Operator
Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the Smart Financial First Quarter 2026 Earning Release and Conference Call. My name is Claire, and I'll be coordinating your call today. During the presentation, you can register a question by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two on your telephone keypad. I will now hand over to Nate Stroll, Director of Investor Relations, to begin. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Claire, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Smart Financial's first quarter 2026 earnings call. During today's call, we will reference the slides and press release that are available in the Investor Relations section on our website, smartbank.com. Billy Carroll, our President and Chief Executive Officer, will begin our call, followed by Ron Grzynski, our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide some additional commentary. We will be available to answer your questions at the end of our call. Our comments include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results could vary materially. We list the factors that might cause these results to differ materially in our press release and in our SEC filings, which are available on our website. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements because of new information, early developments, or otherwise, except as may be required by law. During the call, we will reference non-GAAP financial measures related to the company's performance. You may see the reconciliation of these measures in the appendices of the earnings release and investor presentation filed on April 20, 2026 with the SEC. And now I'll turn it over to Billy Carroll to open our call.
Thanks, Nate, and good morning, everyone. Great to be with you, and thank you for joining us today and for your interest in SMBK. As usual, I'll open up our call with some commentary and hand it over to Ron to walk through some numbers in greater detail. After our prepared comments, we'll open it up with Ron, Nate, Rhett, Miller, and myself available for Q&A. It was a great start to the year for our company with another very busy quarter as we continue to execute on our strategy of leveraging the great foundation we've built over the last several years. Our team's focus on this execution continues to be outstanding, and this first quarter of 2026 was yet another example of that. So let me jump right into some of our highlights. First, and in my opinion, one of the most important metrics, we continue to increase the tangible book value of our company, which is now up to $27.33 per share, up from $26.86 at year end. For the quarter, we posted operating earnings of $13.7 million, or 81 cents per diluted share, with total operating revenue coming in at $53.8 million higher than the $53.3 million in the prior quarter, even with two fewer days. We continue to execute on outstanding growth on both sides of the balance sheet, posting 14% annualized growth in loans and 7% annualized growth in core deposits. Our history of strong credit continues with only 25 basis points in non-performing assets. I'm very pleased with our credit performance and our extremely low level of NPAs. And operating non-interest expenses also came in on target at $32.9 million as we continue to exhibit expense discipline. Looking at the first few pages in the deck, you'll see our continuation of some very nice trends. We're building our return metrics and most importantly, growing total revenue, EPS, and tangible book value. All of those charts are great graphics to illustrate our execution. I'm looking forward to and expecting these trends to continue. So a couple of additional high-level comments for me on growth. Our balance sheet expansion is a direct result of the focus of our sales teams. Our continued evolution as an outstanding organic growth company is one of the things I've been most proud of, and I believe something that sets us apart from many other banks. We have hired well, and we have built an outstanding process on prospecting and bringing in new client relationships. I would argue that we are in a small top-of-class group when it comes to pure organic growth. As I stated, we grew our loan book 14% annualized, quarter over quarter, as sales momentum stays strong and balanced across all of our regions. Our average portfolio yield, including fees and accretion, held up well at 6.02%. Regarding deposits, again, core deposits were up 7% annualized, when excluding brokered CD payoffs. Plus, we absorbed a large seasonal withdrawal early in the year, so all in all, a very nice deposit quarter. It's important to recognize how we're building this bank with core relationships as we have intense focus on both sides of the balance sheet. A couple of other highlights noted in our release bullets include an allowance for credit loss model change that bumped their provisioning during the quarter. So we accomplished these results while adding an outsized provision adjustment with the new ACL model that better suits our company. Ron's going to discuss this a little bit more in a moment. We also had a senior team addition with a new director of private banking and wealth management from an in-market regional bank that I believe is going to elevate the work that we're doing in this area even further. We don't talk a lot about our wealth and investments platform, but this business line has steadily grown over the last several years as we've added some outstanding private bankers and new financial advisors. This focus on assisting high net worth clientele is becoming a great business driver for us, and with our strategy, we can go toe-to-toe with any regional or national player. So all in all, a very nice way to start 2026. I'm going to stop there, hand it over to Ron, and let him dive into some details. Ron?
