Berkshire Hills Bancorp Q3 2025 Earnings Report

Berkshire Hills Bancorp EPS Results

• Actual EPS: N/A
• Consensus EPS: $0.65
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Berkshire Hills Bancorp Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: $113.91 million
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Berkshire Hills Bancorp Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q3 2025
• Date: 10/23/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: N/A
• Conference Call Time: N/A

Berkshire Hills Bancorp (NYSE:BHLB) is the bank holding company for Berkshire Bank, a community-focused financial institution serving customers across the northeastern United States. The company traces its roots to the First National Bank of North Adams in Massachusetts, dating back to the mid-19th century. Over time, a series of mergers and acquisitions led to the formation of Berkshire Hills Bancorp in the early 2000s, enabling the franchise to expand its footprint throughout Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Vermont and eastern Pennsylvania.

The company’s core operations center on commercial and retail banking services, including deposit accounts, business and consumer lending, mortgage origination and construction financing. In addition to traditional interest-earning products, Berkshire Hills Bancorp offers treasury and cash‐management solutions for small and middle-market enterprises, alongside digital banking platforms designed to support both individual and corporate customers. The institution also delivers wealth management, trust services and insurance products through its dedicated subsidiary businesses.

Berkshire Hills Bancorp is led by President and Chief Executive Officer Richard S. Marotta, supported by a senior management team with extensive experience in regional banking and financial services. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, the company emphasizes community engagement and local decision-making, aiming to balance personalized service with the operational scale needed to compete in an expanding multi-state market.

Berkshire Hills Bancorp Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Deacon Financial completed the merger on September 1 and now operates with about $23 billion in assets, $19 billion in deposits and $18 billion in loans, with a planned core system integration in Q1 that will unify brands and operations.
• Negative Sentiment: The company reported a GAAP loss of $56 million for Q3 driven by $130 million of pre-tax charges (≈$78M provision and $52M merger expenses), though operating earnings excluding those items were about $38.5M (≈$0.44/share).
• Negative Sentiment: Credit remains a headwind—allowance for loan losses is $254 million (139 bps coverage), including $77M of specific reserves on roughly $380M of troubled loans, and management expects elevated charge-offs with quarterly provisions running about $5–9M.
• Positive Sentiment: Management expects $15–20 million of purchase-accounting accretion per quarter (included in NIM guidance), September NIM was 412 bps including accretion, and an upcoming FASB accounting change could reverse the credit mark in Q4 and boost equity.
• Positive Sentiment: Merger cost synergies are already materially realized (targeted ~$68.9M) with a near-term noninterest expense run-rate around $122–130M per quarter, and the board raised the quarterly dividend to $0.3225 (annualized $1.29, ≈5.4% yield).

Presentation

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Beacon Financial Corporation third quarter earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Dario Hernandez, Corporate Counsel. You may begin.

[Dario Hernandez, Corporate Counsel at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Thank you, Jean, and good afternoon, everyone. Yesterday, we issued our earnings release presentation, which is available on the investor relations page of our website, beaconfinancialcorporation.com, and it is filed with the SEC. This afternoon's call will be hosted by Paul Perrault and Carl Carlson. During the question-and-answer session, they will be joined by Mark Meiklejohn, Chief Credit Officer. This call may contain forward-looking statements with respect to the financial condition, results of operations, and business of Beacon Financial Corporation. Please refer to page two of our earnings presentation for our forward-looking statement disclaimer. Also, please refer to our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which contain risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements.

