Glacier Bancorp Inc Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Randy Chesler, President and CEO of Glacier Bancorp. Please go ahead. Well, good morning, and thank you for joining us today.

With me here in Kalispell is Ron Copher, our Chief Financial Officer, Tom Dolan, our Chief Credit Administrator, Angela Dossi, our Chief Accounting Officer, and Byron Pollan, our Treasurer. I'd like to point out that the discussion today is subject to the same forward-looking considerations outlined starting on page 13 of our press release, and we encourage you to review this section. Last night, we issued our earnings release for the second quarter, and we believe it represents another quarter of strong results. Net income was $97.9 million for the second quarter, up 19% from the prior quarter and up 85% from the second quarter of last year. Diluted earnings per share were $0.75, up 19% from the prior quarter and up 67% from the prior year second quarter.

A key driver of our strong performance continues to be net interest income and margin expansion. Net interest income increased to $276 million, or 3% from the first quarter, and up 33% from the second quarter of last year. Our tax-equivalent net interest margin expanded to 3.9%, up 10 basis points from the first quarter and up 69 basis points from the prior year second quarter. From a pre-tax, pre-provision net revenue perspective, our PPNR for the second quarter was $130.8 million, an increase of 23% from the prior quarter and an increase of 53% from the second quarter a year ago. We also saw continued improvement in our funding profile. The total cost of funding declined to 1.33%, down seven basis points from the prior quarter and down 30 basis points from the second quarter of last year.

Core deposit cost, including non-interest-bearing deposits, was 1.18%, down two basis points from the prior quarter. Non-interest-bearing deposits remained at 30% of total deposits for the quarter, consistent with the last quarter and the second quarter a year ago. Turning to the balance sheet, loans ended the quarter at $21.4 billion, increasing $330 million, or 6% annualized from the first quarter. Loan growth was broad-based and reflected our continued focus on disciplined production in attractive markets. Total average deposits were $24.5 billion for the quarter, up $112 million, or 2% annualized from the prior quarter. Period end deposits were $24.7 billion, down slightly from the prior quarter. Overall deposit levels remained stable and continue to comfortably support our liquidity and funding strategy. Credit quality remains excellent, consistent with our disciplined underwriting culture.

Early-stage delinquencies declined from the prior quarter, while non-performing assets increased modestly but remain low as a percentage of subsidiary assets. Our allowance for credit loss at 1.22% of total loans reflects our conservative and consistent approach to reserving. Expenses were well controlled in the quarter. Acquisition-related expenses declined meaningfully from the first quarter, and the operating efficiency ratio improved to 56.21%, compared to 63.05% in the prior quarter. For the first half of the year, net income was $180 million, an increase of 68% from the prior year first half. Diluted earnings per share for the first half of 2026 was $1.38 per share, an increase of 48% from the prior year first half. Net interest income for the first half of 2026 was $545 million, an increase of 37% from the prior year first half.

The loan portfolio increased $2.831 billion, or 15%, from the prior year first half. Total deposits increased $3.026 billion, or 14%, from the prior year first half. The net interest margin as a percentage of earning assets on a tax-equivalent basis for the first half of 2026 was 3.85%, an increase of 73 basis points from the prior year first half. These results clearly show the earnings and operating momentum that has occurred across the company. During the quarter, the board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.33 per share. This marks our 165th consecutive quarterly dividend, and we have increased the dividend 49 times over our history. We are encouraged by the results for the second quarter and through the first half of the year.

The continued progress in margin, efficiency, and disciplined balance sheet growth, driven by Glacier's community banking model, give us a solid foundation for the remainder of 2026. With that, I will ask the operator to open the line for any questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Matthew Clark of Piper Sandler. Your line is open. Hey, good morning, everyone.

Good morning. Just wanted to start on the funding side.

Deposit cost down nicely again here. Guess it'd be helpful to have the spot rate at the end of June and then your outlook on deposit costs in general, just assuming the Fed remains on hold and how the competition is these days?

