Home Bancorp Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Operator

morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Home Bancorp's First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Home Bancorp's Chairman, President and CEO, John Bardelon and Chief Financial Officer, David Kirkley. Please go ahead, mister Kirkley.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Thank you, Anna. Good morning, and welcome to HomeBank's first quarter two thousand twenty five earnings call. Our earnings release and investor presentation are available on our website. I'd ask that everyone please refer to the disclaimer regarding forward looking statements in the investor presentation and our SEC filings. Now I'll hand it over to John to make a few comments about the first quarter.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

John?

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

Thanks, David. Good morning, and thank you for joining our earnings call today. We appreciate your interest in Home Bank as we discuss our results, expectations for the future, and our approach to creating long term shareholder value. Yesterday afternoon, we reported first quarter net income of 11,000,000 or a dollar 37 per share, which was a healthy 13% increase from the fourth quarter and a 20% increase from a year ago.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

Net interest margin expanded for the fourth consecutive quarter to 3.91%, and our return on assets increased by 17 basis points to 1.29%. First quarter margin expansion was driven by a 13 basis point decline in the cost of interest bearing liabilities, stable yields on interest earning assets and loan growth. Loans grew by 29,100,000.0 in the first quarter or about 4% annualized, and we've continued to see good growth so far in April. There have been a lot of headlines recently concerning the economy and tariffs that may change the direction of the economy quickly. But for now, we're sticking with our guidance of 4% to 6% loan growth in 02/2025.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

Deposits increased in the first quarter at a 7% annualized rate due to seasonal inflows of public funds and continued effort on our part to fund our loan growth with core deposits. Noninterest bearing deposits increased 21,900,000, which equated to 27% of total deposits at the end of the quarter. CDs also increased, and we've had good success using our CD product to attract and retain customer deposits since the end of the pandemic. At 27% of total deposits, CDs are a larger percentage of funding than we are used to seeing, but we expect that percentage to decline as rates eventually fall. We continue to optimize our Houston market, which has been a tremendous success since we acquired it three years ago.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

We have a strong team in place and believe there are opportunities to upgrade and expand our physical footprint that will drive even more business. In 02/2024, we opened an LPO and hired a commercial team for Northwest Houston. And just recently, we purchased a full service branch building in that vicinity that we are renovating and hope to move into by the end of the year. The entire executive team recently completed visits to every branch in every market where we had the opportunity to talk to employees and customers. Each market would then host a Cajun style crawfish boil with the executives serving the employees.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

These boils included delicious crawfish with all the picking, music, games, graffles, and camaraderie with all of our employees. These business have long been a tradition at HomeBank where we believe in the concept of servant leadership. They started back when we were small enough that everyone knew each other and felt like they were part of a family. As we've grown, we found that these gatherings are a great way to maintain that family culture and generate enthusiasm. The time in the branches gives management opportunity to answer questions from front line staff and meet customers both big and small.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

Our employees that have worked elsewhere are amazed that the executive team would spend this quality time with all our employees. As I've said for the last few quarters and despite the recent headlines and volatility in the market, we feel very good about Home Bank's outlook and our ability to continue to outperform. We've been doing this for a long time, and we have a strong track record of performing above our peers in all kinds of economic environment. We continue to focus on customer service, expanding relationships with new and existing customers, and maintaining our solid credit culture. This focus helped us to maintain strong performance through COVID and the rapid increase in rates.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