Thanks, Billy, and good Good morning, everyone. I'll start by highlighting some key deposit results. During the quarter, our momentum remained strong, with non-broker deposits increasing by $95 million, driven by two factors. New deposit generation at a cost of 2.82%, which was 22 bases higher than the previous quarter, and seasonal inflows. Given the strength in core funding, we took the opportunity to pay down the remaining 52 million of broker deposits, which carried an average rate of 4.35%. And as we noted on the last call, our year-end totals included some transitory non-interest-bearing deposits. As those deposits rolled off and clients put some excess liquidity to work, non-interest-bearing deposits were over 18% of total deposits at quarter end. Overall, interest-bearing deposits declined by 19 basis points to 2.60 and were 2.58% in March. We continue to maintain a robust liquidity profile as demonstrated by our loan deposit ratio of 87%. Ned interest income for the quarter was $45.9 million, which was $782,000 higher than the previous quarter, even though this quarter had two fewer days. Our net interest margin also improved by 10 basis points to 3.48 percent. This increase was mainly driven by an 18 basis point reduction in funding costs, which more than offset a three basis point decline in asset yields. The reduction in funding costs resulted from the full quarter effects of the prior quarter's federal rate cuts, the previously mentioned paydowns of higher cost brokered funding and new deposit generation and CD renewals at lower rates. The decline in asset yields was caused by a six basis point reduction in loan yields mainly due to the impact of the rate cuts mentioned above and the pay downs and payoffs of higher rate loans. This reduction was slightly offset by a strategic utilization of balance sheet cash. The rate average yield on new loan production for the quarter was 6.40% and 6.45% for March. Looking forward, we anticipate that our margin will stabilize and remain relatively flat for the second quarter before increasing slightly in the second half of the year turning to credit our provision expense for the quarter was 4.1 million which includes 926 000 attributable to an increase in our unfunded commitments liability as mentioned during the last earnings call we've updated our cecil allowance model enabling broader capabilities such as economic forecasting tailored to loan segments and stronger qualitative adjustments. Details about this model update will be included in our first quarter 10Q filing. Due to the changes in our modeling approach and quarterly activities, the allowance for credit losses increased to $44 million, representing 0.97% of total loans compared to 0.94% in the previous quarter, and our liability for unfunded commitments totaled $4.5 million up from $3.6 million. Looking forward, we anticipate that the allowance will remain within the 97-98 basis point range contingent on prevailing market and credit conditions. Furthermore, our asset quality metrics remain robust with non-performing assets accounting for just 0.25% of total assets and net charge-offs were limited to two basis points. Operating non-interest income was $7.9 million down slightly from the last quarter but exceeding expectations. Higher investment services fees offset lower mortgage banking and capital markets revenue, which was lower primarily due to seasonality. Other income sources met or modestly surpassed expectations. Operating non-discences for the quarter increased slightly to $32.9 million, which was modestly below our guidance. Salary and benefit expenses were higher mainly due to variable compensation on stronger than anticipated production, as well as our annual merit increase adjustments that started in March. We also reduced our FDIC insurance accrual by $275,000 this quarter, but expect this expense to return to normal levels in future periods. Our operating efficiency ratio for the first quarter remained around 60% plus level, showing our continued focus on improving margins and controlling costs. For the second quarter, non-interest income is projected to be approximately $7.8 million, and non-interest expense is expected to be in the range of $34 to $34.5 million. Salary and benefit expenses are anticipated to range from $20.5 to $21 million, slightly elevated from the prior quarter due to the full quarter effects of our merit increases and new hires. Our accruals for incentive-based compensation will fluctuate based on performance and may vary throughout the year. I'll conclude with capital. The company's consolidated TCE ratio increased to 8 percent and our total risk-based capital ratio remained well above regulatory wealth capitalized standards at 12.7 percent. Overall, we believe our capital levels remain optimally balanced to continue to support growth while maximizing returns on equity. With that said, I'll turn it back over to Billy. Thanks, Ron.
