First Interstate BancSystem, Inc. (FIBK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Nancy Vermeulen. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Megan. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our third quarter earnings conference call. As we begin, please note that the information provided during this call will contain forward-looking statements. Actual results or outcomes might differ materially from those expressed by those statements. I'd like to direct all our listeners to read the cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements contained in our most recent quarterly report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC and in our earnings release, as well as the risk factors identified in the quarterly report and our more recent periodic reports filed with the SEC. Relevant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements in the earnings release and in our SEC filings. The company does not undertake to update any of the forward-looking statements made today. A copy of our earnings release, which contains non-GAAP financial measures, is available on our website at fibk.com. Information regarding our use of the non-GAAP financial measures may be found on the body of the earnings release, and a reconciliation to their most comparable GAAP financial measures is included at the end of the earnings release for your reference. Again this quarter, along with our earnings release, we've published an updated investor presentation that has additional disclosures that we believe will be helpful. The presentation can be accessed on our investor relations website, and if you have not downloaded a copy yet, we encourage you to do so. Please also note that as we discuss our financials today, unless otherwise noted, all of the prior period comparisons will be with the second quarter of 2026. Joining us from management this morning are Jim Reuter, our Chief Executive Officer, David De La Camera, our Chief Financial Officer, and other members of our management team. Now, I'll turn the call over to Jim Reuter. Jim.

Thank you, Nancy, and thank you for joining us on our earnings call today. In the third quarter of 2026, we continued to execute against our multiyear strategic plan, further improving the long-term earnings power of the franchise. Net interest margin expanded for the 10th consecutive quarter and non-interest-bearing deposits continued to increase, reflecting our focus on relationship growth. We maintained our disciplined approach to long-term value creation, investing in the markets where we see the greatest opportunity to deepen customer relationships and grow core deposits, while enhancing shareholder returns through additional share repurchases. The execution of our multi-year strategy has required deliberate changes to both the composition of the balance sheet and our geographic footprint. We have exited certain non-strategic markets, initiated a long-term branch optimization program that includes both targeted expansion and consolidation and refocused lending activities to customers that align with our relationship banking model. Our primary objective is to protect and strengthen the quality of the deposit franchise and add new customers. As we expected, new client acquisition remained strong in the Rocky Mountain region. New production continued to be concentrated among relationship-based clients represented by operating deposits and associated services. Going forward, our capital, talent, and branch investments will increasingly follow markets where we have an existing franchise advantage or an attractive opportunity for relationship growth. We believe the current expense base supports a production level that would stabilize earning asset mix when producing at capacity. While we expect our new teams to follow a typical ramp-up period, we believe the banking organization now has the capacity and market coverage required to support growth. This improvement operating model strengthens one of our key differentiators, combining the relationship focus, local decision making and high touch service of a profitable community bank with the sophisticated treasury, commercial banking and wealth management solutions of a larger institution. We have seen meaningful improvement in criticized loan levels over the past 12 months, which reflects our long-term commitment to disciplined credit decision making. Credit was stable in the third quarter, with little change in criticized loans and a modest reduction in nonperforming assets. Effective risk management continues to be a priority for us as strong credit discipline combined with a high quality customer deposit foundation will support performance in all economic cycles. We believe our low cost deposit base, which is granular across a large number of customers and geographies, provides a competitive advantage over the long term. In the third quarter, we also continued to optimize our capital structure through prudent execution of our share repurchase program. We repurchased approximately 2 million shares during the quarter, bringing total repurchases to approximately 10 million shares since the program began in late August 2025. Together with our dividend, repurchases are an important component of our total shareholder return. Through ongoing fixed asset repricing, capital deployment, operating model optimization, and continued focus on relationship banking, we are building a more efficient organization. We remain confident in our ability to continue to deliver improved earnings over time. And with that, I will hand the call over to David. David.