We remain confident in our outlook and think that the NIM and earnings will continue to expand in 02/2025 even without any rate cuts. With that, I'll turn it back over to David, our chief financial officer.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Thanks, John. Slide five in our investor presentation has a summary of the last six quarters and show how strong Home Bank's recent performance has been. Over that period, we maintained a NIM that never dropped below 3.64% and reached 3.91% in q one, up nine basis points from q four and an ROA that bottomed out at 97 basis points but quickly recovered and is now 1.29%.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Slide seven shows even a longer history back to 2020, but the results are similar. We maintained a core pre provision ROA that has always been above 1% and was 1.32% in the first quarter. Core return on average tangible common equity has always been above 10% and was 14.3% in the first quarter. And our focus on expenses has helped us maintain a core efficiency ratio between 6065%, which declined to 60% in q one. As John said, we think that we can continue to deliver improving performance from here even without any Fed rate cuts.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Net interest income was stable at 31,700,000.0 in the first quarter compared to 31,600,000.0 in the fourth quarter. We're expected to increase from here due to continued loan growth, increasing asset yields, and moderating funding costs. We expect loans to grow at 4% to 6% annually and asset yields to continue to increase as new originations drive average loan yields higher and lower yielding securities mature. New loan originations in Q1 had a blended contractual rate of 7.4% compared to the 6.43% yield on our existing portfolio. Slide 14 provides additional details on cash flows from our loan and investment securities portfolio.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Almost half of our investment portfolio is projected to be paid off over the next three years with a roll off yield of 2.68%. Slide fifteen and sixteen of our investor presentation provide some additional detail on credit, which remains very strong. We had $32,000 in net charge offs in the quarter, which was less than one basis point annualized after reporting just four basis points of net charge offs in 02/2024. First quarter non performing assets increased 5,900,000.0 to 21,500,000.0 or 62 basis points of total assets. This increase was primarily due to the downgrade of two relationships that were previously categorized as substandard.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

We feel that we have sufficient collateral on these loans, and we do not anticipate any material principal losses as we work to resolve them by the end of the year. Total criticized loans at quarter end were 37,200,000.0 or 1.36% of loans, up slightly from 1.35% in the fourth quarter. Our allowance for loan loss ratio was stable from the fourth quarter at 1.21%. Cost of interest bearing deposits declined 15 basis points in q one, driven largely by a 33 basis point reduction in the cost of CDs. Over the past two quarters, we lowered the cost of CDs by 59 basis points as we shorten the duration of our portfolio.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

While we've had good success reducing costs and retaining customer deposits, absent further rate cuts, we expect the pace of rate reductions to moderate in the coming quarters. With 62% of our CD portfolio maturing in the next six months, we have the ability to adjust quickly to market conditions. Non maturity interest bearing deposits make up 46% of total deposits and cost 1.68% in Q1, down five basis points quarter over quarter. Noninterest bearing deposits, the strength of our balance sheet, increased $22,000,000 in Q1 and comprised 27% of total deposits. As a result of our deposit mix and pricing strategy, the cost of total deposits in Q1 was 1.85%.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Slide 21 provides our funding beta. So far in this down rate cycle, we've seen a 27% beta on interest bearing deposits. While this beta may be lower than peers, it still supports expanding NIM and is due in part to the fact that our cost of interest bearing deposits peaked at only 2.78%, which has been lower than our peers. Yields on earning assets increased two basis points in Q1 due to a $59,000,000 increase in average loans. Loan yields have been stable the last three quarters at 6.43% despite the 100 basis points of rate cuts

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Our loan portfolio is 59% fixed, which slowed asset yield increases when rates were rising, but now provides yield protection from further rate cuts and supports an expanding NIM. Slide 22 of the presentation has some additional details on noninterest income and expenses. First quarter noninterest income was 4,000,000, an increase of $400,000 compared to the prior quarter. We recognized a gain of $310,000 in Q1 on the sale of SBA loans, a 100% increase from the prior quarter. We expect noninterest income to be between 3,600,000.0 and $3,800,000 over the next two quarters.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Noninterest expense decreased by $776,000 to $21,600,000 and was driven by a $660,000 decline in comp and benefits and no provision for unfunded commitments. The decline in compensation was related to seasonality and payroll cycles. We still expect noninterest expenses to increase by 3.5% in 2025 as raises come into effect starting in Q2 and technology related expenses increased. Noninterest expense is expected to be between $22,500,000 and $23,000,000 per quarter for the remainder of the year. We took advantage of recent share price volatility that repurchased 297,000 shares through April 17 at an average price of $43.82 per share.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

We have about 14,500 shares remaining in our existing buyback plan. And yesterday, our board approved a new 400,000 share repurchase plan. We plan to remain active if the volatility continues as we are confident that our intrinsic value is well above recent market prices. Slide twenty three and twenty four summarize the impact our capital management strategy has had on Cone Bank. Since 2019, we grew tangible book value per share at a 7.7% annualized growth rate, while growing tangible book value per share adjusted for AOCI at a rate of 9.3%.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Over that same period, we also increased annual EPS at an 8.9% growth rate. We've increased our dividend per share by 21% and repurchased 16% of our shares. And we've done this while maintaining robust capital ratios. This positions us to be successful in varying economic environments and to take advantage of any opportunities as they arise. And with that, operator, please open the line for q and a.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the key. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. The first question comes from Joe Bianconi of Raymond James.

