HWC

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Hancock Whitney Corporation's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this call may be recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Kathryn Mistich, Investor Relations Manager. You may begin.

Thank you, and good afternoon. During today's call, we may make forward-looking statements. We would like to remind everyone to carefully review the Safe Harbor language that was published with the earnings release and presentation, and in the company's most recent 10-K and 10-Q, including the risks and uncertainties identified therein. You should keep in mind that any forward-looking statements made by Hancock Whitney speak only as of the date on which they were made. As everyone understands, the current economic environment is rapidly evolving and changing. Hancock Whitney's ability to accurately project results or predict the effects of future plans or strategies or predict market or economic developments is inherently limited.

We believe that the expectations reflected or implied by any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, but are not guarantees of performance or results, and our actual results and performance could differ materially from those set forth in our forward-looking statements. Hancock Whitney undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Some of the remarks contain non-GAAP financial measures. You can find reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures in our earnings release and financial tables. The presentation slides included in our 8-K are also posted with the conference call webcast link on the investor relations website. We will reference some of these slides in today's call. Participating in today's call are John Hairston, President and CEO, Mike Achary, CFO, Chris Ziluca, Chief Credit Officer, and Shane Loper, Chief Operating Officer.

I will now turn the call over to John Hairston.

Thank you, Kathryn, and thanks to everyone for joining us this afternoon. We are pleased to report a solid start to 2026. Our adjusted ROA was 1.43%, our ROTCE was 14.64%, and EPS was $1.52, all improved from prior quarter. Adjusted EPS compared to the same quarter last year increased over 10%. We are very excited to welcome 27 net new revenue producers to our strong banking team, and we expect to build on the momentum we have to generate meaningful balance sheet growth and profitability improvement over the rest of 2026. We achieved another quarter of solid earnings with NIM expansion and efficiency ratio of about 55%, consistent strong fee income, and well-managed expenses.

Net interest margin expanded 7 basis points this quarter due to higher securities yields following our bond portfolio restructuring and lower cost of funds that outpaced the impacts of lower loan yields in this rate environment. Loans grew $33 million or 1% annualized. Loan production totaled $1.2 billion, down from last quarter, but up $365 million compared to the same quarter last year. Historically, first quarter loan growth is seasonally softer, but average balances were up $250 million over fourth quarter. We anticipate average growth to improve as the year progresses with a strong pipeline and continued success in adding bankers. Our guidance of mid-single digits for the year for loan growth is unchanged. Deposits were down $198 million or 3% annualized due to seasonal public funds outflows. Interest-bearing public funds decreased $280 million and public fund DDAs decreased $75 million.

Excluding the impact of public fund DDA outflows, DDAs would actually have been up $45 million. DDA mix ended the quarter at a very strong 36%. Interest-bearing transaction and savings accounts were up $261 million with higher balances driven by competitive products and pricing. Retail time deposits were down $149 million due to maturities during the quarter. We continue to enjoy a healthy CD renewal rate of about 85%. We have not changed our guidance on deposits as we still expect balances to be up low single digits from 2025 levels. This quarter, we continued to proactively return capital to shareholders through repurchasing 1.4 million shares of our common stock and increasing our quarterly cash dividend 11%, now standing at $0.50 per share. Additionally, we deployed capital through the previously announced bond restructuring effort, which was completed in January.

We ended the quarter with a solid TCE of 9.93% and a Common Equity Tier 1 ratio of 13.3%. Despite market volatility and an emerging scenario of flat rates, we remain optimistic and confident for our growth prospects for the rest of 2026. We're closely monitoring macroeconomic trends and indicators, including both nationally and within our footprint. While the environment remains dynamic, our ample liquidity, solid allowance for credit losses of 1.43%, and very strong capital keep us well positioned to navigate challenges and support our clients in really any economic scenario. With that, I'll invite Mike to add additional comments.

Thanks, John. Good afternoon, everyone. As John said at the onset, the company's performance in the first quarter was exceptional. Adjusted for the net loss on the bond portfolio restructuring, net income for the first quarter was $125 million or $1.52 per share, compared to $126 million or $1.49 per share in the fourth quarter.

