Byline Bancorp, Inc. Stock

Good morning, and welcome to Byline Bancorp's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. My name is Ben, and I will be your conference operator today. [Operator Instructions] Please note, the conference call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to introduce Brooks Rennie, Head of Investor Relations for Byline Bancorp to begin the conference call.

Thank you, Ben. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for the Byline Bancorp's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. In accordance with Regulation FD, this call is being recorded and is available via webcast on our Investor Relations website, along with our earnings release and the corresponding presentation slides.

As part of today's call, management may make certain statements that constitute projections, beliefs or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. We caution that such statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. The company's risk factors are disclosed and discussed in its SEC filings.

In addition, our remarks and slides may reference or contain certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are intended to supplement but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Reconciliation of each non-GAAP financial measure to the comparable GAAP financial measure can be found within the appendix of the earnings release. For additional information about risks and uncertainties, please see the forward-looking statement and non-GAAP financial measures disclosures in the earnings release.

As a reminder for investors, we plan to participate in 2 investor conferences during the quarter, the Hovde Group Financial Services Conference in Orlando and the Piper Sandler Financial Services Conference in Miami, both in November.

With that, I will now turn the conference call over to Alberto Paracchini, President of Byline Bancorp.

Thank you, Brooks. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review our third quarter results. With me today are our Chairman and CEO, Roberto Herencia; our CFO, Tom Bell; and our Chief Credit Officer, Mark Fucinato.

In terms of the agenda for today, I'll kick us off with the highlights for the quarter, followed by Tom, who will walk you through the financials. I'll come back before wrapping up the call for questions. As always, you can find the deck for this morning on the IR section of our website, and please refer to the disclaimer at the front.

Before we get started, I'd like to pass the call over to Roberto for his comments. Roberto?

Thank you, Alberto, and good morning to all. Thank you for spending a few minutes with us this morning. Another excellent quarter with notable positive developments. Financial results were solid and consistent, quite a few records achieved this quarter. Key metrics were once again top quartile or top decile among our peer group. We increased our dividend during the quarter and continue to repurchase shares opportunistically. We also announced the acquisition of Illinois State Bancorp.

And with that, the analyst community gets the certainty they've been so eager to obtain as to when we will cross that $10 billion threshold. Before passing the call back to Alberto and the team, I'd like to talk about these details, I want to spend a few minutes as I usually do, talking about our people and leadership, which is, of course, what makes these results possible.

Sadly, I first want to take a moment to remember our colleague, Matt Robertson, who passed away in September. Matt was part of the Byline family for more than 7 years and led one of our commercial real estate teams. He was an accomplished banker and a respected leader in the Chicago commercial real estate community. What stands out the most about Matt is the impact he had on the people around him. Matt was a mentor to many of our younger bankers and credit professionals. He was known for his positive attitude, his commitment to his colleagues and customers and the energy he brought to Byline every day.

I talk often about the importance of our people and the culture we're building at Byline. Matt represented so much of what we value, relationships, mentorship, teamwork and genuinely caring about the people around you. We miss Matt greatly, and our thoughts remain with his wife, his children and all of Matt's family, friends and colleagues. We are grateful for the time we had with Matt and for the lasting impact he made at Byline and on so many of us personally.

More broadly, I'm especially proud that Byline was recently named one of American Bankers 2026 Best Banks to Work For. This recognition is particularly meaningful because employee feedback is a central part of this evaluation. We work hard to build a culture where people feel connected to the organization, have opportunities to develop and build meaningful careers and understand the important role they play in our success. We remain focused on developing our people, creating opportunities from within and making sure we have the leadership depth necessary for $10 billion and beyond, and we actually do.

This leads directly to the leadership transitions and organizational changes we announced earlier this month, effective January 1, 2027. Brogan Ptacin, Head of Commercial Banking; and Mark Fucinato, our Chief Credit Officer, will retire at the end of this year after a combined 25 years of service to Byline. Brogan has been instrumental in building our commercial banking franchise and strengthening our position in the Chicago market.

While Mark has played an equally important role in strengthening our credit infrastructure and building the disciplined credit culture that is fundamental to how we operate. Both have also invested considerable time in developing the people around them, a condition to their retirement. I'm being playful with that last comment, of course, just a bit. We are incredibly grateful for their leadership and the lasting positive impact they have had here at Byline.

We're delighted that Brogan and Mark will remain involved in advisory capacities for the foreseeable future with us. If we had an official Chicago Bankers Hall of Fame, these 2 individuals would be inducted without a wait period. As part of these planned transitions, we shared in an 8-K earlier this month the names of the named executive officers that will lead the reorganized commercial bank and credit functions.

There are also many other promotions that cascade from these changes beyond the NEOs, including expanded responsibilities and even a swap or exchange of roles into C-suite leaders as part of our commitment to developing leadership. Singling out all of them would not be appropriate in an earnings call. The overarching message, however, is that these moves are intentional, giving talented leaders opportunities to lead different parts of the organization, building broader experience and strengthening our executive bench as we cross the $10 billion threshold.

We have known for some time that these transitions were approaching, and we've been deliberate in preparing for them. To me, that is what good succession planning looks like. We are confident in the team we have in place and excited about what this next generation of leadership will bring to Byline. I am proud of the organization we're building together. These changes demonstrate the depth of leadership we have developed across the company and reinforce something I have said many times, our people and our culture are fundamental to our success. This team, our people in general anchors the optimism and excitement I feel about Byline's growth prospects and our progress towards becoming the premier commercial bank in Chicago.

With that, Alberto, I'll turn it back to you.

Great. Thank you, Roberto. Moving on to Slide 4 on the deck. The third quarter combined strong financial results with several important milestones. We delivered record net income and revenue, expanded our net interest margin and grew deposits while maintaining strong capital levels. We also announced a definitive agreement to acquire Illinois State Bancorp and returned capital to shareholders through a higher dividend as well as share repurchases.

All in all, a very productive quarter for Byline. Net income came in at $41.8 million or $0.94 per diluted share, up from $40.2 million and $0.90 last quarter. EPS was up 4% linked quarter and up approximately 15% from a year ago. Revenue reached a record $121 million, up 3% from the second quarter with growth in both net interest income and noninterest income. These results translated into an ROA of 167 basis points, ROTCE of just under 15% and pretax pre-provision ROA of 245 basis points.

Expenses totaled $59.8 million, and our efficiency ratio was 48.4%. While the ratio increased from the second quarter, it improved by 260 basis points on a year-on-year basis. Turning to the balance sheet. Deposits grew $168 million or 8.5% annualized to $8 billion. Our loan-to-deposit ratio declined to 93.2% from 96.1% last quarter, and we used excess cash to reduce wholesale funding and manage the size of the balance sheet. Loans and leases declined roughly 1% to $7.5 billion as elevated payoffs more than offset strong origination activity.

We ended the quarter with assets just below $10 billion and have flexibility to manage the balance sheet through year-end. We expect to cross the $10 billion threshold in 2027, which would defer the impact of Durbin until the second half of 2028. Moving to asset quality. Credit costs for the quarter were $6.7 million, reflecting net charge-offs of $5.8 million and a small reserve build. Net charge-offs came in at 31 basis points, consistent with prior guidance.

Nonperforming loans increased 22 basis points for the quarter, driven by 2 relationships, 1 government-guaranteed and commercial that moved to nonaccrual status during the quarter. Our allowance increased 3 basis points to just over 1.5% of total loans. Criticized and classified loans declined to 3.1% from 3.9% last quarter, marking the third consecutive quarterly decline. Capital levels continue to remain strong. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 522,000 shares totaling $20.2 million. Importantly, we executed across all 4 of our capital priorities during the quarter, supporting organic growth, increasing our dividend, deploying capital towards M&A and returning capital through share repurchases.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Tom, who will walk you through the financials.

Thank you, Alberto, and good morning, everyone. Starting with our loans on Slide 5. Total loans ended the quarter at $7.5 billion, down 1% from the second quarter. Origination activity was strong with $362 million in new loans, up $129 million or 55% linked quarter. However, payoff activity continued and remained elevated at $396 million, up 17% linked quarter.

Line utilization decreased to 57% from 61% last quarter, reflecting higher net repayment activity and the impact of $112 million of new line commitments added during the quarter. Looking ahead, we currently expect fourth quarter loan balances to remain flat as payoff activity and new business production are expected to largely offset.

Turning to Slide 6. Total deposits were $8 billion for the quarter, up 2.1% or 8.5% annualized linked quarter. From a mix perspective, growth was driven by interest checking balances and DDAs, partially offset by lower money market and saving balances. The solid deposit growth for the quarter allowed us to reduce our reliance on wholesale funding and improve our loan-to-deposit ratio to 93.2% from 96.1%. Deposit costs increased modestly for the quarter, up 3 basis points to 1.95%, while the cost of interest-bearing deposits increased 5 basis points to 2.54%.

Turning to Slide 7. We had record high net interest income of $103.7 million, up 3% from the prior quarter, primarily due to higher income from investment securities, reduced wholesale funding costs and the additional day in the quarter. This was partially offset by higher deposit costs. The net interest margin increased 5 basis points to 4.33%. The improvement reflected higher yields on cash and securities and lowering borrowing costs, partially offset by higher deposit costs.

Excluding accretion, the NIM increased 10 basis points linked quarter. Given our asset-sensitive position, we are well positioned to grow our net interest income in a rising rate environment. That said, given the rate outlook and the management of the balance sheet to stay under $10 billion for year-end, we expect net interest income to be in the $103 million to $105 million range for the fourth quarter.

Turning to Slide 8. Noninterest income totaled $17.3 million in Q3, an increase of 3% compared to the second quarter. The increase was primarily driven by higher BOLI income. We also had higher swap income and wealth management income, partially offset by lower servicing asset valuation. Our guidance for Q4 remains unchanged with gain on sale revenues at $5.5 million, with total noninterest income to be in the $14 million to $15 million range.

Turning to Slide 9. Expenses came in at $59.8 million, up 6% from the prior quarter, primarily due to higher incentive compensation, partially offset by lower marketing expenses. Noninterest expense to average assets continued to move lower at 2.39%, an improvement of 8 basis points year-over-year. Looking ahead to Q4, our noninterest expense guidance will be higher at $62 million to $64 million, which reflects higher incentive compensation, benefit costs and marketing expense.

Notwithstanding the higher expense guidance for the fourth quarter, we still believe that our full year efficiency ratio will be at or below 50%. Before moving to credit, I want to briefly touch on taxes. During the third quarter, we purchased tax credits, which reduced our effective tax rate to 23.3% from 25.7% last quarter. Looking ahead to 2027, we currently estimate our annual effective tax rate to be in the 25.5% range.

Turning to Slide 10. Net charge-offs were $5.8 million or 31 basis points annualized compared to $4.4 million or 24 basis points last quarter. Criticized and classified loans declined to 3.1% of total loans from 3.9% last quarter. And our allowance for credit losses was $113 million or 1.51% of total loans, up 3 basis points from last quarter, driven by an increase in the individually assessed category.

Moving on to capital on Slide 11. Capital ratios increased during the quarter and remain well above regulatory requirements. CET1 increased 37 basis points to 13.29%. Our TCE ratio was 11.12% at September 30, down 24 basis points linked quarter due to higher AOCI and the impact of share repurchases, but up 34 basis points year-over-year. As a result of our strong capital position, we continue to return capital to stockholders. During the quarter, we repurchased roughly 522,000 shares of common stock and increased our quarterly cash dividend by 16.7% to $0.14 per share. Our capital position is a source of strength and continues to provide flexibility to fund organic growth, return capital to stockholders and pursue strategic opportunities.

With that, Alberto, back to you.

Thank you, Tom. So to wrap up, we're pleased with this quarter's results and remain focused on executing our strategy. Our priorities are straightforward: grow customer relationships, deliver profitable growth and invest in the business while preserving a strong balance sheet.

We do all of that while maintaining credit discipline, close portfolio monitoring and balancing risk with reward. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, our pipelines remain healthy, and we're confident in our ability to serve customers and compete effectively in the market. Our capital position gives us flexibility to support growth, invest back into the business and return capital to shareholders.

Looking ahead, we're prepared to operate above $10 billion in assets and welcome Illinois State Bancorp's customers, employees and shareholders to Byline in 2027. We believe the combination will strengthen our deposit base, expand our market presence and add new customer relationships. We remain optimistic about the opportunities ahead and focused on delivering long-term value to our shareholders.

Before we open the call for questions, I'd like to recognize Mark Fucinato, who is here today participating in his 25th and final quarterly earnings call before retiring. Mark joined Byline in 2019 and has served as Chief Credit Officer since 2020. During his tenure, Mark has made significant contributions to our company. Our processes and practices are stronger. Our credit culture has matured and the relationship between our lines of business and credit has become a competitive advantage.

I am fortunate to work with Mark and grateful for his friendship and support over the last 7 years. On behalf of Byline, our Board and all of us here, thank you for your contribution and years of service. We wish you well in retirement. I'd also like to take a moment to introduce Scott Hawthorne, who will succeed Mark as Chief Credit Officer at the beginning of 2027. Scott joined Byline 3.5 years ago and is currently Deputy Chief Credit Officer. He brings more than 20 years of banking and credit experience, having worked prior to Byline at MB Financial and Fifth Third.

Finally, thank you to all of our employees for their commitment to customers and their contributions to another strong quarter. And with that, operator, we can open the call up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first call from the line of Nathan Race with Piper Sandler.

Congratulations on your upcoming retirement, Mark. Wishing you all the best, your next chapter.

Appreciate it.

I wanted to start on just the strong core deposit growth in the quarter. Obviously, it helped you kind of pay down some wholesale funding in the quarter. And just maybe curious, Alberto, if you can just unpack some of the drivers. Is it just some typical blocking and tackling, pulling market share? And to what extent do you have kind of visibility into kind of additional kind of core deposit gathering at this clip just to maybe continue to work down some wholesale funding sources and to drive and support the NIM.

Yes. Good question, Nate. So obviously, it's -- when you annualize the growth this quarter, it looks super solid at 8.5%. The growth was actually a bit higher because we also repaid, Tom, roughly around $80 million in broker deposits. So net, it was really double-digit growth. Joking, putting -- trying to put a joke aside, but I wish we can continue to grow at that type of rate going forward. But in all reality, I think the growth this quarter was just simply blocking and tackling.

As you know, we are more commercially focused. So as we bring in new banking relationships, they can be lumpier coming in. And I think that's the short answer to your question. It's just we added -- we continue to add banking relationships. We had a good quarter of that. If you look at the changes in the balances, it was driven by interest checking, noninterest-bearing obviously moved higher also, which certainly helps. So the mix remained attractive.

But in terms of going forward, Nate, listen, it's -- as you know, we've always been very focused on the right-hand side of the balance sheet. We believe that fundamentally, that's really where the value of a financial institution lies. And we'll continue to always be prioritizing deposit growth going forward. And again, in terms of -- what's driving it is, again, just the focus on the strategy, customer by customer, the segments and certainly the commercial banking orientation. So hopefully, I gave you some color there. Hopefully, that answers your question.

Yes, that helps. And maybe a question for Tom. I know you don't really guide to margin, but if we do get a couple more Fed rate hikes as the forward curve implies, just any thoughts on betas between both loans and deposit costs as we move into 4Q into the first part of next year?

Sure. Nate, on the loan side, just hit that first. I mean, we continue to have cash flows and runoff in the, I'll call it, $350 million in fixed rate loans that would reprice. Obviously, the book is over -- a little bit over 50% floating rate. So that should give you some guidance on the betas there. On the liability side, we haven't seen much to date for interest-bearing deposits and total deposits, but generally, probably in that 30% to 40% range is the beta. And if you include CDs, I think about it more like 40% to 50%.

Okay. Got it. And just one last one for me. Just -- I appreciate the guide on kind of flat loans for the fourth quarter, just given some of the payoff headwinds. But as you look out to next year and just given that we're perhaps kind of in the latter innings of some of the recycling of acquired loans that we discussed last quarter and maybe also the latter innings of some of the kind of the COVID era CRE loans paying off to some degree. Just is there anything that you see on the horizon, Alberto, that would cause you guys to not achieve kind of mid-single-digit growth in loans next year, notwithstanding the acquisition impact?

Really good question, Nate, and thanks for asking it. And I know you were the one that asked the same question last quarter. And I think, look, we probably underestimated a little bit how strong the payoff activity was going to be this quarter relative to what we told you in 2Q. That being said, there -- I mean, it's always hard to forecast that variable perfectly. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we don't. And certainly, this quarter was one of those. That being said, if you look at the origination activity, the origination activity remains really good.

We're seeing plenty of opportunities. Credit demand looks okay broadly in the market. So we still -- when we look at that and when you normalize a bit for the elevated payoff activity heading into next year, I think that kind of mid-single-digit range, obviously, adjusting the base to reality and also to the reality that we'll be managing the balance sheet here over the last quarter of this year to make sure that we stay under $10 billion through 2026.

We still feel good about that mid-single-digit range into 2027. That being said, we're in a rising rate environment. You've heard me comment in the past about real estate transaction volume being lower, the market being competitive. That's likely to be the case in 2027 with higher rates. Also, you have to factor in, it's not just prime or SOFR, it's really the backup in treasury rates, which will have an impact to some degree on cap rates and valuations, and that's likely going to have an impact on transaction activity going into next year. So with that caveat and all the other uncertainties that you well know that are -- that exist in the environment today, I still think that for us, that single mid-digit kind of growth rate in terms of loans is probably the right place.

Your next call comes from the line of Brendan Nosal of Hovde Group.

Maybe just starting off here on kind of your recent M&A announcement. I know it's a little stale at this point, but could you just give us a little bit of background on how the Illinois State deal came to be and just kind of one or 2 things that you're most excited about for that transaction?

So it came to be through a meeting and getting to know the owners and the leadership of that institution earlier in the year. We certainly knew of them. We knew who they were. We -- I personally didn't know them personally, but we had been tracking that institution for some time. And we had the opportunity to meet, and it was a situation where you had the leadership team there had built that organization over roughly a 40-year period, and we're looking to find a good home for the franchise, the customers, the employees, the relationships that they had built over that period of time.

And Brendan, as we've conveyed and talked about in the past, we think we are a really good home for those types of situations. And this is just one example, very similar to some of the transactions that we've done here in the past. So that was the gist of it. I can tell you that it was relationship-driven. This was not a competitive situation. We had a meeting of the minds. We felt we were a good fit for each other, and we worked on trying to get to an outcome that certainly was good for both parties, and we think we were able to do that.

