First Western Financial (MYFW) Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Kreditwachstum und NIM steigen

First Western Financial (NASDAQ: MYFW) berichtete über eine höhere Profitabilität im dritten Quartal 2026, da Kreditwachstum, Ausweitung der Nettozinsspanne und Kostendisziplin schwächere hypothekenbezogene Erträge ausglichen.

Wichtigste Erkenntnisse

• Der Nettogewinn lag bei etwa 6 Millionen US-Dollar beziehungsweise 0,60 US-Dollar je verwässerter Aktie, wobei beide Kennzahlen um 88 % gegenüber dem Vorjahr stiegen.
• Das Ergebnis vor Steuern und Risikovorsorge stieg um 15 % gegenüber dem Vorquartal und um 27 % gegenüber Q3 2025.
• Die zur Kapitalanlage gehaltenen Kredite stiegen um 95 Millionen US-Dollar gegenüber dem Vorquartal. Das Gesamtkreditvolumen stieg um 8 % gegenüber dem Vorjahr, während das Kreditneugeschäft 163 Millionen US-Dollar erreichte.
• Die Nettozinsspanne weitete sich um 5 Basispunkte gegenüber dem Vorquartal auf 2,95 % aus. Der Zinsüberschuss stieg um 5,5 % gegenüber dem Vorquartal und um 18 % gegenüber dem Vorjahr.
• Die Gesamteinlagen stiegen um 2,5 % gegenüber dem Vorquartal und um 2,4 % gegenüber dem Vorjahr, gestützt durch das Wachstum bei unverzinslichen Einlagen und Geldmarktkonten.
• Das Management erwartet weitere finanzielle Verbesserungen im 4. Quartal 2026 und glaubt, dass MYFW im Jahr 2027 mit einer Gesamtkapitalrendite von 1 % arbeiten kann, obwohl der genaue Zeitpunkt ungewiss bleibt.

Wichtigste Finanzdaten

Geschäfts- und operative Entwicklung

Kreditwachstum und Konditionen

Das Kreditneugeschäft von 163 Millionen US-Dollar war über Märkte und Kreditarten hinweg diversifiziert, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf beziehungsbasierter Kreditvergabe lag. Die durchschnittliche Rendite des Neugeschäfts lag bei 6,79 %, was einem Anstieg um 42 Basispunkte gegenüber dem Vorquartal entspricht und 53 Basispunkte über der 6,26 % betragenden durchschnittlichen Rendite bei Kreditrückzahlungen lag.

Die Kredite zum Quartalsende lagen fast 3 % über den durchschnittlichen Quartalsbeständen, was Schwung für den Beginn von Q4 verleiht. Das Management führte das stärkere Neugeschäft auf kürzlich eingestellte Banker, eine gesunde Aktivität in seinen Märkten und Kundenchancen zurück, die durch M&A-Umbrüche im Bankensektor entstanden sind.

First Western erklärte, dass von Kreditnehmern verlangt werde, die Bank als ihren primären Bankpartner zu nutzen, was sowohl das Wachstum der Kredit- als auch der Einlagenbeziehungen unterstütze.

Einlagen und Nettozinsspanne

Die durchschnittlichen unverzinslichen Einlagen stiegen um 14 Millionen US-Dollar bzw. 3,9 %, im Laufe des Quartals. Das auf Basis der Stände zum Quartalsende gemessene Wachstum lag bei 10 %. Das Management führte die Verbesserung auf ein spezialisiertes Einlagenteam, ein erweitertes Treasury-Management-Angebot und an die Kreditvergabe gekoppelte Anforderungskriterien für Kundenbeziehungen zurück.

Die Rendite auf das durchschnittliche zinstragende Vermögen stieg um 7 Basispunkte, getrieben durch höhere Kreditrenditen. Die Refinanzierungskosten stiegen um 2 Basispunkte aufgrund höherer Geldmarktzinsen.

Ende September lag der Stichtagszins für die Gesamteinlagen bei 2,86 %. Die Bank verfügte über 740 Millionen US-Dollar an indexierten Geldmarktkonten mit einem Beta von 100 % und 760 Millionen US-Dollar an Standard-Geldmarktkonten, die bei der Zinserhöhung im September ein Beta von 28 % verzeichneten. Eine Pay-Fixed-Cashflow-Absicherung mit einem Nominalvolumen von 200 Millionen US-Dollar reduziert das Risiko des indexierten Portfolios teilweise.