As shown on slide 20 of the investor deck, we remain confident in the guidance provided at the beginning of the year and have not made any changes this quarter. We are, however, now assuming no rate cuts throughout 2026 with no significant impact to NII or our NIM. PPNR for the company was down slightly from the prior quarter, or about 1%, to $173 million, expressed as a return on average assets that continues to be a solid 1.98%. Net interest income increased 1% this quarter. Our fee income business continues to perform exceptionally, and expenses were up but remained well controlled. Fee income adjusted for the net loss on the bond portfolio restructuring was essentially flat with last quarter, down only $1 million. The slight decrease was driven by lower specialty income, which tends to be somewhat unpredictable quarter to quarter.

Expenses remained well controlled, only up 1% from last quarter. Much of this increase was from seasonal increases in payroll taxes and related benefits. We remain focused on making thoughtful investments in revenue-generating activities while balancing expense growth with top-line revenue creation. As expected, our NIM was up 7 basis points this quarter to 3.55%, driven by a reduction in our cost of deposits and a higher yield on our bond portfolio, partly offset by lower loan yields following two rate cuts in the fourth quarter of last year. Our overall cost of funds was down 8 basis points to 1.44% due to a lower cost of deposits and a better funding mix. Our cost of deposits was down 10 basis points to 1.47% for the quarter, with the cost of deposits down to 1.46% in the month of March.

During the quarter, we reduced promotional rate pricing on our interest-bearing transaction accounts and retail CDs. In 2026, we expect CDs will continue to mature and renew at lower rates, although the rate advantage will diminish over the year in a flat-rate environment. Our earning asset yield was down 1 basis point, with loan yields down 13 basis points following the rate cuts in the fourth quarter. Our bond yields were up 25 basis points related to the quarter's restructuring transaction. Average earning assets were up $100 million, driven by higher average loans, partly offset by a lower level of aggregate bonds. The yield on the bond portfolio, as mentioned, was up 25 basis points to 3.23 related to the quarter's restructuring transaction. The transaction contributed 4 basis points to our NIM expansion this quarter.

As a reminder, the first quarter did not include a full quarter's impact from the transaction. We expect the full quarterly increase in bond yields will approach 32 basis points, and the annual contribution to NIM will be about 7 basis points. Aside from the restructuring transaction, we reinvested $181 million back into the bond portfolio at higher yields. Loan yields, as mentioned, were down 13 basis points following the rate cuts in the fourth quarter of 2025. The total fixed rate was unchanged from last quarter at 5.28%, and the total variable rate was down about 14 basis points. Total new loan rates were down 10 basis points quarter-over-quarter, but that was partly offset by an increase in average loans of about $250 million linked-quarter. For the fifth consecutive quarter, our criticized commercial loans improved, decreasing $13 million to $522 million.

Non-accrual loans increased $6 million to $113 million. Net charge-offs came in at 19 basis points, so down from the prior quarter's 22 basis points. Our loan loss reserves are solid and unchanged at 1.43% of loans. We expect net charge-offs to average 15-25 basis points for the full year. Lastly, a comment on capital. Our capital ratios remained remarkably strong, even with the proactive capital deployment we completed during the quarter through the bond restructuring transaction, share repurchases, and an increase in our common cash dividend. We expect that share repurchases will continue at similar levels throughout the year. Changes in the growth dynamics of our balance sheet, economic conditions, and share valuation could impact that view. I will now turn the call back to John.

Thanks, Mike. Let's open the call for questions.

Thank you. We'll now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. If you're called upon to ask your question and are listening via speakerphone on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your questions. Again, it is star one if you would like to join the queue. Our first question comes from the line of Michael Rose with Raymond James. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe we can just start on loan growth. I think that's the one piece of the story that investors are really looking forward to seeing pick up here as we move through the year. Certainly understand the elevated pay-downs. Looks like originations, though, were still pretty good in what is typically a seasonally weaker quarter. It does look like a lot of the growth was maybe driven this quarter by higher SNC balances. Maybe John, is there a way to map out what we should expect for loan growth in the back half of the year? I know you have the guidance, but more specifically, what gives you confidence that you can actually begin to see some real net growth and for it to pick up here? Because I think that's a big linchpin for investors. Thanks.