So that's in context the background on the transaction. In terms of what it adds, it adds -- it solidifies our market presence in certain parts of the city where we are just not there. It adds customer relationships. And as always, it's a source of core deposits and funding to the bank.

Yes. That's super helpful. Second one for me, just kind of sticking on this theme. It's just been a really active period for M&A kind of in and around the state of Illinois over the past couple of months. You obviously got kind of your bite at that with the deal that we just discussed. But as you look at the M&A landscape, are there still potential partners that you think could come to market in the near to medium term? Or has the pipeline for potential partners kind of in your markets depleted somewhat?

No, I think we're still -- there's still opportunities there, Brendan. I think as the usual wording that people use to describe kind of the M&A environment. I mean, I think there's active chatter. I think for us, it's just sticking to our knitting, looking to do transactions that make sense that are accretive to the franchise that hopefully, with partners that we like and that -- where they're looking to partner and put their institution with a partner that can provide them with just better capabilities and a home for the business that they've built. So I think, look, the chatter in the marketplace continues, and I think -- I would say I think the environment is constructive.

Your next call comes from the line of Damon DelMonte of KBW.

Just wanted to ask on the outlook for noninterest income, Tom. Could you just kind of help us connect the dots for the range that you gave of $14 million to $15 million off of this quarter? I'm guessing there was some -- I think you called out a couple of onetime items maybe this quarter that kind of would get us down to that lower level?

That's correct, Damon. The BOLI income was a onetime event. So that kind of brings us back to normal operating levels.

Yes. So that was like a couple of million maybe?

Little over $1 million, yes.

A little over $1 million. Okay. All right. Great. And then on the expense side, the lift from this quarter, is that just kind of like year-end accruals and anything else particularly driving that?

That's correct. Year-end accruals and then some of the marketing campaigns that we maybe didn't do in the third quarter that we anticipate in the fourth quarter, the timing of those expenses. So the marketing expense could be a little bit higher in the fourth quarter.

Got it. Okay. And then...

Yes. Damon, I was going to add maybe to what Tom said. I think when you look at our performance, obviously, performance this year has been super solid. So what you're seeing in terms of the fourth quarter is aligned with that in terms of the higher incentive compensation.

Got it. That makes sense. A good year. And then just one more quick one on credit. I think you called out a couple of loans that drove the NPA increase this quarter. Any color on those, maybe size or industry or anything like that?

Damon, Mark Fucinato. So one of them was in the solar industry, and we expect that one to hopefully be resolved sometime early next year. We're well reserved against that one. And the other one was a C&I credit that involved a company that does purchase of distressed credit card consumer debt. And these are both long-term customers at the bank. So these things occur once in a while. We've been tracking them for a long time, and we're properly reserved against both of those situations at the present time.

Your next call comes from the line of Daniel Tamayo of Raymond James.

Maybe first, just curious kind of as we think about the crossing of the $10 billion and the actions that you're taking to stay below in 2026, is there any kind of reversal of those actions in '27 and the beginning of the year that would kind of create an increase in the balance sheet abnormal growth kind of early on, maybe having to do with liquidity or something like that, that we should be thinking about as we model out next year?

I think so, Danny. We've been kind of conservative on any bond purchases right now just because we don't want to go over. So that's certainly an area where we're a little light on a percentage basis, and you would expect in the first quarter that, that would change.

Okay. And then can you give a little bit of color around the loan sales in the third quarter? I mean, just looking at the line items, it looks like it came from construction and maybe C&I, but just curious where you were selling and then just thoughts if that -- it was a onetime event or there's some potential for that to continue?

Sure. So the bulk of those sales are the government-guaranteed loans that we sell every quarter. That's something we disclosed in the loan side this time because there were some SAG assets that were sold and some other loans that other banks took a participation in, so to speak. So that -- those are small pieces in C&I, but the bulk of the sales are the SBA sales.

Okay. So that's kind of regular way stuff, but it was just elevated in the quarter is the way to think about it?

Yes.

Yes. I think we highlight, Danny, I think I would emphasize just the one that ultimately matters a lot is really the government guaranteed kind of -- recurring government-guaranteed loan sales. You can think of the other ones as really not having very material economic impact in terms of the P&L.

And how much were those, Alberto?

You remember, it's just the -- I'm sorry, what's the question?

The delta between the...

Well, we sold like $70 million -- $77 million of SBA loans residual as SAG assets and a couple of loans we sold to participations.

It's about $30 million.

$30 million. But I think that point these are not like asset sales where we're taking a significant loss or a gain that we were as part of a business structure. It's just operating balance sheet.

Okay. And then lastly, if I'm looking at this correctly, the purchase accounting accretion came down quite a bit in the quarter. Just curious if you're expecting a rebound in that level from a scheduled perspective in the fourth quarter.

I mean it's less than $1 million a quarter. I would think it's -- we've given guidance in the past, and the numbers are so small now, at least excluding any future transactions, which we haven't really disclosed yet. So more to come on that, but it's a couple of million dollars currently for '27 in total.

Okay. So it's that we're still running off from these levels. There was nothing unusual in the third quarter in terms of excel, I guess, it would be the other way.

Maybe.

No, I think the point that we tried to highlight, Danny, is like if you just look at the margin ex accretion, obviously, the growth in the margin for the quarter was more significant than it was with accretion included. I think accretion was like roughly 5 basis points, ex accretion was like 10 basis points, which for a quarter where, yes, rates increase, but that increase happened very much towards the latter part of the quarter. So that's still not baked in. So we still think to Tom's comments in his remarks, it's a nice tailwind going into the fourth quarter and 2027.

Your next call comes from the line of Brandon Rud with Stephens. Your next call comes from the line of Brian Martin with Brean Capital.

Just a couple for me. Just, Tom, on the -- just on the September, do you have a sense for -- is there a big difference in the September margin exit versus what it was for the quarter? Just trying to gain some perspective on the timing of those wholesale payoffs in the quarter if it had an impact? Or is it pretty -- the average for the quarter is a pretty good base.

Pretty consistent averages over quarter. Some of the payoffs that did happen happened in the middle part of September. So I would say, generally, the margin is pretty much consistent on average versus period end.

Okay. And then just on your outlook, Alberto, you suggested, as you have in the past on the real estate, if we are in a little bit of a rising rate environment, that may tail off a bit. But your guide or comfort level still seems to be in that mid-single-digit outlook is in the coming quarters. I mean does C&I make up for that potential slowdown in real estate, and that's how we should think about where the growth is in the coming quarters more on the C&I side and maybe a little bit less real estate, that's kind of your outlook today that can overcome it?

Yes. I still think we're -- listen, we're -- it's not to say that we are deliberately trying to reduce our CRE book. We are not. In fact, if you've tracked kind of our CRE concentration ratio today, we're probably at a pretty low point, which means we have ample capacity to grow that category. I'm just cautioning against an environment. If you think about the beginning of this year and what market expectations were in terms of rates, it was for lower rates.

I think a lot of people on the commercial real estate space were anticipating, given the fact that rates are going to trend lower, properties were going to come to market, transactions were going to come to market and activity overall in terms of financing that was going to increase. I can't point to anything now other than just, look, we've had a significant backup in long intermediate and longer-term rates, and that's likely to have some impact on projects and overall activity in real estate next year.

That being said, as you well know, the environment can change very quickly. There are variables in the environment that if they were to reverse. So the geopolitics, the rise in oil, inflation trending down, then you can obviously see a reversal of kind of that environment in terms of that having an impact then on the business. So I'm just highlighting that. But to answer your question in terms of our business in general, you are going to see -- it's really more broader than just, say, C&I.

We expect that we'll see growth coming from the different business lines that we have that constitute that. So C&I, so that's our bread and butter, commercial banking business, our sponsor business, the SBA business, unless we get into an environment where we're seeing significantly higher rates that are likely to impact that originations in that business. I mean, I think activity there remains solid. And then lastly, our leasing business there as well. So leasing this year has been probably a little slower than in the past. As you know, that's a book that tends to repay very quickly because it's just the nature of that business. So that's an area also that we anticipate that going into next year, capital spending continues to remain solid, demand for essential used equipment of the type that we finance continues to be good. So that's a business that we anticipate also can grow next year.

Okay. And sorry if I wasn't clear. I guess that was -- your point is what I was suggesting is that if real estate does potentially slow a little bit, it sounds like you've got some pretty good runway in these other areas to kind of offset that if it does happen, and we'll see if it does. But thanks for the clarification on that and the bit of color on the other segments that can help out on that.

Maybe just the last for me was the -- just -- I mean, the efficiency ratio and expense management has been great. Just kind of wondering how you're thinking about operating leverage in '27 versus '26 and just how to think about that given certainly the inflationary costs and whatnot and how to balance that with such a great level where it's at today.

That's a great question. I think we still, again, want to focus on revenue growth over expense growth, so having operating leverage there. We're still working on the numbers, Brian. So more to come on that. But generally speaking, we want revenue growth to exceed expense growth.

It's a habit, Brian, in terms of -- this is not something that it's -- that we focus on this quarter and then we don't talk about it or focus again. I mean it's constant. So it's not -- we want to continue to drive the efficiency, you have a revenue component there that impacts it, but we want to continue to drive that cost-to-asset ratio down. So we are -- remain very focused on that. Some of that is just scale as we continue to grow the balance sheet, we want to make sure that we're -- that, that growth translates into better scale, but it's a habit, and it's a constant source of focus for us.

Your next call comes from the line of Brandon Rud with Stephens.

Sorry about earlier, I'm not sure what was happening there. If I can ask 2 questions. Just the first one, just to clarify, Tom, the $350 million of fixed rate maturities, is that per quarter? And then what -- how do those roll-off yields compare to new origination rates?

Sure. Yes, that's for the quarter. That includes leasing. And the rate is, call it, 5.15-ish. So we think about 7%, 7.25% for yields, depending on the asset class.

200 basis points or so uptick there. Okay. Perfect. And then just one on the buyback with the deal announced earlier this month. Are you restricted from repurchasing additional shares until that closes? Or are you still open for more buybacks here in the fourth quarter?

No.

[Operator Instructions] Your next call comes from the line of Kenneth James of StoneX Group.

I just kind of wanted to circle back to kind of the balance sheet and kind of growth expectations. I mean the main thing I'm trying to wrap my head around is the degree of time that you've kind of been managing these elevated payoffs and also around the $10 billion number. I mean, how long does it take to kind of get back up to a normal growth range? I mean, I guess I have a natural kind of inclination that once you get past the end of the year that the balance sheet could kind of behave like a coiled spring, kind of back up to a mid-single-digit growth rate. And I'm just wondering, is that a fair assumption? Or does that need to be tempered? I'll let you answer that part first.

Sure. I think we think mid-single digits is appropriate as we move forward ex any M&A transaction that we're going to close. So we've been operating in that level. Again, line utilization was down for the quarter. That's kind of not a normal thing that happens. So we expect that over time to move up. And that would certainly give us positive loan growth if we would have had line utilization unchanged quarter-over-quarter. So I think, generally speaking, mid-single digits is kind of where we're operating.

Okay. And then in terms on the deposit side and kind of the rising rate environment, how do you guys manage your deposit cost in terms of how much of the deposit base is centrally managed on a rate sheet versus linked to an index and automated versus negotiated individually, just generally speaking.

We have pricing committee meetings that meet weekly, and we review the competition. We look at our balance sheet needs and we set rates based on that. We have standard rack rates, and we offer promotional rates from time to time in the marketplace. And there's certainly -- depending on the size of the deposit base, there may be some exceptions given. But generally speaking, it's rack rate type pricing. There are some index priced products like, for example, instead of doing brokered CDs, we do brokered money market. So we did that for balance sheet management purposes. And so that's indexed to a Fed funds rate or a SOFR rate.

Okay. And then in terms of betas that we might see now versus last time, -- and what's kind of assumed in your sensitivity modeling? I mean, are they similar? I mean, kind of the 40% to 50% total deposit beta number you mentioned, I guess I kind of have an inclination that if we just get 3 hikes at 3 meetings that betas could be managed lower than 500 basis points was last time. Is that a fair assumption or in line with your thinking the market would allow you to do that? Or is last time is a better assumption?

The -- we think more to come on that. We'll have to see how they behave. But generally speaking, at least to date, they seem to be reverting back to the normal quotes that we gave on betas. As the Fed was moving in that cycle up, the last 100 basis points really hurt banks, all banks. And I think it was because of the, obviously, the liquidity events that were going on at the time. I mean we've been able to bring back our cost of funds from that level even though the Fed was on hold for some time here, our margin expanded over the year. And I think we're planning on the 40 to 50 that we already disclosed, but we'll certainly defend our deposit base and our customers. And if we have to go higher, we will. But to date, we aren't seeing it in the marketplace.

Yes. Ken, every cycle is different. I wish we were perfect on this, but there's just a lot of uncertainty on, call it, on that topic. History can help you, can certainly give you ranges in terms of how depositors are going to behave. But to Tom's point, we can look back to the last cycle and early on that hike cycle, betas were barely moving. And then all of a sudden, we got to a certain threshold and customers woke up, people became much more sensitive, and you saw how banks reacted to that.

The reality of this is even though we talk about uniformity and betas, people talk about deposit betas, the betas for interest-bearing deposits. The reality is it's just a mix of betas. We have certain pockets of the portfolio that are more rate sensitive and therefore, the betas are going to be higher, that will react quicker, then we have some other parts of the deposit book that are not going to be that sensitive and are not going to react very quickly to changes in rates. So how all of that comes out, I think to Tom's point, that's our view today. But obviously, that's subject to some degree of uncertainty because this hike, like all other hikes are -- tend to be a little bit different from the previous one.

Your next call comes from the line of Brendan Nosal of Hovde Group.

Just want to circle back to the cost conversation real quick, get the guide for the fourth quarter. It sounds like some of those things could be transitory or pushed from the third quarter. And I'm just asking because I'm wondering if the full $62 million to $64 million in the fourth quarter carries through into early 2027 or if there is some kind of transitory costs that could fall out of the run rate at the turn of the calendar.

Good question. You're right. It's -- this is December is the fourth quarter estimate. We expect the cost to come down in the first quarter. We're not really ready to give guidance there yet, but the incentive comp is driving the higher expense base for Q4 guidance.

Your next call comes from the line of Nathan Race of Piper Sandler.

Just going back to buybacks, pretty strong activity there. I think it's maybe the second highest level of buybacks in the quarter from what we've seen over the last handful of years. And that's with the stock trading kind of near kind of all-time high. So just curious if there's anything to read into that in terms of just maybe how consistent buybacks to a pace of the degree we saw this quarter can be kind of a more continuous component to your excess capital management strategy, just given how strong your capital levels are and which still probably provides flexibility for acquisitions to the extent they materialize going forward?

I think the -- I think, Nate, if you think -- just -- I would put it in the context of kind of the capital priorities that we lay out in terms of supporting organic growth, that's from a -- whether you measure it from an earnback perspective or you measure it from kind of just roughly a yield perspective, that's probably the top use of capital.

So first and foremost, supporting that. Second, over time, and this past quarter, you saw us do that in terms of having be able to do consistently over time, dividend increases that are, call it, very sustainable. So -- but that's an example of something that, again, we did this quarter. Thirdly, in this quarter, we had the opportunity to do that is having enough capital and putting that capital to work in M&A transactions.

And then you have the safety valve at the end, which is the buyback. And when it comes to the buyback, it's not necessarily buyback at all costs. We're not in a situation where like you can think about some of the largest banks in the country where they have really no other use other than to buy back. We have options in terms of what to do with the capital. So we're going to be sensitive to what that buyback yield is, what the earn-back is on a buyback relative to the other uses that we potentially have. So hopefully, that frames it and gives you a sense.

Yes. That's helpful. And just maybe one more for Tom. You mentioned 50% of the loan book is floating. Do you have a mix between prime and SOFR there?

It's in the deck.

It's in the deck, Nate.

Sorry, I didn't catch that.

SOFR is 34%, prime is 19% and other is 4%.

It's on Page 7 of the deck, Nate.

Thank you for your questions today. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Alberto Paracchini for any closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, operator. So thank you for joining us this morning. We appreciate your continued interest in Byline. I hope you all have a happy Halloween, happy Thanksgiving and a happy start to the holiday season, and we look forward to talking to you again in the new year. With that, that concludes the call. Thank you.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Good morning and welcome to Byline Bancorp's second quarter 2026 earnings call. My name is Ben and I will be your conference operator today. [Operator Instructions] Please note the conference call is being recorded.

At this time, I would like to introduce Brooks Rennie, the head of investor relations for Byline Bancorp to begin the conference call.

Thank you, Ben. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us today for the Byline Bancorp second quarter 2026 earnings call. In accordance with the Regulation FD, this call is being recorded and is available via webcast on our Investor Relations website, along with our earnings release and the corresponding presentation slides.

As part of today's call, management may make certain statements that constitute projections, beliefs, or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future of the financial performance of the company. We caution that such statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. The company's risk factors are disclosed and discussed in its SEC filings.

In addition, our remarks and slides may reference or contain certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are intended to supplement, but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Reconciliation of each non-GAAP financial measure to the comparable GAAP financial measure can be found within the appendix the earnings release. For additional information about risks and uncertainties, please see the forward-looking statement and non-GAAP financial measure disclosures in the earnings release.

As a reminder for investors, during the quarter, we plan to participate in two upcoming conferences, the Raymond James Bank Conference here in Chicago on September 9th and the Stephens Bank Forum in Little Rock in September.

With that, I will now turn the conference call over to Alberto Paracchini, President of Byline Bank Corp.

Great, Brooks, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to go over our second quarter results. With me today, as usual, is our Chairman and CEO, Roberto Herencia, our CFO, Tom Bell, and our Chief Credit Officer, Mark Fucinato.

In terms of the agenda for today, I'll kick us off with the highlights for the quarter, followed by Tom who'll take you through our financial results. I'll come back to wrap up before we open the call for questions. As always, you can find the deck for this morning on the IR section of our website, so please refer to the disclaimer at the front.

Before we get started, I'd like to pass the call over to Roberto for his comments.

Thank you, Alberto, and good morning to all. We appreciate you joining us today and taking the time to engage with Byline. And please excuse my voice, which hasn't been a friend in the last few days. Our second quarter results were excellent, a record net income. The consistency of our execution continues to shine. We are very proud of the work our people do, and we thank them for another strong quarter.