Thanks, Jim. I'll start with our results for the quarter. The company reported net income of $62.2 million, or $0.65 per diluted share, in the third quarter, compared to $83.9 million, or $0.87 per diluted share in the second quarter. Net interest income increased by $4 million compared to the prior quarter, or 2% to $206.2 million. Yield on average loans increased 5 basis points to 5.67% and total funding costs decreased 4 basis points compared to the second quarter. Deposit costs benefited from the exit of a large high cost fully collateralized customer where our long term return objectives were not being met. Excluding this balance, deposits increased during the quarter. This was a unique customer from both the size and pricing perspective. That exit contributed an approximately 3 basis point improvement to our net interest margin in the quarter and did not have a material impact on net interest income. Our fully taxable equivalent net interest margin was 3.55% for the third quarter compared to 3.48% during the second quarter and 3.36% during the third quarter of 2025. As Jim mentioned, this marks our 10th consecutive quarter of net interest margin expansion and fixed asset repricing should remain a tailwind to earning asset yields and underlying margin improvement into 2027. Over the past few years, we have used cash flows from the investment portfolio to eliminate wholesale borrowings, and since we began reinvesting in 2025, we have targeted shorter duration, reducing the balance sheet sensitivity to changes in interest rates. Based on our current interest rate risk modeling, the balance sheet is broadly neutral from a net interest income perspective in both the near term and over the next 12 months, while continued asset repricing and reinvestment at current market yields provide sequential support to earning asset yields. Non-interest income was $43.3 million, a decrease of $18.4 million from the prior quarter. This decrease primarily reflected the $19.5 million gain recognized in the second quarter from the Nebraska branch transaction. Non-interest expense was $157.1 million for the third quarter, a decrease of $1.8 million from the prior quarter. Moving to the balance sheet, loans decreased by $296 million in the third quarter. A number of payoffs we anticipated in the third quarter shifted into the early fourth quarter. As we look to the loan decline in the quarter, this was influenced by a $47.7 million decline in indirect lending loans, a $64.9 million decline in the retained out-of-market portfolio and a $36.8 million decline in the residential portfolio. While total deposits decreased $52.8 million to $21.4 billion in the quarter, when adjusted for the exit of the one large collateralized deposit, deposits increased quarter over quarter. Our deposit mix further improved in the quarter as non-interest-bearing balances extended the increase we experienced in the prior quarter. The ratio of loans held for investment to deposits was 65.4% at the end of the quarter compared to 66.6% at the end of the prior quarter and 70.1% at the end of the third quarter of last year. Turning to credit, net charge-offs increased by $0.2 million in the third quarter to $9.9 million, or 28 basis points of average loans. The company recorded a $10.5 million provision for credit losses in the third quarter, driven primarily by the charge-offs, a 2 basis point increase in funded loan ACL to 1.30% and higher unfunded allowance due mostly to an increase in unfunded construction commitments. Criticized loans were stable in the quarter with an increase of $2.1 million or 0.2% from the prior quarter and declined 19% from a year ago. Non-performing assets declined 6% during the quarter. We repurchased approximately 2 million shares in the third quarter, totaling approximately $76 million, and repurchases since the initiation of the program in August 2025 totaled about $347 million. Share repurchases remain a key capital allocation tool to drive shareholder value. The investment portfolio unrealized loss position increased with interest rates during the quarter, while expected principal cash flows remained relatively stable with limited extension. Our strategy diversifies risk through shorter maturities, floating rate products, and lower capital intensity instruments. Together with natural back book runoff, this improves our ability to manage interest rate exposure. While meaningful, the recent move in interest rates has not changed our near-term strategic capital deployment plans at this time, and all else being equal, should support asset repricing and medium-term earnings. Finally, we declared a dividend of $0.47 per common share, which equates to a 5% annualized yield based on the average closing price of the company's common stock during the third quarter. Our common equity tier one capital ratio ended the third quarter at 14.36%, a decrease of 18 basis points from the prior quarter. Our leverage ratio is 9.49% at the end of the third quarter, compared to 9.59% at the end of the prior quarter. Our capital levels provide us with the flexibility to enhance shareholder returns while supporting long-term accretive growth. Moving to our guidance. In line with the prior quarter, our balance sheet expectations continue to include more meaningful payoffs within our commercial loan portfolio in the fourth quarter and further success in exiting some non-relationship and out-of-market credits. On the deposit side, our guidance continues to incorporate the positive trends within customer acquisition. Our net interest income guidance at the midpoint assumes expansion in NII into the fourth quarter as we continue to benefit from meaningful repricing, a stabilization of earning assets, and relatively strong non-interest-bearing balance performance. The September rate increase benefited asset yields late in the third quarter, while the related deposit repricing will be more fully reflected in the fourth quarter. As a result of that, as well as the impact from the larger high-cost deposit exiting in the third quarter, we expect a smaller sequential margin benefit in the fourth quarter than we realized in the third quarter. Our expense forecast includes continued investment in areas that support our customer acquisition efforts, and as we referenced last quarter, we will be opening two branches in Colorado in the first half of 2027 and are consolidating three additional locations in the fourth quarter of this year. We will maintain our expense discipline and have been pairing noted investments with efficiencies. Over the prior 12 months, net interest margin has improved 19 basis points, and average deposits per average diluted share has improved approximately 3%. Average deposits per branch improved 6%, and net interest income per share improved 8% compared to the third quarter of 2025. With that, I'll hand the call back to Jim.