Joseph Yanchunis
Joseph Yanchunis
Senior Equity Research Associate at Raymond James Financial

Morning.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Good morning, Joe.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

Good morning, Joe.

Joseph Yanchunis
Joseph Yanchunis
Senior Equity Research Associate at Raymond James Financial

So I was hoping you could touch a bit more on the go forward margin expectation after the improvement in the first quarter. And then can you share what the NIM was for the month of March?

Joseph Yanchunis
Joseph Yanchunis
Senior Equity Research Associate at Raymond James Financial

And how you expect the NIM to behave with a 25 basis point rate cut?

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

All right. Let's keep me on that real quick. I I think what we're gonna see if that doesn't do any cuts, I think we'll see a a slowdown in second quarter of our deposit cost.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Basically, the CDs are are we're pricing those pretty high.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

We have to stay up with our our funding needs. So I I don't see as much drop in the margin from the deposit side in second quarter as we've seen in the first quarter. That will continue on probably becoming almost no changes unless Fed does cut. Typically, when Fed does cut, we don't get the full cut in reduction. We've gotten a percentage of that cut.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

David, you or would you say about 20 basis points out of the twenty five? Twenty five. 18 to 20 basis points out of the 25. But, you know, where we're gonna continue to grow the NIM would be on the loan side as we continue to reprice, while lower rates than what we saw in 02/2024, still higher than what they we have in the portfolio today. So that's gonna be the driving forward throughout the rest of the year.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Yeah. Joe, we have the opportunity to reprice a good bit of loan investment securities cash flow. And as we mentioned, new loan originations are coming in around contractual rate of around 7.4%. So we still see a couple of basis points uptick per quarter in contractual loan yields given no rate cuts. So I think, as John said, you're not going to see as much contraction on liability costs, but you're going to see growth in earning asset yields.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

To answer your second question about March, March NIM was about 3.95%. Oh, sorry. The third part of your question, a 25 basis point rate reduction. You know, we've seen what happened to our loan yields. I forgot which slide is.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

We have a chart with our our loan yields being stable at 6.43%. And that's in part due to a little bit lower concentration of adjustable rate loans. So whenever there's a 25 basis point rate cut, that's about a three basis point decline in loan yields, which is really offset by new loan originations. And then you also see they have about 135,000,000 on average with overnight advances from FHLB, which reprice automatically. And then we also have a very short concentration of CD portfolio, duration of our CDs, which we have the ability to reprice very quickly as well as we've seen in the last couple of quarters.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

So even in a 25 basis point rate cut, I would anticipate stable to slightly increasing NIM.

Joseph Yanchunis
Joseph Yanchunis
Senior Equity Research Associate at Raymond James Financial

That was very thorough. I appreciate it.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

And then kind of switching over to credit.

Joseph Yanchunis
Joseph Yanchunis
Senior Equity Research Associate at Raymond James Financial

Can you discuss the two loan relationships that moved to non accrual in the quarter?

Joseph Yanchunis
Joseph Yanchunis
Senior Equity Research Associate at Raymond James Financial

What sectors, what geographies were they in? And then I also understand, you know, there's a lot of unknowns at the moment with respect to the potential tariff and trade war. But it'll be helpful to get a sense for what parts of the books you're paying a little closer attention to, you know, what's outside exposure.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

These sites have been problematic for some time. One of the prices in Mississippi, and it is basically a development of condominiums to be sold.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

They sold three condominiums in the February and have not really sold anything since then. The peak time to sell those is right now, spring and and summer. And so we're giving them until, I think, the May, and we'll reevaluate to see what's going on. We may start foreclosure, may ask for a dash on the property, whatever. We believe there's equity in the property, but we also believe that the owner is asking too high a price for the property.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

