Pinnacle Financial Partners Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
October 16, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Company delivered one of its best quarterly beats, with revenue up 31.5% year-over-year and adjusted EPS up 54%, supported by double-digit growth in key metrics.
  • Positive Sentiment: Balance sheet growth remained robust, with linked-quarter annualized loan growth of 8.9%, core deposit growth of 10.6%, and noninterest-bearing deposit growth of 14.5%; 2025 loan outlook raised to 9–10%.
  • Positive Sentiment: The net interest margin expanded by 3 bps to 3.26%, and net interest income growth outlook was raised to 13–14% for 2025, benefiting from anticipated Fed rate cuts and improved deposit betas.
  • Positive Sentiment: Pre-merger integration with Synovus is on track for a Q1 close, with key strategic decisions made and a combined footprint positioned to drive accelerated revenue and EPS growth through market share gains and high Net Promoter Scores.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Credit quality remained strong with net charge-offs improving to 18 bps and asset-quality metrics near historical lows, offset by a 26–27 bps provision increase to cover higher unfunded commitments.
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Earnings Conference Call
Pinnacle Financial Partners Q3 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Pinnacle Financial Partners Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Hosting the call today from Pinnacle Financial Partners is Mr. Terry Turner, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Harold Carpenter, Chief Financial Officer. Please note Pinnacle's earnings release and this morning's presentation are available on the Investor Relations page of their website at www.pnfp.com. Today's call is being recorded and will be available for replay on Pinnacle Financial's website for the next 90 days. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. If you'd like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your touch-tone phone. Analysts will be given preference during the Q&A. We ask that you please pick up your headset to allow optimal sound quality.

Operator

During this presentation, we may make comments which may constitute forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other facts that may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of Pinnacle Financial to differ materially from any results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Many of such factors are beyond Pinnacle Financial's ability to control or predict, and listeners are cautioned not to put undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. A more detailed description of these and other risks is contained in Pinnacle Financial's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2024, and its subsequently filed quarterly reports. Pinnacle Financial disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this presentation, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. In addition, these remarks may include certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G.

Operator

A presentation of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP measures will be made available on Pinnacle Financial's website at www.pnfp.com. With that, I'm now going to turn the presentation over to Mr. Terry Turner, Pinnacle's President and CEO.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Thank you, Matthew, and thanks for joining us. I'm sure no one's keeping track, but next week will be Pinnacle's 25th anniversary, which makes this the 100th quarterly close for Harold and me. Happily, this is one of the best in a long history of beaten-raised quarters. This has been our custom for a very long time. We begin every quarterly call with the same shareholder value dashboard, GAAP measures first, followed by the non-GAAP measures, which are the ones that I focus on to manage the firm. As you can see across the bottom row, our asset quality metrics remain well below pre-COVID median levels, with all problem loan metrics continuing to operate at or near historical lows. On the middle row, of course, everything's up and to the right.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

You can see the balance sheet continues to reliably build quarter after quarter with double-digit CAGRs for loans and core deposits over nearly a five-year period of time. That's largely attributable to our ability to recruit and retain proven revenue producers and consolidate their relationships. We expect balance sheet growth to continue based on the revenue producers that are currently on our payroll, but have not yet completed consolidating their books to us. We've continued hiring at a similar pace in 2025, which should help to continue to further produce balance sheet growth. More on future balance sheet growth expectations and hiring in a minute.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Moving on to the top row, you can see that the sustainable and reliable balance sheet growth has resulted in rapid revenue and EPS and the double-digit CAGR for tangible book value per share growth, which we believe are the three metrics most highly correlated with total shareholder return. That's been our relentless pursuit over the last 25 years and has resulted in the second highest total shareholder return among all the publicly traded banks in the country since our NASDAQ listing in 2002. A number of times over the years, I've used the flywheel concept, which was developed by Jim Collins in Good to Great, to help crystallize for investors the sustainable momentum that we've built in this firm.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

I think I last used it in 2022, and it's hard to imagine that many are unfamiliar with the concept, but the idea is that through a series of disciplined, consistent efforts in the right direction, you eventually produce accelerated and sustained growth. I don't think there could be a better descriptor of Pinnacle over time than accelerated and sustained growth. For us, that hedgehog strategy, that disciplined and consistent effort in the right direction, is our continuous recruitment and retention of market-leading revenue producers. I've developed in previous quarterly investor calls how that hiring translates into the kind of sustainable balance sheet growth you saw on the previous slide.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