Provisionserträge und Aufwendungen

Das zinsunabhängige Ergebnis sank um 600.000 US-Dollar im Vergleich zum Vorquartal, hauptsächlich weil höhere Hypothekenzinsen das Vergabevolumen und die Gewinne aus dem Verkauf von Hypothekendarlehen verringerten. Auch die Bankgebühren gingen zurück.

Die Gebühren aus dem Treuhand- und Vermögensverwaltungsgeschäft stiegen um 2,6 % im Vergleich zum Vorquartal, gestützt auf Erträge aus den Bereichen Investment Agency, Treuhand und Altersvorsorge. Das Management hob dieses Geschäft nach einer mehrjährigen Restrukturierung als eine neue Quelle für das Wachstum der Provisionserträge hervor.

Der zinsunabhängige Aufwand sank um 400.000 US-Dollar im Vergleich zum Vorquartal. Die Technologiekosten profitierten vom Wegfall einer einmaligen Belastung von 400.000 US-Dollar im zweiten Quartal 2026, während die Gehälter und Sozialleistungen aufgrund geringerer Arbeitgeberabgaben zur Sozialversicherung sanken.

Kapital und Qualität der Aktiva

Die Quote der leistungsausfallenden Vermögenswerte sank auf 39 Basispunkte, was Rückzahlungen von nicht verzinslichen Krediten widerspiegelt. Das Management erklärte, es sehe keine Anzeichen für eine erhebliche Verschlechterung der Vermögensqualität im weiteren Verlauf des Jahres 2026.

First Western löste zudem die gesamten 10 Millionen US-Dollar an Nachranganleihen ein, die im November 2020 begeben worden waren, nachdem diese kündbar wurden. Das Management gab an, dass die Tilgung der Nettozinsspanne zugutekommen und die Verschuldung der Holdinggesellschaft reduzieren sollte.

Prognose der Unternehmensführung

Das Management rechnet für das vierte Quartal 2026 mit einer weiteren Verbesserung der Finanzentwicklung, gestützt auf das Kredit- und Einlagenwachstum, einen verbesserten Einlagenmix, eine fortgesetzte Ausweitung der Nettozinsspanne, eine höhere Aktivität im Wealth Management und eine disziplinierte Kostenhaltung.

Das Unternehmen liegt weiterhin im Plan für etwa 10 % Kreditwachstum im Jahr 2026, so das Management. Scott Wylie sagte, eine annualisierte Wachstumsrate von rund 15 % zu Beginn des Jahres 2027 erscheine angemessen, betonte jedoch, dass das quartalsweise Wachstum schwanken kann. Das Management hält ein Kreditwachstum im mittleren 10er-Prozentbereich für bevorzugenswert gegenüber einem Wachstum von 20 % bis 25 % zu schlechteren Preisen oder Konditionen.

First Western rechnet mit einer ROA von 1 % im Jahr 2027, das Management machte jedoch keine genauen Angaben darüber, ob dies Mitte des Jahres erreicht werden soll oder den Jahresdurchschnitt darstellt. Der interne Dreijahresausblick zeigt einen potenziellen Pfad zu einer ROA von 1,5 % bei stabilen, gesunden Märkten, einer positiv geneigten Zinskurve, relativ stabilen Zinssätzen und einer gesunden Wirtschaft.

Risiken und Beobachtungspunkte

• Höhere Hypothekenzinsen belasten die landesweite Hypothekennachfrage und die hypothekenbezogenen Provisionserträge von First Western.
• Die Einlagenkosten reagieren weiterhin empfindlich auf Zinserhöhungen, insbesondere im indexierten Geldmarktportfolio im Umfang von 740 Millionen US-Dollar.
• Kreditrückzahlungen können aufgrund der phasenweisen Kundenaktivität schwanken, obwohl das Management im dritten Quartal keinen breiteren negativen Trend feststellen konnte.
• Der Weg zu den mittelfristigen ROA-Zielen der Unternehmensleitung hängt von stabilen Zinsen, einer gesunden Wirtschaftslage und einer günstigen Zinsstrukturkurve ab.
• Der gestiegene Wettbewerb hat einige Banken dazu veranlasst, Kredite mit engen Spannen zu bepreisen. First Western erklärte, man wolle weiterhin selektiv vorgehen, anstatt Abstriche bei Preisen, Kreditbedingungen oder der Kundenbeziehungsqualität zu machen.

Highlights der Analysten-Fragerunde

Das Management gab bekannt, dass sich die Kredit-Pipelines und die Aktivitäten bei der Kreditprüfung im Vergleich zum ersten Halbjahr 2026 wesentlich verstärkt haben. Neue Banker tragen bereits zum Kreditneugeschäft und zu den Einlagenbeziehungen bei.