[Dario Hernandez, Corporate Counsel at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Any references made during this presentation to non-GAAP measures are only made to assist you in understanding Beacon Financial's results and performance trends and should not be relied on as financial measures of actual results or future predictions. For a comparison and reconciliation to GAAP earnings, please see our earnings release. At this time, I'm pleased to introduce Beacon Financial's President and Chief Executive Officer, Paul Perrault.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Thanks, Dario.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first earnings call as Beacon Financial Corp. Let me start by welcoming the Brookline and Berkshire stockholders, employees, and customers to the new Beacon Financial Corporation, the holding company for Beacon Bank and Trust. This powerful combination between our two great legacy organizations will help position us as a leading Northeast financial institution that provides enhanced service capabilities for our clients, performance for our shareholders, and resources for our communities. On September 1st, the merger and consolidation of the bank charters was completed. However, until we finalize our core system integration in the first quarter of next year, we will continue to conduct business as Brookline Bank, Berkshire Bank, Bankford Island, and PCSB Bank, operating as divisions of Beacon.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

We will formally introduce our Beacon Bank brand to the market over the next few months as we get closer to finalizing our system integrations. The Beacon Bank name represents guidance, strength, and the promise of stability, the core principles the legacy institutions have upheld for generations. With the combined strengths of Berkshire and Brookline, Beacon can help customers make financial decisions with clarity and confidence. The integration is moving ahead as expected. Our priority remains ensuring our customers and communities continue to experience the outstanding service and support our banks are known for, which is driven by the attitude and expertise of our employees and supported by our six Regional Presidents. I want to thank all of our Beacon Bank employees for their hard work on this integration, their continued superior service to our customers, and the commitment to ensuring a smooth transition.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Beacon Financial finished the quarter with $23 billion in assets, $19 billion in deposits, and $18 billion in loans, with third quarter operating earnings of approximately $38.5 million, or $0.44 per share before merger expenses and special charges. We are already beginning to see the rationale for the merger play out with the addition of Berkshire's lower cost deposit base combined with Brookline's higher growth markets, creating opportunities to deepen relationships with clients. I am particularly pleased with our strong retention of client-facing talent through this and the excitement amongst the team, and I am optimistic to see this excitement and energy translated to even more robust results. I will now turn you over to Carl, who will review the company's third quarter.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Thank you, Paul. As Paul mentioned, we closed our merger on September 1st with Berkshire as the legal acquirer and Brookline as the accounting acquirer. As such, historical results reflect Brookline performance, and the assets and liabilities of Berkshire were marked to market and combined with Brookline's as of September 1st. On a combined basis, we finished the quarter with total assets of $22.8 billion. On September 1st, the fair value of Berkshire assets was $12.1 billion, of which we sold approximately $426 million, $177 million in securities, and $249 million in loans. The proceeds were used to reduce wholesale funding.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Excluding the purchase accounting mark, the combined loan portfolio declined $484 million during the quarter, largely driven by the sale of $249 million of purchased residential mortgage loans and the reclass of $83 million in similar loans to held for sale. The sale of those loans closed in October, except for a small pool which closes next week. On the funding side, combined customer deposits increased $89 million. Payroll deposits declined $186 million, while broker deposits and borrowings declined by $249 million and $74 million, respectively. At the end of the quarter, the loan-to-deposit ratio was 96.5%. The allowance for loan losses finished at $254 million, reflecting a coverage ratio of 139 basis points. The allowance includes $77 million in specific reserves on approximately $380 million of loans, representing a coverage rate of 20%.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

The general reserve of $177 million represents a 99 basis point coverage on the balance of the portfolio. Given the strong coverage rate and the current environment, we expect that while charge-offs may remain elevated as we continue to work through these substandard assets, we expect the run rate for the provision to be $5 million-$9 million a quarter as the reserve coverage ratio trends lower. Net charge-offs for the quarter were $15.8 million, all but $1.4 million of the charge-offs were previously reserved for. Our quarterly results reflect two months of earnings for Brookline and one month of earnings on a combined basis. The quarter also included the merger charges and purchase accounting associated with the transaction. We will continue to have merger charges through the first quarter when our core system integration is completed and the remaining cost synergies realized.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