In last quarter's earnings call, I demonstrated how our hiring today could yield approximately $19 billion in loan growth that would materialize over the next five years, again, with no further hiring and irrespective of tariffs, Fed rate moves, general economic conditions, and so forth, simply based on the continued consolidation of relationships by the relationship managers on our payroll at that time. Third Quarter 2025 is just another quarter on that march, with third quarter linked quarter annualized growth rates of 14.5% for non-interest-bearing deposits, 10.6% for core deposits, 8.9% for loans, 31.5% for revenue, and 54% for adjusted EPS. For those who wondered whether we could sustain momentum post-merger, I hope we've at least put that question to bed.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Annual FDIC data were released in the third quarter, which made clear not only the success that we've enjoyed over the last decade, but why we were so optimistic about the future. We've long targeted the market share leaders in our markets. Here you can see the magnitude of their vulnerability given up over the last decade, as noted in the red circles: 10.3% in Nashville, 15.1% in Chattanooga, 13.9% in Knoxville, and 16.7% in Memphis. That is major vulnerability. Across the bottom in the blue circles, you see the incredible effectiveness of the Pinnacle model in the same time period, picking up another 3% in Nashville, where we enjoy the number one rank, and not by a little, but by a lot, 8.4% in Chattanooga, 7.8% in Knoxville, and 5.1% in Memphis.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Hopefully, this illustrates our excitement about the ongoing matchup, our ability to continue rapid balance sheet growth, and ultimately to produce outsized revenue and EPS growth. Here you're looking at the same data across other southeastern markets, where you can see fundamentally the same competitive vulnerabilities. Along the bottom row, you see the magnitude of the vulnerability we're attempting to seize from those share leaders that we target. Look at these markets like 11.9% share loss in Greensboro, North Carolina, 11.9% share loss in Raleigh, North Carolina, 10.8% share loss in Greenville, South Carolina, 9.1% share loss in Charleston, South Carolina, 12.1% share loss in Atlanta, Georgia, where post-merger we'll have the number four market share position. Honestly, that is one of the things that excites me most about our combination with Synovus.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

When you combine that FDIC data with the Greenwich data demonstrating the differentiated service level that Pinnacle provides when combined with Synovus, you can see why we believe that we'll be the fastest growing, most dynamic large regional bank in the country. Here you're looking at Greenwich data for businesses with sales from $1 to $500 million in the legacy Pinnacle footprint. North and South, we're plotting market share. East and West, we're plotting net promoter scores. Obviously, the goal is to get to the top right quadrant. The first observation is that with this merger, we will have arrived. Combining Pinnacle's share with Synovus's share and our existing footprint puts us on the heels of the three market share leaders, which are in the top left box. That's an 8% share position, lead share position.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

That leads to the second, even more important observation: combining Pinnacle's net promoter scores with Synovus's net promoter scores in our footprint, we retain the highest net promoter score. All of that leads to the third and single most important observation. This merger is unique in its ability to run a differentiated service model, literally the best, with a combined net promoter score near 80. We'll be competing against banks who amassed great share in previous decades, but who have lost the engagement of their clients, some with net promoter scores in the 20s, making them likely to continue giving up share, particularly to a bank like ours with similar mass in the market, but with a meaningfully differentiated service level. In my career, I have never seen a more advantaged competitive position than the one we'll enjoy post-merger.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

I recognize some have been concerned about a loss of momentum post-merger announcement. As you saw earlier, there was certainly no loss of momentum in terms of financial performance in Q3. Here you can see there was no loss of hiring momentum in Q3, hiring almost exactly the number of revenue producers as we hired on average in the first two quarters of 2025, pre-announcement, and consistent with the quarterly run rate over the previous four quarters. Interestingly, the kill rate on job offers, meaning turning job offers into hires, remained unchanged post-announcement, hiring 91.5% of those that were offered jobs in the first two quarters pre-announcement and 91.6% in the third quarter. From 30,000 ft, drawn on Mark Twain, rumors of our untimely demise were greatly exaggerated. Our flywheel continues to spin and when you overlay this model on the Synovus.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

franchise, the growth of revenue producers and therefore the growth in revenue should be extraordinary. With that, let me turn it over to Harold for a detailed look at the quarter.

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Thanks, Terry, and I guess Mark Twain as well.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

There you go.

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Good morning, everybody. We will again start with loans. End-of-period loans increased 8.9% linked quarter annualized, a little less than we anticipated, but still a strong effort by our relationship managers, one that does not cause us to think any less about the fourth quarter. As our fourth quarter pipelines and quarter-to-date results are in great shape, we will continue to lean on our new markets and new revenue producers to provide the punch for our loan growth. Given third quarter results and fourth quarter pipelines, we've adjusted our end-of-period loan outlook range to consider 9%-10% growth this year. We're also pleased with how our loan yields performed during the third quarter. Although the lift from fixed-rate repricing is not as opportunistic as it once was, we will anticipate continued lift in fixed-rate loan rates.

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Loan yields should decrease in the fourth quarter, consistent with Fed funds rate decreases, but these decreases we believe will be at consistent betas, and obviously we will offset these decreases with corresponding decreases in deposit rates. End-of-period deposit growth came in at 6.4% linked quarter annualized. Over the years, we typically experience more deposit growth in the second half of the year than the first half. As a result, we're increasing the low end of our estimated growth rate for total end-of-period deposits to 8% and maintaining the high end at 10% in deposit growth for 2025. As we highlighted in the press release last night, we are very excited about the performance of our non-interest-bearing deposits and the growth we have seen this year.