We are also grateful to our Board of Directors for their engagement, support and quality of advice. When we started the creation of Byline, Alberto and I were intent on having a Board of Directors that could really serve us well, the Board of Directors with different experiences, the Board of Directors that could make us better. And I believe that we have achieved that from day 1.

Our objective remains clear: to become the preeminent commercial bank in Chicago. This is not about being the biggest bank or pursuing scale for scale's sake. Success for Byline is defined by the quality of our customer relationships, the strength of our credit discipline, the talent of our people and our relevance to middle market businesses throughout the markets we serve and of course, of course, what we do for our shareholders.

We have built a relationship-driven commercial bank grounded in the principles that have long defined successful commercial banking organizations. First and foremost, exceptional talent, disciplined underwriting, local decision-making and a commitment to serving customers over the long term. We believe those fundamentals remain enduring competitive advantages.

I've been hearing the scale argument for a long time that if you don't buy banks, they'll be more expensive. If you don't buy banks, you won't be able to compete. If you don't buy banks, there will not be enough banks left. And here, we are 45 years later, and it's still the same argument. Scale matters, but only to the extent that it allows us to serve customers well, attract talent and invest in capabilities. I think scale matters to a lot of banks that are not clear on their purpose and their objectives.

We believe we have a significant opportunity in front of us, and Byline will likely be a much larger organization in the next 3 to 5 years. But that growth will come first and foremost, organically, and it will be disciplined. It will come from deepening customer relationships, growing deposits, maintaining strong underwriting standards, attracting quality bankers as we have done and of course, selectively pursuing strategic opportunities that are within the metrics that we have discussed with the investment community.

The area that continues to differentiate Byline is our people. During the quarter, Byline was recognized as one of the 2026 Best Workplaces in Illinois, making the third consecutive year we have received that distinction. The recognition is especially meaningful because it is based largely on employee feedback and reflects the culture we continue to build across the organization. We have long believed that engaged employees create better outcomes and recognitions like this reinforce the strength of that philosophy.

I would also like to recognize our SBC team. Byline was recently named the 2025 Illinois SBA 7(a) Lender of the year, marking the 17th consecutive year we have received that recognition. We were also recognized as the 2025 Illinois SBA Expert Lender of the Year. Consistency like that doesn't happen by accident. It reflects the expertise of our SBA professionals, the strength of the customer relationships and our long-standing commitment to helping small businesses access capital.

We are delighted with our performance throughout the first half of 2026. More importantly, we think we're very well positioned for the second half of the year. We have a strong capital base, and Alberto will talk to you more about that. And we have a talented and engaged workforce and a strategy that remains focused on long-term value creation.

With that, Alberto, I'll turn it back to you.

Great. Thank you, Roberto. And picking up on the theme of execution, this quarter, we felt was a good example of what disciplined execution looks like in practice. We grew profitability. We continue to manage risk carefully. And more importantly, we continue to deliver value to our shareholders. Record net income and excellent profitability really stood out this quarter. So let's start with that.

We delivered net income of $40.2 million or $0.90 per diluted share, up from $37.6 million and $0.83 last quarter. Excluding significant items, adjusted EPS was $0.91 per share, up 10% linked quarter and 21% year-on-year. For the quarter, return on average assets was 1.63%, up 7 basis points linked quarter, and return on tangible common equity was just under 14.5%, up 70 basis points. Pretax pre-provision ROA came in at 249 basis points, up 20 basis points, which marked our 15th consecutive quarter above 2%. Noninterest expenses remained well managed and declined this quarter, while revenue grew.

Our efficiency ratio improved 285 basis points to just under 47%, our fourth consecutive quarter of improvement and our best since becoming a public company in 2017. Put another way, we generated positive operating leverage. Revenue of $118 million was up 4.7% against expenses that actually moved lower, and that combination drove improvement in returns. Tom will walk you through the details of all of that in a moment.

Before I finish with the rest of the highlights, I want to spend a moment on the operating environment we find ourselves in today since it provides a backdrop to a lot of what you'll hear. We came into the year expecting rates to come down. And once again, that hasn't played out the way we or the market expected. Strength in the labor market, combined with firmer inflation points to a higher for longer rate environment for the balance of 2026. Against that backdrop, demand for credit remains solid, particularly in our C&I book, though we are seeing price competition pick up, particularly in commercial real estate.

On the liability side, competition for deposits remains elevated, and it's largely a function of banks competing to fund loan growth with deposits. We think this environment rewards discipline over volume, and that theme runs through the rest of what I'll cover.

From a balance sheet standpoint, trends remain stable with total assets ending at $9.9 billion. Deposits increased 3.5% to $7.9 billion, reflecting growth in interest-bearing deposits, while loans grew 4.2% to $7.6 billion. Net interest income was $101 million, consistent with previous guidance, even as our margin moved marginally lower.

I'll spend a second on the margin since it's a natural area of focus given what I just described on rates and competition. Our margin declined slightly for the quarter, largely due to mix changes, but remained stable and healthy at 4.28%. That said, we manage the business to grow net interest income in dollars since it's what drives profitability and returns, not to a specific margin level. When we see opportunities to add high-quality relationship-oriented business that's accretive to earnings, even at a somewhat lower spread, we are going to take it. Tom will cover the specifics on the margin drivers shortly.

On the asset quality front, credit costs for the quarter were $7.2 million, driven by net charge-offs of $4.4 million and a reserve build of $2.8 million. Our allowance now stands at just under 1.5% of total loans, up 2 basis points from last quarter. NPL stood at 92 basis points, essentially flat on a year-on-year basis. Our capital levels remain well above regulatory requirements across the board, providing us with significant flexibility. TCE increased to just under 11.5%, CET1 increased to 13% and our tangible book value per share increased 14% year-on-year to $24.48.

During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 275,000 shares totaling $9.1 million, leveraging our capital flexibility. Between dividends and share repurchases, our total payout ratio to shareholders for the quarter was 36%. In addition, yesterday, we announced that our Board approved a 16.7% increase in our quarterly dividend to $0.14 per share, which will be paid in the current quarter. This is reflective of the strength of our capital position as well as the earnings profile of the company.

I want to take a minute to talk about how we think about capital allocation more broadly. We look at things like share repurchases the same way we look at any other use of capital against the returns we could otherwise generate by deploying it to support loan growth, invest it back into the business or opportunistically into M&A. Our approach is to keep building capital and return it in a disciplined, thoughtful way, which gives us flexibility to play offense as opportunities arise.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Tom, who will walk you through the financials.

Thank you, Alberto, and good morning, everyone. Starting with our loans on Slide 5. Total loans increased 4.2% annualized and ended at $7.6 billion for the quarter. Origination activity was solid with $234 million in new loans, while payoffs were elevated at $339 million. We are seeing higher payoff activity rather than a pullback in originations as we recycle acquisition loans into new customer relationships.

Loan commitments grew slightly during the quarter, while draw activity on existing lines supported loan growth. Line utilization increased to 60% from 59% linked quarter. Our origination activity remains healthy as we head into the second half of the year. Assuming payoff activity normalizes in the back half of the year, we expect full year loan growth in the mid-single digits.

Turning to Slide 6. Total deposits were $7.9 billion for the quarter, up 3.5% annualized from the prior period. From a mix perspective, growth was driven by interest checking balances that was partially offset by lower money market balances. Our loan-to-deposit ratio ended the quarter at 96%, up 16 basis points from the prior quarter. We remain disciplined on pricing and continue to prioritize relationship deposits over more rate-sensitive funding.

Turning to Slide 7. Net interest income was $101 million in Q2, up modestly from the prior quarter and within our $99 million to $100 million range we provided last quarter. The increase was driven primarily by favorable day count, partially offset by higher funding costs. The net interest margin remained healthy at 4.28%, declining 5 basis points from last quarter. The decrease was primarily driven by higher funding costs related to a maturing balance sheet hedge and changes in earning asset mix. We remain focused on growing net interest income, which we did this quarter. Given the rate outlook and our balance sheet forecast, we expect net interest income range of $100 million to $102 million for the third quarter.

Turning to Slide 8. Noninterest income totaled $17 million in Q2, an increase of $4.3 million or 35% compared to the first quarter. The increase was primarily driven by favorable fair market value marks, higher gain on sale revenue and stronger swap fee income. Gain on sale revenue totaled $6.1 million compared to $5.5 million in the prior quarter. Additionally, wealth management surpassed the $1 billion in assets under administration. We expect gain on sale revenues to average $5.5 million per quarter and our noninterest income to be in the $14 million to $15 million range for the third quarter.

Turning to Slide 9. Expenses came in at $56.5 million, down 1.2% from the prior quarter. The decrease was primarily driven by lower salary and employee benefits, lower occupancy expense and lower OREO-related costs. We continue to focus on operating efficiencies and expense discipline. And as a result, our adjusted efficiency ratio was 46.5% compared to 49.8% last quarter. And our noninterest expense to average assets improved 8 basis points to 2.29%. Looking forward, our noninterest expense full year guidance remains unchanged at $59 million to $60 million per quarter.

Turning to Slide 10. Credit quality trends remained favorable again this quarter. Net charge-offs were $4.4 million or 24 basis points, down from the 32 basis points last quarter. Criticized loans declined to 3.9% of total loans, down from 4.5% on a linked quarter and year-over-year basis. Nonperforming loans were $69.1 million or 92 basis points of total loans, up marginally linked quarter and flat year-over-year. Our allowance for credit losses was $112 million or 1.48% of total loans, up 2 basis points from last quarter, driven primarily by an increase in the individually assessed category. Overall, credit trends remain consistent with our expectations.

Moving on to capital on Slide 11. Capital levels grew across the board during the quarter. Tangible common equity increased to 11.4% and CET1 increased to 12.9%. Our capital position remains a competitive advantage, providing flexibility to support growth, return capital to stockholders or pursue strategic opportunities.

With that, Alberto, back to you.

Thank you, Tom. So to wrap up, let me give you a few thoughts on how we're thinking about the rest of the year. First, on the quarter's results, that's reflective of work that's been underway for several quarters now. And we see room to keep building on it through the same focus on disciplined execution. Second, given the environment, solid but selective credit demand, sharper loan and deposit competition that isn't going away, we intend to stay disciplined rather than chase volume or spread that doesn't compensate us properly for the risk.

Third, credit quality remains a priority. The trends this quarter support that our underwriting and portfolio monitoring are working as intended. But that said, we need to stay vigilant given the evolving macro environment. Fourth, we continue to prepare for crossing the $10 billion asset threshold, and that preparation informs how we think about growth, expenses and capital in the meantime. Looking ahead, we enter the second half of 2026 with solid momentum. Our pipeline remains healthy, and we believe we're well positioned to capitalize on opportunities and continue to create value for our shareholders.

And with that, Ben, let's open the call up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first call comes from the line of Nathan Race with Piper Sandler.

Alberto, I appreciate your commentary around just a healthy pipeline. And I think Tom alluded to a mid-single-digit growth expectation for this year. But with loans up, call it, 1% annualized through the first half of the year, that would imply kind of a ramp to the high single-digit range for the back half of the year. So I'm just wondering if you could shed some light on the visibility you have into payoffs in the back half of the year and how you expect production to trend as well?

You hit the nail on the head on that, Nate. The area that is usually the most uncertain one is related to timing of payoffs. As you know, our guidance on -- in terms of loan growth has been consistently in that kind of mid- to single-digit range. And in the past, I know you guys sometimes have given us a hard time because we've exceeded that. And yet we stuck with continuing to give guidance in that kind of single -- mid-single-digit range.

And I think what you're seeing here is actually that effectively being flipped. If you look at our level of originations, those have continued to be pretty consistent. I know if you look at the comparisons on the page, yes, year-over-year is down. But if you look at it more or the recent 3 or 4 quarters has been pretty consistent in terms of the activity level as far as new business is concerned. And we continue to feel confident around that. What we're probably less confident is the other part, which is the payoffs.

That being said, I think part of that, I point to what Tom said, which you've also heard us talk about in the past, where when we've done acquisitions, our approach has been really acquiring deposits for the purpose of recycling those assets over a period of time so that we can redeploy that liquidity into our lending businesses. And I think what we've seen over the past couple of quarters, particularly with some of the acquisitions that we've done over the last couple of years has been that recycling. And I think that has a lot to do with the elevated payoff activity. We think we're past the bulk of it, Nate.

That being said, that's the variable that is always more challenging to forecast for obvious reasons. But when we think about like the underlying originations and that kind of underlying, call it, rate of growth, in that mid-single-digit range, we feel pretty confident about that. That being said, that volatility of payoffs, as we've seen in the last couple of quarters is what is going to ultimately impact the numbers that you're looking at, which is ending balances and calculating growth rates over that. So just be mindful that, that volatility of payoff activity may impact that.

But when we think about -- the way we run the business is we think about it in the standpoint of we want to see that kind of mid-single-digit range, and that allows us, as you also probably saw from the numbers and from covering us for some time now, we're really looking to drive that and fund it with core deposits. So those 2 really can't deviate too much from one another. So hopefully, that gives you color and gives you an answer to your question. Probably a more full answer to the question than what you were hoping for. But hopefully, that provides enough color on that.

It does and very appreciate all that, particularly the commentary around the acquired portfolios. Not to give you guys a hard time to your earlier point, but, Tom, on expenses, the guide for the back half of the year, that implies a decent step-up from the first half. So just curious kind of where you're seeing those upward expense pressures. Is it tied to some additional hires you're anticipating in the back half of the year? Or any other color you can shed just in terms of kind of the increased expense outlook for the back half?

Nate, yes, it's employee expenses, health care costs, those types of benefits are probably going to be likely higher in the second half of the year. We normally have some higher commissions as well just due to production for the year. So it's kind of compensation related. And that's why we're giving the higher guidance. I think if you look at -- by the way, if you look at last year, I think you kind of see some of the same trends from last year.

Yes, for sure. And then...

Nathan, you brought a point -- just to give you some additional color on that, you brought up additional hires and so forth. We're actually seeing good -- there's, call it, opportunities in the market to do that, and we're always looking for attractive talent. We don't have anything to announce. But if we were to bring on a team of people or be doing hiring additional bankers where we see an opportunity outside of, call it, normal course of business, then we would separate that, and we would tell you that, listen, our expenses are higher this quarter because we added a team or we added a couple of teams. But the market, there seems to be enough flux in the market at the moment that maybe some opportunities will present themselves to be able to add high-quality talent.

Got you. And that sounds like it's kind of embedded in the guide in terms of those opportunities?

Yes.

Okay. Great. And then if I could just ask lastly, to your earlier comments, Alberto, around just how you're managing excess capital. You guys, of course, have the high-quality problem with how quickly you're building capital just given the profitability profile. But eventually, it's going to kind of depress or kind of bring down your returns on tangible common. So within that light, curious kind of what you're seeing on the M&A front these days? And if you could also just remind us how you think about kind of the appetite for buybacks around earn-back periods and so forth.

Yes. I think you hit the nail on the head. I think putting aside just, call it, growth in risk-weighted assets, balance sheet growth. And obviously, you saw the increase in the dividend that the Board approved, which is obviously a return of capital back to shareholders as well. I think you're left then with M&A opportunities in the market. And I think the environment is active.

Obviously, you saw somewhat of a market acquisition here, obviously, more Indiana than Chicago being announced the other day. And I think it's fair to say that conversations are, not that they're never completely inactive, but I think it's fair to say that there's plenty of chatter. You've seen certainly more M&A broadly speaking, in the kind of the under $10 billion range than you have seen in terms of much larger transactions. And I think that trend is likely to continue. But I would describe the, call it, the general chatter around M&A as constructive.

But going back to your capital deployment question, absent M&A opportunities that we execute on, then given the fact that we've kind of run through the priorities, we would be looking to the buyback program to return capital back to shareholders.

Okay. I appreciate all the color. And hope you feel better, Alberto.

Your next call comes from the line of Brendan Nosal with Hovde Group.

Maybe starting off here on asset quality. A lot of nice trends for the quarter compared to sequential year-over-year, you kind of name it. If I look at Slide 10, I see some really nice cleanup in kind of criticized asset ratings. Can you just offer a little bit of color on what you worked out this quarter, how you managed to avoid meaningful loss content? And then just any broader commentary on kind of your overall observations on the health of your commercial borrowing base?

I'll let Mark take this question, but just a general comment, particularly when you're looking at criticized and classified, our approach always is going to be we're going to be quick to downgrade. So in other words, we would much rather err on the side of downgrading something very, very quickly and then waiting for plans or improvements to occur. And then we later -- if that's the resolution, then we'll go back and upgrade the credit and go from there.

So just be mindful that our bias is always -- any time that we have -- we see a weakness, I'll call it, even a general weakness or a well-defined weakness in the credit, we're going to be probably early to downgrade as opposed to waiting and seeing what develops before making that decision. Just keep that in mind. But I'll pass the call over to Mark.

Thanks, Alberto. So Brendan, the reduction in the criticized classified was driven by a few deals that were -- they were large in size, but they had been performing much better and the trends we saw with the operating companies were over an extended period, so we felt comfortable increasing the risk rating to more of a past credit. So that was one factor. And then we had a large resolution from one of our workout situations where an operating company had a large mortgage exposure also, and they were able to sell that asset and pay off our exposure completely. And that was a nonperforming loan that we had reserved against. So we got a bit of a recovery also on a previous charge-off.

So those are the 3 main factors in driving the numbers down. And as you know, with our portfolio, we tend to have idiosyncratic situations that come up. We don't see a trend in any of the asset classes for our line of business. But those 3 specific ones were the reason that we saw the big improvement quarter-over-quarter.

Okay. That's helpful color. I appreciate it. Maybe just to circle back to the topic of conversation earlier in the call on deposit competition. Can you just unpack the environment a little bit more on kind of what sort of institution you're seeing push the envelope on pricing? And then just how it's evolved over the course of the year and kind of what the temperature is today on funding competition versus over the prior 6 months?

I think I'll start and then Tom, I'm sure, will jump in as well. But I think it's interesting that we're having this discussion today because there was an article in the Wall Street Journal this morning talking about larger institutions kind of coming back into the commercial real estate market. And I think specific to that particular book or that particular business, that's exactly what we're seeing, and that's consistent with what we have kind of noticed and have noticed in the market going back a couple of quarters.