As we anticipated, we reported a GAAP loss for the third quarter of $56 million, or $0.64 per share. The third quarter included pre-tax charges of $130 million, $78 million related to the initial provision expense, and $52 million in merger expenses. Excluding these charges, operating earnings were $39 million, or $0.44 per share. The net interest margin was 372 basis points for the quarter, which included a 30 basis point benefit from purchase accounting. We provided the performance for the month of September, representing the first month of performance on a combined basis and adjusted for the one-time merger-related charges. This is provided on page five of the presentation. Net interest income for September was $72 million, which included $10.7 million in purchase accounting accretion for the month and resulted in a net interest margin of 412 basis points for September.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Of the $10.7 million, $3.8 million was related to the credit mark, with the remaining $6.9 million related to the interest rate mark. Of the $6.9 million, $1.8 million is due to loan prepayments. We expect FASB to release the final rule on accounting for acquired loans and the credit mark to be reversed in the fourth quarter, increasing equity and no longer reflected in income going forward. We currently estimate purchase accounting accretion to be in the range of $15 million-$20 million per quarter, depending on loan prepayment activity. Non-interest income was $8.5 million for the month, reflecting a $25 million-$26 million quarterly run rate. Non-interest expense of $40.6 million for the month captured some of the day-one synergies created by the merger and reflects a quarterly run rate of $122 million.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Amortization of intangibles at $2.7 million for the month reflects an $8.1 million quarterly run rate. Provision for credit losses for September was $6.6 million, but as is typical, true-up of reserves and provision requirements take place in the third month of the quarter. As I stated earlier, we anticipate quarterly provisions to be in the range of $5 million-$9 million. The September operating performance of 129 basis points on assets and over a 15% return on tangible equity illustrates the strong performance of the combined franchise and the potential opportunity going forward. Yesterday, the board approved increasing our quarterly dividend to $0.3225 per share to be paid on November 24 to stockholders of record on November 10. This represents a 79% increase in the cash dividends previously received by Berkshire shareholders and maintains the level of cash dividends previously received by Brookline stockholders.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

The quarterly dividend equates to an annual dividend of $1.29 per share, which was communicated when we announced the merger and currently represents a dividend yield of approximately 5.4%. As Paul mentioned, the team is optimistic and excited as we continue to deliver on the merger benefits. This concludes my formal comments, and I'll turn it back to Paul.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Thanks, Carl. We will now be joined by Mark Meiklejohn, our Chief Credit Officer, and we will open it up for questions.

[Operator]

At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Mark Fitzgibbon with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

[Mark Fitzgibbon, Head of FSG Research at Piper Sandler]

Hey, guys. Good afternoon and congratulations on the completion of the deal.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Thanks, Mark.

[Mark Fitzgibbon, Head of FSG Research at Piper Sandler]

First question I had, I guess, for Carl. Carl, what should we expect for the remaining deal-related charges to be in 4Q and 1Q? Do you have a sense for a rough range on that?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

I think it's going to be between $22 million and $24 million, in that range.

[Mark Fitzgibbon, Head of FSG Research at Piper Sandler]

Okay, great. I wondered if you could share any color on that $12.4 million office loan that you referenced in Boston. Any color on that? I was also curious, from which institution did this loan come from?

[Mark Meiklejohn, Chief Credit Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Mark, this is Mark Meiklejohn. That loan is a downtown Boston office property. It's a retail first-floor, office above. At this point, the retail is full, and otherwise, the building is largely vacant. We've got about a 25%-30% reserve on that loan. Currently, it's being marketed for a potential sale, so we feel like we're in a pretty good place on it.

[Mark Fitzgibbon, Head of FSG Research at Piper Sandler]

Okay, great. Lastly, it looks like your capital ratios were stronger than we expected coming out of the deal, and it sounds like with the accounting adjustment potentially in the fourth quarter, capital ratios get even a little bit better. I guess I'm curious what your thoughts are on stock buybacks going forward.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

We love the idea, particularly with the price where it is. I think our first priority was to get the dividend increased as we promised when we announced the transaction. Now it's really to get the concentration on the commercial real estate to where we all want it to be. Right now, we're targeting 300% by the end of 2027. We may have an opportunity to still be able to do increases in dividends and stock buybacks while also maintaining our goal of getting to 300%. We'll continue to explore that as we move forward.

[Mark Fitzgibbon, Head of FSG Research at Piper Sandler]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Moss with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

[Steve Moss, Director of Banking at Raymond James]

Good afternoon.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Hey, Steve.