As you can tell from Ron's comments, our trends continue to have a nice trajectory. We are successfully executing on the leveraging phase of growth for our company. And on our return metrics, we feel very confident in our ability now to move through the 1% and 12% ROA and ROE thresholds as we look into 2026. I mentioned on our last quarter call our internal 4x4 challenge of hitting a $4 EPS run rate by the fourth quarter of 2026, so basically hitting $1 per share in EPS by Q4 of this year. We rolled that initiative out internally during the quarter, and our team embraced it. We've got a little bit of work to do, but we've had a nice start to the year, and we're going to continue to push to hit that EPS target. I like their chances on accomplishing this goal. We believe we're one of the brightest banking stories in the southeast. Outstanding growth markets paired with strong experienced bankers and a very focused executive team. Our primary effort will be on generating more operating leverage throughout 2026, with our focus on doubling down on our organic strategy and getting deeper in our markets. As I mentioned, pipelines are silent and I think we can continue growing at this high single digits plus pace. Talent acquisition continues to be a high priority for our company and I really like what I've seen during the first part of this year. We've continued to add select revenue producers in several markets and have several more committed to come on board soon. We're constant recruiters and I like their position as we continue seeing market disruption in the south. Just an anecdotal comment on that. I was at a client event in Alabama last week and I had a new smart bank client that one of our new bankers has brought over to us come up to me and say how much he enjoyed working with us. Saying you guys can do everything the regionals can do but you're better and more nimble. That sums up our business strategy and our recruiting strategy and we're having great success with both. So we will continue to look for these organic growth opportunities and remain very focused on recruiting. So to summarize, we kicked off a very solid 2026, and we're positioned very well. We are executing, growing revenue, EPS, and book value, and staying proven on expense growth. We remain optimistic around our ability to add balance sheet growth and have a nice tailwind coming with rate resets in our loan portfolio over the coming quarters. Credit remains very sound. And on goal setting, we're executing on this year's 4x4 initiative as we have line of sight to a $4 plus earnings per share target. And I also wanted to add how excited I am that we've elevated Cynthia Kane to our Chief Operating Officer role. Cynthia is one of the best leaders in our company and will be tasked on aligning all of our operational and tech initiatives. He's going to do a great job in this role. I appreciate the work of our Smart Financial Smart Bank team and the efforts of all of our associates. I'm very proud of what we've got going on here at SMBK. So I'm going to stop there and open it up for questions.
Operator
Thank you. To ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from Brett Rabbitohm from StoneX.
Your line is open. please go ahead hey good morning everyone wanted to start on hey wanted to start on um just the growth outlook from here you know obviously you guys continue to execute really well on growth and you know there's there's been rumblings of um some competitors and in Tennessee in particular being very aggressive with rate and and just wanted to see if that you know if you were seeing any of that, and then just, you know, the pace of growth in one queue, if that's sustainable, particularly on loan growth over the rest of the year.
Yeah, Brett, I'll start, and Brett, you chime in from what you're seeing in pipelines as But yeah, it has. You know, we had, again, a really solid first quarter. Our pipelines feel good. You know, as I said in my comments, I think we can continue, you know, at or around that 10% plus minus. Might be a little more, might be a little bit less. But I like our pace. Competition is, I'll tell you, I know we were talking about this the other day, we could have had a lot more. We, you know, Brett, we're turning away some deals, some good deals, just because we're seeing some unreasonable rate competition. And that's okay. I mean, we just, you know, one of the things, and I think you've heard me comment on it in past calls, is, you know, we've really got a nice, disciplined approach around our pricing model, you know, and again, growing both sides of the balance sheet is really important for us. And so, you know, not that we won't make an exception here or there for the right types of situations, but for the most part, we really hold to making sure that we're hitting, you know, our return on risk-adjusted capital targets. And so, we are seeing some competition that's a little bit crazier. We're letting some of those deals go. We're involved in them. Sometimes we just think the pricing's too thin. But I mean, Rhett, you might talk a little bit about pipelines and just how you feel about kind of this, you know, high single digits plus pace.