But that being said, even if we cut the price significantly, the cost that we have, we still should be able to recoup all of that. The other credit was it's a hotel that undergoing some renovations in the Houston market. And you know, the promises are there that we're gonna redo all the rooms and and obviously have a higher occupancy once that happens. We've asked them for a pay down based upon the cash flow that they've had the last six months, and they're wanting to take the other route of putting their money into the building to make sure that they can they can increase revenue and make full payments to it. So we'll see how that goes.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Property is in a relatively good location. So we we would, I think, do well, especially if oil and gas comes back to the Texas area. This this hotel would do very well should that happen.

Joseph Yanchunis
Joseph Yanchunis
Senior Equity Research Associate at Raymond James Financial

Alright. Well, thank you for taking my questions.

Joseph Yanchunis
Joseph Yanchunis
Senior Equity Research Associate at Raymond James Financial

Thank you, Jim.

Operator

Thank you. Second question comes from Chris Marinette of Janney Montgomery.

Christopher Marinac
Director of Research at Janney Montgomery Scott

I wanted to go back to the office portfolio and just get a sense, John or David, about anything anecdotal in terms of the maturities that you've had there, kind of how those have been either reset or paid off, etcetera. I know you've got a longer book. I think it was seven point five years disclosed for that. I just was curious on kind of what you've seen on any maturities that have happened recently.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

We've not seen any any changes, actually.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

A lot of the ones that have matured have renewed. Not a lot of movement there. We don't have, you know, what what a lot of people maybe have in bigger cities or the high rises and things of that nature. We we have two of those in Baton Rouge, but they are one's a condo high rise and the other's a % occupied by Louisiana government. So our office portfolio has performed extremely well.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

As shown on page 11 of our presentation, really don't have any criticized assets in that.

Christopher Marinac
Director of Research at Janney Montgomery Scott

Okay. Great. And then you mentioned about the higher CD pricing. So just to clarify, is that going to change this quarter?

Christopher Marinac
Director of Research at Janney Montgomery Scott

I'm just trying to take the repricing out from the Fed decision whether they do or don't cut. I mean, will you still keep those rates somewhat elevated?

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

I think think they're going to remain a little bit elevated, but below our overnight funding costs. We have the opportunity to reduce marginally our our rates, we believe, though, but there will most likely remain a slightly elevated and cost of CDs will come down incrementally over the next quarter, but not very materially.

Christopher Marinac
Director of Research at Janney Montgomery Scott

Okay.

Christopher Marinac
Director of Research at Janney Montgomery Scott

And then in general, do you plan to see the loan to deposit ratio come down over time? I mean, it's been fairly consistent. So I'm just curious if you look at the next year or two, if you think that's gonna change much from here.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

You know, it's it's been a really weird cycle considering everything that's happened with with COVID and the higher interest rate that we still have as much loan demand as we do. That's kinda unprecedented in the in the history of home bank.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

Usually, when higher rates come up, the loan demand slows. I I think the general population thinks that rates were gonna go up and come back down quicker than they did, and so they went ahead with their projects. I'm not sure. But, yeah, I I think we keep waiting for a slower loan demand and and really haven't seen it. So the question of the loan to deposit ratio, I think, is gonna stay tight until such time as we see a a, you know, lower loan demand in our area.

John Bordelon
John Bordelon
Chairman, President & CEO at Home Bancorp

We're working very hard to we're working very hard to attract more deposits and expansion in our Houston market can help us better.

Christopher Marinac
Director of Research at Janney Montgomery Scott

Perfect. Thank you both. I appreciate it.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

You too.

Operator

Next question will come from Stephen Scoutman of Piper Sandler.

Stephen Scouten
Stephen Scouten
Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies

Good morning, guys.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Good morning. Curious.

Stephen Scouten
Stephen Scouten
Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies

I think he did say

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Ben, you're breaking up. We can't quite hear you. Can you can you hear me better now?

Stephen Scouten
Stephen Scouten
Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies

You hear me now?

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Yes.