Thank you, David. Our multi-year strategy continues to gain traction across the franchise and enhance our long-term earnings power. Our capital deployment remains disciplined, balancing investments in high-opportunity markets to support future growth with share repurchases. We believe that the continued growth and non-interest-bearing deposits that we saw in the third quarter provides encouraging evidence that our relationship banking efforts are resonating with clients. Our go-to-market strategy has increased scalability, improved market alignment, and expanded banker capacity to fulfill our primary objectives of enhancing our best-in-class deposit franchise. We are well positioned to execute on our strategy across a range of interest rate environments. We look forward to future earnings calls as disciplined relationship growth and earning asset yield expansion increasingly contribute to results. And now I would like to open the call for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. [Operator Instructions] We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Robert Andrew Terrell with Stephens. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Andrew. I wanted to start just on deposits. I appreciate the color around some of the moving pieces here in the third quarter. Looks like the fourth quarter guide or the full year guide kind of implies you step up from here. I think if I recall, there's usually some seasonal headwinds in the fourth quarter. Can you just talk through what you're seeing kind of boots on the ground from a deposit standpoint or deposit growth standpoint here in the fourth quarter? And what kind of gives you confidence about deposits maybe inching up?

Yes, sure, Andrew. I think as you look to kind of the midpoint of that guide in the fourth quarter, that's generally implying about flat year over year when you back out some of those branch sales and that large deposit. And then as we look kind of to the underlying core, we're seeing that strength and non-interest-bearing. Our seasonality tends to be strong early in the fourth quarter, a little bit weaker late. So we think kind of putting those together, it's the right range for us to land in.

Got it. Okay. And then, there's a question. I think you called out towards the end of your remarks, just the NII per share growth over the past 12 months. But when we look at it just straight NII dollars, it's down versus 3Q '25 when you look at it. When you look over the next 12 months, can you get NII growth without balance sheet growth just as a function of what you see in terms of margin expansion? Or do you really need to get back to balance sheet growth in order to drive actual dollar NII growth?

I think if you look at major B-transact on the second one and you do a B-6, so those are not a B-6. So kind of adjusting. I think if you look back over the past year, there's a few different things. The two major being the branch transactions, right? So we had the branch transaction in 4Q '25 and then the second one in 2Q '26. And so those together took approximately $1 billion out of deposits. And so if you kind of adjust the NII for that, I think we're already at a point of expanding and then quarter over quarter, given the NII expansion there, and then our view that we think the deposit profile is stabilized, we view it as we're into the NII expansion part of the story.

Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Clark with Piper Sandler. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Just on the asset repricing, the slide that you have in your deck is very helpful, but can you give us a sense for the pickup and spreads we should assume given where rates are today?

Yes, sure. So investment portfolio side, I think about 5 year plus, we'll call it the 40 to 50 basis point ranges is right. We have a combination of again, variable and belly of the curve type of instruments. And so that's an approximate range on that front. On the lending side would point to third quarter, excuse me, new loan yields, kind of in that mid 6% range. There's of course been a lot of curve volatility, but that kind of can give you a broad understanding of where spreads are.

Got it. And then just on deposit costs. If we could get the spot rate at the end of September, given that large balance that left and then your deposit beta assumption on the way up here, I think you did 27% on the way down.