No, Billy, you kind of stole my thunder because I was going to say the same thing that despite the growth we saw, we actually could have produced more had we not been a little, not been as disciplined as we were on our return requirements. So the pipeline itself, though, continues to backfill at a pretty consistent pace. I mean you know as we've kind of monitored this this growth cycle we've had for the past several quarters and seeing the numbers the pipeline just continues to backfill each quarter in look at and what we've got coming for the balance of the next couple three quarters so it you know all indicators are that the market pace is still good there's a lot of opportunity out there and we are certainly getting our pressure yeah Brad I'd also add it's not just Tennessee it's all across the footprint alabama and the panhandle have been very strong as well okay um that's that's right guys appreciate all that um and then just wanted to ask on the on the balance sheet management you know your loan to deposit ratio has increased the past year um and you talked
about paying down some broker cds this quarter but just wanted to hear you guys's thoughts on you know managing the balance sheet the loan to deposit ratio there's an upper upper limit that you guys might have on that, and then just funding the growth, you know, where you think that comes from, you know, in terms of product and how you're going to do that.
Rod, you want to take that? We've been hovering around the 86, 87% loan deposit ratio. You know, we're not afraid to go up to 90, 90 plus, but at this point, we don't see the our deposit generation has been strong throughout our footprint. As you can see for Q1, a lot of it's been money market generated. We are weeding off on the CD side. We feel the relationship building of that money market category has been pretty special for us going forward. Other than that, again, relationship building and we have a lot of deposit opportunities in our footprint.
Okay, great. Appreciate all the call, guys.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Russell Gumpter from Stevens. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. Russell? I wanted to ask – morning. I wanted to ask on deposit costs. Did a great job dropping those this quarter. Within the margin update you guys provided, how are you thinking about the ability to lower deposit costs from here? if the Fed does remain on pause. Do you have some incremental room or should we be thinking about potentially some upward pressure on deposit costs going forward?
Rod, you want to take that? I think from what Russell's saying, I think with rates being up a little bit, probably have a little bit more pressure on that. But you want to discuss kind of thoughts around deposit costs moving forward?
Yeah, we're pretty neutral at this point in time. You know, we've, you know, our flatness is really due to, we have seen some mid-shift in our deposit portfolio. You know, our team has done a great job of expanding our margin over the last several quarters. But we're seeing, coming into a period of seasonality, second quarter for us is traditionally a heavy cash quarter for clients for tax payments and other sources and other uses. even though we've seen competition through our footprint, as we'll probably get a question on that, our team has done a great job of bringing in deposits and keeping the rates down. So in essence, I think we will still see a little bit of rate movement upward, but we're only looking at very few basis points quarter over quarter from here on. So pretty neutral at this point.
Okay. That is very helpful. And then, you know, you led the witness here a little bit. Let me follow up on your deposit cost competition. And it's also a follow-up to Brett's very good question. I mean, the Southeast is always a competitive place to operate. Maybe just high level, you know, how would you describe the environment this quarter? Incrementally, has that high level of competition increased? It sounds like on the loan side, but perhaps that's the deposit side too.
Yeah I'll grab that one Russell. Yeah it has. I think competition is ramping up. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I mean you've got a lot of banks that are out there you know looking for growth. We've been fortunate. Again I go back to you know I think our process has really been good and I think that's what's allowed us to drive growth and continuing to do it at rate levels that we're comfortable at. But, yeah, and it's on both sides. You know, Brett talked about loan pricing. It's the same on the deposit pricing side. You know, we're seeing especially with thoughts around maybe a flatter rate environment in 26. I think it's fueling a little bit of fire to keep deposit rates higher. So, you know, I think we're going to – we'll contend with that, you know. But, again, our deposit growth is not always rate sensitive. You know, I know we've, and I've talked about it on prior calls, the treasury management team that we have in our company is, you know, and they're doing such a great job with our commercial bankers. And, you know, we're bringing in some really good, just good core operating business outside of just kind of where prevailing money market rates are. And so I like the way we're growing the deposit side. I think we can continue to do it like that. Ron said probably have a little bit of mix shift this quarter that might give us a little bit of kind of short-term pressure. But all in all, I still think we continue to kind of do it at the same levels that we've been doing.