Sure, Michael. Thanks for the question. I'm going to let Shane tackle that question.

Thanks, Michael. Our first quarter loan growth was $33 million, and that, I believe, reflects solid underlying momentum. We produced about $1.2 billion in loans, and that's up from $850 million from a year ago and really saw strength across business banking, commercial, middle market, healthcare, commercial finance, and CRE. That net growth, as you articulated, was moderated though by some normal portfolio dynamics. We had mortgage and consumer amortization and some planned pay-downs in some of our larger credits across CRE, healthcare, and our specialty lines. That all was anticipated, and from the outset, we've talked about indicating growth would be more weighted towards the mid and back half of the year. If you look forward, I think we're positioned to deliver the mid-single digit full year growth. Geographic markets are continuing to build momentum. Our CRE production is ahead of plan.

Business banking is growing consistently, and healthcare and commercial finance pipelines remain strong. Really importantly, though, we've hired 27 net new bankers, as John mentioned, with more coming in the second quarter. Our prior year hires are now ramping up to create a flywheel for production and growth. I think if you take that together, the production, funding, timing, banker productivity puts us in a good position for the balance of the year. We're starting this first quarter in a positive place, even though it's not a significant number, but compared to last year, we were in a deficit in the first quarter. We feel like we're in really good position to be able to leverage production and new banker hires as we go through the back half of the year.

Michael, this is Mike Achary.

All right. That's very helpful. Yeah. Go ahead.

Seasonal perspective, you're right. The first quarter is usually the lowest quarter for production in terms of seasonal impacts. Again, as a reminder, as we go through the year, net production tends to pick up from a seasonal perspective, and the fourth quarter is usually our best growth quarter. We have that momentum that was started this quarter, and certainly the intent is to build on that as we go through the year.

Okay. That's helpful. I appreciate it. Maybe just as my follow-up, Mike, certainly hear you on the pace of buybacks here, at least in the nearer term. Obviously, there's some Basel III endgame and G-SIB reforms that are out there for the larger banks, but I think a lot of smaller banks are talking about maybe lower CET1 ratios than they might have contemplated before. Can you just give us an update on what your ultimate target is for CET1 and how we should think about maybe a year-end number as you balance repurchases and growth? Thanks.

Well, the way we think about it is if you look at the slide that we have in there around our guidance and specifically the CSOs, we give some targets around certain profitability metrics, but as importantly, TCE. As a reminder, those CSOs are tied toward achievement in fourth quarter of 2028. For TCE, we think that somewhere between 9%-9.5% is a target that we can achieve at that point. If we look at CET1, that companion number's probably between 12%-12.5% or somewhere in that range. Those are the levels that we think we can aspire to by the end of 2028. As you know, we're accruing a lot of capital as we go through each quarter, but we are doing things to proactively manage that capital. Last year, we bought Sabal Trust Company for cash.

We affected the bond restructure this past quarter. We've consistently increased the common dividend. As John mentioned on the opening comments, we increased by a nickel per share per quarter, so 11%. Those kinds of efforts, especially around buybacks and addressing the common dividend, will certainly continue going forward. Certainly last but not least, the first and best use of capital is to provide for organic balance sheet growth. As we grow our balance sheet going forward, we think we can have a pretty good shot at hitting the capital targets I mentioned.

All right. I appreciate the color. I'll step back.

Yeah. Thanks, Michael.

Our next question comes from the line of Matt Olney with Stephens. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks for taking the question, guys. Just want to follow up on the commentary around adding the new bankers. I think you mentioned there were 27 net new bankers, would love to hear more about these new hires and their backgrounds and what type of lending they'll be focused on and what geographies?

Sure, Matt. This is Shane. I'll give you some commentary on that. Based on what we consider from an internal benchmarking, these new bankers will typically begin contributing loan growth within their first 12 months, and they're really meaningfully additive in 12-24, and then strong productivity in 24-36. This really is something that matters in two ways. The 27 net new bankers in the first quarter with additional hires planned in the second quarter supports incremental production as the year progresses. The bankers hired in 2024 and 2025 are now entering their prime growth years, so we feel like that's going to be a really nice compounding effect as the new hires ramp up. When you think about where we've hired bankers from, it's really from all different types of entities.