I think that's largely due to clarity around Basel III. If you recall, probably 18 months ago, 24 months ago, we were having exactly the opposite conversation, risk-weighted asset diets and the larger banks were a bit more -- had a bit more lack of clarity in terms of where Basel III was going to end up. They were looking at potentially increases in capital. Now they're kind of looking at an environment that's going to be flat to potentially declining. And I think they had let those books either stay relatively stable, if not declining because of office exposure. And I think what we have seen, particularly in asset classes like multifamily, like industrial is those larger institutions have been coming back to market. There's more capital that they're trying to put to work.

Transaction activity in the market in general, I would say, relative to before the rate hikes is still lower. So there's less deals, more capital and then you have a compression in pricing, which is kind of what we're seeing in that particular book. As far as the rest of the business, C&I is always competitive and rightly so. You're looking at hopefully having long-term relationships that you're trying to fund with deposits, and there's an acquisition cost of those relationships upfront, and that's reflected in pricing. But I think in general is what you're seeing one, what we just covered on the asset side and then just banks looking to fund that loan growth with deposits. And Tom can add more to that.

Yes. I would say on the commercial side, it's business as usual, not extremely -- the deposit -- the relationship is competitive, but it's not exception pricing going on, on the deposit side. So the core deposits we get from that are very stable and very low cost. On the margin, if you're trying to increase your deposit base and you're using the consumer network to do that, 2 things I would say. One is the expectations of the Fed going from cutting rates earlier in the year to now potentially raising rates later this year. You're seeing more extension of CDs, if you will. Our book has been very short just because of the expectations of a cut that we thought was going to happen. That's certainly reversed course.

So it's not like we're going to have a lot more repricing on lower levels. So it just comes down to the short curve, meaning overnight to 1 year is steeper that you're going to pay incrementally more in rate, but spreads haven't really materially changed. I think it's still competitive, as Alberto alluded to, but not -- it's still rational relative to where it's been in the past.

Your next call comes from the line of Brian Martin with Green Capital.

Maybe can you just touch on with the credit quality this quarter, just kind of a bigger picture question on that is as the SBA book has gotten smaller just as other businesses have kind of outgrown them. When we think about the big picture on charge-off trends kind of going into the future, I know this quarter had some recoveries and what you just talked about. But just should we think about the charge-off rate maybe being a little bit lower than it has been historically?

Just as that dynamic continues to play out and you're growing the organic piece of the business maybe a little bit faster than the commercial side rather than the SBA side, given kind of commentary today, it sounds like it continues to keep similar pace in terms of what it's delivering. But is that an accurate way to frame it as we look in kind of the out years?

I think it's -- Brian, I think that's an acute observation. And I think what you're saying is accurate. I think also what I would say is in the short run, we're still in that kind of -- if you're asking us, what's your view, what -- how should we think about charge-offs. I think in the short run, we're still in that category of 30 to 40 basis points. I think what you have seen the last couple of quarters is that we're being certainly going towards the lower end of that range. I think as Mark alluded to, we had some nice recoveries this particular quarter. So we went lower than the range. But I would say still in the short run, that 30 to 40 basis points is still a good range.

That being said, in the long run, I think what you're saying is correct, meaning as the balance sheet continues to grow and as proportionately that business and that portfolio continues to be proportionately a smaller part of the portfolio and the balance sheet in general, yes, I think that those charge-off levels are probably going to end up migrating a bit lower.

Okay. No, that's helpful, Alberto. It seems like we're going. So just a little color there is helpful. And just in terms of, I guess, the NII or NIM outlook, I don't know if you can give any thoughts. I mean your comments about being disciplined on pricing in terms of both loans and deposits and the competition in the market kind of feels like maybe the focus on maintaining the margin kind of where it's at here and maybe that would be the outlook without -- maybe just general comment if you can provide on the margin.

But maybe a bigger picture question is, is it better to think about it in terms of the NII growth, which is what you guys usually offer a bit more on if maybe a mid-single-digit growth in NII is how we should be thinking about the balance sheet and I guess, that NII number going forward, maybe into next year, that's the best way to think about it as you manage the business here for the environment?

Yes, NII, I think we gave guidance for the quarter. I mean, pretty consistent. As we talked about, payoffs are the wildcard, so to speak, that if they are slower, certainly, earnings could be higher. As far as, again, deposit-wise, I think we're doing well on the margin. The deposit costs aren't bad relative to the spreads we're getting. Certainly, there's repricing going on, on the asset side that's going to help us.

But I think the cost of fund side is probably flat moving forward here. We did have a balance sheet hedge that was material in the maturity size and impacted the margin a couple of basis points. So that's kind of out of the way right now. And I think as we continue to grow relationships and get our fair share of business, the margin should be stable in the coming quarters.

Yes, Brian. And just to add -- just an additional -- some more perspective on that. I think Tom answered it well in terms of kind of net interest income really being the kind of how we manage the business as opposed to thinking margin always first and therefore, you kind of -- net interest income as a result of that.

That being said, as we said earlier, we kind of look to net interest income because that's ultimately what drives profitability. It's obviously what drives returns. We don't manage specifically to a margin, call it, target, so to speak. But when we think about growth, it's -- I kind of think of it as a -- and Roberto even touched on it on his remarks at the beginning. Discipline is a good thing. In certain cases, we're going to look at taking a lower spread, which say it may impact the margin negatively to do business that we think in the long run is going to make sense for the institution to do because it will build franchise value and it will generate long-term returns, which at the end of the day is what we're trying to achieve.

So we may have situations where you may see, okay, there's margin pressure, we're adding to the business. but we'll be selective on those. And there'll be times when maybe that's emphasized more because of opportunities in the market as opposed to times where we don't see those opportunities, in which case, maybe we don't grow as fast or you see the margin expand, but that's a high-class problem.

And as you saw this quarter, what happens then is if we're not supporting growth, then we're building capital. So then the decision that we have to make is how do we return that capital back to shareholders, and you saw us do that this quarter as an example. So it's a balance that we're playing, right? It's balanced between long-term growth and balancing that against the short-term opportunities that we see in the day-to-day aspect of the business.

And I would just add -- sorry, Brian, one last thing just to remember. You talked about the SBA business, right, is becoming a smaller piece of the overall organization. Over a longer period of time, that will continue. And obviously, that's a higher risk, higher return business. So that would have an impact on the margin in a longer-term way, not necessarily next quarter or the following year. But just gradually, you would expect those higher-yielding assets to be a smaller piece of the overall earning assets.

Got you. No, I appreciate it. And you mentioned asset repricing time. Is there something that -- I guess, deposits may be being stablish. But remind me what assets -- just the asset repricing looks like here in the next couple of quarters?

There's about roughly $300 million of loans and leases that are repricing in the next quarter. And call it, $250 million to $275 million in the fourth quarter. And those are at yields that are kind of in that $630 million range. So on average, we're probably slightly higher than that as new production comes in on a blended basis.

Got you. Okay. That's helpful. And I think the comments about the NII, the way to think about it in terms of just that mid-single-digit growth seems like what you guys are suggesting. So okay.

And then maybe just the last one for me was on the -- you spent some time talking about the M&A environment and just kind of the capital flexibility and how you think about those returns. Just remind us, if you are successful in finding something on the M&A side that fits your wheelhouse, the discipline that you have on the cost for that -- for any type of transaction, can you just run through the parameters on what what your discipline is on the M&A front, how you're thinking about when we see a deal, if there is one for you guys, what those parameters are, what your guideposts are there?

I mean, generally speaking, and it's going to be -- obviously, Brian, it's going to be dependent on the quality of the franchise. But I think what we have stated in the past is we're looking for an earn-back that's inside of 3 years. We're looking for reasonable tangible book value dilution relative to the earnings accretion that the institution would add to a company. And obviously, you have to adjust that for size. Obviously, a smaller acquisition now at the size of the company in terms of accretion is going to be impacted by size. But that's generally the parameters that we manage to.

Your next call comes from the line of Daniel Tamayo with Raymond James.

Yes. Just -- I guess most of my questions have been asked at this point, but just on the balance sheet and the crossing $10 billion, which you mentioned, it looks like you're almost there. Just thoughts on timing if that -- if you think that's still going to happen in the back half of this year or if that might be able to be pushed to '27.

It's a good question, Danny. We're not running the business today with really any constraint on that. So -- and we'll continue to do that, I would say, this quarter and probably the months of October and November. If we get to the beginning of December and we have the ability not to be over $10 billion, then we would probably take you up on that, and we would just manage the balance sheet accordingly. But outside of a situation like that, that would really push the impact of Durbin out to kind of mid-2028, there's really no -- we're not doing anything out of normal course in terms of managing the balance sheet.

Okay. I appreciate that. And then maybe not to beat a dead horse on the margin here, but different side of it. The purchase accounting accretion, obviously volatile, but was kind of a little bit higher this quarter than it was last quarter. Just Tom, if you have any thoughts on where you think that might run and another way to kind of back into the core going forward, that would be helpful.

Yes. We took the slide out because it's becoming nonmaterial. It's about $1 million a quarter right now in accretion expectations. Obviously, if some loans pay off faster, we might get some recoveries, et cetera. But it's going to be -- it's less and less material forward. And you can refer to last quarter's deck for the guidance of the future quarters. But it will be under $1 million coming up.

Okay. And maybe just a last one again on the margin. But it seems like maybe the environment in the second quarter was one where deposit costs started to rise in anticipation of a hike and banks were more willing to pay up for that, thinking maybe that we are going to get a hike with your balance sheet sensitivity a little bit on the asset side. Is it fair to think maybe if we do get that hike that the environment might normalize a little bit and deposit costs may not rise as fast as loan yields and you get a little bit more benefit from a hike than what your stated sensitivity is?

And I guess the flip side to that is if we don't get a hike, maybe the competition outweighs how you're thinking and the margin could decline. Is that fair? Or are you guys just kind of managing for -- I'm giving you an out here and just managing for the current environment and what happens.

Yes, that's a good question. I think a couple of things to think about is, one, the market is already pricing in the tightening. So if the Fed were to raise rates, we're going to benefit from that. And we're already paying, in other words, for the tightening in the deposit side if somebody is going out and doing a 1-year CD, for example, because it's already expecting a 25 basis point increase. So we would benefit from that because all the assets would reprice higher with the exception of the fixed rate loans that aren't maturing or repricing.

So yes, we would definitely benefit more. And I think we showed -- we tried to show kind of the sensitivity on the deck on Page 7. But we benefit roughly for 25 basis points, $2.1 million in rates up versus rates down of $1.6 million.

And that sensitivity assumes -- sorry, go ahead.

Yes. No, I was -- again, the deposit side is already starting to price it in, at least in the CD book. It's not in the money markets and now in savings. So I think we're -- we'll benefit.

Your next call comes from the line of Brandon Rud with Stephens Inc.

Maybe just one, most of have been answered, but the success on the interest checking accounts, both on a period and an average basis, is there -- was there a specific initiative that helped drive that? Or is that just run-of-the-mill business there? Can you just kind of flesh out that increase on both, I guess, a sequential and year-over-year basis?

It was more commercial accounts that were just converting or consolidating from money market. They maybe have both categories and they had moved to interest-bearing just for various reasons. Nothing like that I would point to drove the increase other than just consolidation of accounts within the organization.

Okay. So then it explains [indiscernible] the money market a little bit.

Right. That's actually a really good question, Brandon, because that's usually not necessarily immediately, but that's usually a marker for when you see particularly corporate or companies doing that, it points to the fact that they're seeing or likely to see uses for that capital, and they don't want to have the restrictions that they have in a money market account relative to an interest-bearing checking account.

[Operator Instructions] Your next call comes from the line of Damon DelMonte with KBW.

Just a couple of quick ones as most have been asked and answered. But Tom, probably for you, the average securities increased again this quarter. Just kind of curious your thoughts on that going forward. Will future dollars be allocated to the portfolio? Or do you expect to use excess liquidity to be deployed into loans?

Ideally, it's loans, Damon, probably flat on the securities at this point. And clearly, given where we're close to $10 billion, I don't think we are looking to grow the portfolio at this point.

Got it. Okay. Great. And then I don't think this was asked already. But regarding like the provision outlook and kind of balancing that with the reserve level, I think, Alberto, I think you said net charge-offs should still probably be in that 30 to 45 basis point range or something in the near term. But as we think about the back half of this year and going into '27, can we expect the reserve level to kind of drift a little bit lower as credit quality continues to strengthen?

I mean it may, Damon. But as you well know, is it's going to be completely dependent on how actuals come in relative to the outlook. And what I mean by that is you see a pick more loan growth, the loan portfolio growth, we're obviously going to provision for that. I think that what you quoted me on in terms of kind of the short run kind of charge-off expectation in the 30 to 40 basis point range, that is -- that remains consistent. So just when you think about that math, just know that the variable that is harder to predict is that loan growth, that end of period kind of balance and the dynamics that plays into provisioning relative to where charge-offs are coming in. So hopefully, that gives you some color on that.

Yes. No, that makes sense. And then I guess lastly, the tax rate going forward, Tom, is something in the 25% range reasonable, 25.5%.

25.5% seems reasonable.

Your next call comes from the line of Brendan Nosal with Hovde Group.

Just to circle back on the fee income outlook. I think, Tom, you said a range of $14 million to $15 million for the third quarter. I totally get that gain on sale is going to trend back to that $5.5 million number on average. What are the other drivers of kind of getting into that lower range for next quarter just as we work through the various line items?

Again, remember, fair market value of securities was higher this quarter and the servicing asset impairment write-down was lower. So we've been trending in that $14 million to $15 million range over the last 6 to 8 quarters. So I think that's a good guide for us right now. We're still trying to grow our noninterest income. As we alluded to, wealth management continues to improve. We have -- our customer swap business is helping us out, and we continue to try and collect fees where we can.

Thank you for your questions today. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Alberto Paracchini for any closing remarks.

Great, Ben. Thank you. Before I wrap up, I'd like to recognize an important milestone for us here at Byline. The end of the quarter marked our 13th anniversary as Byline and for a lot of people on the call, it was our ninth year as a public company. So thank you to all of you investors that have been investors with us over that ninth -- across that 9-year period and certainly to all of the analysts on the call and their firms for covering us as a public company. We very much appreciate that. And please know that we want to also thank everyone who has been part of our journey and contributed to our success along the way.

So with that, to everyone on the call, thank you for joining us today. We appreciate your continued interest in Byline and look forward to talking to you again next quarter.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, and welcome to Byline Bancorp First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. My name is Tiffany, and I will be your conference operator today. [Operator Instructions] Please note, the conference call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to introduce Brooks Rennie, Head of Investor Relations for Byline Bancorp to begin the conference call.

Thank you, Tiffany. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for the Byline Bancorp First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. In accordance with Regulation FD, this call is being recorded and is available via webcast on our Investor Relations website along with our earnings release and the corresponding presentation slides. As part of today's call, management may make certain statements that constitute projections, beliefs or other forward-looking statements regarding future events of the future financial performance of the company. We caution that such statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed.

The company's risk factors are disclosed and discussed in its SEC filings. In addition, our remarks and slides may reference and contain certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are intended to supplement, but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAAP measures.

Reconciliation of each non-GAAP financial measure to the comparable GAAP financial measure can be found within the appendix of the earnings release. For additional information about risks and uncertainties, please see the forward-looking statement and non-GAAP financial measure disclosures in the earnings release.

As a reminder for investors, during the quarter, we plan to participate in 2 upcoming conferences here in Chicago. The Stephen Chicago Bank tour on May 14 and the Raymond James Chicago Bank Symposium on May 28. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Alberto Paracchini, President of Byline Bancorp.

Great. Thank you, Brooks. Good morning, and welcome to Byline's first quarter earnings call. We appreciate all of you taking the time to join the call this morning. With me today are Chairman and CEO, Roberto Herencia, our CFO, Tom Bell; and our Chief Credit Officer, Mark Fucinato. Before we get started, I'd like to pass the call over to Roberto for his comments. Roberto?

Thank you, Alberto, and good morning to all. As Alberto said, we do appreciate you joining us today and taking the time to engage with Byline. markets in general continue to offer plenty of distractions and at times entertainment. Shifting interest rate expectations, inconsistent economic signals, policy uncertainty and heightened geopolitical tensions with the Iran war at the center of it and its brother implications.

These add another layer of complexity for businesses and investors alike. We have learned over time that durable results do not come from reacting to every headline. They come from being anchored to purpose, disciplined execution and long-term thinking. So we remain focused on driving value for our holders as we work and make progress I may add toward becoming the preeminent commercial bank in Chicago.

We started the year with another strong quarter. ROA, PTPP, NIM and efficiency remain among the best-in-class tangible book value growth of 14% year-over-year are also knocking on the door of best-in-class. Our balance sheet remains strong and positioned to support customers through the cycle. I want to recognize what matters deeply to us, our people. Byline Bank was recently honored as a U.S. best-in-class employer in Gallagher's 2025 U.S. benefits strategy and benchmarking survey.

We were also named to Newsweek's America's greatest midsized workplaces for women, highlighting our dedication to practices grounded in transparency, professional development, and flexibility, empowering women to build careers that grow with their lives. These awards reflect effective steel strategies with measurable outcomes, including employee well-being and engagement. They reinforce our people-first approach and strengthens our ability to attract, retain and develop top talent in a very competitive environment.

I would like to point out that our SBA platform continues to perform well for the 16th consecutive year. Our team ranked as the #1 SBA 7(a) lender in Illinois, according to the most recently published fiscal year rankings.

This kind of consistency does not happen by accident. It reflects decades of experience, disciplined execution and the dedication of an outstanding team. I would also like to recognize 2 individuals who have been familiar voices to many of us for a long time. This marks the end of an era as Terry McEvoy of Stephens and David Long of Raymond James step into new chapters in their careers.

Collectively, as sell-side analysts, they've covered more than 200 earnings seasons. And more importantly, they brought professionalism consistency and thoughtful engagement to their work. We are grateful for the time they spend covering Byline and for the relationships built over many years. On behalf of the Board and the entire management team, we wish both Terry and David continued success in their new roles.

To close, I remain very optimistic about Byline. We are operating with clarity of purpose supported by strong fundamentals, an engaged workforce and a resilient business model. We are very focused on compounding returns the right way through prudent growth, disciplined risk management and an unwavering commitment to our people and customers. With that, Alberto, back to you.

Thank you, Roberto. As is our normal practice, I'll start with the highlights for the quarter, followed by Tom, who will take you through the financials and then I'll come back to wrap up before we open the call up for questions. As always, you can find the deck we're using this morning on the IR section of our website, and please refer to the disclaimer at the front. .