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

To see the rebound in those dollars this year is very much a tailwind in our spread income as we head into the fourth quarter and 2026. Many thanks to our revenue producers, treasury professionals, and specialty deposit units for all the hard work getting these very valuable operating accounts. We're also very pleased with how deposit pricing has performed thus far and how both of our loan and deposit betas have performed through the current rate cycle. We anticipate our betas will remain consistent given we anticipate incremental rate cuts in the fourth quarter. We anticipated a modest increase in NIM in the third quarter, so we're pleased that our NIM finished up three basis points at 3.26%. Our outlook for the fourth quarter of 2025 is more bullish, as our NIM should continue to increase with the anticipated two additional rate cuts.

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

As for our 2025 outlook for net interest income, we have increased our estimated growth range for net interest income and now believe our growth outlook will approximate a range of 13%-14% over 2024 results. Obviously, any surprise Fed funds rate decisions and the slope of the yield curve will have influence on how all of this plays out for the remainder of this year. As to rate cut, we've modeled out many scenarios and again feel we're in pretty good shape to manage through most rate forecasts that are talked about in the markets today. Our current Fed funds rate forecast contemplates a rate cut in October and another in December. At this time, we do believe more rate cuts are helpful, but given the timing, we believe whatever might happen otherwise will not have a substantial impact on our anticipated 2025 results.

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

As to credit, our net charge-offs decreased 18 basis points in the third quarter from 20 basis points in the second quarter. For the full year 2025, our net charge-off outlook is unchanged as we estimate net charge-offs for 2025 coming in at approximately 18-20 basis points. We've increased our estimated 2025 outlook for our provision to average loans to 26-27 basis points. This increase is partially attributable to the increase in our reserve for unfunded commitments. That increase is very much volume-related and consistent with increased outstanding unfunded lines of credit issued to our borrowers in the third quarter. A quick word about BHG. BHG had an exceptional third quarter, providing fee revenues to us of over $40 million. Production was again strong in the third quarter. Credit losses also were improved third quarter compared to second quarter.

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Off-balance sheet loan sales were at spreads in excess of 10%, while margins for owned balance sheet loans are now in excess of 11%. That said, we are anticipating BHG's fourth quarter results to be less in earnings than the third quarter. For the fourth quarter, we're estimating BHG's results should contribute approximately $30 million to our non-interest income. Given these matters, we and BHG are both comfortable in raising our earnings estimate for BHG earnings growth in 2025 to approximate 85%-90% growth over the results reported in 2024. Several factors are contributing to this decision: stronger production lead flow, great spreads, better credit performance, and better operating margins, all of which should point to what should be a very strong year for BHG. Lastly, to our outlook for 2025, I mentioned much of the information on the slide.

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Again, the investments we've made in our new markets and our hiring success are the building blocks we will lean into in order to position us for top quartile growth in EPS and tangible book value per share amongst our peers. As to non-interest income, banking fees and wealth management are performing well. Along with BHG's estimated growth this year, we're comfortable increasing our guidance for non-interest income from 12% to 15% growth to now 20% to 22% growth this year. As I mentioned previously, BHG will likely approximate $30 million in the fourth quarter and make up most of the overall variance between our third quarter and fourth quarter anticipated results. As to expenses, our prior outlook reflected 115% of target award for our associates, which now, given our more positive outlook for the year, we are increasing to an anticipated 125% target as of September 30th.

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Through all of that, we are modifying our total expense outlook to a range of $1.15 billion-$1.155 billion for estimated expenses for this year. As the slide indicates above, we are projecting an effective tax rate for 2025 in the low 18% range, which will basically be consistent with last year. Now, as to PP&R and summing all of that up, we look at our fourth quarter PP&R, excluding BHG and merger costs. We think the fourth quarter will be flat to up from the third quarter. As to year-over-year PP&R, we think we'll be in the 7%-8% range in growth.

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Even as all the uncertainties around rates and tariffs play out, we are confident that 2025 will shape up to be one of the best years we've experienced in our 25-year history and provide a great deal of momentum as we prepare to head into 2026 with our new partners at Synovus. If there's anything investors know about us, it is that we are very competitive and we love to prove things to the doubters. All of our associates are in for a lot of work next year, but also, in my opinion, all of these associates will have a lot of fun as we continue to hire more people, grow revenues, and grow earnings as we work to build the Southeast Growth Champion. With that, I will hand it back over to Terry.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Okay, thanks, Harold. Speaking of building the Southeast Growth Champion, when we announced the deal, we disclosed the compelling financial and client-centric metrics for this transaction, literally peer-leading growth and profitability. We also talked about the stark contrast between this deal and others as a result of doing the hard work to hash out critical decisions pre-merger. For any of you who've been through this kind of thing before, you know that to have decided on exactly what the ongoing go-to-market strategy would be, the specific model that we'll run, to have selected the ongoing brand pre-merger, to have made and clarified for the whole organization one ongoing long-term CEO, to have already determined the core processor, those pre-merger decisions have indeed been powerful in terms of propelling the integration of these two great firms. We were able to move quickly.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