We've hired a number of bankers in Texas, probably the majority of the bankers are hired there. I think on the fourth quarter call, I talked about our target to be 60% business bankers and 40% being commercial and middle market. We've actually exceeded that. 70% of these new bankers are in our business banking area, which is the much more granular and higher spreads, more deposits segment in our portfolio, and 30% in commercial and middle market. I feel like this gives us a real good flywheel as we go into 2026 with bankers hired in 2024 and 2025 producing more significantly as the new bankers are coming on in 2026. Our process is strong. It's leader-driven. We began that new process in the fourth quarter of 2025.

That's paid big dividends, and we're going to continue to add bankers, looking towards that 50 net new for 2026.

Okay. That's helpful. Appreciate all the color there, and it's great to see some good progress there. Follow-up question, I guess more for Mike on the net interest margin. We saw some good expansion this quarter. You noted the securities restructuring, a big driver there. Any more color on the margin from here as we go throughout the year?

Yeah. Thank you, Matt. As we talked about on last quarter's call for the year, we had talked a little bit about margin expansion in the range of 12-15 basis points, and that would be from fourth quarter of last year to fourth quarter of this year. Based on where we are now and what we achieved in the first quarter and what we know we can for the remaining three quarters of the year, we're pretty confident about hitting that target and maybe even some upside toward the upper end of that range. Certainly that is very dependent upon us hitting our targets around loan growth, so the mid-single digit growth year-over-year. We also have, obviously, a head start, if you will, with the bond restructure.

In addition to that, we have just under $1 billion of principal cash flow yet to come from the bond portfolio. That'll come off at about 376 and go back on at, let's just say, 425 or better. Year-over-year, we're looking at about a 51 basis point improvement in the yield on the bond portfolio. Again, that's fourth quarter of last year to fourth quarter of this year. Then finally, we still have some ability to reprice CDs lower across this year. We talked last quarter about year-over-year about a 16 basis point drop in our cost of deposits. We were down 10 basis points in the first quarter, so 6 basis points over the remaining three quarters certainly seems doable even without the benefit of any Fed rate cuts.

In the CD front, we have over the course of the year, about $7 billion maturing, $5 billion for the last three quarters, coming off at around 348, going back on at about 310 or so. Now, the benefit of repricing those CDs will diminish as we go through the year and as we move into next year, again, without any benefit related to any rate cuts, that option of continuing to reprice CDs lower will largely have played out. Certainly as we think about our balance sheet and the things we're doing to organically grow it, that's where the benefit of loan growth will replace the benefit that we had from repricing CDs over the last couple of years.

Okay. That's great color, Mike. Thank you for that, and I will step back.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Catherine Mealor with KBW. Your line is open.

Thanks. Just as a follow-up on the margin, as we think about loan yields, do you feel like loan yields from this 5.61% level should be increasing as we move through the year, just given where new loan pricing is and as the back book repricing opportunities? Or is competition leaving that more flat and really the upside in your margins coming from the CD and the bond piece that you just talked about?

Yeah. The benefit that we talked about, Catherine, related to the NIM is really coming from the three things I mentioned. The loan growth, the bond portfolio contribution, and then lower cost of deposits. Without any rate cuts or increases for next year, we're looking at the yield on the loan portfolio to largely remain where it is right now. In that 560-562 range. Certainly, we have to deal with competition, but certainly our ability to grow loans and maybe improve the mix of the loans that we're growing, we think is enough to keep that loan yield more or less where it is now.

Great. And then what you say, it was interesting to me that with taking rate cuts out, you didn't increase your NIM guide, but it feels like you're more just comfortable in hitting perhaps the high end of the range without any cuts. Is that a fair way to think about it? Doing things the same.