[Steve Moss, Director of Banking at Raymond James]

Hey, Paul. Maybe just starting off, following up on credit here with regard to the potential for elevated charge-offs. Just kind of curious if you could size that up a little bit. It sounds like it's going to be coming from the equipment finance portfolio, if I heard that correctly.

[Mark Meiklejohn, Chief Credit Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Yeah, I think just a comment, to be a little repetitive to Carl. We've got specific reserves of about almost $80 million on a population of about $380 million in what we consider troubled assets. Of that, I would say that a fair amount of that will come out of those problems as they resolve themselves, will come out of the Eastern Funding portfolio. There's really not much of that in office at this point.

[Steve Moss, Director of Banking at Raymond James]

Right. Okay. Got it. I know that's helpful. I just sized that up a little bit. The other thing here in terms of the commentary, it sounds upbeat with regard to C&I lending. Just kind of curious, get a sense for the type of deals you guys are seeing and where loan pricing is these days.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

To give you a sense, we put in the deck what the originations were. Of course, that's on a combined basis for the quarter. We had coupons being added and just a little south of 7%. That does include some Eastern Funding originations in there as well. As far as.

[Steve Moss, Director of Banking at Raymond James]

Got it. Maybe just on the loan portfolio yields here. In terms of the—just curious—it's probably a bigger step up than I was expecting. I realize the purchase accounting accretion math there. Just kind of how you're thinking about where the loan portfolio yields shake out and how you guys are thinking about deposit betas as we go through these rate cuts on a combined basis.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Deposit betas, right now, we're modeling about a 57% beta for all of our interest-bearing deposits. It seems like the lines have been doing a little bit better job than that, than our modeling. Sometimes that happens initially, and then it slows down. In the model, that's what we're using is 57%.

[Steve Moss, Director of Banking at Raymond James]

Okay. One more housekeeping item here. Just curious how you guys are thinking about the core deposit intangible amortization expense going forward.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

I think we provided some guidance on that. I think it was about $8.1 million a quarter. That'll come down over time. I think we're doing a 12-year, sum-of-the-years-digits method on that.

[Steve Moss, Director of Banking at Raymond James]

Okay. Got you. Appreciate that. I'll step back in the queue. Thank you.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Yep.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Okay, Steve.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of David Bishop with Hovde Group. Please go ahead.

[David Bishop, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Hovde Group]

Hey, good afternoon, gentlemen.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Hey, David.

[David Bishop, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Hovde Group]

Hey. Curious. Within the legacy Berkshire Hills, they had some resilience and strength recently in the 44 business capital back small business line. Any impact this quarter in terms of their ability to get stuff to the finish line in terms of loan sales? Curious if there's a significant backlog or pipeline within that segment.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

That's an excellent question. I don't know if it really impacted September. I think September was fine. As you know, you're only seeing Berkshire's results for the month of September in this, and I think that's important to realize. For the fourth quarter, I would imagine there'd be a little bit of a shortfall as far as timing and maybe even the level of gain on sale on the guaranteed portions of those SBA loans. I do expect that, but I couldn't give you real guidance on how much that may or may not be.

[David Bishop, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Hovde Group]

Got it. Understood. Appreciate the deck noting to some of the divestitures. Any more repositioning or loan sales or security sales anticipated after this? Thanks.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Yeah, I put a note in there to keep my options open, but I think I'm pretty much done with that. There may be a few more securities that we would like to sell, but it's nothing material.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

In terms of the branches, there are four or five overlaps which will be dealt with post-conversion. I think that Berkshire had sort of cleaned up the footprint quite handily in the past couple of years, maybe two or three years.

[David Bishop, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Hovde Group]

Right. Carl, just curious if you have an available to see a commercial real estate concentration ratio at quarter-end.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

355% for ICRE to total risk-based capital. I'd like to highlight that our construction portfolio is only 33%. It's quite low. It's nice to remind people of that.

