National Bank Holdings Corporation (NBHC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the National Bank Holdings Corporation 2026 Third Quarter Earnings Call. My name is Jess, and I will be your conference operator for today. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the conference over to Emily Gooden, Chief Accounting Officer and Director of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Jess, and good morning. We will begin today's call with prepared remarks followed by a question-and-answer session. I would like to remind you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements regarding the company's strategy, loans, deposits, capital, net interest income, non-interest income, margins, allowance, taxes, and non-interest expense. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed today. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which are disclosed in more detail in the company's most recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These statements speak only as of the date of this call, and National Bank Holdings Corporation undertakes no obligation to update or revise these statements. In addition, the call today will reference certain non-GAAP measures, which National Bank Holdings Corporation believes provides useful information for investors. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the GAAP measures are provided in the news release posted on the Financials section of www.nationalbankholdings.com. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over and introduce National Bank Holdings Corporation's Chairman and CEO, Mr. Tim Laney.

Thank you, Emily. Good morning and thank you for joining us as we discuss National Bank Holdings' third quarter 2026 financial performance. I'm joined by our President, Aldis Birkans; and our Chief Financial Officer, Nicole Van Denabeele. We made progress this quarter on important priorities, serving clients, building durable relationships, and advancing the Vista integrations. We also faced significant credit challenges in a small number of commercial loan relationships, primarily in the franchise and the healthcare industries. We want to be direct about those events and their impact. We've taken a measured hands-on approach, completing our collateral assessment, recognizing the credit impact, and applying what we learned. These events are serious, but they are concentrated in specific relationships. Our broader focus remains on serving clients well, growing with discipline, and maintaining the strength and flexibility of the company. We enter the next phase with a committed team, strong client relationships, and clear priorities. We'll discuss the quarter's results, credit performance, and outlook in more detail today, and I want to thank you for your continued interest in National Bank Holdings. With that, I'll turn the call to Nicole to walk us through the financial results. Nicole?

Thank you, Tim, and good morning. For the third quarter, we reported a net loss of $8.8 million or $0.20 per diluted share. On an adjusted basis, removing the impact of acquisition and restructuring expenses in the quarter, we reported net income of $2.9 million or $0.06 of earnings per diluted share. As we shared earlier this month, the third quarter's results were impacted by elevated provision expense related to a handful of specifically identified credits addressed during the quarter as well as an impairment on one third-party fintech investment. Core banking activities remained strong with an increase in year-to-date pre-provision net revenue of 8% annualized. During the quarter, loan production was solid, and we grew average deposits by 3.7% annualized while maintaining a top quartile net interest margin. Also we successfully completed our Vista Bank core systems integration during the quarter and executed the remaining expense reduction actions. Turning to the balance sheet. Client activity was strong during the quarter. Our teams generated quarterly loan originations of $819 million, driving year-to-date annualized loan growth of 8.1%. Pipelines remain strong, and we expect to achieve full year loan portfolio growth of 10%. Fully taxable equivalent net interest income increased 13% annualized for the quarter to $115.2 million. Net interest margin during the third quarter was a strong 4%. We expect a net interest margin near 4% for the remainder of the year, which does not include any future interest rate policy changes by the Fed. We continue to fund our loan growth with core deposits. Average total deposits grew $96 million or 3.7% annualized during the quarter, and average transaction deposits grew $103 million or 4.6% annualized. We remain disciplined in managing deposit costs with only 1 basis point of deposit cost increase for the quarter and ended September with a low cost of deposits of 1.96%. Total cost of funds increased 2 basis points to 2.03% for the quarter. The loan-to-deposit ratio ended the quarter at 93.8%. Turning to asset quality. We recorded $40.6 million of provision expense to cover the quarter's elevated net charge-offs. As previously disclosed, third quarter net charge-offs totaled $46.3 million, reflecting actions taken on specific commercial loans following adverse credit events during the quarter. These credits also resulted in non-performing assets increasing by 15 basis points or $15 million. Additionally, we hold $14.3 million of marks against our acquired loan portfolio, which provides an additional 15 basis points of loan loss coverage if applied across the entire loan book. Turning to fee income. Non-interest income totaled $13.5 million, and as previously disclosed, was impacted by a $4 million impairment on one third-party fintech investment. Aldis will share more on fee income momentarily. We expect fourth quarter fee income to be in the range of $17 million to $18 million. Non-interest expense totaled $97.8 million for the quarter and included $15.2 million of acquisition and restructuring expenses. Excluding these onetime items, non-interest expense was $82.6 million, a decrease of $1.1 million from the prior quarter. The third quarter included 1 additional payroll day compared to the second quarter and included elevated problem loan expense of $1.4 million for the quarter. We have fully executed on our cost saving strategies. And as a result of our strong execution, we expect a clean expense run rate in the fourth quarter with core non-interest expense in the range of $75 million to $77 million. Our capital levels remain well in excess of well-capitalized regulatory thresholds. Common equity Tier 1 ratio ended the quarter at 11.7%, and our total capital ratio was 14.7%. The tangible common equity ratio ended the quarter at 9.2%. Tangible book value per share was $25.37, reflecting the quarterly dividend payout and $12 million of share repurchases during the quarter. Importantly, we continue to target quarterly earnings in excess of $1 per share in the fourth quarter. With that, I will turn the call over to Aldis.