It really is. Yes. Right. It really is, Catherine, that's a great observation. As we think about the guidance for this year, again, we're not changing any of the guidance. I would certainly give a little bit of a bias toward the upper end of the ranges, certainly on the revenue component, so NII and fees, and then expenses as well. We're thrilled to hire the 27 net new revenue producers for this year. The goal for the year, as Shane mentioned, is still around 50. Certainly hiring those folks sooner rather than later probably puts us in a position where the guidance for expenses is also kind of in the upper end of that range.

Great. That makes sense. Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Marinac with Brean Research. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon. I wanted to ask about the new loan yield. I know you disclosed the figure in the back of the deck, but I was curious if that yield may in fact get higher given how rates had acted and perhaps a little bit of movement in spreads late in the quarter. Just thinking about where 2Q is going to go?

Yeah, Chris, again, without any rate action contemplated, certainly, I think the new loan yield more or less should stay in the neighborhood of where it is right now. That's certainly going to be impacted by any changes in mix and any changes between the contribution of fixed loans versus variable loans. Kind of quarter-over-quarter, that total new loan rate was down about 10 basis points. The rate on fixed rate loans was up around 25. The rate on variable rate loans was down about that same level, and that was obviously because of the two rate cuts that happened in the fourth quarter of last year. I think somewhere going forward in that same neighborhood is probably good territory for modeling.

Okay. If we think about possible upgrades from the criticized book, do you see some of that playing out? Could that be a further tailwind this quarter and next quarter?

Yeah. Thanks, Chris. What we've been seeing is a little bit less in the way of inflows, which has been really nice to see. As I think I mentioned on some earlier calls, it usually takes four to five quarters on average for a credit to kind of get to a point where either it refinances away or improves such that we can upgrade it. One of the things that I've been kind of watching is some of our lower pass categories, and what we're seeing is a little less inflow in the lower pass category, especially what we consider watch credits. I think what we'll see is probably a little bit more of a flattening of our criticized loans rather than continued improvement.

I'd like to think that we can make some headway there, but we are still operating at a pretty low level in criticized loans. I'm really pleased with the progress that we've made over the past several years in that regard.

Great, Chris. Thank you very much. Mike, thank you as well.

Thank you.

The next question is from Casey Haire, Autonomous Research.

Great. Thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. I want to touch on the loan growth. Sorry, I may have missed this. Slide nine, I understand that the guide is that loan growth builds from this pace in the first quarter here. just wondering, the prepayments of $820 in the first quarter, I'm not sure if I heard you guys talk about what you assume for prepayments going forward.

Casey, in terms of unexpected prepayments or just planned?

Right. You got unexpected, right? That you have the scheduled payments and maturities of $473 million-$820 million is what really hurt the loan growth this quarter, and I don't know if I heard you say what you expect that to be going forward to deliver your mid-single digit loan growth.

Yeah. We have our production numbers kind of detailed out for the rest of the year. In those production numbers, we have some contras in terms of what is expected in terms of payoffs. I think I've said a number of times, we have a number that we kind of factor in for unexpected payoffs in terms of additional production. We really kind of saw some payoffs at the end of the quarter, and we saw a little bit of production actually push to the second quarter. We've got a really good start here in the second quarter. That kind of impacted our numbers a little bit in the first quarter. I don't have a specific number to give you, but I can tell you that it's planned into our overall production reconciliation.

This is John. I'll add a little bit more color. The horsepower behind the mid-single digits loan growth number for the year is really production improvement. The unscheduled payments could certainly bounce around a little bit, but the expectation would be that they don't swiftly go way up or way down. To be very clear, the expectation is all those factors Shane and Mike commented on earlier leading to production going up in the range of the types of numbers we talked about mid last year when we discussed what to expect for 2026 and then for 2027. Did we answer your question or would you like to redirect?

No, that's good. That's great. Thank you.

Okay, you bet.

The next question is from Brett Rabatin from StoneX.

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. I wanted to ask on the fee income guide. I know that syndication fees and SBA and SBIC, I know those are somewhat hard to predict, but just thinking about the guidance for the full year of that 5% range, that's fairly flat from the first quarter. I was just curious if you could maybe walk through what you guys see as the drivers on the fee side this year, as you're thinking about that, and if there's any additional momentum maybe to be gained on the trust and wealth management side?