[David Bishop, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Hovde Group]

Great. Appreciate the color.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Karl Shepard with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[Karl Shepard, AVP at RBC Capital Markets]

Hey, good afternoon, and congrats on getting all this done.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Thanks, Carl.

[Karl Shepard, AVP at RBC Capital Markets]

Thanks. I guess I wanted to start with Carl. Thanks for all the help with slide five. I'm just thinking high level here. This feels like a pretty good starting point once we kind of right-size the provision and back out a little bit of the accelerated and credit-related accretion this quarter. Is that fair? What's the message on the sides of the balance sheet?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

You're right on with that. That's why I spent so much time and almost all of my time on that. I think that gives you a good sense of the direction in the different categories and how that's laying out. September gives us a little snapshot of that. As far as the size of the balance sheet, we basically reduced the balance sheet $500 million when you include the loan sale for sale. I don't expect that to go down going forward. We'll see exactly what kind of loan growth we're seeing on a combined basis as we move forward. Over time, I think we're targeting that, probably mid-single-digit growth in interest-earning assets. I want to be careful.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

A lot of ratios that people calculate, even when you look at the yield tables and things like that, you'll look at our yield table and our press release, and you'll see interest-earning assets or loans might be $12 billion or something like that. It's a much higher number when you look at just where we ended September, right? That included Brookline for two months and the combined organization for one month. You have to be careful about averages and average balances and calculations like that. We expect to be able to get on a growth trajectory on interest-earning assets going forward in the low single digits to mid-single digits.

[Karl Shepard, AVP at RBC Capital Markets]

Okay. I was trying to do the algebra on NII and NIM for September, but I guess one for everyone, maybe Paul in particular. Can we get a few more thoughts on how the first two months have gone as a combined organization? What's the focus execution-wise between now and the core system integration for you?

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

I think it's gone exceptionally well. I mean, everybody has an important role to play, and my management committee works very well together and have been knocking off the kinds of things that are necessary to do in these kinds of mergers, everything from employee benefits to consolidating contracts for services. All the technology stuff is well underway. That was done very early on. The selections were made, and we're about execution at this point. We've got the banking centers all set up under Chief Banking Officer Mike McCurdy. We have six regions given the footprint that we have, and we have decentralized all of the support for those regions. As I travel around the land, I feel very good about the people that I'm meeting and the enthusiasm that they're bringing to this new adventure for everybody.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

This is a lot different for everybody, but the optimism is there and the talent is there. I'm feeling very good about where we are here a couple of months away from the conversion.

[Karl Shepard, AVP at RBC Capital Markets]

Okay. Great. Thanks for all the help.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of David Konrad with KBW. Please go ahead.

[David Konrad, Managing Director of Equity Research at KBW]

Hey, good afternoon.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Good afternoon.

[David Konrad, Managing Director of Equity Research at KBW]

Since you spent so much time on slide five, let's spend a little bit more time on it, I guess, if we could. I just look at the September expenses of $40.6 million and then the amortization of $2.7 million. If I kind of quarterize that, if you will, I get to about $130 million of expenses, kind of a run rate. I guess two questions. One, how much of the $68.9 million cost saves has already been implemented in that number, if any?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

I'd say quite a bit of the $68 million has already been realized. Just to step through that a little bit. Just since we announced the transaction, even before we announced the transaction, both companies were being very thoughtful about expenses going into that. When we were looking at it, people weren't getting hired. People who were leaving, positions weren't getting filled. There was a lot of double work going on, things of that nature, things getting done by additional folks. There's been a lot of control around expenses right up until the merger on September 1st. Both companies have done an excellent job of controlling those expenses and not spending a lot of money. September 1st came, and there were a lot of senior people, even department leaders, that were let go on the first day. They exercised their change of control or their contracts, and they're gone.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

While the number of people, and there was quite a few people right day one, those are pretty high salary numbers and bonuses and things of that nature, benefits. Those came right out of the run rate September 1st. That's a nice pickup. There's still some savings and synergies to be had on all the contracts and things of that nature, vendors that we use, professional services that we use. Those things are still going on. As we get through to conversion, we'll be able to realize on those. There's another staffing reduction at that time.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Just to put some numbers around it for you, David, we're down almost a couple of hundred people in the combined company. Since a little bit before the combination actually came to fruition and scheduled to let go post-conversion at some point is almost another 100. We're being very methodical about it. As Carl pointed out, there's a fair number of those people who have already left who are highly paid.