Hinsichtlich der Margensensitivität nannte das Unternehmen rund 1 Milliarde US-Dollar an variabel verzinslichen Krediten und Anleihen, 370 Millionen US-Dollar an Krediten, die bis Ende 2027 fällig werden oder deren Zinsen neu festgesetzt werden, sowie rund 400 Millionen US-Dollar an Zinsswaps als Faktoren, die die Aktiverträge und die Bilanzneutralität stützen.

Die Fremdaufnahmen zum Quartalsende waren teilweise aufgrund interner Liquiditätsrichtlinien erhöht. Das Management erwartet eine Normalisierung der durchschnittlichen Fremdaufnahmen, was den potenziellen Gegenwind für die Marge begrenzt.

Der Steuervorteil im dritten Quartal wurde als Einmaleffekt beschrieben. Unter Ausschluss ähnlicher Effekte nannte das Management einen effektiven Steuersatz von rund 23 % als angemessene Schätzung.

Vollständiges Transkript des Earnings Calls

Vollständiges Transkript der Telefonkonferenz

Ausführungen des Managements

Operator

Thank you. Thank you for standing by and welcome to First Western Financial's third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to hand the call over to Lisa Fortuna, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Unknown Speaker

Thank you, Lateef. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for First Western's third quarter 2026 earnings call. Running us from First Western's management team are Scott Wylie, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Julie Courkamp, Chief Operating Officer; and David Weber, Chief Financial Officer. We'll use a slide presentation as part of our discussion this morning. If you have not already done so, please visit the events and presentations page of First Western's investor relations website to download a copy of the presentation. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that this conference call contains forward-looking statements with respect to the future performance and financial condition of First Western Financial that involves risks and uncertainties. Various factors could cause actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors are discussed in the company's SEC filings, which are available on the company's website. I would also direct you to read the disclaimers in our earnings release and investor presentation. Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during the call. 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 the reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Scott.

Scott Wylie

Thanks, Lisa. And good morning, everybody. We executed well in the third quarter and saw positive trends in many areas, including loan growth, improving deposit mix, net interest margin expansion, trust and investment management fee growth, well-managed expenses, and improved asset quality. This resulted in another quarter of strong profitability. Pre-tax, pre-provision net income increased 15% in the third quarter, that's not annualized, compared to the prior quarter, and 27% compared to the third quarter 2025. We continue to maintain a conservative approach to new loan production with our disciplined underwriting and pricing criteria. The new banking talent over the past several years and increasingly over the past few months, and our healthy economic activity across our markets, fueled strong loan production that was diversified across markets, industries, and loan categories. As a result of our financial performance and balance sheet management strategies, we continued to grow tangible book value per share this quarter.

In slide 4, we generated net income of about $6 million, or $0.60 per diluted share, in the third quarter, both of which were 88% higher, respectively, than the third quarter of 2025. With our prudent balance sheet management, our tangible book value per share increased by 3% this quarter to $26.40. Now I'll turn the call over to Julie for some additional discussion of our balance sheet and trust and investment management trends. Julie?

Julie Courkamp

Thank you, Scott. Turning to slide 5, we'll look at the trends in our loan portfolio. Our loans held for investment increased $95 million from the end of the prior quarter, marking the sixth consecutive quarterly increase. On a year-over-year basis, total loans increased 8%. We continue to be conservative and disciplined in our new loan production. However, the higher productivity of the bankers added over the last several quarters is driving an improvement in loan originations. New loan production was $163 million in the third quarter and was diversified across various markets and loan types with a focus on relationship-based lending. Additionally, we are attracting deposit relationships with these clients.

We continue to be disciplined with respect to pricing, which resulted in the average rate on new production of 6.79% in the quarter, which was 42 basis points higher from the prior quarter and 53 basis points higher than the average rate of loan payoffs of 6.26% in the quarter. Quarter-end loans outstanding were almost 3% higher than average loan balances for the quarter, which is providing strong momentum going into the fourth quarter. Moving to slide 6, we'll take a closer look at our deposit trends. Our total deposits increased 2.5% from the end of the prior quarter with growth in non-interest bearing and money market accounts. On a year-over-year basis, total deposits increased 2.4%. Average non-interest bearing deposits increased $14 million or 3.9% in the quarter and 10% using quarter-end balances. We remain focused on continuing to improve our deposit mix to drive further NIM expansion going forward.

Now I'll turn the call over to David for some additional discussion of our balance sheet.