Sure, Matthew, this is Byron. You're looking for the spot cost at the end of June. June 30, our deposit cost was 118, in line with our average for the quarter. In terms of our outlook, I do think our deposit costs will likely be stable from here. Of course, that depends on what the Fed does. Assuming Fed on hold, as you mentioned, I would think that we would just kind of maintain this level of deposit cost going forward. Now, if the Fed does hike rates at some point later in the year, we'd have to adjust that outlook a little bit. I think from now, a good outlook is just stable from here.

Just on the loan side, loan growth stepped up here. I think 3Q tends to be a seasonally strong one for you, but just wanted to touch base on the pipeline and your outlook for growth.

Matthew, this is Tom. Second and third quarter are typically our stronger quarters in the year, more so than the fourth and the first quarter. We've seen that for the last couple of years. I don't see anything that would really change that. Pipelines still remain very healthy. We're seeing pull-through, we're seeing back build. Some of the tailwinds we also saw in the second quarter with construction draws and entering into the ag growth season, that will continue into the third quarter as well.

Maybe one for Ron. Your expenses came in a lot better than expected. I just wanted to get the updated guide for the second half of the year.

The updated guide, we're going to stick with the quarterly guide I gave for Q2. That'll be $187 million-$192 million. We recognize we came in lower than that, some of the discretionary spending could come back in the second half of the year. We just allow for that. Overall, very good control expenses.

Great. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Jeff Rulis of D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning. I guess a question on the follow on the loan growth, Randy, you mentioned pretty broad-based. Just to unpack that a little bit, in Q1, you had pretty strong growth out of Texas. It was kind of the lion's share of the growth. Just wanted to kind of double down on the geography contribution this quarter of the loan growth.

Sure. As we've stated, we're really operating in two regions, Southwest, Mountain West. Southwest continues to do very well. I think they're rebuilding the pipeline after a very strong first quarter. We see really good trends there. In the Mountain West, they had a very strong quarter. It's, I think, both doing very well. Yeah, we expect to see that continue.

Okay, that was maybe they flipped strengths in a quarter in terms of net production as Southwest rebuilds and going forward, it looks like a strong pipeline across the region. Is that- Exactly. Yep. Okay.

Yep. Exactly right. Got it.

Randy, I guess I'd check in on the- it's been a bit on the M&A side, a quiet start nationally- Yep We're starting to see a pickup recently.

I guess versus last quarter at this time versus now, any more active discussions? I know you hold a lot of them, but just want to see where we sit on the M&A side.

Sure. Yeah. Maybe separate that into two pieces. There's our internal discussions that we have, meaning it's not an official sale. We're talking to people. Those continue to move along at a good pace. What I still see is somewhat muted is the investment banker pipeline production of deals and where people are officially coming to market.

We measure that by the phone calls we get letting us know about those things. Still seems a bit muted, from the talk that I've had with the investment banker, I think that we'll probably start to see that increase a bit towards the end of the year. Overall, compared to first quarter, I'd say about the same, Jeff, really probably still a bit muted.

Okay. Appreciate it. Sorry, if I could slip in a last one.

Sure. On the earning asset balance, the mix, and I guess trying to get a sense for accelerating loan growth.

I guess your intentions on the securities portfolio and maybe expectations for start to see some earning asset growth, if you could comment on that.

Sure. We'll have Byron comment on that. We did make some purchases this quarter, so we're kind of slowly wading back into the purchase of investments. I'll let Byron give you some color on that.

Yeah, as Randy mentioned, we did dip our toes back into the bond market. We purchased about $250 million of bonds in the quarter. I expect we'll continue purchasing, putting some cash to work, going forward. In terms of growth, I do see our AEA will expand from here. I think what you saw even in Q2 with the decline in AEA, it's still a little bit of an echo of the de-leveraging that we had going on. We talked a lot about the pay-down of our FHLB advances. That last maturity, that last payoff, didn't happen until late in Q1. When you look at the averages of Q1 versus the average of Q2, that still had an impact. Now that's complete. I would expect from here, our AEA will increase in Q3 and Q4.

Great. Thanks for the color.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Kelly Motta of KBW. Your line is open. Hey, good morning.

Thanks for the question. Good morning.

