would tell you our interest in M&A would be less about the gyrations of going over $10 billion. I continue to feel very good about that. But as you know, a lot of conversations are starting these days, and there certainly is more chatter around M&A. We think we are a really great partner for the right potential partner, but I would just say activity around that is ramping up in terms of conversations, but our strike zone remains very, very small. There's a whole host of metrics with respect to a potential partner that we would have to hit. But probably the main one would be at the pace we are accreting TBV and earnings per share, it's going to have to be a very good strategic and financial transaction because we do not want to go backward. And so that means it would have to be an excellent partner, and there are some out there. It'd have to be a really well-done financial transaction because we have great momentum organically and we really don't want to take a step backward in M&A so probably the punchline there is open to it but very tight strike zone yeah and then

nothing near term more a little bit more in the out years or out quarters sure yeah okay cool I think thanks for taking the questions guys thank you

Brian thank you and everyone has a final reminder to ask a question please press starter than one our next question comes from nathan race at piper sandler please go ahead

hey guys good morning sorry about the uh technical difficulties earlier no worries um i apologize i hopped down late but just in terms of kind of the cadence of capital markets revenue and just kind of some of the impacts you saw from a revenue perspective this quarter i mean how much did kind of the volatility in rates versus maybe some seasonality impact what you saw in terms of capital markets transactions closing and then you know do you also expect you know as you look out over the next 12 months to add some seasonally kind of lighter volumes as well in the first quarter I guess I'm just trying to understand is you know the updated guidance is going to be kind of more loaded over the next three quarters sure no Nate appreciate the ability to clarify some of

that. So in Q1, we saw very typical seasonality for LIHTC, and it really didn't have anything to do with rates or any macroeconomic headwinds or candidly even the war. Just the affordable industry tends to work really hard to close a lot of deals at year end, and then we have a pretty slow start to the new year um and and actually we did 13 projects right on top of historical q1 average of 11 million so landed about where we expected um we'll tell you that over the last couple quarters we've raised our guidance range and that's because of all that we're able to do with some of these transactions on perm securizations and construction loan participations so back in Q3 we raised our guide from 50 to 60 up to 55 to 65 in the Q4 call in January we raised the top end of the range to 70 and left the bottom now this quarter we're moving that floor up as we've become more confident about future pipelines i would just say i wouldn't get too focused on the precision of those guidance ranges it's more about the direction that they're going up nate you know us really well we have a very strong say do ratio and we want to keep it that way but again the gist of this is our pipeline is shaping up as strong as it's ever been as we get further into the year so q1 seasonality was really just about the industry seasonality we're very optimistic about the pipeline we have we're good at closing deals these 13 projects we did in q1 even though it was a slower quarter three of those projects were with first-time new developers so we continue to expand our roster too. So we're very excited about the future of LIHTC. Having construction offtake allows us to say yes more often to clients and to consider candidly slightly bigger deals. So we're very excited about the future of that. That's why we've gotten to the 60 to 70 million

hour guidance range. Understood. That's really helpful. Thank you, Todd. And, you know, just going back to the margin outlook and just with the expectations for, you know, some additional construction, light tech securizations or sales, you know, curious, you know, what pricing is on that product. I imagine it's higher than what you see on a perm basis or maybe even across some other commercial segments. So just trying to get a sense of, you know, with these additional securizations, how that's going to impact loan yields, not only in the second quarter, but as you perhaps do additional construction sales or securizations in the future. Yeah, Nate, when we

look at the impact on margin for future loan sales, I mean, we continue to expect to overcome any dilution that might come from additional loan sales. Certainly, pricing on some of the loans that we sell are going to vary depending on tax or tax exempt yeah it's probably more deal dependent if you will and also when you think about the timing of some of these transactions these are both both of the light tech construction transactions were with our first with first time partners and so you know we were focused on getting deals done and and not that we took the ball off the economics, but some of the deals that we are doing the offtake for have been in the portfolio for a minute. So those come with prices that were higher as they were originated in a higher rate environment. Now our speed to execution in the future is likely to be much shorter. And so I would expect the disconnect between the portfolio that we are offtaking to

current rates would be smaller and Nate I guess I just tag on here and say the the upshot of both transactions that will close here in Q2 is just a slightly improved margin maybe a basis point and that will fluctuate from time to time there will be times where depending again on the on the mix of the other side of the balance sheet we could see a little bit of margin accretion we could see a little bit of margin contraction but it's all going to be really tight to static we do not anticipate having to take a significant margin pressure when we're taking these off the balance sheet so yeah I really appreciate the question just to be able to be clear about that that we don't

expect significant impact on margin uh when we're doing this that makes sense and you know just as these securizations play out and just given the loan growth outlook you know curious if you know we can expect some additional reserve releases going forward going forward similar to what we saw this quarter or kind of how you guys are thinking about kind of just a reserve trajectory maybe on a dollar basis just as some of these loans are offloaded sure so I

guess what I would say is there there may be another construction loan participation at the end of the year that's really going to be based on where we land on gross loan growth if we're more in the lower end of our guide at 10 we probably don't need it if loan growth is more robust and we're closer to the 15 in the guide we're likely to do another construction offtake uh later in the year and if we did that there would be another bit of uh lightning of provision uh when we have have that happen uh absent that uh provision would really come down to something a lot more consistent with what we've done over the last uh six eight quarters or in that four or five million range And I would tell you my expectation on provision would be what would vary there would just be the pace of long growth. We really aren't seeing any challenges in terms of the portfolio. So any modification in that kind of steady rate of provisioning would really be more about the level of long growth.

Got it. I appreciate all the color. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Nate.

Thank you. And that concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Todd Gipple for any closing remarks.

Thank you all for joining us today. We really appreciate your interest in our company, and we look forward to connecting with you sometime soon. Have a great rest of your day.

Thank you, sir. That concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.