David Weber

Thank you, Julie. Turning to slide 8, we'll look at our gross revenue. Gross revenue increased 2.8% from the prior quarter, primarily due to an increase in net interest income partially offset by a decrease in non-interest income. Turning to slide 9, we'll look at the trends in net interest income and margin. Our net interest income increased 5.5% from the prior quarter due to an increase in net interest margin and an $81 million increase in average interest earning assets. Our NIM increased 5 basis points from the prior quarter to 2.95%. This was primarily due to an increase in yield on average interest-earning assets, partially offset by an increase in cost of funds. The yield on interest earning assets increased 7 basis points driven by an increase in loan yields. The cost of funds increased 2 basis points due to higher rates on money market accounts. Our net interest income increased 18% from the third quarter of 2025 due to a 41 basis point increase in NIM and higher average interest earning assets.

Turning to slide 10, our non-interest income decreased by $600,000 from the prior quarter. This was primarily due to a decrease in net gain on sale of mortgage loans as origination volumes were negatively impacted by higher mortgage rates and a decrease in bank fees, partially offset by an increase in trust and investment management fees. Trust and investment management fees increased 2.6% from the prior quarter, driven by increases in investment agency, trust, and retirement fees. Now turning to slide 11 and our expenses. Our non-interest expense decreased $400,000 from the prior quarter. The decrease was primarily driven by a decrease in technology and information systems as well as salaries and employee benefits. The decrease in technology and information systems was primarily attributable to a $400,000 non-recurring charge that we recorded in the second quarter of '26.

The decrease in salaries and employee benefits was primarily driven by lower employer payroll taxes. Our efficiency ratio improved to 72% compared to 74% last quarter and 76% in the third quarter of 2025, as we continue to tightly manage expenses while also making investments in the business that we believe will positively impact our long-term performance. Now turning to slide 12, we'll look at our asset quality. As Scott indicated earlier, we saw improved trends in the loan portfolio in the third quarter with a decrease in non-accrual loans driven by paydowns. Our non-performing asset ratio decreased to 39 basis points in the third quarter. Increased loan volume contributed to a provision of $600,000 during the third quarter of 2026. Our allowance coverage ratio was 74 basis points in the third quarter, down from 75 basis points in the previous quarter. Now I will turn it back to Scott.

Scott Wylie

Thanks, David. Turning to slide 13, I'll wrap up with some comments about our outlook. Based on our third quarter performance and what we're seeing in our markets, we're encouraged and we expect further improvement in financial performance in the fourth quarter of the year. Overall, we continue to see relatively healthy economic conditions in our markets. We're seeing good opportunities to add new clients and banking talent due to the ongoing disruption from M&A activity in our markets. Our loan pipeline remains strong and should fuel solid loan growth going forward. We expect positive trends to continue across several key areas, including loan growth, deposit growth, deposit mix improvement, net interest margin expansion, and increased activity in our wealth management business. Combined with disciplined expense management, we believe continued revenue growth should drive even more positive operating leverage and further improve our financial performance.

We had a net interest margin expansion of 26 basis points in 2025 and another 24 basis points in expansion so far in 2026. This will continue. We remain disciplined with expenses, continuing to invest selectively in opportunities that can enhance long-term shareholder value. Continued M&A disruption in our market is creating attractive opportunities to add experienced banking talent and new client relationships. And we're well positioned to capitalize on those opportunities as they emerge. Based on the trends we're seeing in the portfolio and the feedback we're getting from our clients, we're not seeing anything to indicate that we'll experience any meaningful deterioration in asset quality through the rest of the year. Positive trends across several key areas in the business, we believe we're well positioned to deliver continued improvement in financial performance and create additional value for our shareholders. So with that, we're happy to take your questions. Latif, please open up the call.

Operator

As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Hannah Nguyen of KBW. Your line is open, Hannah.

Unknown Speaker

Hi, good morning, guys.

Scott Wylie

Morning, Hannah.

Unknown Speaker

I wanted to start on loan growth. I know you had talked on the call last quarter about expecting to see strong loan growth in the second half of the year. So it was great to see that 14% number this quarter. Just wondering if you could give us a sense of how pipelines are shaping up for the fourth quarter and into 2027, and curious if you think we could expect to see another 14% number double-digit growth quarter to end the year.

Scott Wylie

Well, I'm always reluctant to say, well, this quarter is going to be this percent because it does bounce around a little bit, but there are definitely favorable trends that we've seen through the year, which we expected. We said we were going to be investing in more talent in the first half of the year, and that would produce more growth in the second half of the year. That's exactly what we're seeing. I was actually talking to the team this morning. You know, we've seen more loans in our credit working group, which meets three times a week, to preview upcoming credits, and then also credit committee over the past several weeks now than we've seen in the first half of the year. So pipelines are stronger and continue to be strong. The actual work in process that we're seeing and the activity we're getting from our frontline folks is stronger. I do think that we're going to see positive trends.