[David Konrad, Managing Director of Equity Research at KBW]

Right. When we look at the fourth quarter, the $130 million is probably a good run rate. I don't know if there's going to be more core expenses seasonally in the fourth quarter. I'm just kind of wondering what the core number for the fourth quarter range would be. The last question would be on slide 11. That $119.8 million Q2 expense number, we should probably add in the $8 million of the amortization on top of that to get the all-in expense.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

That's correct. That's correct.

[David Konrad, Managing Director of Equity Research at KBW]

Yeah. Okay.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

What I want to add, I mean, there's a million moving parts on this thing, as you can imagine. Whether it's aligning the benefits across the organization, it's aligning salaries across the organization, just things of that nature. There are positions that needed to be filled that have been postponed. We've postponed them even further because we're not hiring anybody in December because we're doing payroll conversion at that time. There's a lot of things going on, but there's positions that we're going to have to fill. That $119.8 million is something that the management team is committed to delivering on, and we're working very hard to make sure that happens.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

They're close.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

I don't see a reason why we're not going to hit that and perhaps do better.

[David Konrad, Managing Director of Equity Research at KBW]

For the fourth quarter, is $130 million kind of a decent for that, or should we up that a little bit before it goes down?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

I think I would use that number for now. I couldn't really give you that. I don't see a real reason why it would vary too much off of September. I didn't really do a deep dive on that, but I think that should be pretty accurate, including the intangible amortization.

[David Konrad, Managing Director of Equity Research at KBW]

Right. Great. Okay, thank you. Very helpful.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Laurie Hunsicker with Seaport Research. Please go ahead.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

Yeah, hi, thanks. Good afternoon.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Hey, Laurie.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

I just wanted to clarify this. The $119.8 million on page 11 there, that does or does not include the amortization expense?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

It does not. It's operating cost.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

Gotcha. Okay. I just wanted to double-check. Okay. When we look at the margin, the 3.90% to 4% that you're guiding, that does include accretion income to the rate of an estimated $15 million-$20 million per quarter?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Yes, it does.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

Okay. Okay. Just your comments here at the bottom of page 11, can you expand a little bit on that, Paul and Carl, that management will continue to explore opportunities to optimize the balance sheet and capital structure over the next few quarters? Just help us think about that.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Expand on that a little bit. I think I said earlier I wanted to keep my options open here.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

Okay.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

I think this is something we will discuss with the board more fully and size it correctly. As you know, both organizations had sub-debt outstanding, and it's something that we will probably look to refinance sometime during 2026. I don't want every single banker in the world calling me, but that's something that we will be looking to explore. I think we'd like to get a nice clean quarter behind us before we move forward with that.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

Okay, just to clarify, no spot secondary anywhere in the future. Is that correct?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

No, we have nothing approved yet.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

All right. On diluted income statement share count, I just want to make sure I have this right. It dropped $1.6 million or so in September. It's going down another 3.6 million, just the accounting, right? It takes diluted income statement share count to about 84 million. Is that correct, or is my math off on that?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

No, I think that's where folks got a little bit tricked up. When it was Berkshire as the legal acquirer and Brookline as the accounting acquirer, and they were using the Berkshire share count. Then the combined, it was really two months of Brookline's share count and then the combined. The combined share count's around 84 million shares.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

84 million.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

On a diluted basis.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

That's perfect. Okay. Good. I appreciate so much all of your detail. You kept everything that you had in there that we loved as Brookline, and you added more stuff. Just great. Going to slide 14, can you help us think a little bit about this? This is a smaller line item, but Firestone that came over with Berkshire Hills, what are you doing with that? Is that discontinued also?