Great. Thanks, Billy. And then, guys, this last one for me, follow up in terms of very helpful to get production yields this quarter, the 640 and the 645 in March. And I always go right to that repricing slide on number 14. How are those kind of yields holding relative to what's coming on in the pipeline? Is that kind of similar levels or do you see some pressure there?
Yeah, I think it's close to the same. Maybe a little bit of additional pressure on those, Russell, but all in all, we're getting some nice yield pickups. So I think we're trying to be strategic and trying to be out in front of these rate resets and maturities well in advance. But yeah, we're watching it closely, maybe a little bit of additional pressure, just like new production today, but still to the positive. Ron, I don't know if you've got anything to add on that.
Yeah, the renewals and the repricing has been, you know, obviously a tailwind for us. We are renewing 88% of the loans that are coming up for repricing or renewal. uh that's and are coming in about 120 basis points higher so as very similar to the rates for today maybe 10 10 basis points lighter but still very strong in that area that's great color guys thanks for taking all my questions thanks russell thank you our next question comes from catherine miller from kbw your line is now open please go ahead thanks good morning yeah good morning um what follow-up on the margin is um in your guidance for the margin to be flat this quarter
and then expand slightly in the back half of the year do you have any what are your rate forecasts under that scenario yeah we're uh flat we're not uh we're not assuming up or down at this point in time okay so no more rate cuts we're just in a flower rate environment we're kind of stable to maybe up as we get better loan repricing in the back half of the year correct even if even if deposit costs kind of start to trend up a little bit correct okay that's great thank you for that clarification um and then on the expense guide it's helpful to see the the next next quarter's expense guide which is still kind of shaking out to about that five percent annual growth rate but just curious if you still feel like that five percent full year expense growth guide is appropriate or is there anything that with the recruiting you've talked about or anything else that you think we should be aware of to model in the back half of the year yeah ron yeah just high level for me katherine yeah from the recruiting side you know we we think we can We think we can handle some of the recruiting.
We're not going out and doing really, really large ads. We're just kind of selectively adding the right producing team members when they come on board. So we should be able to absorb that with the increased production. But Ron can talk about guidance. But yeah, I don't think we've got a lot of really heavy expense lift in the forecast going forward. Most of that's already built in. But Ron, any color on that?
Yeah, Catherine, we're projecting pretty much for the rest of the year, quarter over We're looking to stay within a tight band between 34.5 to 35 million kind of in there. We're not expecting creep unless something strategic comes along. We're still looking to get our efficiency ratio to trend down to that target 60% level by year end. So, you know, the only other item is the variable comp piece that could change some of this if we do get extended production and then the variable comp will kick in. But, no, we look like we can keep it in that band.
Okay, great. Great quarter, guys.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Steven Skarton from Piper Sandler. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thanks, guys. I guess going back to the name just for one second. I'm kind of curious what you guys see as the biggest risk to the continued positive trajectory on the NIM, especially in that back half of 26. What could kind of cause that to be different than expected currently?
You know, Ron, I'll let you take a stab at it. You know, it might just going to be just competitive pressure on really more just money market rates and funding rates. Probably a big driver in the second half is just not knowing exactly where, you know, rates are going to come or what kind of pressures we're going to get. I still think rates hold steady. I still think we can do a pretty nice job on the loan yield front. I think it's just going to be more funding cost pressures, potentially. Ron, anything else that you'd add to that?
No, exactly. It's all going to be in the funding cost, and if we do have trending more of our mid-shift at a non-interest bearing, but really those are the only other items. okay and then i know you guys noted that more of the growth had come kind of from money market and savings were there any sort of specials on the money market rates anything unusual that led to that kind of material pickup there from a mix shift i don't think so i don't think we really did anything no we uh especially hard work yeah and really we we prefer we prefer uh selling money you know selling money markets than cds so but yeah nothing that we didn't have any
We didn't have any rate promos or anything out of the norm, Stephen.
Okay, great. And then just last for me, I guess you guys noted the director of private banking and some wealth management hires there in Nashville. How do you feel about your Nashville presence today? Is that something we should continue to see you focus on expanding given the current opportunity set? And if so, kind of, you know, what could that look like over the next couple of years?