I feel like, you know, our forecast for this year kind of – 10%-ish growth, seems like we're on track for that, and I think a 15% run rate here going into 2026 seems like, or 2027, I mean, seems like a reasonable time indication of what we're seeing.

Unknown Speaker

Great. That's really helpful. And the next, just wanted to touch on mortgage. I know the rate environment has been a bit of a headwind there. Just curious how you see activity trending from here if rates continue to rise?

Scott Wylie

So mortgages as a percent of revenues for us is a small number. We are in that business primarily because we think it's strategically important for a private bank to be able to play good defense with our clients that want mortgages and to use that to play offense to attract jumbo mortgage clients that we can turn profitably into, you know, full relationships. So, you know, definitely production nationwide has fallen off the cliff. We actually met with our mortgage team earlier this week to see how we were doing relative to the overall secondary market and we're outperforming. And I think that's because, you know, we're doing the things we can. We can't control obviously, you know, the 10-year Treasury, we can't control demand for mortgages, which is way down nationally, but what we can control is the fixed expenses in that area, which we've cut, and the quality and productivity of the MLOs that we have in place who are commission based, so there's not a significant direct cost to them on an ongoing basis. But we have had a lot of success over the last year adding. So that helps with our strategic benefit, but it also helps when the market comes back, which eventually it will, you know, we'll be able to take advantage of that. But, you know, it's a little bit of a sideshow. I actually think the more interesting part of the fee income story this quarter, and we kind of glossed over page 7 of the deck, so I just want to go back to that for a minute. Is it page 7 or? You know the fee income this quarter was down thanks to insurance and mortgages, but actually our PTIM fees, oh, the AUM was down, so it looks all negative, but we said that we've done this restructuring of our PTIM folks and completely reorganized that business for the future over the last couple of years. We brought in Brandon Summers from Goldman Sachs, and he's leading that team. We said, you know, we're going to see some results of that in 2026.

Well, in 2Q we talked a little bit about green shoots and now we see, you know, that was investment management fees were up over $100,000 in 3Q, which if you look at that on a, on a growth rate basis, that's 2.6% increase, or annualized, that's 10.4%, and up 5.1% from a year ago. So those are trends that we haven't seen in years here. And I think that that's really a very bright spot in our fee income story that's kind of buried in some of the headwinds from mortgages and our insurance sales.

Unknown Speaker

That's great. Thanks for all the color there. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll step back.

Operator

Thanks, Hannah. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Clark of Piper Sandler. Your line is open, Matthew.

Fragen und Antworten

Matthew Clark

Good morning, everyone.

Scott Wylie

Good morning.

Matthew Clark

Um, just on the deposit cost side, um, maybe if we could just start with getting the spot rate at the end of September and you know, the beta assumption we should use on interest-bearing deposits, you know, assuming we get, you know, one or two more rate hikes here.

David Weber

Yes, Matt, the spot deposit rate for total deposits was 2.86% at the end of September. And from a beta standpoint, the way I look at the deposit portfolio is really focusing on the money market accounts from a beta standpoint. So we have $740 million in index money market accounts, which would translate to 100% beta. And then we have $760 million in standard money market accounts. That's how I refer to them, which that's where it's more of, you know, a standard type of beta, and we saw a 28% beta on that September hike. Um, and you know, we think that that's.

Scott Wylie

Certainly what we're targeting going forward. So just to add a little bit of strategic overview on that too, Matt. You know, we've focused on building our deposit base, and I thought we saw some nice progress in 3Q on that. Not only in the growth that we saw, but also the mix. And, you know, David and his team did a drill down on that, and there's really three components seem to be driving that. Our business development focus that we're working on the deposit side, you know, we brought in this new deposits team nine months ago now, and, you know, the focus we're doing there seems to be working. And then, uh, we've restructured and rebuilt our treasury management team.

We've always had a competitive treasury management offering, we've really changed that pretty significantly and upgraded that. And then the third area is we require relationships with every loan we do. We've been doing that for, I don't know, a year and a half now, something like that. And we literally write into every loan document a requirement that the borrower use us as their primary bank. So those three components are driving deposit growth, they're driving a deposit shift into more DDAs, non-interest bearing deposits, which of course is.