Turning to Slide 4 on the deck. Overall, I'm pleased to report that we had a solid start to the year and delivered another excellent quarter. Earnings momentum continued along with strong profitability, disciplined expense management and stable credit quality despite an evolving macro and geopolitical backdrop.

For the quarter, we reported net income of $37.6 million and EPS of $0.83 per diluted share, representing growth of 8.9% and 9.2%, respectively. Profitability was strong with ROA of 156 basis points and ROTCE of 13.7%. Pretax preparation income totaled $55.2 million, resulting in a pretax provision margin of 229 basis points, which marks the 14th consecutive quarter in which this metric exceeded 2%, reflecting the durability and consistency of our operating results.

Total revenues were $112.4 million for the quarter. Net interest income remained solid at just under $100 million, while noninterest income was lower at $12.5 million, largely due to lower fair value marks for the quarter. The margin remained stable at 4.33%, notwithstanding a lower day count and lower yields. This was offset by a drop in deposit costs driven by a better mix coupled with pricing discipline, which Tom will cover in more detail shortly.

From a balance sheet standpoint, total deposits increased 8.2% annualized to $7.8 billion, reflecting growth across both core as well as time deposits. Loan balances were modestly lower linked quarter as payoffs more than offset solid origination activity of $241 million. Expenses remain well managed at $57 million, down 5.3% from the prior quarter, with our efficiency ratio improving to 49.8% for the first quarter, one of the lowest levels we've reported since becoming a public company. Asset quality remained stable. Credit costs were $5.5 million for the quarter and consisted of $6 million in net charge-offs and a small reserve release of $0.5 million.

Both NPLs and criticized loans showed declines and the ACL increased 1 basis point to 1.46% of total loans. Moving on to capital. Our capital levels continue to grow and balance sheet strength is evident with a TCE at 11.1% and CET1 over 12.5%. We exercised some of that capital flexibility this quarter and returned 40% of net income back to shareholders by repurchasing approximately 318,000 shares of stock at an average price of $30.84, in addition to our quarterly dividend of $0.12 per share.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Tom, who will walk you through our results.

Thank you, Alberto, and good morning, everyone. Starting with our loans on Slide 5. Total loans stood at $7.5 billion, down slightly from the prior quarter. The decline in balances was primarily driven by $72 million in runoff related to loan participations and acquired loans.

Origination activity was solid with $241 million in new loans, while payoffs remain elevated at $320 million. Loan commitments increased and line utilization declined slightly to 59.2%. Loan yields came in at 6.84%, down 11 basis points linked quarter as a result of the December Fed rate cut. Pipelines remain strong, and we expect full year loan growth in the mid-single digits.

Turning to Slide 6. Total deposits were $7.8 million for the quarter, up $154 million or 8.2% annualized from the prior quarter. The growth was due to increases in interest-bearing checking and time deposits. We saw a 6 basis point improvement in deposit costs, driven by lower money market rates, which brought over overall deposit costs down to 1.91%.

Turning to Slide 7. Net interest income was $99.9 million in Q1, down 1% from the prior quarter and up 13% year-over-year. Net interest income was impacted by 2 fewer days in the quarter lower yields on earning assets and higher borrowing costs as a result of a balance sheet hedge that matured in March. This was partially offset by lower rates paid on deposits.

The net interest margin was stable at 4.33%, declining modestly by 2 basis points from the last quarter, with 50% of the decline coming from lower accretion while expanding 26 basis points year-over-year. Our outlook for net interest income is based on the forward curve, which currently assumes no rate cuts or hikes in 2026.

Given the rate outlook and our balance sheet position, this implies a net interest income range of $99 million to $101 million in the second quarter. We expect net interest income to grow driven by overall balance sheet growth and disciplined deposit pricing in the event short-term rates move lower.

Turning to Slide 8. Noninterest income totaled $12.5 million in Q1, which was down approximately $3.2 million linked quarter. The decline on a quarter-over-quarter basis was driven by an additional negative fair value mark on loan servicing assets of $755,000 and a $1.3 million decline in fair value of equity securities.

Excluding these fair value adjustments, fee income remained stable. We expect gain on sale to average $5.5 million per quarter and our noninterest income to be in the $14 million to $15 million range for the second quarter. Turning to Slide 9. Expenses came in at $57 million, down 5.3% from the prior quarter.

This was driven by salary and benefits from lower incentives, legal costs and advertising spend. partially offset by higher data processing expenses. Our efficiency ratio improved 54 basis points to 49.78%, with noninterest expense to average asset ratio 2.37%, down 10 basis points.

Looking forward, our noninterest expense full year guidance remains unchanged at $58 million to $60 million per quarter. Turning to Slide 10. Credit costs declined for the quarter with the provision coming in at $5.5 million. NPLs decreased $4 million or 5.6% linked quarter to $67 million, while NPAs to total assets improved to 71 basis points from 77 basis points in Q4.

The improvement was driven by resolution activity during the quarter. The ACL remained flat at 1.46% of total loans. Moving on to capital on Slide 11. Capital levels continue to grow and remain robust with CET1 at 12.5%, 22 basis points linked quarter and up 77 basis points year-over-year. Total capital came in at 15.5%, up 69 basis points year-over-year.

In addition, tangible book value per share grew to $23.79, increasing [ 1.5% ] on a linked quarter basis and 14% year-over-year. And last month, roll bond rating as we affirmed our BBB+ credit rating and outlook. In closing, another great quarter across the board and a solid start to the year.

With that, Alberto back to you.

Thank you, Tom. So to wrap up, we were pleased with our results and performance for the quarter, notwithstanding the level of uncertainty in the environment, we're optimistic in our ability to execute our strategy continue to grow the business and deliver value to shareholders.

In terms of the outlook, pipelines remains at solid levels across our businesses, and we remain well positioned to take advantage of opportunities in the marketplace. With that, operator, we can open the call up for questions.

[Operator Instructions]

Your first question comes from the line of Nathan Race with Piper Sandler.

Hope you're all doing well. Alberto, I was hoping you could just shed some more color just on the production levels in the quarter in terms of how much of the year-over-year decline may just been due to some of the macro factors at play these days versus seasonality. I know you mentioned the pipeline sold going to the rest of the year, but I was just hoping you could shed some light on that in the what in terms of payoffs as well.

Yes, of course. Not a lot of -- so on your second point there. So not -- we didn't really see -- we had pretty good origination level. So the level of business activity was pretty good in commercial banking, our leasing business. Real estate was nothing unexpected on that end. A lot of the payoff activity or a portion of the payoff activity that we saw this quarter was just simply recycle us essentially recycling loan participations and loans that we had acquired coming from some acquisitions.

That's really what drove it. if you actually strip out the impact of those, which is -- I mean, it's perfectly aligned with what we want to do ultimately with those books. If you strip that out, I think loan growth would have been somewhere in the 4% kind of level for the quarter. So nothing unusual other than just planned runoff coming from books that we've acquired over the years.

Got it. That's really helpful. Maybe a question for Tom. I know you don't give margin guidance specifically, but just trying to understand the trajectory of loan yields over the balance of this year just in terms of the context of kind of what the roll-off yield looks like and kind of what you're seeing in terms of blended rates on loan per these days.

Roll-offs are, call it, $300 million-ish like a $450 million kind of coupon, so new production is typically around 675, 680 kind of coupons.

Okay. So imagine, again, without giving margin guidance that you're thinking the margin could kind of there just given maybe more rational deposit pricing competition these days and just given what you just described in terms of the roll-off .

I mean, certainly, on the loan side, spreads will -- are maintaining well. I think as you'll see in the balance sheet, right, we grew the securities portfolio this year. That's a tighter spread transaction. So when you start to include that in, you could have a small tweak to the margin overall. But again, NII guidance growing over the year here.

Got you. And maybe one last one, Alberto, or Roberto. Just curious what you guys are seeing in terms of M&A conversations and activity levels these days. Obviously, you have a little bit of a headwind to earnings next year with the [ Durbin ] impact, which I know is not particularly big for you guys, but just curious if you're feeling more optimistic on M&A announcement over the balance of this year. .

We're always optimistic in terms of just the level of conversations. I would tell you maybe right now, and I don't think this is inconsistent with what others have said in their earnings call. I mean, certainly, the uncertainty in the environment given the macro and geopolitical issues maybe causing some sellers to pause.

That being said, I think the underlying level of conversations continues to be, I think, from my view, pretty healthy.

Okay. Great. I appreciate all the color. I hope guys have a good weekend.

Your next question comes from the line of Brendan Nosal with Hovde Group.

Hope you're doing well. Maybe starting off here on capital. I think if my math is correct, you've nearly tapped out the current buyback plan. Is there a willingness to re-upping that and remaining in the market? Just given how much capital you have today and how much you'll continue to generate.

Yes. Brendan, we're not -- we've only done about 300,000 shares. So we have to over a $2 billion program. So we have plenty of room to continue to repurchase shares. .

Great. And apologies for that after a long earnings week. Maybe pivoting to kind of funding here. A really nice quarter for deposit growth both overall and core funding. Just kind of curious why you opted to grow CDs as much as you did, given the lack of loan growth and then tie that into the competitive landscape in Chicago for core funding?

I mean, we're first focused on full relationship customers. But we -- our CD book has grown over the years, and we're still trying to maintain a certain level of CDs. As you know, loan-to-deposit ratio was higher at the end of the year because of as an example on maybe some more institutional deposits. But generally speaking, we think we have a good deposit base.

The CD book is good. The back book is performing well. As you can see that the CD yields are coming down kind of quarter-over-quarter. But given the Fed on hold, that's probably going to slow down here.

But you still need to fund the bank, and we like the diversification that we get from it with the opportunity to potentially cross-sell those CD customers and other products.

Your next question comes from the line of Damon DelMonte with KBW.

Hope you're all doing well. First one, just kind of regarding loan growth and the pipeline that you referenced. Could you just give a little color on kind of what is -- what's that comprised of? And what segments are building that pipeline for you?

So all segments, Damon, but I would say like we have touched on in prior calls, probably the delta there, the one that's more rate sensitive is probably going to be real estate I would think rates have backed up, and I'm not talking about short-term rates, but the back up in 5 years, the backup and the 10-year real estate is much more sensitive to those.

So I suspect if we see a decline in that later on in the year, potentially, that's going to probably positively impact volumes still within the range that we provide, which is that mid-single-digit target. That's the one that I would say has the highest probably the highest chance of having some volatility around rates.

As far as the other category, which are really just commercial banking and our leasing business in general, pipelines are solid, and we really here to for, we really haven't seen an impact where people are saying, you know what, given the uncertainty in the environment, we are going to take a breather here and postpone something that we're planning to do for a few months just to see how the environment settles down.

I mean, activity has been good. We've seen, for example, to give you some color companies are actively being marketed and sold in our sponsor business as well as we're hearing some of that also in our commercial banking book, which is a positive sign from a transaction activity standpoint. And borrower activity continues to be good. So demand for credit remains solid in those segment Damon.

That's great. Great color. Tom, you mentioned about the securities portfolio increasing in size, and you can see the average balances were up quarter-over-quarter. How do we think about that for the remainder of the year? Do you expect to add to that? Or do you think that might start to trail down a little bit?

I think stable, Damian, we'll probably reinvest cash flows. I mean, we could go up a little bit just depending on market opportunities. But assuming loan growth will deliver, which we expect, there's probably no need to grow the portfolio meaningfully.

I think big picture, Damon, the way we think about securities at least from a big picture standpoint, we're always going to be trying to grow deposits irrespective of what the environment is we are always going to be looking to try to grow deposits over time through the cycle.

We just don't think we are good enough to be able to as some of our colleagues in the industry say, turn us big it on, turn is bigger off. So we're constantly trying to grow deposits to the degree that deposits start outpacing our ability to grow loans, then by definition, you would see that growth probably end up in the securities portfolio. So just big picture, that's kind of how we think about it.

Great sense.

Your next question comes from the line of Brandon Rud with Stephens, Inc. Please go ahead.

If I could follow up on an earlier question about the deposit costs. Can you maybe talk about the trajectory through the quarter relative to the $191 million reported? And when you think about a starting point as we enter the second quarter, would you anticipate that number kind of trending down a few more basis points.

Pretty consistent. The average over the quarter versus period end pretty much unchanged. March was exactly on top of where the cost of funds was for the quarter. So not a meaningful change. I think the -- again, just maybe touching back on the prior question, the CD book is very short.

It's 4 months, 5 months at length. So a lot of opportunity to reprice, but most of the book is repriced given that made its last cut, so to speak, in December.

Okay. And maybe just a higher-level question. I think back in January, the plan was to not manage below $10 billion this year. I guess, is that still the plan? And can you remind me what the [ Durbin ] impact would be in, I guess, '27?

Sure. Yes, Brandon, we are not trying to manage the balance sheet artificially stay under $10 billion. It just so happens that we're at $9.9 billion at the end of this quarter, but it could very well be -- it could have very well have been that we would have been over $10 billion. So we're kind of -- as we think about it, we're kind of there, and we expect to be crossing that barrier here at any point. And as part, maybe you want to take the Durbin impact for '27?

Sure. Yes, as we mentioned, we don't have the same kind of entertain costs some of the other banks do. And I think we kind of quoted like about 4 basis points to ROA is a decline, just given that it takes effect again in 2027. July 1st.

So it'd be July 1 of '27. And I think we had said publicly, we had said $3.5 million to $4 million in terms of the Durbin impact, Brandon. So obviously, that's an annualized number. So in July of 2027, all else being constant, we would see the impact of half of that in the second half of the year.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Brian Martin with Brean Capital.

Just wondering if you -- Tom, your last question, maybe I didn't hear your response or just on the call, I was just going to ask you on the cost of deposits, given the backdrop, like you said, the Fed the major last rate cut, it's pretty stable from here. I mean there's not much opportunity, like you said, on the CD side, given the book short. So just you would think relatively stable, give or take, as you think about going forward? Just wondering how the competitive pressures are. loan growth outlook looks pretty bright. So just trying to understand the competition.

Yes. I would say relatively flat, maybe down a little bit. Again, mix helps us. We're always focused on relationship banking and commercial banking. So those are typically lower cost deposits, and that will help us. On the competitive front, on the consumer side, yes, it's the typical competition we see as far as rates, I don't think anything is crazy at this point.

But we just want to keep our market share in that category. And so I would say nothing is going higher, at least at this point. And we just the book is almost fully repriced. So there's not a lot of lift for lower costs as we move forward other than mix.

Got you. Okay. That's helpful. And just the commercial payments business. I guess your confidence in just continuing to grow deposits, is that giving you some tailwind there on that opportunity?

Yes. I mean I think that's more of a year goes on, we'll see more benefit from that. And obviously, the fee income that comes with that as well. And it takes a while to onboard the customers. So we'll start seeing that more here in the second half of the year. .

Got you. Okay. And then maybe just the last one, just some of the noise in the quarter in terms of the fee income. Can you just give some thoughts on kind of a baseline or how to think about -- you've given some color on the SBA business. Just kind of the some of the noise in the quarter, if you can just talk a little bit about how to think about the jumping off point, if you will, going into 2Q?

Yes. We still gave guidance of $14 million to $15 million, Brian, I don't know if you heard that.

Sorry. Okay.

But no, no, no. But for the quarter, we had lower swap fee income from our back-to-back program, and we expect that to pick up here. And then we had a small lower valuation on the sale of some lease assets, which was a one-off. So I would expect that's why I've given guidance of the $14 million to $15 million. But those were the 2 drivers other than the fair value adjustments. .

Yes. Okay. That's all I had, guys. I appreciate you taking the color. And congrats on the quarter.

Thank you for your questions today. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Alberto Paracchini, for any closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, Tiffany. So in closing, I'd like to congratulate and thank all our employees on another solid quarter. Our level of performance would not be possible without their dedication, their effort and the commitment to customers, it really -- we couldn't do it without them. So thank you all. .

And to everyone on the call, thank you for joining us today. We appreciate your continued interest in Byline, and we look forward to talking to you again next quarter. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

Good morning all and welcome to the Byline Bancorp 4Q 2025 Earnings Call. My name is Carlin, and I'll be coordinating the call today. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference call is being recorded.

At this time, I'd like to introduce Brooks Rey, Head of Investor Relations of Byline Bancorp. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Carlin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for the Byline Bancorp Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Call. In accordance with Regulation FD, this call is being recorded and is available via webcast on our Investor Relations website along with our earnings release and the corresponding presentation slides. As part of today's call, management may make certain statements that constitute projections, beliefs or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or their future financial performance of the company. We caution that such statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed.

The company's risk factors are disclosed and discussed in its SEC filings. In addition, our remarks and slides may reference or contain certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are intended to supplement but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Reconciliation of each non-GAAP financial measure to the comparable GAAP financial measure can be found within the appendix of the earnings release. For additional information about risks and uncertainties, please see the forward-looking statement and non-GAAP financial measures disclosure in the earnings release. As a reminder for investors, this quarter, we plan on attending the KBW Winter Financial Services Conference in Boca on Florida.

With that, I would now like to turn the conference call over to Alberto Paracchini, President of Byline Bancorp.

Thank you, Brooks. Good morning, everyone, and happy new year to all of you. We appreciate you joining the call this morning to review our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. With me today are Chairman and CEO, Roberto Herencia; our CFO, Tom Bell; and our Chief Credit Officer, Mark Fucinato. Before we get started, I'd like to pass the call over to our Chairman, Roberto Herencia for his remarks. Roberto?

Thank you, Alberto, and a happy new year to all. we extend our best wishes for a successful and healthy year ahead. We are delighted and proud to finish the year on a strong note and excited to announce a 20% increase in our quarterly dividend. No doubt a reflection of our strong financial performance and confidence in our ability to continue to deliver top quartile results in key profitability metrics as Alberto and the team will cover shortly. What our Board and team have accomplished over the last few years is remarkable and provides a great platform for the future.

Our North Star, the preeminent local commercial bank. The Chicago banking market, including verticals we run out of Chicago, offers significant opportunities for growth and development. with Byline well positioned to lead. Every day, it feels we're reminded that we live in an era of radical uncertainty where rules-based order is fading. And of course, we care about the impact on outcomes on our customers. The majority of which live in a world that is very distant from billionares, Davos and geopolitics. In this environment, we, as the local community and commercial bank become even more relevant to our customers and the people who work with us. As you know, we believe in people first banking where engaged employees delight our customers, enabling Byline to produce top quartile returns for our shareholders.