Yeah, it is. As I've said, we're just really leaning into a lot, all of our zones. We've just got such great ability to grow share in so many of other markets. But obviously, Nashville is a big one. It's a big market. We're really starting to build some nice momentum. I was over there with some clients a couple of weeks ago, and we've got really good energy over there. got a couple of really got some nice team members that we've added over the course in the last couple of years they've got more that we want to add uh over there so um i think that's a market that that that's going to be uh important to us as as we go forward uh but we're we've got a lot of other zones where we're growing share too but nashville's going to be one that i think's got a heck of an upside for us great appreciate that paulor congrats on all the continued progress here thank you our next question comes from steve moss from raymond james your line is now open
please go ahead good morning guys a nice quarter here thank you most of my questions been asked welcome most of my questions has been asked and answered here just kind of curious in terms of just the maybe the pipeline mix um you know is still continuing to be more construction uh or just kind of how you guys are thinking about how you guys are feeling with that underline mix?
Yeah, I'll let Rhett kind of dive in on the pipeline since he's seeing more of that, but, you know, we've been able to keep it pretty balanced, you know, and pretty agnostic to kind of whatever group that I think we've been able to hold. I still think we'll be able to hold, but Rhett, any additional color on how you see the loan composition looking over the next few quarters.
Now Bill you nailed it with regards to kind of what our focus is. I mean clearly look at the graph we've got there I think it's page nine of the deck that outlines our long composition. I mean you might have a slight move here or there on percentage point or two one quarter to the next but overall as you can see it's maintaining a pretty steady pace as it relates to the mix of the portfolio. When you look at our first quarter production and it really ties in almost exactly to those same metrics for the quarter. It's just a continued solid strong mix across the different segments of the book and we're focused in doing that. We've got our banker teams set where they have some target areas and specializations here and there and and uh and each one of them or as Miller pointed out earlier across the geographies and across our different markets each one of them are uh are carrying their own their own weight in the water bucket so I mean it's so far it's a uh it's been a very um uh a very consistent mix appreciate that and then maybe just in terms of you know expansion though you just talked about the Nashville area just kind of curious you know as you hire teams selectively here or people selectively You know, should we think about any de novo expansion around that market or, you know, any thoughts on M&A these days?
I know you guys are seeking to leverage your existing base, but just kind of update the thoughts there.
Yeah, on your first question on de novo expansion, no, not really. I mean, I think, you know, obviously, last quarter we talked about excited to get Columbus, Georgia started, Really excited about what our team is starting to build down there and building it really quickly. So I've been happy with that. But outside of that, nothing really. We'll look, you know, I think we'll probably look to add another Nashville area office sometime here in the foreseeable future. just maybe a couple of other small offices to support some of our markets as we look at over the next couple of years. But nothing really big on that front, Steve. Probably just like I said, focus on that de novo Columbus zone and then really focus on probably just growing Nashville, maybe add a branch there and maybe another one in another market or two over the next couple of years.
And still all quiet on the M&A Friday ticket?
Oh yeah, in M&A, M&A. I forgot about M&A, Miller, and we just, we start laughing, you know, you know, it's, I just, I love, you know, and we have, you know, we've, we've had, we've had, we've been successful in M&A over the years, but, but, but boy, this pivot that we made a few years ago, and the leadership that we've been able to put in on the sales side. The organic growth, and I think you see it, the results and what it's done, the revenue growth, the EPS growth. And I said, it'd take a unicorn to probably get us to move.
The ability of the firm now and just the company and the work ethic, it's just, what we're doing now is working.
Operator
And so, yeah, probably a little light on prioritizing that, Steve, but love where we're sitting. appreciate that and definitely appreciate all the call here thank you very much guys thank you thank you thank you as a reminder if you would like to ask a question please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now and we will pause for any questions to be registered currently have no further questions and therefore concludes the q a session i would now like to hand back to miller welborn chairman of the board for any closing remarks thanks claire and i appreciate
everybody joining us today it's great to be with y'all and as billy said it's just an exciting time to be part of this bank and you know just being constant recruiters and that's a great team members all across the bank footprint and and also just great clients we just appreciate y'all being part of it thank you and have a great day thank you this now concludes today's call you may now disconnect.