David Weber

An area full of opportunity for First Western. Got it. Matt, one data point I should also mention is we do have $200 million notional of capital cash flow hedge on the deposit portfolio, and that's a pay fixed swap. So that effectively takes that, you know, $740 million of index money markets $200 million.

Matthew Clark

Yep. Okay, great. And then just, I want to ask about the borrowings at the end of the quarter. It looked like on average they were down but up a decent amount at the end of the quarter. And you expect, you know, margin expansion to continue. Can you just give us provide some color on um, you know, those additional borrowings and and uh whether or not they might stick around. I would I would think that would be a headwind for the margin in 4Q.

David Weber

Yes, on an average basis we expect that to normalize. We do have, you know, internal liquidity policies and things of that nature that drive some of the borrowing at the end of the quarter. But like I said, on an average basis, we do expect that to.

Matthew Clark

Okay. Similar to where you were is what you're implying? Okay. And then just some profitability. Any thoughts on when you think you can achieve a 1% ROA? And I think we all know how you can get there, but any thoughts on timing there? Okay.

Scott Wylie

Well, we've been working on our plan for 2027 and I think if we define that as kind of short term here, we do think that we'll be operating a 1% ROA during 2027, whether that's mid-year or the average for the year, the full year, I would be reluctant to say today. But I think from the progress we've seen now the last three years and then these trends that I talked about, which seem to be accelerating in 3Q that are so positive, I do think that over the course of 2027. The other interesting question that I have been wondering about and asking David and his team about is, you know, when we were doing $0.54 in 2023, you know, we're thinking, boy, you know, it's our EPS, we gotta get back to 1% here. Is 1% any kind of a ceiling for us? And our new three-year forecast that we use internally we can see a line of sight to 1.5% ROA, just based on stable, healthy markets, an upward sloping yield curve, relatively stable rates, healthy economy, if those sorts of things continue, I think that that's something that we can look forward to in the medium term to drive shareholder value here.

Operator

Great. Thanks again. Thank you. Thanks, Matt. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Liam Coohill of Hovde Group. Your line is open, Liam.

Liam Coohill

Thank you, and good morning, Scott, Julie, and David. Thanks for taking the questions.

Scott Wylie

Morning, Liam.

Julie Courkamp

Morning.

Liam Coohill

Good morning. So one of the highlights for me this quarter was definitely the noninterest-bearing balance growth. Now, curious to hear about what you think some of the key drivers are there, especially given how difficult it is to grow noninterest-bearing balances in this rate environment.

Scott Wylie

Yes, so, you know, at First Western we've always focused on business owners and those individual entrepreneurs and their families and their charities. And I think, you know, what's changed here? And I mentioned some of this a minute ago, but the business development focus, our treasury management focus, our relationship-based lending that we require for each borrower, I mean, those are all positives. Some of what we saw in 3Q was also just fluctuations accounts we already have. But a big driver of all this for us today, and I think going forward for the foreseeable future, is all of this market disruption. And it's really profoundly affecting the competitive environment here in a way that I haven't seen in my 40 years of banking in our own banks here in the market. And, you know, where that translates into is, you know, our ability to attract really outstanding talent. You know, we brought in this guy, quarter we added Bill Sullivan as our Head of Strategic Planning here.

Bill is a really interesting guy. He's been around Denver forever. He's got a great reputation among our target markets and among bankers here because he's so well known. He built the Colorado State story for former CEO of Bank of Oklahoma here, and they bought Colorado State Bank and Trust, which is where a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of personal trust business went over the years. And then 10 years ago, the Bank of Oklahoma bought a business bank, which was another place that's full of our type of clients. So Bill knows that market really well. He's actually working on some really interesting strategic initiatives for us. But you know, it's not just Bill, right? It's Brandon that we brought in from Goldman.

It's 14 hires now we've made of senior folks out of what used to be First Bank. And these folks, a number of them have a C&I focus, all of them have a focus on our type of clients and providing that kind of community-oriented, team-based service that's something that First Bank was so good at and that we believe in here. And of those 14 hires, I mean, they're all hit the ground and having a big impact here and really feel comfortable in the culture of First Western and how similar it is to some of the really great qualities that First Bank had over the years. So all those things I think are going to drive deposit growth, deposit opportunity, and DDA, treasury management.

Liam Coohill

The banking opportunities for us. Well, thanks for the color. That's helpful, especially the last point you made there about the new hires impacting loan growth. We definitely saw that in the quarter. Originations were really strong. But one question I did have was payoffs did tick up a little bit, and I was wondering how you expect payoffs to trend in a higher rate environment, or those mostly like variable rate loans that are paying off?