Yeah, thank you. Fee income's performing in line with our expectations, and I do believe that it supports that 4%-5% growth for the full year of 2026. Fees in the first quarter were strong. Treasury and business service charges were strong in merchant. We had one of our best months in merchant, and I think that ties out to our business banking focus, and the leadership and sales activities there. SBA continues to be strong. Syndication fees, I think, will have opportunities throughout the year to continue producing there, and we've got a great team that's focused on that. You mentioned wealth management. I just see continued momentum there. That's now 35% of our total non-interest income. We've got a lot of the pivots that we've made over the last number of years are really paying off.

We've got some enhanced leadership in a couple of different areas that we believe are really going to make a difference as we go into the back half of the year. You got to look at the market, wealth management fees. We have a significant part of our wealth management fees are earned every month on assets under management. If we get a good stable market or an upward tilted market, then we're going to see some additional fee income growth. If we get some downward tilt to that market, it's going to put a little pressure on wealth management annuitized fee income.

Brett, this is Mike. The thing I would add to that and just call a little bit of attention to is that while the guide is up 4%-5%, safe to say that the guidance is really toward, or the bias is really toward the upper end of that range. If you look at our performance against guidance and fee income over the years, we do tend to overperform, I think a little bit. You could call that guidance a little bit on the conservative side. It would not surprise us if we came in maybe even a little bit above that range, but certainly not prepared right now to change the guidance as of yet. That's something we'll address as we go through the year.

The other thing to call out is, and I think we said this or called attention to it in the opening comments, is this notion of specialty income being somewhat difficult to predict and can vary a little bit quarter to quarter. For us, specialty income is things like syndication fees, BOLI, some of the mortality gains there, derivative fees, and SBIC income. For example, last quarter we had a pretty sizable gain in SBIC fees. Sorry. Obviously that didn't repeat in the first quarter. As we go through the year, we would certainly expect SBIC fees to contribute to the overall growth. That's just an example of something that can kind of create a little bit of volatility and unpredictability as we go through the year. Hopefully that was helpful.

Yeah, that was very helpful. Then maybe just housekeeping or maybe just a fundamental question around just the bond restructuring. One, just making sure that the guidance excludes or includes the bond restructuring for the full year. Then just thinking about the rationality going through it's a little more than a four-year payback, but it seems like that's where a lot of these things end up in terms of the payback. I was just curious on your thought process. I know a lot of banks look at that every week to think about, so just wanted to hear your thoughts on it. Thanks.

Yeah. Obviously the bond restructure is part of the guidance for the full year, and a bit of a driver. We were thrilled to be able to execute that transaction in the middle of January. Certainly, as I mentioned before, I think on one of the earlier questions, it's a great use of capital. It is something that we look at from time to time. We did one a couple of years ago that did admittedly have a little bit of a shorter payback period. It's just the fact now that the bonds that populate our portfolio are such that executing a transaction like this does give you a little bit longer payback. We still think it's a smart use of capital and we're glad to have executed the transaction, certainly.

Okay. Appreciate all the color.

You bet. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Gary Tenner with D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Thanks. Good afternoon. I had a couple of questions. Mike, I was curious on the CD repricing or the CD rolls as they renew. When we were going through the easing cycle initially, I know you were very focused on keeping those CD maturities pretty short, kind of six-month focus so you could turn them pretty quick. Has that approach changed at all in terms of given the unknown, which direction rates might go at some point in terms of how you're trying to ladder those CD maturities?

Yeah. Great question, Gary, and it absolutely has. What we're doing now or the way we're kind of modifying those tactics or strategy is to the extent we can begin to lengthen out some of those CD maturities. For example, the best rate we have right now in terms of our promotional rates on CDs is 3.5% for 11 months. The intent there obviously is to extend the duration of those a little bit going forward.

Great. Appreciate that. Just to clarify your comment on expecting a similar pace of buyback. You used about 1/3 of your authorization in the first quarter. Is the kind of read on what you were saying that you might use it all up earlier and then either just do nothing, let's say, in the fourth quarter? Would the board potentially approve an additional authorization ahead of when they usually do? Is the remainder more ratable over the rest of the year?