We finalized all the key leadership positions, having now pushed it down three levels into the organization. We were able to evaluate and make most key system decisions, though not all have been finalized and announced as we complete negotiations with various systems providers, mail the proxy materials, and undergo pre-merger exams by the Fed. We're rapidly progressing through the final milestones toward an anticipated first quarter close, including holding the special shareholder meeting on November 6th, completing the entire org chart literally down to each individual by November 10th, and ultimately closing sometime in the first quarter. I suspect that I have yet to convince everyone of the power of the merger with Synovus, but I expect you'll recall when we announced the deal, we showcased our projections for ongoing revenue and EPS growth, profitability, and so forth. Virtually all key metrics were peer-leading or number one.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

It seems to me the only reason you wouldn't want to own shares in that company is that you need to see it to believe it. It's my hope that our third quarter performance and continuing hiring momentum has delivered the first proof. Operator, with that, we'll stop and take questions.

Operator

Thank you, Mr. Turner. Everyone, the floor is now open for your questions. If you'd like to ask a question at this time, please press star one on your touch-tone phone. Analysts will be given preference during the Q&A. Again, we do ask that when you ask your question, please pick up your headset to provide optimal sound quality. Your first question is coming from Jared Shaw from Barclays Capital. Your line is live.

Jared Shaw
Jared Shaw
Managing Director at Barclays Capital

Good morning. Thanks for the question. I'm just looking at slide 11 and the pace of hiring by revenue producers and the success rate of the offer acceptance rate. As we go forward and we look at the company as a pro forma company, you reference the ability to add 300 RMs. I guess, are there 300 RMs that fit the Pinnacle model out in that market? What type of increase in the pace should we expect as we look at 2026 and 2027?

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Yeah, I think, on the question of are there 300 in the market, there may not be 300 in the market right this minute, but there'll be 300 in the market over time. All I mean by that is when we hire people, it has not been uncommon in our history to hire somebody from another bank, have that bank backfill with somebody else, and we go back three or four years later and hire the person that they backfilled with. I don't, I'm not concerned about will there be enough talent to hire. I think, Jared, if I could say this, you didn't exactly ask this, but I know a lot of people have questions about the competitive landscape. Are you going to be able to keep hiring people and so forth? Jared, I think you've heard me answer that question.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

I've been asked that question since 2002 when we first were listed on the NASDAQ. I get asked that question all the time. Every year we keep hiring at record paces in terms of the people that we hire. The point of that is the more people that you do hire, the more people that you can hire. That's a really important idea. I'll use the, having grown up in Georgia, I'll use the standard phrase, we got the carpetbaggers coming to the Southeast who don't know, don't have people, use traditional hiring models, all that sort of stuff. Our approach of using the people that we've hired to lead us to others to hire is, I think, time-tested in a competitive landscape there.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

In terms of the incremental hiring, the biggest partner, and one of the great excitements to me in this transaction is to overlay this model, which I think is running, hitting on all eight, overlay this model on the Synovus footprint. I know Kevin is fired up for the same reason. They've done an extraordinary job compounding EPS growth, the movements toward revenue producers. I think they had a commitment to hire, roughly, 45 relationship managers a year was the previous commitment they had had. We think that'll accelerate by 35 to call it 80 a year in that footprint. That's the magic, to put this model on that footprint, gin up the revenue growth to match what happens in the Pinnacle footprint. Not only ought that to grow the earnings, but it ought to grow the multiple as well. That's the game plan.

Jared Shaw
Jared Shaw
Managing Director at Barclays Capital

Okay, thanks for the color. Just shifting over to BHG, obviously it was a great quarter there, and guidance for still a strong quarter in the fourth quarter. I guess, how does the bigger pro forma balance sheet, or does the bigger pro forma Pinnacle balance sheet, change the thought process on what the best use case of BHG is? Do you expect the pro forma balance sheet to maybe hold more BHG loans?

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Yeah, Jared, this is Harold. I'll take the first question. I'll take that question and let Terry talk about what might happen in the future. I think BHG's growth is going to be consistent going into next year. Their quarterly run rates right now have improved meaningfully over the last four quarters. I think there's a great deal of opportunity available to the new Pinnacle as it goes into 2026. I don't think, Synovus or Kevin, I'll say it better this way, Kevin, Jamie, and the leadership that'll be at the new Pinnacle has any different approach towards BHG than we do currently. I think there's a lot of options available to us with respect to BHG. Right now, they seem to be all positive.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Yeah. Jared, I would just say I think the optionality is as high today as it's been in a number of years. To Harold's point, you got rapid growth, which is good if you hold it, but it also increases its attractiveness to potential acquirers. I don't think there's been any noticeable change in our partners. I think we've said for some time we expect them and see them more interested in a liquidity event today than what they have expressed in years gone by. At any rate, I think we're just exactly at the same spot we've been at.

Jared Shaw
Jared Shaw
Managing Director at Barclays Capital

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Catherine Neeler from ABW. Your line is live.

Operator

Hey, good morning.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Hey, good morning.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Just one follow-up on the BHG question. Is there any reason to assume that, I mean, that was amazing growth this quarter, and we got another one coming this quarter for BHG earnings? Is there, I mean, is it fair to still assume growth in BHG into 2026 relative to kind of the record levels we're seeing in 2026? Clearly not the 80%-90% growth rate, right? That'll moderate. Just, is there any reason to not assume that we shouldn't still grow BHG next year off of these levels?