Scott Wylie

Yes, that's a great question. And David, I think you took a look at that to see if there was anything in particular there that stood out.

David Weber

Yes, no real trends to call out. Our clients do tend to be episodic at times, and I think that's just what we're seeing this quarter.

Scott Wylie

You know, the um the payoff number seems to be about $100 million a quarter. We've commented on that before. What's higher this quarter? You know, do we expect that to go back to $100 million for the next few quarters? Yes, but, you know, will it bounce around? Historically, it has, yes. But there's no big trend. The the other interesting point there is, you know, these higher rates are actually creating opportunity for us with this disruption. And yesterday we were out on a call and we heard this story from a client where their loan was maturing at another bank. And so they were having a conflict discussion with the bank about their new pricing and you know when you find out your coupon your loans going to go from 3% or 4% to something like 7% or 8%. If another bank delivers that bad news and they're already mad at that other bank and they come here to see what we'll do and it's similar, that's opportunity for us. So I think it actually helps create opportunity for us to see that kind of thing, kind of impact going on in the financial markets.

Julie Courkamp

I maybe would just add in on the yield side. The payoff yields were about 6.26%, while origination yields were at 6.79%.

Scott Wylie

They're not that low really for us and it's it's creating a nice bump in our NIMs. That that actually is a great point, Julie. You know, I was thinking about this, you know, there's five different ways right now that are driving higher asset yields for us. So one would be new production. So when we see the yield that Julie was talking about there, that's on all the new loans that's coming in at that average rate. Then of course you're replacing the low rates that are maturing or prepaying or that's a second source and that's $100 million. And then the third area is floating rate.

We have about $1 billion in floating rate loans and bonds and that, we have quite a few of those coming through 2027. Uh, didn't really even show up in 3Q because that Fed Funds increase was actually on September 15th. So you'll see that benefit really for the first time in 4Q. So that's $1 billion out of our 3.2 or whatever it is today. Uh, then you've also got, to Julie's point, $370 million in loans either maturing or ARMs that are repricing through the end of next year. And on top of that, you've got another $400 million in fair value cash flow swaps that we have in our books. So you add all that stuff up, and it really gives us a lot of protection an upgrade and it really puts First Western in the position we want to be in, which is a relatively neutral balance sheet.

Liam Coohill

Thank you for all that, that's really helpful. And just one more for me, this is more of a housekeeping question, but I believe this is the case, but that tax benefit looked like a one-time benefit to me. Do you expect the normalized rate to kind of be back around 23% or so? Yes.

David Weber

Yes, it was a one-time in the quarter. Not to say that we won't explore those opportunities again, but without those, you know, the 23% effective tax rate is a reasonable, reasonable estimate.

Liam Coohill

Great. Well, thank you for taking all my questions. I'll step back.

Operator

Thanks, Liam. Thank you. Once again, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. Our next question comes from the line of William Dezellem of Titan Capital Management. Your line is open, Bill.

William Dezellem

Thank you. A couple of questions. First of all, relative to the dynamics setting you up for loan growth, are we hearing you correctly that both the underlying dynamics and factors that will lead to loan growth are accelerating in addition to the loan growth itself and so therefore the flywheel has begun. Is that what we're hearing?

Scott Wylie

I think so. You know, we talked last quarter about green shoots and we said, you know, we're seeing some green shoots on the banking side, we're seeing some on the PTIM side, and now those green shoots seem to be sprouting a little bit more and showing up more in the numbers. I think those are going to create opportunities for us going into 2027, Bill.

William Dezellem

And not to get too far out over our skis here, are the the characteristics setting up such that you could see quarters ahead where the year-over-year growth is in the 20% sort of range?

Scott Wylie

I don't know that that's a goal for us. I think that, you know, mid-teen growth is a great place to be. And if you can produce the kind of operating leverage that we have been, and I don't see any reason that changes, you know, we've seen our operating expenses bump up from $20 million a quarter to $21 million a quarter. I think that's a good number for us today. I think we can still drive a lot of earnings gains and I talked about our three-year outlook and where we think we can get to. So I'd like to see us continue on in the mid-teens for now. And then, you know, what that lets you do is be picky. In today's market that's a good thing. I mean, we were in a credit committee last week and a couple of the relationship bankers were talking about loans being priced at 90 and 95 basis points over comparable Treasuries at competitors.