Yeah. A great question, and I hate to say, but kind of all of the above. What I mean by that is if you look at the authority that we have in total for the year, that was about 4.1 million shares. We did lean into the buyback pretty heavily this quarter. We saw an opportunity at some point during the quarter when the stock had pulled back a little bit and again leaned in and bought the 1.4 million shares. The intent absolutely is to exhaust the buyback as we go through this year. Whether we do that early or whether we affect the buyback a little bit more on a pro rata basis for the remaining three quarters really remains to be seen.

I think more than anything else, we want to give ourselves some optionality and flexibility to react to what's going on in the market. The catchall caveat to that really is what's going on in the environment, our own valuation, and then how much we're growing our own balance sheet. Again, the intent always is going to be to deploy capital to support organic balance sheet growth. Leaning into buybacks and common dividend increases would come after that. Again, I think the pertinent point is the intent to exhaust the authority as we go through the year. If we do exhaust it early, then that'll be a decision that we make with our board whether to re-up early or wait to maybe re-up at the beginning of next year.

Great. Appreciate the thoughts on that. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Jared Shaw with Barclays. Your line is open.

Hi, this is John Rah on for Jared. I guess first maybe just thinking about the conflict in the Middle East and higher oil prices. I know you're not a big direct energy lender, but just wondering how that dynamic impacts borrowers and sentiment in your market.

Well, we'll start with sentiment and then maybe Chris can mop up if there's any credit tone to the question. Shane, you want to begin?

Yeah. We do a regular client survey a couple times a year and really try to understand what's going on with clients. What are they thinking in terms of investments and those kind of things. At this point, I think the word is cautious. They are optimistic. I think that at this point, the Iran conflict and war has really kind of crept into energy cost. But on top of energy cost, folks are looking at labor cost, insurance cost across the markets that we serve as kind of some of the guideposts of when they're going to invest and how much they're going to invest. I would say at this point, we don't have clients that are giving us very specific reasons of why they will or won't invest that are centered around the current war.

Chris?

I think that's spot on. It's probably early to tell. I'm sure if it persists for a long time, it'll probably start to show up from a credit standpoint in various areas, especially those that don't have the ability to pass on some of those cost increases. Some have them built into their contracts if they have a contract in place. It's probably easier to at least pass it on. I think it's just too early to tell. It's certainly something that we're watching and we're mindful of. I think overall operating costs for companies and individuals have risen probably faster than their income has. There's probably a little bit of a squeeze going on. It hasn't really shown up dramatically at this stage.

Okay, great. Helpful. Then just thinking about attracting new commercial customers and maintaining a competitive product set, are there any capabilities in like treasury management or like payments or anything that customers are asking for that has led to any thought around further like investments in that platform?

Yeah, thank you. This is Shane. Look, we aspire to be the best bank for privately owned businesses and business owners in the country, and we feel like we're on that path. That really ties back to certainty of execution and quick credit decisions, great treasury and deposit products, and then a sophisticated wealth management capability. When it comes to treasury, we are continually updating our systems, continuing to interface with more third parties such that clients that are using accounting systems and other types of systems to manage their business, it ties directly into our treasury products. We're continually investing in card products. We feel like we've got one of the best purchasing card programs in the country. On top of that, we're working on real-time payments and new payment capabilities that'll help facilitate and hopefully reduce costs and complexity for clients.

Okay, perfect. That's helpful. Then, sorry, just one last one from me. Do you have the total revenue producer number at the bank today, just to help get some context around the size of the new hires?

The revenue producers, let's call it north of 200.

Yeah. This is John. I think the number you're fishing for is, a quarter or two ago, we suggested that we were going to raise the expectation for compounded annual revenue producers to go maybe towards 15% annualized versus the 10% we talked about a year ago. The first quarter success with landing bankers certainly supports that thought process. Is that what you're looking for?

Yep. Exactly. Great. Thanks for the color.

You bet.

That concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the conference back over to Mr. John Hairston for closing remarks.

Thanks, Abby, for moderating the call. Everything went well. Thanks everyone for your interest, and we look forward to seeing you on the road very soon. You have a great afternoon.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call, and we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.