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

No, it'll grow. I think the quarterly run rates will be consistent going into next year as far as, call it, the third and fourth quarter. I think there'll be a more reasonable growth path once you annualize, call it, the third and fourth quarter going into 2026. It'll still be an outsized year-over-year number. They're real excited about the way the production flows are coming in. They're real excited about the appetite for their volumes, and they think they can continue to kind of move this franchise forward.

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Okay, great. Fee income, even separately from BHG, was really strong at both Pinnacle and Synovus this quarter. Would you say that is encapsulated as you think about the merger slide deck and kind of looking towards that $1,160 kind of pro forma 2027 P? Is this kind of strength in fee income reflected in that, or is this even coming in better than you would have expected as you think about that pro forma run rate?

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Yeah, I think, and we got to listen to most of the Synovus call this morning. I think Jamie described it well. The areas where we complement each other are really good and strong. I think when you merge these two companies together, you get the strength at Synovus in these various fee areas and you match it with the strength in Pinnacle in our various fee areas. I think there's going to be a lot of opportunity to put some real tailwind into some of this fee revenue going forward, whether it be around wealth management or capital markets or wherever. We think we're going to be able to approach the market with a lot of strength once we kind of, you know, push these two companies together.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Guys, and. Let me add to Harold's comments. I echo his thoughts on the potential revenue synergies. We'll get in a position soon to sort of quantify those for the marketplace. Again, my belief is we've got very strong revenue synergies. More to your question about what's the current run rate, how does that impact what the original case that we discussed when we announced the deal? I think that merger model is just built on what consensus estimates were. I can't say I've always, that 100% of the time I beat the consensus estimates, but I don't think there's ever a time I didn't think I was going through or intended not to beat the consensus estimate. My only point about that is that, yeah, our expectation, my expectation is to run faster than consensus estimates.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

I think this growth rate that you're seeing right now would be still higher than the plan that we had laid, which would be higher than consensus. At any rate, I do think there's a lot of momentum in the fee income as it relates to the original projected growth.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Yeah, perfect. That's what I was hoping and assumed you would say. Yeah, you do have a history of beating consensus, Terry. All right, great. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Anthony Elian from JPMorgan. Your line is live.

Anthony Elian
Anthony Elian
Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan

Hi, Terry. On hiring, I'm wondering if anything will change on legacy Pinnacle's hiring strategy post-deal close, given the organization will be doubling its assets, right? I know on slide 11, you're forecasting another strong year for hiring next year and in 2027. What gives you confidence that the existing strategy you've had in place for two decades now will continue to be successful after you close the deal?

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Tommy, I think I'd turn it around the other way if I could. I mean, what would keep it from being successful, I guess, is really a better question. You know what we do. We hire people. When we hire those people, we poll them on who else do you know that's really good where you work and who would fit in in this company. Will you help us recruit them because they fall in love with this company? I cannot imagine what would interrupt that cycle. As I said earlier, the more people that we do hire, the more people that we can hire because of the way we go at it. It is a wildly different, starkly different model than what all of our competitors do for recruiting. Most of those people will rely on headhunters.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Most of those people will have a big recruiting function as part of their HR operation. Most of them resort to the stack of resumes that have been sent in by unhappy, unsuccessful people. Most of them are hiring out of a pool of applications of folks that came in to apply because they were unhappy, unsuccessful somewhere else. It's just a different model altogether. I'll just have to be honest, I cannot see what would interrupt it. I think you've seen the slide that we put out in the 8K at the time we filed the registration statement, but we talked about the skepticism when we did the BNC transaction. These numbers won't be exactly right, but they're close. I would say we were probably an $11 billion bank or something on that order. BNC was a $7.5 billion bank when we made the acquisition.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

There was near universal skepticism about our ability to continue the model on this bigger footprint, bigger asset base, and so forth. You've seen the numbers. We hired the heck out of people. We compounded the balance sheet at a double-digit rate, and we outperformed the KRX two times from the date of that announcement. I get the question because it's the same question I have faced so many times. I would just turn it around and say, hey, I don't see what would interrupt it.

Anthony Elian
Anthony Elian
Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan

Thank you, Terry. My follow-up on BHG, what specifically drove the growth in originations in the third quarter? Given the strong results on both originations and credit in 3Q, what's driving the expected decline in BHG income in 4Q to $30 million? Thank you.

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Yeah, Tony, as far as the third quarter growth rate, it was just merely about production. They do business with several credit aggregators. They run them through the BHG filter, and that's what the primary growth rate came from. There was also some holdover inventory from the previous quarter that facilitated that. Their demand for their product is extremely high right now, not only from the community bank network, but from institutional buyers. As to the fourth quarter, I think that's a little bit of caution for us. We believe that as they head into the fourth quarter, they're a private company. I'm sure there's going to be some year-end kind of things that they're going to want to do, but they believe their production will be as strong going into the fourth quarter.