Thank you, Nicole. Let me begin with credit. As Tim shared, this was a disappointing quarter for us, and we recognize the importance of addressing both the immediate issues and their underlying causes. This quarter's loan losses were concentrated in the franchise and healthcare verticals within our specialty banking group. So over the past 12 months, we have top-graded our specialty banking team leadership. And during the third quarter, we conducted additional in-depth reviews and implemented further enhancements across our credit risk governance. These steps are intended to strengthen accountability and improve consistency on how risk is identified, escalated, and managed. Throughout the year, we also have diversified these portfolios, and our current exposure is limited to approximately 5% of total loans in franchise and approximately 3% in healthcare finance. During the quarter, we also executed on a new model for serving small business clients. Under the new model, we will lean more heavily into our banking center network with an increased focus on deposit gathering. The objective is to create a more consistent client experience and align resources more closely with the needs and economics of this segment. We expect these targeted organizational changes to reduce our operating expenses by approximately $4 million annually. Turning to the loan book. On an annualized basis, loans grew 5% during the quarter, bringing year-to-date growth to 8.1%. Early in the quarter, our team successfully completed the Vista core system integration, an important milestone that positions us to operate on a unified platform and fully -- and focus fully -- excuse me, focused fully on serving clients. This was an -- with this achievement behind us, our teams are focused on growth and our pipelines continue to build heading into the fourth quarter. We remain on track to deliver 10% loan growth for full year 2026. Achieving that level of growth would take our total loans outstanding to above $10.1 billion by year-end. Average deposits grew a solid 3.7% annualized during the quarter, led by 4.6% annualized growth in average transaction deposits, reflecting continued strength in our core deposit franchise and our focus on growing high-quality relationship-based funding. This favorable deposit mix, combined with disciplined balance sheet management contributed to a strong 4% net interest margin for the quarter. And finally, turning to the fee income. The underlying performance of our core banking business remains solid. During the quarter, combined service charges and bank card fees grew at an annualized rate of 12%, reflecting continued momentum from these recurring revenue streams. Additionally, we continue to see solid contributions from our Cambr and Trust & Wealth teams. On the strength of our core franchise, improving operating discipline and growing client pipelines, we entered the fourth quarter with confidence in our ability to build on this momentum. Tim, with that, I will turn it back to you.

Thanks, Aldis. Well, we've covered a lot of detail in our opening comments. So why don't I go ahead and open up the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And we'll go first to Jeff Rulis with D.A. Davidson.

Just, I guess, the first bit on credit. Just to kind of, if you could, could you itemize the size of those credits, both in the franchise and healthcare, the resolution path ahead? And then lastly, expectation for net charge-off levels going forward? Or is this sort of in the rearview?

You go ahead.

