April 28th, 2026

The call presented multiple strong operating and financial positives: robust loan production and linked-quarter loan growth, margin expansion on a core basis, improved deposit funding costs, significant AUA growth and fee momentum, solid capital build and buyback activity, and continued operating leverage and efficiency gains. The primary cautions were muted quarter-to-quarter deposit growth due to seasonality, a meaningful portion of reported NIM tied to purchase-accounting accretion (a nonrecurring benefit), a modest provision tied to loan balance growth, a slight uptick in near-term expenses driven by seasonal and merit-cycle items, and the need to manage external perceptions around private credit exposure. Overall, the highlights materially outweigh the lowlights, reflecting strong organic growth and disciplined execution, with manageable and disclosed headwinds.

Company Guidance

Management’s guidance highlighted Q2 operating expense roughly in line with consensus at $383 million and an expected 2026 effective tax rate of 20–22%, with core net interest margin expected to be relatively flat sequentially (reported NIM was 3.38% in Q1; core margin 3.05% excl. the ~33 bps accretion benefit this quarter). They project contractual accretion of about $71 million for the remainder of 2026 and $79 million for 2027 (with almost $600 million of pretax accretion remaining, roughly $6 of EPS and ~100 bps of capital), reaffirm expect positive operating leverage for full‑year 2026 (Q1 operating leverage +0.4% q/q) and an operating efficiency ratio of 47.6% (operating ROTCE +155 bps). Other key metrics and context included CET1 of 11.16% (+20 bps q/q), $2.3 billion of gross loan production driving 10.8% linked‑quarter annualized loan growth (period‑end loans +$1.4B, provision $27M, net charge‑offs 19 bps), Q1 noninterest income $204.8M (adjusted ~ $198M), AUA $565B (+~$20B q/q) with $43B tied to private credit (7.6%, ~$13M annualized fees = 1.6% of annualized Q1 fee income), average customer funding +$702M q/q, cost of total deposits down 19 bps to 2.06% (cost of interest‑bearing deposits down 24 bps to 2.79%) and a blended deposit beta of ~70%.