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

We're kind of putting a caution flag up for the fourth quarter because we just believe that there might be some, call it, personnel costs and other things that come in in the fourth quarter to cause us to be a little more cautious.

Anthony Elian
Anthony Elian
Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Steven Scoutin from Piper Sandler. Your line is live.

Steven Scouten
Steven Scouten
Managing Director at Piper Sandler

Hey, good morning, everyone. Appreciate the time. I wanted to go back to slide nine. This feels like the whole story to me. I love this slide. I feel like it proves a great point. Is that the right way to think about it? The right side of this slide, in particular, the expansion markets and who knows, we might see some of these banks in here go away as well, which could even only increase the opportunity. You guys have this now established stability over the next at least handful of years, whereas there's still dislocation and the opportunity for you to take a bunch of market share. Can you kind of confirm that for me, maybe if that is, as I see it, the whole story and really how you think about that opportunity set?

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Yeah, Steven, thanks for the question. I have said for a long time, anytime I'm trying to orient a new investor to our company, I'll talk about the markets that we're in, the size and growth dynamics, and so forth. As you know, all these markets up here, if you go look at the household income growth or the population growth or whatnot, they're the best markets in the United States in terms of size and growth dynamics. You're on the right point. What is more important and what drives the revenue engine of this company is the market share takeaway opportunity that exists. The people that dominate the market are giving up share at a dramatic pace. Yes, that's exactly what we're trying to do, seize that vulnerability. If you think about getting up there into the top right quadrant, man, that's a dream of a lifetime for me.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

I've been fighting 25 years to get into that top quadrant, and we're here. When you look at the share position, the mass that we have in the Southeast, man, we're in the hunt. Two of the market leaders are at 9%, we're at 8%. Our net promoter score combined with Synovus is near 80%, and theirs is near 20%. Man, you probably wish you hadn't asked the question. You can tell I get wound up about that. That is the opportunity that this company has.

Steven Scouten
Steven Scouten
Managing Director at Piper Sandler

I'm just wondering if Kevin's going to be able to get you to step back at all in two or four years at all. That's really the question. It feels like that excitement is real and that opportunity is real. That's a great answer. I appreciate it.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

I would say that that'll scare him to death.

Steven Scouten
Steven Scouten
Managing Director at Piper Sandler

That's a good fear. I like it. Maybe on the flip side of this, everything sounds like it's going great. The deal sounds like it's on schedule. This is maybe a stupid question because I don't hear it, but is there anything that is an incremental risk at all? Is there anything that you're worried about as you've gotten into this or anything you're like, if something were to crack, this is where my energy is focused? Or is it really just, hey, man, we're on the offense and we're just full steam ahead?

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Steven, that's a great question. I think in terms of broad risk categories, like is there something that we're discovering on the balance sheet or is something happening from a competitive or a regulatory standpoint that would cause us to feel different in any way? I don't think there's anything there. Everything we've encountered thus far is really on the positive side of the ledger. I wouldn't want you to walk away and say, hey, man, it's just all roses there. This is hard work. I wouldn't want anybody to think it's not. We are working extraordinarily hard to get these companies put together to protect our people, the existing revenue producers that we have. I think you saw there, we still run a 93% associate retention rate, which I'm proud of. It's hard work for sure.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

In terms of the financial outcomes and the client-centric outcomes that we believed in when we announced the transaction, I'd say I'm more convicted as opposed to less.

Steven Scouten
Steven Scouten
Managing Director at Piper Sandler

That's great. Maybe just one last follow-up on what you just said, Terry. Forgive me for not looking this up. I know you used to put it at the bottom of the press release, but that employee retention, like as memory serves me, it's always kind of floated in this 91%-96% range for years and years. That's pretty consistent with what you guys have delivered on over the long term, correct?

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

I would say if somebody just said, Terry, give me a band to where it's been over a decade, I'd say 93%-96%, sort of where it operates. The associate retention rate over the last 12 months was 93%. The associate retention rate in the first two quarters of this deal prior to the announcement was 93%. Third quarter is 93%. It's solid.

Steven Scouten
Steven Scouten
Managing Director at Piper Sandler

Fantastic. Thanks for all the time and congrats on all the progress.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

All right. Thank you, Steven.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Brett Rabatin from Hovde Group. Your line is live.

Brett Rabatin
Brett Rabatin
Managing Director and Head of Equity Research at Hovde Group

Hey guys, good morning. Thanks for the question. Wanting to first go back to the margin. In the slide deck, you referenced margin tailwinds. I think, Harold, you said you think the 4Q margin will be a little stronger. Can you just talk about the tailwinds as you see them? Is that primarily on the deposit beta side? Anything else you would say about the dynamic with the margin as we go into 4Q?