And, you know, we've seen this cycle before. We know that when somebody comes in, does a big acquisition, they want to show that they're able to protect the client base and stuff like that, they'll do that kind of thing. It doesn't make any sense. I mean, we can buy Ginnie's, floating Ginnie's, at a yield like that. And, in fact, we have been. And I mean I think, you know, then you have something that's no credit risk and no capital requirement and a really attractive yielding asset for that built into that NIM story we told you, right? So I think if we're seeing more demand that could produce 20%, 25% loan growth, don't need to do it. You can just be more selective and get the relationships and the terms and the rate that you want.

William Dezellem

That's very helpful, thank you. And then in the press release you referenced a roughly $10 million redemption of notes. Walk us through the background of that, please.

David Weber

Yes, those were some subordinated debt notes that we had issued in November of 2020, and they were eligible for call. And so we went ahead and decided to call those, which will give us a benefit from a NIM perspective. And we're comfortable with where our capital ratios are, so saw no room for that.

Scott Wylie

Real issues on that side either. Just to be clear, those are subordinate notes that are Tier 2 capital at the holding company level. So it's just part of a capital management thing. But it actually reduces our debt load at the holding company, which is a good thing.

William Dezellem

And was the entire issuance available to call and you just chose the $10 million and you can do the remainder later or are there specific dates? I've actually not looked at the details when you can then call incremental pieces.

David Weber

The entire, it was a $10 million note, the entire note was eligible and we decided to call the full $10 million.

William Dezellem

Great. Thank you very much. And by the way, congratulations on a great quarter.

Scott Wylie

Thank you. Appreciate that.

Operator

Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference back to Scott Wylie for closing remarks. Sir?

Scott Wylie

Yeah, so one of the things I didn't get to highlight was a story actually from yesterday. Julie and I were out on a client call yesterday. And I tell our people, frequently, you know, we can compete on value, we can compete on price, and guess which one we'd rather see you out competing on. And so we were visiting this client, been a long-term client, and he's an entrepreneur in a very niche, interesting business, C&I, and really has had a great experience at First Western. So he's telling us a story, which interestingly, I didn't know this story, which tells you it's kind of a culture thing here, not one off, and the story was that he had had a CFO look at doing an acquisition of a supplier that had run into trouble with their bank and was trying to sell it to this upstream commercial business. And so the CFO came back and said, well, it doesn't really make sense. And so the principal that we were meeting with, the owner of the business, took a look at it.

He decided, no, this is a great thing for us. It's going to lower our costs, going to help us with vertical integration, going to be great for our business and makes a ton of financial sense. So he calls us and says, hey, I've got one day to get this loan done, is that possible? If we turn around, approve the loan in one day, funded it in three days, and this guy said, what bank in America is going to be able to fund an acquisition loan for a business we wanna acquire in 72 hours? And I think it just tells you a lot about the position we put ourselves in, the quality of people we have here, the infrastructure that Julie and her team have built here, and our ability to be responsive and drive value instead of price in the market here. And so, I think what you're seeing here is us taking advantage of these extraordinary market conditions. We've never seen market disruption like this. We've really been able to take advantage of that. We set up that disruption task force we told you about a year ago, and they're having a heyday with recruiting and with sales and marketing initiatives.

You know, prospects today want a stable, local, expert team and an institution that can deliver that. Especially in our niche servicing entrepreneurs and their businesses and their families. Our small market share we have in these growing markets creates a lot of opportunity for us. We have strong, healthy economies, and our new hires, as we said, are already having an impact. The investments and changes we've made over the last couple of years are really paying off. We were hoping to see evidence of that in 3Q, and in fact we did. The PTIM restructuring that we did is working. The increased attention that we've given to the planning, trust, and investment management area, each has had significant impact and is showing some nice results. You know, I said last quarter there was no real magic bullet to our earnings gains, that it was driven by five different things and they're all progressing nicely.

And those five things, #1, organic growth, you know, that was up at a 14% rate in 3Q. #2 was continued NIM improvements. We talked a lot about that on the call. #3, fee income, which looks bad in the headline because of mortgages, but it's actually, I think, a really great turnaround story for us there that will play out in '27. Expense control, of course, and then asset quality, which was another great story in 3Q for us. And that's going to drive, you know, ongoing improvements in core earnings, you know, our pre-tax, pre-provision numbers, which we were asked about in the first half of this year. That's now turned around up $1 million quarter over quarter, which is 57% annualized in 3Q and 27% year over year. Those are great numbers. And we're headed back to this 1% ROAA in the near term.

So I just want to give a special shout out to our board to the leadership team, to the organization changes that we've made over the last couple of years with Julie's leadership, you know, our Associates I think are doing a great job of taking advantage of this environment and of course your clients for supporting all this change. I just feel like there's great things to come here and really appreciate people's time and attention down and in for a call today. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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