Sure. And so on the cost of deposits, interest-bearing deposit cost for the full month of September was 151 versus 149 in the quarter. And then as we think about the forward expectation, I would view it as generally aligned with the disclosure we have in our Q and our NII modeling. And so I think that's the right way to think about it.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Rulis with D.A. Davidson. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I wanted to check in maybe on the buyback appetite. If we think about 10 million shares roughly in the last year. I want to look forward to '27 and maybe the dynamics change as you as you turn to growth at some point, a resumption of. And so just want to kind of check in with that appetite level and understanding that that could alter over the course of the year, but just initial thoughts on, you know, roughly half that level or something matching it in any initial thoughts.

Sure, Jeff. So I think a couple, couple things. I think near term, you know, we have what I would view as a holistic approach to capital planning. So kind of given the different factors, including visibility into the investment portfolio, cash flows, improving profitability, et cetera. We're, can we continue to be comfortable deploying capital. So I think, you know, we continue to be in that active part of the capital deployment plan. I think as we go forward, our levels continue to support meaningful deployment. Balance sheet growth is always going to be the first and most accretive option for capital allocation. And so as we see that low cost core deposit and lending growth, that would at some point impact capital deployment. But in the near term, we continue to be in an excess capital position. So we intend to continue deploying capital.

David, just to kind of quantify that, 2 million shares, a quarter, 5 million shares, for the next couple quarters is sort of the view. And then thereafter, maybe lessening as as growth comes on. Is that oversimplifying?

I think each quarter will depend on the facts and circumstances. We don't have a specific quarterly target. It'll depend on market factors, what we're seeing for balance sheet growth, et cetera. But I think I would just point you to, we continue to be and intend to be active, but facts and circumstances will develop over time.

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Liesch with Benchmark Company. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Thank you. Andrew, can you check if your mic is muted, please?

Can you hear me now? Oh, sorry about that. No, my question was really on the, it sounds.

Yes, we can. Thank you.

Like there were some payoffs expected in the loan book in the third quarter that were pushed into the fourth. Can you maybe quantify that amount so we know where we're starting off with here at the in the fourth quarter for loan balances?

Yes Andrew, I think I would just point you to kind of if you look to where our guidance is for year end, that's informed by some of our view of payoffs and we've seen some of those early October and so those have come through as expected. I think if you look at where those are coming from, we've talked about that out-of-market portfolio that continues to be a main driver and something we're looking at, actively working through and having success there. And then, you know, continue to see that indirect amortization as well as other activity. Not a specific figure there, but I think the midpoint of the loan guide is a reasonable point, and that's what we think is our best estimate.

Got it. And then the commentary on earning assets stabilizing, is that really a comment on deposit growth and where deposit balances are? And I guess, how does deposit growth look here going into the fourth quarter and into next year? So should we start to see earning assets rise?

Yes, so earning assets from here is a function of deposit growth, of course, being. I think from an underlying deposit perspective, we've seen our second consecutive quarter of non-interest-bearing expansion, both periodically and on a year-over-year basis when adjusted for the sold deposits. And so we're very pleased with that. It's an important part of our strategy. And if you look to how we're executing out in the market, it's a full relationship approach. And so that's where we think that's very important. And so yes, you're right, it is a function of deposit growth. And then I think too early to provide a '27 guide, but our focus continues to be on enhancing and growing that deposit franchise. And so our intent is to grow our assets.

Your next question comes from the line of Kelly Motta with KBW. Your line is open, please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for the question. Maybe sticking on the topic of deposits, the guide was reduced slightly and I know we're maintaining deposit balances and relationships is really key for the longer term outlook for the franchise. Just wondering, looks like it was mostly on the rate side, but if you could speak to that drivers of the reduction in the deposit guide for the year.

Yeah, I think just a couple comments. One, I would say just kind of tweaking is in zooming in as we get closer at the end of the year, but two we talked about that large deposit exiting. So our actual expectation and view of what we'll call the underlying core deposits hasn't changed. We're continuing to see strength there. And again, a couple quarters in a row if not in the next.

Interest-bearing growth. And Kelly, one thing I would add to it is we've seen an improvement in the growth and number of clients as well, which is, you know, I think a direct result of some branding efforts and also frankly our bankers doing a great job of expanding relationships and as you know, growth and number of clients begets growth and deposits in the long term and generates new fee income opportunities. We're happy with what we're seeing at the core of the bank.