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Yeah, Brett, I think the three things that we look to as far as a tailwind for the margin, obviously, is debate on the deposit side. We consistently believe we've got significant room yet to go as the Fed lowers rates. The growth in these non-interest-bearing deposit accounts, we think, is very impactful. Also, how we reprice these fixed-rate credits. We're still seeing a meaningful lift in that book. As a matter of fact, I think we have a negative beta in our fixed-rate loans right now and anticipate that to continue. Those three things are the primary things. I know a lot of people believe that it's what's that movie Field of Dreams where you just build it, they'll come. There's a lot of work going on to maintain these margins and to increase these margins. A lot of relationship managers are out there working to make that happen.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

It just doesn't happen automatically is what I'm trying to say.

Brett Rabatin
Brett Rabatin
Managing Director and Head of Equity Research at Hovde Group

Okay, that's helpful. The other question I had was around the strong DDA growth in the quarter. I think obviously some of that was related to specialty deposits. Can you talk about that dynamic, how much of that was maybe specialty deposits? As we think about those specialty businesses, what kind of share you're at in those businesses? Is that something you can continue to grow at the pace you have?

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Yeah, you know, it's like, I guess it goes into leadership and management. For years, we've been aimed at operating accounts. Over the last, call it 12 months, 9 to 12 months, we've put particular emphasis on the sales side about that, and particularly around small business. We've seen some great results there in the last few months that have really kind of been, again, not to overuse a word, but the tailwind for that growth.

Brett Rabatin
Brett Rabatin
Managing Director and Head of Equity Research at Hovde Group

Okay. Harold, is it fair that that kind of pace can continue? Or any thoughts on,

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

We don't have any reason to believe we won't see continued growth in that. We typically see some seasonality going into the last quarter of the year as people build cash balances for incentives, taxes, and whatnot. I think we'll also see absolute sales growth with respect to those operating accounts.

Brett Rabatin
Brett Rabatin
Managing Director and Head of Equity Research at Hovde Group

Okay.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Brett, you know the numbers as well as I do. You got a 14.5% annualized, third quarter annualized growth rate. I think the year-to-date number is 12.8%, nearly 13%. It's a pretty rock-solid growth.

Brett Rabatin
Brett Rabatin
Managing Director and Head of Equity Research at Hovde Group

That's a great point. Thanks, Terry. Appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Michael Rose from Raymond James. Your line is live.

Michael Rose
Michael Rose
Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Raymond James

Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I was just looking at slide 28 where you have the loan growth kind of by expansion markets versus legacy markets. It looks like you've had some headwinds in the legacy markets over the past couple of quarters. Can you just address that? Separately, once you guys combine, I know your C&D and construction, or CRE concentrations are below where you've wanted to get them. Is that an opportunity for growth on a combined basis once the deal is closed as we move forward? Thanks.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Yeah, I'll hit a couple of things, Michael. If you look at that slide you're talking about there, we have several components to it, right? You got a category that's called legacy. What that really means is not the legacy market. It is the legacy bankers in a legacy market. So it's people that probably have been here on average 20 years, and they have big books of business. When you go through periods of slack loan demand, which we've certainly been through over the last couple of years, you get limited growth. In fact, it's hard for those guys to cover their amortization when there's no loan demand. If you get loan demand, then that becomes the increment in that category. The way we produce the growth is through hiring, both in the legacy footprint. A lot of our new hires are in legacy footprints.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

That's where the growth comes from, the continued market share play there. The specialty businesses have provided a great growth engine for us over the last, I would say, three years or something like that. I think as it relates to the go forward, we would expect to continue similar growth trends going forward for the foreseeable future. If we get elevated loan demand, that would be an increment to what we intend to produce. You're on the right track on CRE. I didn't spend any time on that. We grew 8.9% in total volume, but the drag, you had big growth in C&I, nearly 18% or something like that. We had $560 million, I think, in early payoffs in the CRE book. As you know, some time ago, we decided to lower our concentration limits in CRE. We have been about that.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

We've now hit those targets, and we have weighted back into the market. As you know, the payoffs continue, but it takes a while for the loans that you're making today to get burned through the equity that's in front of you and get to a fund-up period. To get down to the bottom of the stack here, yes, I believe CRE will be a meaningful increment to us in terms of loan volume going forward.

Michael Rose
Michael Rose
Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Raymond James

Very helpful, Terry. Maybe just one follow-up, and I know it's minor. Credit's been very good, but on slide 15, you did have a little bit of pickup in classified potential problems, things like that. Anything that you guys are more broadly looking at? I know there's a lot of concern around some of these structured credits, NDFI stuff. Another bank showed up in a lost position last night in another credit. Anything that you guys are just broadly keeping a closer eye on or a little bit concerned about? Thanks.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Yeah, Michael. So far, we feel pretty good about where that NDFI book sits. It's a pretty granular book. I think our average outstanding to that is about $4 million per account, so there's a lot of accounts in it. We feel like we've got our arms around it and are being more diligent with respect to all the loans that we're not the lead bank on for sure. As to the increase in potential problems, that's primarily attributed to one credit. It's a healthcare client that we've had our eyes on for a while. They only recently put a new manager into the CEO slot there, somebody that's a seasoned turnaround specialist and not a physician. We think we're in pretty good shape with that one credit.

Michael Rose
Michael Rose
Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Raymond James

All right. Thanks for taking my questions.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Casey Haire from Autonomous Research. Your line is live.