In December, we were named to America's Best Workplaces for 2026 overall. We wrapped up the year with continued low turnover and an engaged workforce of just over 1,000 employees work together to deliver value for our customers and community. And that seems firing to me and the rest of the Byline team. We have at Byline identified our common purpose, becoming the preeminent local bank. We strive to execute consistently with that at all levels all the time. And that defines our future. So others don't have to do it for us. The position of the franchise is enviable. That's the largest local community bank, the second largest local commercial bank and the largest, most stable platform for quality lenders to bring their books and grow their businesses. We have the balance sheet plus a strategically stable ownership group with all the tools and structure in place that a lender needs to just focus on serving clients and finding new ones.

This gives us an edge over what most banks dream of and the #1 that you show most banks try to solve with deals, organic growth. We are driving everything toward compounding returns and that means reliable, sustainable, prudent growth over the long run. And you can see that in all our actions with capital and recruiting and in our track record for achieving up to year financial results.

To summarize why we are excited. First, the people we have in place from those that have been here for over 40 years, to those who joined us over the last 5 years as a result of merger activity in the market. Second, the results out of that execution have been exclusive 130 million reasons in the last year to back up this excitement. Third, the quality and simplicity of our strategic plans have kept us focused. We don't strive to be everything to everyone. We are a commercial bank, striving for preeminence in that segment. Fourth, our position in the marketplace, as I've described, and finally, our unique shareholder base and their representation in our boardroom. This is an incredibly optimistic time for Byline, company populated by exceptionally kind competent people who care about what we do and how we do our work. Deferring shape and separate is what we plan to do. I truly believe that among the thousands of community banks, we are unique in our approach and prospects.

And with that, I'm happy to return the call to Alberto.

Great. Thank you, Roberto. This morning, I'll walk you through the highlights for the full year as well as the quarter. Tom will follow the detail -- with the details on the financials, and I'll come back and wrap up before we open it up for questions. As always, you can find the deck for this morning's call on the IR section of our website. Please refer to the disclaimer at the front.

So turning to our full year results on Slide 4. Byline delivered strong results for both the fourth quarter and full year of 2025. Before I get into the numbers, I want to thank our team the results we're sharing today are a direct reflection of their dedication to customers and the effort they put in throughout the course of the year. A year ago, I said we had excellent momentum and felt confident in our ability to profitably grow the business and deliver value for shareholders. I'm pleased to report we did exactly that. The operating environment evolved differently than we anticipated. Interest rates remained elevated longer-than-expected macroeconomic uncertainty increase and regulatory and policy changes came faster than in the past. Against that backdrop, we stayed focused on what matters, serving customers, executing our strategy and achieving several important milestones.

First, we closed our transaction with first security, converted systems and completed the integration all within a single quarter. Second, we upgraded important customer-facing technology platforms and third, we continued our preparation to cross the $10 billion asset threshold in 2026. We also grew relationships, sustained profitability, build capital returned $42 million back to stockholders and grew tangible book value per share by approximately 17%. Overall, 2025 was a productive year in which we continued advancing our strategy to become the preeminent commercial bank in Chicago.

For the year, net income was $130.1 million or $2.89 per diluted share on revenue of $446 million, up 9.7% year-on-year. Profitability was strong with pretax preparation ROA of 219 basis points ROA of 136 basis points and ROTCE of 13.5%. Year-on-year loan growth came in at 8.9% and deposits grew 2.5%. Capital ratios increased throughout the year and ended strong with TCE at 11.3%, demonstrating strength and financial stability. Lastly, we maintained positive operating leverage, notwithstanding the rate environment towards the end of the year and our continued investment in the business.

Turning to the fourth quarter on Slide 5. Results for the fourth quarter were also strong. Net income was $34.5 million or $0.76 per diluted share on revenue of $117 million. Profitability and returns remain solid. Pretax preparation income was $56.6 million, pretax preparation ROA was 232 basis points. ROA was 141 basis points. And again, ROTCE notwithstanding a higher capital base was 13%. Revenue was up 1.1% from the prior quarter and 12% year-on-year, driven by higher net interest income.

From a balance sheet standpoint, loans grew 3% linked quarter, deposits declined to $7.65 billion due largely to balance sheet management at the end of the year. Origination activity was consistent with prior quarters at $323 million, with growth coming primarily from our commercial and leasing businesses. On the liability side, noninterest-bearing deposits were essentially flat at 24% of total deposits, and deposit costs came down 19 basis points to below 2% for the quarter. Tom will provide you with additional detail on the base cost of margin as well as our rate outlook. Expenses remained well managed and came in at $60.4 million. Our efficiency ratio was 50.3% and our cost-to-asset ratio was 2.47% as of quarter end. Asset quality remained stable. Credit costs for the quarter were $9.7 million, driven by net charge-offs of $6.7 million, down on a quarter-over-quarter basis and a reserve build of $3 million.

Our allowance now stands at 1.45% of total loans, up 3 basis points from last quarter and NPLs increased to 95 basis points.

Turning to capital. Our capital levels remain strong across the board, and that strength gives us real flexibility in how we allocate resources. We put that flexibility to work this quarter by repurchasing approximately 346,000 shares. Looking ahead, our Board authorized a new repurchase program that allows us to buy back up to 5% of outstanding shares. And the Board also approved a 20% increase in our quarterly dividend, which will be paid this quarter.

I'll now turn it over to Tom to walk you through the financials in more detail.

Thank you, Alberto, and good morning, everyone. Starting with our loans on Slide 6. Total loans increased $3.3 million annually and stood at $7.5 billion at year-end. Origination activity was solid, which was up 22% compared to the prior quarter. Payoff activity increased $156 million from Q3 and stood at $361 million. And line utilization ends up to 60% for the quarter. Our loan pipelines remain strong, and we expect loan growth to continue in the mid-single digits to 2026.

Turning to Slide 7. Total deposits were $7.6 billion for the quarter, down 2.3% from the prior quarter primarily due to managing the balance sheet to stay below the $10 billion year-end and Q4 seasonality outflows. We saw a nice decline in deposit costs for the quarter and continue to see the benefit from disciplined deposit pricing which drove deposit costs lower by 19 basis points.

Turning to Slide 8. We had record high net interest income of $101 million in Q4, up 1.4% from the prior quarter, primarily due to loan growth, lower rates paid on deposits and lower interest expense related to the sub debt payoff, partially offset by lower yields on loans and securities. This was the third consecutive quarter of NII growth and reflects a 10.7% increase for the full year. The net interest margin grew to 4.35%, up 8 basis points linked quarter and on a year-over-year basis, NIM expanded 25 basis points. The improvement in the margin was driven by a decrease in the cost of interest-bearing liabilities, which declined by 29 basis points. Our outlook for net interest income is based on the forward curve, which currently assumes 50 basis point decline in the Fed funds rate for 2026. This implies a net interest income range of $99 million to $100 million for the first quarter. We continue to remain focused on growing and sustaining our net interest income by growing the balance sheet and reducing our asset sensitivity.

Turning to Slide 9. Noninterest income was $15.7 million, essentially flat from the prior quarter. Gain on sale of loans was $5.4 million, down $1.6 million linked quarter, reflecting lower premiums and mix of loans sold. Swap income was up nicely for the quarter as we continue to focus on growing other fee income categories. Our gain on sale forecast for 2026 is on average, $5.5 million per quarter. with lower Q1 expectations due to typical seasonality.

Turning to Slide 10. Expenses came in at $60 million, essentially flat from the prior quarter. The modest decrease reflected lower low-related and data processing expenses, partially offset by higher incentive compensation. For 2026, we expect our quarterly noninterest expense to trend between $58 million and $60 million.

Turning to Slide 11. Our allowance for credit losses increased 3% to $109 million, representing 1.45% of total loans, up 3 basis points from the prior quarter. We recorded $9.7 million in provision for credit losses in Q4 compared to $5.3 million in Q3. Net charge-offs decreased $6.7 million compared to $7.1 million in the previous quarter. NPAs to total assets increased to 77 basis points in Q4 from 69 basis points in Q3. The increase was partially driven by a lower balance sheet at year at.

Moving on to capital on Slide 12. This quarter capped a year of meaningful progress in growing our capital position. For the quarter, CET1 came in at a strong 12.33%, up 18 basis points linked quarter and up 63 basis points year-over-year. Additionally, the TCE to TA ratio stood at 11.29%, up 168 basis points from last quarter.

In closing, we remain focused on long-term stockholder value by growing tangible book value per share, EPS and increasing our return on tangible common equity. With that, Alberto, back to you.

Thank you, Tom. Before we open the call for questions, let me touch on our priorities heading into 2026. First, we remain on track and expect to cross the $10 billion asset threshold this year, and we're well prepared for that milestone. We're monitoring the regulatory environment closely, particularly potential changes to asset thresholds, but we're not slowing down in anticipation of what might happen. We will continue to move forward. Second, our focus remains on organic growth. Last April, we launched a commercial payments business and the progress so far has been excellent. We've onboarded 6 customers and have several more in the pipeline for this year. We've also added approximately $70 million in liability balances and have seen a corresponding increase in ACH volumes, both transactions as well as dollars.

We entered 2026 with good pipelines and remain well positioned to continue gaining share across all our commercial businesses. Third, credit discipline remains a priority. The way we maintain that discipline is by staying close to our portfolio, monitoring it and identifying and addressing issues quickly as they emerge. As we move into 2026, we're excited about where we stand. We've built a strong team. We're generating real operating leverage. Our competitive position is solid and we're able to capitalize on opportunities when they come. In short, we like where we're positioned.

Before we turn to questions, I want to thank our employees for everything they do for our company and our customers on a daily basis.

And with that, Carl, we can open the call up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Nathan Race from Piper Sandler.

Maybe just to zoom out for a second, Alberto. You guys posted a really strong year in 2025. pretax preprovision income was up 13% year-over-year. So just curious, as you look at the company broadly, which areas or which verticals are you most excited about to just continue to scale up and where you see opportunities to become more efficient, whether it's in the technology front where you guys have been proactively investing in any other areas?

Yes. Thanks for the question, Nate. So I touched on it a little bit in the remarks there. So certainly, we continue to be excited with our commercial payments team. It's a team that we launched last April. We're being very deliberate in how we approach that market. But we have a great team. We've added people there and we're starting to see the benefit of not only having a pipeline but onboarding customers growing deposits, growing transaction volumes and correspondingly ultimately fees that come along with that. So we're -- we're certainly excited about that, but we're also excited given our position in Chicago and the current competitive dynamics about our ability to continue to gain share in the commercial banking space here. As you know, we are today the largest community bank in the market. Tomorrow, when we go over $10 billion, we will be between $10 billion and probably $70 billion or $75 billion, we will be the largest local commercial bank in the market. So we like where we are, and we like the opportunities that we have across really all of our businesses, Nate.

Got it. That's really helpful color. Changing gears to capital. You guys have continued to build at pretty strong clips, just given the profitability profile. And I noticed in the last couple earnings decks, the 8% to 9% TCE target has been absent. So curious if there's anything to read into that just in terms of how you think about capital returns to shareholders and what that implies in terms of the M&A environment these days. Or if you're just looking to maybe operate with higher capital levels going forward versus the previous targets?

Yes. I think from if you think about it in terms of -- we always talk a bit about always wanting to have some degree of flexibility that comes with it. So we do carry a bit more capital to allow for that. I think our experience has been that, that has served us well. It has allowed us to move very, very quickly and really without any hesitation or delay when opportunities come up in the market, and we like that. That being said, I think this past quarter, I think you also saw the comments related to the increase in dividends to the degree that we have excess capital, we will -- and we have no immediate use for it. We will find ways to return that capital back to shareholders. As you know, this past quarter, we were active, we were repurchasing shares. We thought we repurchased shares at attractive prices and also over time, and I think you've heard the comments, we want to have a sustainable and growing dividend over time.

And I think our Board took action in that regard with the dividend increase that we just announced. So hopefully, that's indications of the capital priorities. We obviously want to have capital to take advantage of to grow the balance sheet, grow organically, support the growth of the business; two, have a sustainable dividend; three, have enough flexibility to pursue M&A when and if those opportunities surface. And then lastly, we have the buyback program in place. As you know, we also announced an authorization to buy back up to 5% of shares outstanding. So we think the combination of that gives us enough flexibility to do what we need to do in terms of growing the business, but also at the same time, return capital back to shareholders if we have no use for that capital.

Okay. That's very helpful. If I could just sneak 1 more in for Tom. I think you mentioned in your comments that you're looking to reduce the asset sensitivity of the balance sheet going forward. Just curious if you could shed some more light on that and kind of how you think that positions the margin going forward in light of potentially additional Fed cuts this year?

Sure, Nate. The margin has been growing. We're happy with that. We like the idea that NII is growing. We continue to kind of try to -- we are issuing some CDs, but also we have some flexibility to do some more interest-bearing accounts. So just because of the mix of our bank, we really want to have some more floating rate liabilities. And I think we're set up well for that. It will take time to get there. But again, the disciplined pricing we've had going on over the last year here related to deposits has really helped to kind of lift the margin. And the goal is to kind of try and keep it stable. But again, year-end was -- we had a lot of activity in the fourth quarter, and we had some securities that we sold just to keep the bank under $10 billion. That was a really important effort for us. And so we'll -- it's likely we'll be buying those securities back here in the first quarter. So obviously, those transactions are a little bit tighter margin trades. We just think about -- that's why we focus on NII. So stable I would say, on growing net interest income.

Yes. And it also to add to what Tom said, Nate. It also -- again, just the common theme today seems to be flexibility. But with our margin, it gives us ample flexibility from a competitive standpoint. I mean we're not in a situation like other institutions are where they're trying to get their margin back up to a level that they need to get it to from a base profitability standpoint. I think with our margin today, it certainly gives us a lot of flexibility competitively that we can use when appropriate.

Our next question comes from Damon DelMonte from KBW.

Everyone you're all doing well today. Just looking color on the great looking for a little color on the loan growth outlook. I know you mentioned mid-single-digit growth, but -- can you just kind of remind us what areas of your lending platform offer the best opportunities kind of across which segments can drive that?

Really, I mean, commercial, I would still say that, Damon. Real estate I think it's going to be a function of transaction activity. It's not to say that there are not transactions happening, but certainly since rates started going up in 2022. I think transaction activity relative to what it was before has been somewhat muted. With rates coming down, is that going to change? Are we going to see some of that. Obviously, if that picks up, then probably what we would tell you at some point is that we've probably moved the move that guidance up. But at this point, I think that kind of mid-single-digit range is solid..

Got it. Okay. And then, Tom, with regards to your commentary on NII for next quarter, is typically first quarter like a seasonally low quarter for you guys and then you'll see like a steady build as we go through the rest of the year. Or do you think that there's not really in the first quarter.

Damon, you're right. Obviously, there's fewer days in the quarter. So that's 1 drag -- loan fees, et cetera, that go to the margin here a little bit lower during that -- during the first quarter. But generally speaking, again, stable to growing throughout the year.

Got it. Okay.

Yes. I would also to add to that, Damon. I think always we've gotten some rate cuts here towards the end of the year last year, naturally we're asset sensitive. So notwithstanding the fact that our margin expanded, but just putting that aside for a second. If we're asset sensitive, we see rate cuts there's a transition period, right? We have to catch up probably on a gradual kind of declining rate scenario. We have to catch up. It usually takes us about a quarter to catch up and be able to kind of reprice and reset. So just keep that in mind as you think about the rate environment going forward.

Damon, one more thing, Damon, just to point out is, remember, with the Fed cuts in the fourth quarter, the SBA loans reset January 1. So when you see guidance a little bit lower than what we actually reported for the fourth quarter, some of that is driven by the fact that we have loans resetting here January 1.

Got it. Okay. Great. And then with regards to credit and kind of your outlook for net charge-offs for the upcoming year as you kind of think about provisioning. I think last year, you had around close to 40 basis points of net charge-offs, which was down a little bit from '24. Based on what you're seeing in your portfolio, do you feel like you're kind of going to be in that near 40 basis point range again?

I think in the -- I think, Damon, our guidance has been pretty consistent on that like 30 to 40 basis points, somewhere in there. It might be towards the high end of that range. It might be towards the low end of that range, but somewhere in that kind of 30 to 40 basis points range at this point.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Brendan Nosal from Host Group.

Everybody. Hope you're all doing well. Likewise, good to hear from you. Yes. Maybe just to start off here on kind of the underlying pieces of the loan growth outlook. Just thinking between origination activity and payoffs. I think originations dropped 17% for this year to $1.3 billion or so like how do you think about the underlying pace of originations that are getting you to that mid-single-digit net growth outlook for 2026?

I think I would point you to that page in the deck that shows the kind of the trend of originations and payoffs. It's slide -- it's Page 6 of the deck where we talk about portfolio trends. I know throughout the year, we get questions sometimes in terms of, well, your loan growth is exceeding kind of the target -- and probably the answer that you hear us give is we have a pretty good handle in terms of what we're seeing from an origination standpoint. We think we know the activity that's going to pay off. But obviously, that's that at times, the timing of it, and it also can be a little bit harder to predict. And I think the past quarter -- the fourth quarter, certainly, you saw payoffs catch up a bit. So I would point you to that chart and kind of that mid-single-digit range in the categories that I highlighted, which is primarily our kind of commercial banking categories is really where we're going to expect to see growth and just.

The new ones quarter-on-quarter is going to be really that payoff number and our ability to actually be as accurate as we can be with that. So hopefully, that answers your question.

Yes, yes. That's helpful. Switching gears here to net interest income, but a bit more of a conceptual question. Like you folks have been outperforming your quarterly NII guide pretty consistently for the past I would say, 2 years or so, despite the short-term part of the curve coming down and your asset sensitivity. Is there a point at which you just gain a little more comfort with how your balance sheet is responding to this environment? Do you get a little more bullish with the NII outlook that you're giving.

That's a good question. I mean I think Alberto touched on it with the loan payoffs. I mean I think loan payoffs were probably lower overall for the year than expected. So we benefited from some NII related to that. We continue to hear that payoffs will probably be a little bit higher. So I think that's where we probably provide some caution -- but generally speaking, I think we've done a really good job on deposit pricing. We still are growing, so we need to grow more deposits. I mean we just had some, call the fourth quarter noise because of the $10 billion, but we continue to focus on deposit growing core deposits first and foremost, and then sprinkle and then some other deposits to help support the balance sheet.