Yes, Jeff, good morning, this is Nicole. So related to your charge-off question on the credits that we addressed in the third quarter, we addressed the principal balance credits totaling about $65 million, and we took net charge-offs on those credits of about $47 million. That leaves a remaining balance of $18 million on our books related to those credits, and those are supported by collateral and personal guarantees of the borrowers.

Just the makeup of the $65 million in credits, what was franchise and what was healthcare? Or what's left?

Yes. Jeff, I'll start with high level and then perhaps Aldis can fill in with a bit more detail. But when you size this up and we talk about a handful of credits, the reality is this was an event primarily centered in 2 credits: One franchise, one healthcare. The franchise, of course, was this QDOBA Dave's Hot Chicken franchise that we have dealt with that where the first issues, frankly, came to light in July. By August, we were in a process of seeing some retrading on really the sale of the collateral involved to cover our loan exposure and found ourselves with a deficit and, quite frankly, found ourselves in that situation in a position where we believe it was merited to file suspicious activity reports and address what we believe is client fraud. In the other situation, it was a healthcare-related event that we had dealt with in the fourth quarter of last year, had conducted a full restructure with the client, brought in a third-party consultant, believed management was in a position to move the company forward with one of its other divisions. And frankly, that the process ran out of steam and left us in a position of working with the borrower to take the company into bankruptcy. So those are the 2 big drivers. I don't know if you want to discuss the breakdown as it relates to the rest of the franchise. And by the way, we do not view these as some indication of systemic problems. As a practical matter, when we review our credit policies and practices, our risk management policies and practices over the life of our company, they've served us well. These were cases where, frankly, the bankers involved did not execute on our policies and practices, and those bankers are no longer with us.

Yes. Jeff, of that $65 million that Nicole mentioned, approximately 45% is healthcare, 45% is franchise.

And the net charge-off question was, going forward, we guided in the release what you charged off. But the expectation for just the overall bank ahead and the charge-off expectations, is there any further cleanup or we revert to sort of historical levels Q4 and beyond?

Yes. Our expectation is that we've addressed what needed to be addressed this quarter such that we expect normalized levels going forward.

And then Aldis, if I could hop to the margin, or Nicole, sorry. Was there any impact on the margin in terms of loans placed on non-accrual in terms of lost interest or -- and then on the outlook, it sounds like around 4%. If you could outline, should we have another rate hike, what the impact of that would be?

Yes. Yes, I'll take that one, Jeff. So yes, you're hitting on a few good points. Consistently, there will be puts and takes to our margin. We did have some interest reversals in margin for the quarter. We also had some pickup from accelerated accretion. I will say those 2 kind of washed in the quarter. We exited September with a 4% margin. And our expectation is that we'll be able to hold that for Q4. Regarding your question of what do we expect the impact to margin will be with future rate changes. I will take us back to the last time that we were in a rates up environment. We were very -- we were successful at maintaining our deposit costs. And through that rates up cycle, we held a deposit beta of under 40%. So we believe we'll continue to be able to be disciplined on our deposit pricing.

If I could squeeze one more in there. On the merger costs, any chance you can map those in terms of did a lot of that come in the comp or other? Just trying to back that out of the current quarter.

Yes. I'll say, it's largely been concentrated within the compensation and benefits line. There are really impacts hitting in all lines, occupancy and equipment, processing fees and professional fees, but the bulk of what hit the third quarter, and frankly, for the year has been in personnel expense.

We will go next to Kelly Motta with KBW.

On your core expense side of $75 million to $77 million for Q4, you also noted there was about $4 million annual benefit from some of the changes you've made in the business. I know you have the benefit of the post-conversion expense run rate. Just wondering what of the $4 million benefit might be already baked into that Q4 number?

It is, Kelly. So that $4 million that I talked about in terms of the reorganization and how we go to market for business banking or small business is embedded. And along to what Nicole was saying, it will show up mostly in the benefits and salaries line.

And then with the credit, it was obviously a disappointing quarter. You've noted you've made some changes, some changes in personnel and exposure is fairly limited at this point. Just wondering if as part of the identified issues and changes, if you've done a third-party review of these books or if there's -- what gives you comfort that this is now behind you?