Casey Haire
Managing Director at Autonomous Research

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Earlier today, Kevin and Jamie talked about capital and that you don't have capital ratio targets post-deal. I just wanted to touch on, I know you guys have tended to run with more capital to make your clients feel better. I'm just wondering if that dynamic will hold or does it mitigate somewhat given you're now, you know, over $100 billion in assets?

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Yeah, obviously, Kevin and Jamie will direct traffic on that once the transaction closes. We're not planning on any kind of additional capital strategies than what we've traditionally deployed. We need capital to support this loan growth engine, and we think that'll continue. I think one of the things that was, I believe, put forth in the merger deck is the dividend. I think ours will go up and theirs will come down. Other than that, I don't know of any significant other changes. I know Jamie has mentioned several times about the capital accretion that'll occur post-merger. If, for some reason, we don't hit our growth targets, then there's a lot of opportunities to get into some buyback programs.

Casey Haire
Managing Director at Autonomous Research

Okay, great. Another follow-up on slide 11, the recruiting strategy, a bit of a two-parter. One, have the terms of your hires, have they been similar or have you had to maybe sweeten the economics a little bit? Then two, you guys have talked about Texas in the past, and expanding there. A lot of M&A activity there, could be a market that would, for your guys, recruiting strategy would resonate well. Just some thoughts there.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Yeah, I think on the recruitment, current recruitment conditions, terms and conditions, and so forth, I don't think there's any doubt that it is a, it's probably a more competitive hiring landscape today than it would have been 10 years ago or something like that. There's elevated competition, and sometimes that'll bear on pricing. Casey, I think one of the things that people forget, at least in terms of the way we look at it, the profit leverage on a commercial relationship manager is so wide. I would say even mediocre commercial relationship managers, you probably make something on the order of $2 million a year on. You got some, you make $12 million a year in contribution. If you have to bid up $50,000 on the comp expense, it's just not a roadblock to making the hire. The profit leverage is so strong in those experienced relationship managers.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

You can waste your money. You can hire trainees that don't bring a book, don't have revenue, and all that sort of stuff. Using the model that you're hiring people that on average have 18 years of experience and consolidate a book pretty rapidly, the profit leverage is so strong. I'm not fearful about the impacts of competitive pricing, but you're on the right point. It is a competitive environment out there to hire people. I think as it relates to Texas, what I've always tried to say is we're focused on the Southeast, because of some of the things we've talked about on this call. Of course, if you're just looking at size and growth dynamics, those Texas markets are unmatched. They're fabulous.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

You're right, consolidation will change the landscape, but the Southeast has been more attractive to me than Texas because of that phenomenon where the market share leaders are vulnerable and giving up share at a rapid pace. To date, that hadn't been the case in Texas, but you're right, as the consolidation picks up speed there, there probably will be incremental opportunities.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Brian Martin from Janney. Your line is live.

Brian Martin
Brian Martin
Director at Janney

Hey, good morning, guys.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Hi, Brian.

Brian Martin
Brian Martin
Director at Janney

Just most of mine were answered, but just one question back, Terry or Harold, to the CRE concentration, in terms of kind of picking up a little bit of steam there. Is your expectation, it sounds like, to still stay below those targeted guidelines, even with the growth you're expecting, as you get through the combination of the two companies? The pro forma company will still be below that 70 to 25, even with the meaningful incremental growth you expect, Terry?

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

I think that's generally the case. I think you might have a temporary blip, Bryan, measured against capital, with some tangible book value dilution and so forth, at the start of the transaction, but it's a quick earn back. Yeah, fundamentally, the idea is to continue to operate at those more pure median-like numbers.

Brian Martin
Brian Martin
Director at Janney

Okay, that's helpful. With the rate environment, you guys are expecting a couple of cuts here in the fourth quarter. The outlook in terms of where you're putting on new loans and kind of where you expect those, can you just talk a little bit about where the new origination yields are today and what you expect over the next couple of quarters?

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Yeah, I think the best thing to do, Bryan, is see the trends over the last couple of quarters on those loan originations. I think that'll be fairly consistent in applying the same betas. On deposits, we fully intend to kind of keep our beta numbers where they are, if not grow them over the next, you know, two, three, four rate cuts.

Brian Martin
Brian Martin
Director at Janney

Gotcha. Okay. All right, that's all I had, guys. Thanks very much.

Terry Turner
Terry Turner
President and CEO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Thanks, Brian.

Harold Carpenter
Harold Carpenter
CFO at Pinnacle Financial Partners

Thank you, Brian.

Operator

Thank you. That completes our Q&A session. Everyone, this concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

Executives
Analysts
    • Jared Shaw
      Managing Director at Barclays Capital
    • Analyst at ABW
    • Brett Rabatin
      Managing Director and Head of Equity Research at Hovde Group
    • Anthony Elian
      Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan
    • Steven Scouten
      Managing Director at Piper Sandler
    • Casey Haire
      Managing Director at Autonomous Research
    • Michael Rose
      Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at Raymond James
    • Brian Martin
      Director at Janney
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