But look, we're continuing to grow NII. I think it's grown meaningfully. I think we've done well on the rates down scenarios that have happened that we've been able to have stable and growing NII. I think at some point, you run out of room there to continue to drop deposit costs in a meaningful way. And I think you still have to be mindful of the competition and the other banks that are growing. So I think our numbers are really strong still. And I think we're really proud of the results we've had. But it really is a function of loan growth and low-cost deposits, and we have seasonality that happens and a lot of our deposits that we saw leave in the fourth quarter, we've already seen a recovery on some of that. So we will benefit from that. as well. And I think then, furthermore, we'll just see how the payment scheme does and then the benefits we get from that will probably give us a chance to say guidance could be better.

Yes, I would -- those are a couple of thoughts. Just to add just another -- a bit more on the deposit pricing thing. We've been outperforming our own internal models as it pertains to it. So you're probably a question that you have in your mind is, well, what are you guys doing? Why is that? And I think I touched on that a quarter or a couple of quarters ago that look, I think analytically, we're getting a little bit better and being able to segment our portfolio more granularly and therefore, be able to make more precise pricing decisions and different pockets or segments of the portfolio. So I think we're getting better at that operationally, and that's resulted in some of the, call it, the -- even against internally what we expect some of the outperformance.

But -- so there's some of that, that you're seeing come into play, and I think you saw it in terms of how quickly we've been able to reprice liabilities here with -- in the fourth quarter with a changing environment. But that said, ultimately, we will exhaust that. And that has -- ultimately will have limits, meaning it will catch up, but that's just something to keep in mind in that we've -- it hasn't been just -- how confident are you to provide higher guidance? It's been -- we've actually been kind of performing better than what we thought internally we could do. And that's been obviously a positive overall. So just keep that in the back of your mind.

Yes. That's super helpful. I'm going to sneak 1 more in here. Just on the SBA business. I mean, the gains on sale have been compressing for a couple of years now. Is there a point at which like the risk-adjusted return that you're getting for the overall business, including lending plus gains isn't up to where you want it to be? And like how far are we from that point today?

I still think, Brendan, we're pretty far from that. And I would also point you when you look at the compression and the gain on sale margin, a lot of that has to do with the mix I mean, as you can see on the chart on Page 9, where any time that you have a higher proportion of loans that are longer tenor loans, so like 25-year term versus 10%. That mix between 10 and 25 drives that. And certainly, to a degree that you have other types of government guaranteed loans like a USDA loan here or there, that also impacts the gain on sale margin. But to answer your question on the big picture side of it, I think you would have to see materially materially much more compression for it to get to a point where you start to rethink whether on a risk-adjusted basis, this is still attractive.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Tara McEvoy from Stephens.

Maybe just circling back to the commercial payments team. Are these clients or customers, are they fintech companies? And if so, could you talk about the due diligence you're doing there? Are they more traditional payments to your commercial customers? And Alberto, what maybe some medium-term goals and objectives that we can kind of track over the next couple of years to track the progress?

Yes. Good question, Terry. So I think on that commercial payments business, I would say so far, think of like -- so I'll give you an example. So payroll processing companies. So not necessarily kind of like a small commercial customer, but a payroll processor that provides payroll services and as part of those services is the ability to originate and process payroll payments for their client base. And we would be, for example, the banking institution behind that, providing the infrastructure to allow that to happen. So that's an example. I would tell you some of the clients that we've onboarded have been in that particular vertical. But we also want to look for opportunities beyond that in terms of -- you mentioned fintech companies that would need to have a payment element to their business.

In other words, it could be something along the lines of embedded finance or a company that's trying to embed payments into their product offering to their end clients. So that's certainly something that we could entertain. We could entertain that with just traditional access to the payment rails, but also we could do it through access to supporting their issuing of cards or their acquiring of card transactions. So that's just a flavor of the capabilities of the team that we have and the business that they're going after. And as far as metrics going forward, I think we'll keep you up to date. Certainly, we're off to a good start. I would tell you it's been deliberate. We hired that team -- we launched the business in April of last year. The team came on board fully a year earlier. So this has not been a quick build. It's let's make sure that we have processes, procedures, policies and the infrastructure to properly be in the business and support the clients that we want to do business with.

The last thing I would say is also think about it as not really a shotgun approach. We're not trying to onboard 10 or 15 customers a year. We're trying to onboard 3 or 4 and the onboarding process for the reasons that you are thinking of is 6 to 9 months. And that's just to make sure that from a compliance process, procedures, policies, we are comfortable supporting the banking needs of those customers. So hopefully, that gives you some color on that business.

Yes. That's great. And then maybe just 1 quick last one. Did the government shutdown impact the SBA business in Q4, and it didn't look like it from a revenue standpoint? And did anything get pushed out into the first quarter? I know Tom said Q1 is going to be down a bit, but was just wondering there.

It always has a little bit of an impact, Terry, but I think we would just tell you it was -- it's immaterial.

Our next question comes from Brian Martin from JaninGomeryScop.

Say, just 1 on -- I think I'm not sure who mentioned it, but maybe when Hoover was talking about the swap income, just talked about maybe a bit more focus on fee income this year. You've already touched on the SBA. I guess just kind of wondering the run rate we're at today, around $16 million and kind of is that a good sustainable level and then it grows from there given kind of focus there and maybe where the focus is to maybe improve that run rate as you look into '26?

I think it's a good level. We want to see that absolute number go up. The answer is yes. I think a couple of areas. Tom mentioned swaps and derivatives and things of that sort. So we want to continue to do as much as we can there. Obviously, that's a bit of a rate-sensitive dynamic, but we certainly want to continue to offer those products and services and take advantage of situations where we can do that.

Second would be I touched on the commercial payments business, while the side effect of that is fee income, treasury management fees and the like. So certainly, that's 1 area that we want to see grow. Our wealth management business, which is a small part of our business today, but we grew nicely this year. We're getting closer and closer to be able to eclipse the $1 billion in assets under management, which is a milestone given the size of that business today. So hopefully, over time, that business gets to contribute a bit more. And then you obviously have the gain on sale business from our SBA government-guaranteed lending business.

Got you. Okay. That's helpful. And I guess maybe 1 for Tom. Just given some of the noise, I think you talked about Tom at year-end with kind of managing the balance sheet to the $10 billion level. Can you help us just maybe a guidepost on the average earning assets in 1Q, just given end of period, fourth quarter was a bit lower than the average for the quarter, but knowing your commentary about kind of buying back some here in the first quarter, kind of a landing spot or just kind of a range and I think about the earning asset base for 1Q?

I think kind of in that $150 million to $200 million Brian. I mean we had -- in the fourth quarter, we had a number of payoffs. The payoffs kind of came early in the quarter and the loan growth came towards the end of the quarter. So I think that plus the fact that we had about $100 million of securities that we had cleaned up for the portfolio a little bit. So I would call it $150 million to $200 million and more earning assets, but still below $10 billion in total assets for the first quarter

Yes. So the average in the fourth quarter was 9.2, but the period end was closer to, call it, 9 maybe. So maybe it's a $9.2 billion level as kind of a a decent way to think about 1Q as a landing spot broadly.

I think so -- that sounds right.

I appreciate that.

No, I was going to say, Brian, just I commented on it, and Tom commented on it as well. And just to be clear, towards the end of the year, we just wanted to make sure, and we had levers to pull. We just wanted to simply make sure that we were not going to be over $10 billion. So that is the comments related to really balance sheet management were really attributed to that. We just wanted to make sure that as of that snapshot of 12/31 we were not going to be over $10 billion. So we achieved that. We don't have that constraint going forward. So to Tom's point, I think you will not really see any type of management activity to try to keep us below a certain level in terms of assets.

Yes. No, I appreciate that, Alberto. That's kind of what I figured. I just want to make sure I had the right starting point given all the noise in there that, like you said, was just the management function. So thank you for that commentary. Maybe just 1 just on the credit quality front, any changes in the -- any material changes, I'm assuming no in the criticized or classified levels from third to fourth quarter when we see the filings come out?

No material changes just as on flows. We're going to be -- I mean, you certainly know us, we're going to be quick to -- if we see something, we're going to be very, very quick to downgrade, even if it means to downgrade something to criticize. And we certainly have a view anytime we do that. We have a plan. Where is the credit? Where is the trajectory of the credit, like we had it in a short period of time. Is this temporary? Do we expect this to be ultimately to correct itself? Are they -- is the borrower taking the right corrective actions in which case, you will see us -- we'll see that credit migrate back. If not -- if we don't have confidence in that, then we look to move the credit quickly out of the bank. So -- but no, I would tell you, it's just ebbs and flows.

Okay. Okay. And the last 1 for me is just -- I know Tom has talked about the NII dollars. But just in terms of the margin percentage, I guess, would it make sense that there's -- given the outlook for rates this year with maybe potentially 2 costs out there, but really less noise than last year from a rate perspective that maybe the core margin, when you think about an accretion there's a little bit more stability in that margin this year. I'm not sure what's baked into the guidance in terms of NII, but just thinking about it intuitively that we don't see much rate movement, maybe that core margins a bit more stable or steady as you move throughout the year? Or is that not...

It's going to be stable Brian, I hate to talk about margins. But it's going to be stale. I mean it has grown. I don't know that you can expect it to continue to grow -- but I think we'll take the margin we have. And if we can maintain it throughout the year, I think we'd be pretty satisfied with that.

Yes.

I apologize for asking the question, Tom. I know I didn't bias question with the rate environment. So I appreciate the color. And I thank you for the questions and congrats on a great year.

Yes. Thank you, Brian. We appreciate it.

Thank you very much. We currently have no further questions. So I'd just like to hand back to Alberto to Paracchini for any further remarks.

Great, Carli. So to everyone on the call, thank you for joining us today. We appreciate your interest in Byline, and we look forward to talking to you again next quarter. Thank you very much.

As we conclude today's call, we'd like to thank everyone for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Good morning, and welcome to the Byline Bancorp Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. My name is Carlin. I'll be the conference operator today. [Operator Instructions]

Please note that this conference call is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to introduce Brooks Rennie, Head of jInvestor Relations of Byline Bancorp. .

Thank you, Karli. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for the Byline Bancorp Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. In accordance with Regulation FD, this call is being recorded and is available via webcast on our Investor Relations website, along with our earnings release and the corresponding presentation slides. .

As part of today's call, management may make certain statements that constitute projections, beliefs or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. We caution that such statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed.

The company's risk factors are disclosed and discussed in its SEC filings. In addition, our remarks and slides may reference or contain certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are intended to supplement, but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAAP measures.

Reconciliation each non-GAAP financial measures to the comparable GAAP financial measure can be found within the appendix of the earnings release. For additional information about risks and uncertainties, please see the forward-looking statement and non-GAAP financial measure disclosures in the earnings release. As a reminder for investors, this quarter, we plan on

attending the Hub Financial Services Conference in Naples Florida and the Piper Sandler Financial Services Conference in Miami in November. With that, I would now like to turn the conference call over to Alberto Paracchini, President of Byline Bancorp .

Thank you, Brooks, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call this morning to go over our third quarter results. With me today are Chairman and CEO, Roberto Herencia, our CFO, Tom Bell; and our Chief Credit Officer, Mark Fucinato. .

This quarter, we streamlined the format to focus on key highlights for the quarter and our financial results so we can move quickly to Q&A and allow ample time for discussion. Before we get started, I'd like to pass the call over to our Chairman, Roberto Herencia for his remarks. Roberto? .

Alberto, thank you to all. I appreciate you spending some time with us here this morning. The quarter capped a string of 12 consecutive quarters of very strong financial performance and highlights the consistency of our execution, the resiliency of our business model and the optionality and flexibility we strive to maintain in our operating model. The team continues to run a very good bank. And for that, we have to thank our team members and employees, results reflect each and every one of their contributions, which we value dearly. This quarter, our SBA team on above and beyond anticipating government shutdown and allowing us to end the quarter strong and prepare as well for the end of the shutdown whenever that comes. .

Profitability metrics for the quarter were once again to quartile Alberto and Tom will review. Credit quality continues to be stable to improve in some segments, which against the backdrop of macro uncertainty, heightened geopolitical tensions, and more recently, the federal government shutdown has been repricing to the positive. We continue to be vigilant over those risks.

Capital flexibility is a major differentiator. Our capital ratios are strong and continue to build amid strong profitability and solid revenue growth. Our primary deployment options, which Alberto has covered clearly in the past continue to be the same. Our $10 billion asset threshold and M&A remain unchanged. We are open to disciplined deals that make sense, like the ones you have seen in the past, we have the capital to be opportunistic and believe we can deliver strong financial results on our own without the need to force a deal. And the things that truly matter that our employees have tangibly achieved since we last spoke to you.

We were recognized by the SBA in early August with the 2024 SBA 7a 504, and Expert Lender of the Year. For the second year in a row, the Chicago Sound times as named by line Bank, 1 of Chicago's best workplaces. We now ranked as 1 of the top 25 workplaces in the city and among large companies. These results are based on our workplace policies, practices, philosophy, in addition to employee survey results, measuring the employee experience.

Byline was also named once again to the 2026 America's Best Workplaces as a result of our high level of employee engagement scores on our annual survey. We continue to be very focused on employee engagement, development and attracting the best talent. We continue to experience as a result, low levels of employee turnover. With that, I'm happy to turn over the call to Alberto.

Great. And thank you, Roberto. In terms of the agenda for today, I'll kick us off with the highlights for the quarter, followed by Tom, who will cover the financials in more detail. I'll then return with closing comments before we open the call up for questions. So with that, let's turn to our results. .

For the quarter, we delivered net income of $37 million or $0.82 per diluted share on revenue of $116 million, a strong performance driven by solid execution. Revenue and EPS grew both quarter-on-quarter and 13.6% and 19%, respectively, on a year-on-year basis. Our performance continues to reflect excellent profitability with pretax preparation income of $55 million, pretax preparation ROA of 2.5% and ROA of 1.5% and ROTCE of 15.1%, which remains comfortably above our cost of capital, notwithstanding continued growth in our capital base.

The margin expanded 9 basis points from last quarter to 4.27%, supported by an improved deposit mix and higher asset yields. Expenses remain well managed. And while our efficiency ratio is strong at 51%, we continue to actively look for ways to become more efficient and invest in the business at the same time.

Moving on to the balance sheet. Loans grew 6% linked quarter and 11% on a year-to-date basis ending at $7.5 billion. Deposits totaled $7.8 billion at quarter end and were up 1% linked quarter and 7% on a year-to-date basis. Demand for credit remained stable from last quarter with originations coming in at $264 million, driven by our commercial banking and equipment leasing teams.

Moving to credit. Credit costs declined this quarter with the provision coming in at $5.3 million, a decrease of $6.6 million compared to last quarter. Asset quality metrics all improved with NPAs, NPLs and net charge-offs all declining compared to the prior quarter. The allowance remained strong at 1.42% of total loans.

Turning to capital. Capital levels continue to grow and remain robust with CET1 surpassing 12%. Tangible book value per share grew nicely this quarter, up 5% linked quarter and 12% year-on-year. This quarter, we also refinanced $75 million in subordinated debt. We leveraged the upgrade to our credit rating earlier this year with strong market demand to issue debt at an attractive level that reflected a 266 basis point improvement in our credit spreads.

With that said, we continue to build capital to support balance sheet growth, future M&A opportunities and increased capital flexibility. With that, I'd like to turn over the call to Tom, who will provide you with more detail on our results.

Thank you, Alberto, and good morning, everyone. Starting with our loans on Slide 5. Total loans increased $107 million or 6% annualized and was $7.5 billion at September 30. As Alberto mentioned, origination activity was solid for the quarter, with $264 million in new loans, up 25% compared to a year ago.

Payoff activity decreased $41 million from Q2 and stood at $205 million. Loan commitments grew and draw activity added to the loan growth for the quarter, even as line utilization remained relatively flat at 59%. As we look ahead for Q4, we expect loan growth to continue in the mid-single digits. I would like to note that our loan growth could be impacted somewhat by higher government loans, sorry, impact is somewhat higher by the government shutdown that goes into effect maybe in 2026. As a result, our government guaranteed loan originations will remain on balance sheet until the government is reopened.

Turning to Slide 6. I Total deposits were $7.8 billion for the quarter, up slightly from the prior quarter. The uptick in deposits was due to noninterest-bearing accounts increasing $160 million or 9% linked quarter which was driven by seasonality in deposits. This was offset by a decrease in time deposits, driven by lower brokered CDs and CD shifting into money market accounts.

We saw a continued improvement in the mix which drove deposit costs lower by 11 basis points to 2.16%. Turning to Slide 7. We had record net interest income of $99.9 million in Q3 up 4.1% from the prior quarter, primarily due to organic loan growth and lower rates paid on deposits. This was offset by higher interest expense related to refinancing of the $75 million of sub debt this quarter which contributed a 7 basis point drag on NIM.

The net interest margin grew to 4.27%, up 9 basis points linked quarter and year-over-year NIM expanded 39 basis points. Specifically, we saw lower interest expense on deposits and higher rates on earning assets. As a reminder, our SBA loans reset on a quarterly lag. As a result, the mid-September rate cut is effective October 1. With the market expectations of 2 Fed cuts in the fourth quarter, we expect net interest income of $97 million to $99 million.

I would note that earning asset growth and disciplined pricing has generated a growing NII in this declining rate environment. Turning to Slide 8. Noninterest income totaled $15.9 million in the third quarter, up 9.5% from the last quarter, primarily due to $7 million gain in sale on loans sold, driven by higher volumes, the SBA loan pipeline is solid. However, due to the government shutdown, we are currently unable to sell and settle loans in the secondary market. Timing will determine the impact of our gain on sale income for Q4. As a result, we will not be providing gain on sale guidance for the fourth quarter.

Turning to Slide 9. Our noninterest expense came in at $60.5 million, up 1.5% from the prior quarter. The increase reflects higher salary and employee benefits, including a $2 million in higher incentive compensation accruals due to higher performance and a $1.5 million increase in noninterest expense, which includes $843,000 of remaining expense associated with the call subdebt. These were partially offset by merger-related and secondary public offering expenses recorded in the second quarter.

Our efficiency ratio stood at 51% compared to 52.6% in the second quarter, an improvement of 161 basis points. For Q4, we expect noninterest expense in the same range as Q3 results. Turning to Slide 10. In the third quarter, we saw credit metrics improve. Our allowance for credit losses decreased slightly to $105.7 million, representing 1.42% of total loans down 5 basis points from the prior quarter.