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Yeah, just going to run off.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

It's about $23 million.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

Okay. Good. Perfect. Just wanted to make sure you weren't growing it. Okay. Obviously, new here, it looks like you're discontinuing the fitness and the macro lease. That's done with $150.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

That's right.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

That's great. Okay. Your charge-offs this quarter, the $15.1 million in charge-offs, do you have a breakdown as to how much of that was vehicle and how much of that was the macro lease?

[Mark Meiklejohn, Chief Credit Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Actually, there were two large Eastern Funding deals in that. Neither of them were vehicle or macro lease. They were both Eastern Funding, but I would say they were non-core type businesses. One was a commercial laundry, and the other was a grocery operator. Those were both long-term workouts, and those reserves had been put up over the last year or so. We thought now was the appropriate time, given where those deals are, to take those charge-offs.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

Okay. That's great. We talked historically about the grocery. The specialty vehicle, what is that non-performing? Same question with the macro lease. Of your C&I equipment finance non-performers of $42 million, how much is in those two buckets?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Specialty vehicle is about $4 million.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

Okay.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

That $42 million is just made up of a handful of names, largely.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

Okay. Do you have non-performers for that one?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

I think that number is 11.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

No, we need 13.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

13. Sorry.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

Okay. That's great. The office detail, and I appreciate the detail that you added around that, can you just talk a little bit more? You have zero non-performers and you're now at $22 million. I think Mark asked the question earlier. Was this a Brookline or was this a Berkshire Hills credit? Not that it matters, just kind of curious. Also, can you comment? You had a massive jump to the criticized office. It looks like that's now $134 million. Any color on that would be great.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Yeah. The deal that we mentioned earlier, the downtown office that moved the non-accrual number was a legacy Brookline account.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

Okay. You had another, what, $10 million or so? Non-performing from your book. Is that right?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Yeah, that sounds about right.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

Okay. The criticized there, the $134 million, is any of that coming due in the next couple of quarters or any color on that?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

In terms of office, we have two loans that are coming due over the next couple of quarters that are in the criticized bucket. Those loans are on short-term maturities at this point. We're well reserved on both of those loans, and we expect some resolution of them over the coming quarters.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

Okay. What is the amount on those?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

About $30 million in total.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

$30 million. Okay. In total. Great. Okay. Do you happen to have the occupancies there on those?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

I don't off the top of my head, no. Sorry.

[Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research]

Okay. I think you hit all my questions. Thank you so much for all the details. I appreciate it.

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Thanks, Laurie.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of David Konrad with KBW. Please go ahead.

[David Konrad, Managing Director of Equity Research at KBW]

Thank you for letting me jump back on. Just had a follow-up on slide 11 with the purchase accounting accretion expected to be $15 million-$20 million per quarter. Just wanted to kind of clarify to make sure if you did adopt the new FASB rule, would we think of that range as being more like $11 million-$6 million, or is that range contemplating the change of the accounting?

[Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation]

It does contemplate the change in accounting. Again, this is an estimate. It's the best look because, just so you know, that's done at the loan level, the individual loan level, and it can be very volatile based on prepayments and things of that nature.

[David Konrad, Managing Director of Equity Research at KBW]

Right. Right. Definitely. Okay, thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Fitzgibbon with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead. Mr. Fitzgibbon, your line is open. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Paul Ferrall for closing remarks.

[Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation]

Thank you, Jean. Thank you all for joining us. We look forward to talking with you again next quarter. Good day.

[Operator]

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

Participants

Analysts

• David Konrad, Managing Director of Equity Research at KBW
• Mark Meiklejohn, Chief Credit Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation
• Carl Carlson, Chief Financial and Strategy Officer at Beacon Financial Corporation
• Paul Perrault, President and CEO at Beacon Financial Corporation
• David Bishop, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Hovde Group
• Steve Moss, Director of Banking at Raymond James
• Mark Fitzgibbon, Head of FSG Research at Piper Sandler
• Karl Shepard, AVP at RBC Capital Markets
• Dario Hernandez, Corporate Counsel at Beacon Financial Corporation
• Laurie Hunsicker, Senior Financials Banks Analyst at Seaport Research