Stephen Scouten
Stephen Scouten
Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies

Okay. Can you help me reconcile the what looks, you know, like asset sensitivity with what in practice sounds like maybe liability sensitivity on on rate cut?

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Yeah. I I think one of the the the issues that we're having is an interpretation of changes in interest interest sensitivity. So if you look at our slide deck, it shows that we are slightly asset sensitive. Really, we're we're projecting in a base case a rising NIM. And even in a down a hundred basis point rate environment, we're seeing a change from that base case and down slightly, almost 2%, but still a rising NIM from where we are today.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

So I just wanted to clarify that point that we still see NIM increasing from where we are today even in a 100 basis point rate environment. Our loan portfolio, which is 41% variable, about almost 60% of those loans are adjustable daily with some of the other loans being more annual repricing. So that impacts the sensitivity a little bit. And as we said earlier on our on our on our call, our beta is a little bit lower on our deposit repricing than some peers because we're starting at a lower point. So we don't have as much room to come down as quickly as some of our other peers.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

So that's all those things combined help explain the difference in our asset sensitivity position.

Stephen Scouten
Stephen Scouten
Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies

Okay. Very helpful. Thanks, David. And then I guess following up on that Slide 21 and all the data you provided, do you think we start to see a catch up at some point

Stephen Scouten
Stephen Scouten
Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies

with those betas on the deposit side similar to what we saw on

Stephen Scouten
Stephen Scouten
Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies

the way up? Or to that last point, because we're at lower rates, maybe do we not see the same improvement on the way back down maybe that we saw on the way up?

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

I I think it's gonna play out over time, and I think it would catch up over time. But as as we talked about on our last slide, our loan to deposit ratio is a little bit tighter than we'd like it to be. And so it it is gonna be a little bit slower, but I have no reason to believe that it wouldn't fall into the average of around 35% to 40%. Excuse me.

Stephen Scouten
Stephen Scouten
Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies

Okay. Great. And then

Stephen Scouten
Stephen Scouten
Managing Director at Piper Sandler Companies

aggressive do you think you'll be around the share repurchase?

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Probably not as aggressive as we've been in the first quarter here, but, you know, when there's opportunity, especially when our stock price drops down to to 42, 40 3, just above tangible book value, it's a no brainer. So I think marginally, if if our stock price continues to go up, that percentage of repurchases will come down significantly. Yeah. I mean, we we really honestly feel comfortable with our capital position.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

We feel like they're they're very strong, and we feel confident in our ability to perform in the next couple of quarters. So given the opportunity, we're we're gonna be in the market. Hopefully, share price increases and we'll be less than the market.

Operator

Again, if you have a question, please press star, then 1. I think there are no more questions. So this concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference over to John for any closing remarks.

David Kirkley
David Kirkley
Senior EVP & CFO at Home Bancorp

Once again, thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to speaking to many of you in the coming days and weeks. Hope you have a wonderful day and the remainder of the week. Thank you.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • David Kirkley
      David Kirkley
      Senior EVP & CFO
    • John Bordelon
      John Bordelon
      Chairman, President & CEO
Analysts

Key Takeaways

  • Home Bancorp reported Q1 net income of $11 million or $1.37 per share, up 13% from Q4 and 20% year-over-year, with NIM expanding to 3.91% and ROA rising to 1.29%.
  • Loans grew $29 million (4% annualized) in Q1 and management reiterates full-year loan growth guidance of 4%–6% for 2025, while deposits rose at a 7% annualized rate driven by noninterest and CD inflows.
  • Funding costs declined, with the cost of interest-bearing liabilities down 13 bps and CD costs down 33 bps, supporting margin expansion alongside stable asset yields and new loan originations yielding 7.4% versus a 6.43% existing portfolio yield.
  • Credit metrics remain strong: annualized net charge-offs under 1 bp, NPAs at 0.62% of assets, criticized loans at 1.36%, and an allowance ratio of 1.21%, with two downgrades fully collateralized and expected to resolve by year-end.
  • Capital management includes repurchasing 297,000 shares in Q1, a new 400,000-share buyback authorization, 7.7% annualized tangible book value growth since 2019, a 21% dividend increase, and maintained robust capital ratios.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Home Bancorp Q1 2025
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