The decline was primarily due to individual loan resolutions in the quarter, offset by loan growth and higher adjustments to economic factors. We recorded a $5.3 million provision for credit losses in Q3 compared to $11.9 million in Q2. Net charge-offs decreased to $7.1 million compared to $7.7 million in the previous quarter. NPLs to total loans and leases decreased to 85 basis points in Q3 from 92 basis points in Q2. NPAs to total assets decreased to 69 basis points in Q3 from 75 basis points in Q2.

Moving on to capital on Slide 11. This quarter, our capital increased further with CET1 at 12.15% and tangible common equity ratio was 10.78%. We increased our tangible book value per share by $1.02 up 5% linked quarter and up 12% compared to last year. For the quarter, our total capital was 15.81%, which grew meaningfully due to the sub debt issuance. If you exclude the sub debt that was called on October 1. Total capital is approximately 15.14%. With that, Alberto, back to you.

Thank you, Tom. So to wrap up on Slide 12. We continue to execute well against our strategic priorities and our focus on building the preeminent commercial banking franchise in Chicago. .

Earlier this year, we announced the expansion of our commercial payments business and the hiring of an experienced team to lead that effort. We've been focused on putting the infrastructure in place, establishing the requisite controls and I'm happy to report that our pipelines are starting to build.

Looking forward, we're focused on onboarding customers and scaling the business in 2026. We're also getting closer to the $10 billion asset mark. We anticipate crossing the threshold during the first quarter of next year, which means we will not see the effect of Durbin and higher insurance assessments until 2027.

Looking ahead for the rest of this year, our pipeline remains healthy, and we're optimistic about our ability to continue to execute for customers and deliver results for our shareholders. I'd like to thank all of our employees for supporting our customers and for their contributions to our results this quarter. With that, operator, we can open the call up for questions.

[Operator Instructions]

Our first question comes from David Long from Raymond James.

Lets talk about the margin here and net interest income. The bank screened as asset sensitive. If you look at Slide 7, and it indicates each 25 basis point cut in a ramp scenario hits your NII by about $2.5 million. What are the assumptions that are built into that right now? .

Dave, it's Tom. I mean we have beating the model assumption I think it's in part due to what the competition is offering us as far as rate resets on deposits. And I think, again, we talked a little bit about in the past, some of the premiums that were maybe paid during the liquidity events of years past, and we continue to look at the competition and look at where we can adjust rates, and I think that's what we've been really disciplined on.

Dave, to add to what Tom just said, I think also analytically we're better, and we have gotten better. So in addition to just the competitive environment in Chicago overall improving over the years and becoming -- for those of us that have been in the market for a long time, becoming certainly much more rational over the years, I think analytically, we're getting a bit better in being able to segment customers and being able to basically drive improvement and cost related to accounts and the different segments of our business, which has contributed to what Tom just said, which is essentially just outperforming our model a bit. So I think that's you're seeing the effect of that.

And I would also just add, you can look at the yields on loans and given the rate declines, you are seeing loan yields come down just from the reset based on the mix between fixed and floating, we have benefited a little bit more too because rates have been higher. So any of the fixed rate refinancings that have been coming cash flowing out, we've improved nicely on, including securities. .

Got it. No, that's some very good color. And then in the quarter, the obvious -- I would say, on the fund side, real nice change in the mix, your funding, your deposit costs, in particular, came down, wiggle room do you have on the funding side and the deposit side to still lower those costs, giving you an opportunity to continue to beat this model. .

Again, I think we are asset sensitive, and we do expect -- I gave guidance on NII. We have obviously asset growth that's helped us nicely too, but we have some room on the CD book. It continues to reprice lower. We've been very short on the CD book. And I think there are certainly some rack rate deposits that we're not going to be able to reprice. So it's kind of a mix, Dave. .

Our next question comes from Adam Kroll from Piper Sandler.

This is Adam Kroll on for Nathan Race. Yes. So I guess, given the recent pickup in M&A activity, especially in the Midwest and with your capital continue to build a pretty strong clips. I'd be curious just to hear your updated thoughts on M&A and how you're thinking about managing capital levels.

Yes. So I think Roberto touched on it right at the beginning of the call, Adam. And I think we're certainly open for M&A. So we're -- in terms of the usual discussion around how our conversations, I think we actively engage in conversations. So I think that remains consistent. So we're certainly open and actively looking at opportunities that may present themselves in the marketplace here, but that's going to be I think, consistent with the discipline around transactions that make sense for us to do that we think deliver value for shareholders.

So with that caveat, I think we continue to look at opportunities and are hopeful that we'll be able to continue to find situations that make sense as we have done in the past. As far as capital priorities, I think those also remain consistent. We want to fund the growth of the bank. We want to have capital that we can use opportunistically for M&A. We want to have a stable and growing dividend that we can comfortably afford and we have the safety valve, which is, we have a buyback authorization in place. And when we have opportunities to acquire our stock at attractive levels, we have the flexibility to do that.

Got it. And then I appreciate the comments about crossing $10 billion organically next year. But I was just curious if you could size up the estimated impact from Durbin?

I think -- I'm glad you asked the question because we get -- we have not been asked that question directly on the call. So I think for Durbin today, as we would look at the impact, it would be somewhere between $4.5 million to $5 million on the -- and that includes the FDIC effect as well. And that would -- as you know, if we cross at any point in 2026, the Durbin impact doesn't really go into effect until July 1 of the following year. So that would be 2027 whereas the effect of higher insurance costs comes after 4 consecutive quarters above $10 billion. .

Got it.

Yes. No, and thank you for asking the question because now we have that on the record. .

Yes, no problem. If I could squeeze in 1 more. Just I appreciate the comments on Byline anticipating and preparing for the government shutdown. But I was curious if you could just touch on how the government shutdown has impacted your SBA business so far. And is there an upcoming deadline where it will materially impact your gain on sale in the fourth quarter?

Very good question. And as you know, we have been in the SBA business for some time. So we've had to navigate through shutdowns before. So our team is very experienced in terms of being able to navigate through usually the short-term impact of a shutdown. So I think the first thing I would say is from an origination standpoint, we continue to be active in originating SBA loans. So that continue to market, continue to try to originate new business on things that are in the pipeline, what we do is we tend to -- in anticipation of a shutdown, we pull PLP numbers so that we can continue to fund and close those loans, given that we have the highest designation in the program as -- under the preferred lender program. .

The thing that potentially gets impacted, and it typically is a timing issue is during a shutdown, we cannot sell and settle loans, so to the degree that we have loans that are available for sale and ready to be sold and the shutdown is still in effect and we are effectively holding those loans until the government is back to work and we can then sell the loans in the secondary market. And that's typically a timing issue. So I would say in the short run, unless we really get here into a protracted shutdown where we're here, let's say, mid-November or so, and the government is still not back to work, that may impact the timing of loans that we would otherwise would be selling in the fourth quarter, we may then sell probably in the first quarter. So that would be the short-term impact. And obviously, that has a positive effect, too, because where essentially, even though we can't sell them. So yes, there might be a delay or a timing issue with gain on sale income, we actually earn the carry on the loan because we'll carry the loans on our balance sheet -- so -- but that's -- hopefully, that answers your question, and I think that's in short the summary on that.

our next question comes from Brian Martin from Janney Montgomery Scott.

Congrats on the quarter. So, Tom, you mentioned in your remarks, I think on the deposit mix change. It sounds as though maybe that may bounce back a little bit with the DDA, just in terms of how to think about kind of NII margin. Some of that was seasonal, the strong growth this quarter and the mix change? Or is that -- do you think it's kind of sustainable where that mix is at today?

No, that's correct. It's seasonality, there were outflows in DDA.

All right. And then can you just talk a little bit about -- you guys talked about the competitive landscape. I guess heard from several other banks recently, just the competition has gotten stronger on the deposit side and even on the loan side in the market, what you're seeing competitively? Is it sounds like it's gotten a little bit easier from your commentary, but that's over time rather than just kind of recently. But just the competitive landscape, just a little commentary, if you can, on loans and deposits. .

It's still competitive. I would just, again, remind everyone, right? We're still a relationship bank. We bring in core deposits with our commercial accounts and that helps support our margin and our spreads. So it's not all at the margin funding that's going on here. So that -- we're benefiting from that. And then I think just being short on the CD book has allowed us to reprice just given the expectations of more cuts to come here. .

So it's still competitive. I think you can see where the market is trading or offers are for new money, so to speak, but it's more about the relationship and the small business banking relationships and our commercial relationships.

Brian, just to add to 1 thing on the question on -- particularly on the asset side. I think Tom is spot on in that it's always competitive. But look, when you look at markets in general, whether it's investment grade, whether it's high yield, spreads are at all-time tight levels. So it's not inconsistent to think that some of that would spill into kind of the market. And from -- and yes, we see some of that, yes. Some businesses have gotten a little bit more competitive. There's more competition. People are willing to trade off a bit more in pricing in order to get high-quality transactions. But it's always competitive, and it's -- you just have to manage your business accordingly. .

Got you. No, I appreciate that, Alberto. And maybe just 1 back to the margin. Just 1 comment, Tom. I guess it sounds like obviously, a good expansion in the quarter, but it sounds like even with that expansion, you kind of went through the benefit from -- you had the impact on the sub debt and they're just trying to get a sense for maybe if you can talk -- give a little thought on where the margin, given the seasonality that comes back on the DDA and then the impact of that sub debt in the quarter, kind of where did the margin kind of end the month or exit the quarter in September. This is kind of a starting point as we look forward. .

Brian, our NII guidance is still right in the same range. It's a little bit lower on the low end, just we are expecting 2 cuts here in the fourth quarter. So we are still asset sensitive, and we will have some slight decline in net interest income from that. So the margin would go down a little bit, I would say, to be determined based on the Fed cuts. .

Okay. All right. And maybe just the last one . .

It's about $1.5 million related to the interest expense on the sub debt that goes away. So that benefits us. We have earning asset growth that benefits us. So we still think we're in the same range .

Yes. Okay. I appreciate that, Tom. And then last one for me was, can you guys just give a little commentary just talk a little bit about the commercial payments team and kind of where that -- kind of what that business is and where it's -- what your expectations kind of high level are without just so we can watch that going forward. .

Sure. You bet. So I think earlier in the year, we announced and there are some -- we actually got some picked up in press in that we had hired a team, some experienced bankers, some of our bankers here had worked with these individuals before so we had an opportunity to really bring on board high-quality talented individuals, and we were fortunate to do that. But the gist of that business is really a commercial payments business. So think about high trying to do business with businesses that are -- originate a lot of ACH transactions, process payroll, for example, so you would have payroll processors in that business as well as looking to be a sponsor bank for issuing and acquiring debit or prepaid cards.

So that -- in summary, Brian, that's kind of the gist of the business. I like to use the term commercial payments because it's -- it's really more on the commercial banking side as opposed to -- this is not a retail product. There's not something that's targeted at consumers is really trying to do business with program sponsors that are high users of payment products. And so far, I think, as I said in the comments, initially, it's about building the infrastructure, having the proper controls, making sure that we have the necessary hires to support the team, not just from a sales standpoint, but operationally and from a risk management standpoint.

So that's been completed. We've been actively calling and trying to start building the business. The pipelines are growing. We have customers that were in the process of onboarding. These are, as you could probably imagine, these are not -- these are -- there's more to onboarding a high-volume type commercial customer as opposed to a simple -- a simpler kind of loan and deposit basic relationship. So the onboarding process a little bit lengthier. But we feel good where the team is, the pipeline is building, and we'll start seeing the impact of that in 2026 and beyond. So we're super excited about that segment of our business. .

Got you. And just to clarify, those credits are typically -- are they smaller granular credits are they larger credits? What's kind of the typical size range in those transactions. .

Yes, there's very little in credit, if any. It's really just a function more on the deposit side and on the treasury management side. .

[Operator Instructions]

Our next question comes from Brian Stephens. .

Most of my questions have been asked and answered already, but maybe just 1 modeling question here. Do you have the amount of fixed rate loans that are maturing over the next 12 months? And how do those yields compare to your new origination yields? .

Yes. For 2026 it's roughly like $750 million. And I would say that, again, depending on what happens with the forward curve rates are at or slightly higher than where we are today. .

Okay. Got it.

So there's still -- there's still a lot of that

And maybe just 1 because it was a topic earlier in the earnings season, I should ask. Can you remind us of your NDF exposure and what clients fall into that bucket for you? .

Yes. It is -- so a general comment. So Brandon, we have roughly around $221 million that we would categorize in the call report as, so that represents just under 3% of our total loan portfolio. The one thing I would tell you about that, that consists of commercial-related transactions and business that we have done for a long time. So we are not -- that doesn't include anything.

We haven't started anything, for example, to have a business that's focused on financing private credit funds or financing structured asset-backed structured transactions. These are things like we finance, for instance, the acquisition of practices were a registered investment adviser acquires another small registered investment adviser, and we finance that practice.

So there's a lot of granularity in that exposure and it's not the -- I would say it's an exposure that's materially different than, for example, the couple of cases that you guys saw this quarter related to NDFI lending by some other institutions. .

Got it. Okay. And then Tom, I think your comment on expenses in the fourth quarter similar to 3Q, so 59-ish million on a core basis. Is that also a good run rate to start off with for 2026 and then layer on inflation and growth there? .

We're not really giving guidance on '26, but I would just say that there's incentive comp that's built in this year that, in theory, we reset for next year. So higher performance this year is warrantying higher incentives. So we start over, and I would expect those expense numbers to be lower. .

Our next question comes from Matthew Rent from KBW.

I hope everybody is doing well today. Just a follow-up to the expense question. I appreciate the guidance for next quarter. In the prepared remarks, you mentioned you believe you can get the efficiency ratio lower. So I was wondering if there's any initiatives you were contemplating or if there's any new technologies you're investing and that could drive operational efficiency.

Yes. Good question, Matt. I think maybe the right way to think about it is we -- this is something that we're constantly looking at. We're constantly looking for ways in which we can operate more efficiently. As you have -- if you look at the trend with our efficiency ratio, it tends to bounce up. I think we've been in that kind of 49% to 52% range, which compared to others compared to peers, I think we fare very well with it. What I would highlight with that is it's something that we always want to be focused on because it provides us with investment capital to reinvest back into the business. So I wouldn't view it as just we have a program that we're doing and we're trying to execute against that program. .

We're constantly looking for ways in which we can try to drive that efficiency as low as we can or at least we can maintain it at the levels kind of where it's at today so that we can generate opportunities for reinvestment back into the business.

Next question comes from .

This is First question is just to do with capital. We noticed that the share repurchasing kind of went down this quarter. Any thoughts on creating a more active repurchase program again and how you're thinking of reinvesting capital. .

Yes, I think consistent with the priorities that we mentioned earlier on the call, it's -- I think capital priorities is be able to support the growth of the company to support organic growth. have capital flexibility to pursue M&A consistent with transactions that like transactions we've done in the past, transactions that make sense, that meet our criteria. We certainly want to be able to execute on that and have the flexibility to do so. Maintain a growing comfortable dividend over time. And the last thing is really the safety valve, which is really if we find ourselves having excess capital and we have opportunities to acquire the stock at what we think are attractive levels for shareholders, then we would do that.

And then my follow-up question is to do with new loan yields. So you guys originated $260 million of originations this quarter. Can you speak to where new paper price this quarter in relation to the portfolio yield of 7.14%. .

Sure. This is Tom. I mean, again, depending on the asset class, you do have different yields. But I would still say that spreads are 250 over SOFR to 300 over. And then obviously, the SBA business is higher than that. .

[Operator Instructions]

Next question is a follow-up from David Long from Raymond James. .

I just want to follow up on credit. The 2 things. One is the reserve level looks like reserves were released in the quarter. Was that more a function of loan mix, portfolio performance or the economic outlook? .

I think it was more around the resolution of loans with specific reserves, David. So we work those assets out, we took the charges against the specific reserves, and we don't have those reserves anymore. .

Got it. And then with the SBA shutdown, how is that going to impact your reserving? I mean if you're going to hold on to these loans potentially a little bit longer, maybe just talk through that process and how you think about that. .

I mean we would look -- we would kind of -- if we're holding -- I think it's a good question. So thank you for asking. So if we're holding the full loan as opposed to the, call it, just the unguaranteed portion only, we would have to be thinking about more protracted shutdown, David, we would still probably carry those loans as held for sale. But to answer the philosophical question as to how we think -- if we were balance sheeting those loans, how we think about setting reserves, I think we would look through the guaranteed portion and look at the unguaranteed exposure and then reserve accordingly. .

Next question is a follow-up from Brian Martin from Janney Montgomery Scott.

One last 1 for me was on the -- going back to the M&A for just 1 moment. Just given the greater priority than the buyback can you just remind us, Alberto, just in terms of what you're looking for in a transaction, what's important on the M&A opportunities you're going to consider and does it matter larger or smaller today? Or would you think about doing multiple deals at once? Just trying to understand that dynamic .

Yes. I think the still very consistent with the what we think is the opportunity set here in Chicago. So broadly, Brian, I think institutions between let's say, $400 million and up to maybe a couple of billion dollars. Obviously, we've grown a bit. So we can have the ability to tackle something a little bit larger today than, let's say, what we did 2 years ago or 3 years ago. The geography is still consistent. The greater Chicago metropolitan area that does that mean strictly just the city limits of Chicago no greater Chicago, Chicago the suburbs, maybe going all the way up to Milwaukee, maybe going down a bit into Northwest Indiana.

I think that's that those are markets consistent with that. Financially attractive, strategically attractive and we pay, as you know, we pay a lot of attention to deposits if we think about the last 3 transactions that we've done, those were essentially transactions for us to acquire deposits and then redeploy those funds over time into the different lending businesses that we have.

So it would have to be consistent with that. But each opportunity is different. Each situation is different. And the good news is we built a team, and we have a lot of experience with the team that's here that's done transactions here as opposed to just general experience that we may have from just being in the business and having done M&A over the years. So we feel good about our team, our process, our playbook. And I think, hopefully, as you guys can have seen the results show that in our results, I should say. .

We currently have no further questions. So I'd just like to hand back to Mr. Paracchini for any further remarks. .

Great. So thank you, Karli, and thank you all for joining the call today and for your interest in Byline. We want to wish you a happy Halloween. A happy Thanksgiving holiday, happy holiday season, and we look forward to speaking to you again in the new year. Thank you. .

We conclude today's call, we'd like to thank everyone for joining. You may disconnect your lines.