I would love to talk a bit about the margin. You had a few things working in kind of a negative direction this quarter, one being the non-accrual interest reversal and then a lower level of accretion. If you had a similar level to last quarter, you would've actually come in the mid three nine. I'm just wondering, as we think about that exit 4% margin, it feels like that's in the range. Any updates on how you're thinking about the exit margin from here? I know the accretion can swing around, so some commentary on what's a normal level, at least for modeling purposes, would be helpful. Thank you. Sure, Kelly. Thank you for the question.

Yeah, we're very pleased that our margin continues to expand, and we expect that it will continue to grow. When you're looking at that 4%, I do think we'll hit that 4% level early in the fourth quarter of 2026, and we'll keep going from there. When you think about an exit margin for 2026, I do expect we'll be north of 4%. I do think what you saw, some of those headwinds were a little bit of an anomaly. You can never really forecast the timing of payoffs and things like that. It feels to me like that impact that you saw, that headwind was a little bit elevated. We're not expecting that that level will continue going forward. I think the level of discount accretion you saw in Q2 is probably a more normal level to assume going forward.

Okay. That's really helpful. I appreciate the color on the securities reinvestment. Can you provide additional detail on what you're seeing on loan pricing and any commentary on the competitive dynamics impacting new loan production yields either way? Thank you. Sure. Yeah, Kelly, this is Tom.

We're still seeing production yields in excess of 6.5%. We saw that consistently throughout the quarter. From a competitive standpoint, that probably is the largest competitive factor, is the pricing, and we see it more in the large metro areas versus the smaller markets where we have a more commanding market share. I think that trend is continuing, and I think that's probably going to continue into the third quarter. We're still not seeing a lot of competition on underwriting discipline or structure, which is good, at least in the spaces that we operate in. Encouraged to see that. It's still primarily focused on pricing, which really hasn't been a change over the last couple of years.

Got it. That's helpful. That all sounds really encouraging. With these factors in mind, you were well above 4 pre-COVID, at least for a bit. I know it's a little early to talk about 2027, is there any preliminary thoughts on what, given the pretty meaningful tailwind of back book repricing still to come, what a normalized margin means for Glacier over the longer term. Thank you. Yeah, Kelly, I do think, as you mentioned, that there is a lot of momentum in our asset repricing.

Longer term, I do think about a margin in terms of a range, between 4% and 4.5%, more of our historical norm. I do think there are things that can bring us towards the higher end of that range. Given enough time, a friendly yield curve, a steeper yield curve would certainly be helpful. Meaningful loan growth, that always helps with the level of new production rates that Tom mentioned. That's going to lift our margin towards the higher end of that range. I do see that we'll continue to increase our margin throughout 2027. Ultimately, where it normalizes and where it kind of levels out, that remains to be seen, but I do see growth throughout next year as well.

Super helpful. Thank you so much for all the color.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you have a question, please press * 11. Our next question comes from Evan Kwiatkowski of Raymond James. Your line is open. Hey, good morning, guys.

It's Evan on for David.

Morning. I just firstly just wanted to touch on maybe deposit competition across your footprint.

I know you've said in the past you're probably more insulated than others based on your presence in more rural areas, but I'm just curious how you view competitive funding cost pressures going forward and if there's been any change from your prior views. Thanks. Yeah. Evan, I don't see any change in the level of competition.

I think competition is strong. It always is. It's rational. There are always some outliers in our markets. Those outliers, they're not driving the market. As you saw our result, we were able to bring our deposit cost down a couple of basis points in Q2. From what I see, it appears to me that competition is rational.

Rational. The other thing I'd add on the market, 75% more rural, 25% more urban. It's both the nature of the market and our focus on the core relationship in those markets, which really drives the lower cost. We don't see those dynamics changing.

That's really helpful. Maybe just moving to credit. I know there's a slight uptick in non-accruals, trends seem really solid still. Just curious what you're seeing broadly, maybe what caused that uptick. Maybe if there's any sectors or segments that you're watching more closely than others.

Sure. Yeah. This is Tom. I would classify it as stable overall. We're not seeing any specific industry or geography or asset class that's showing any outsized risk. I would say that if there's one segment where we're still watching closely, it's been this way for over a year now. We are watching the ag book. 2025 ended up being stronger than we were anticipating. 2026 is off to a good start as well. Obviously there's been some headwinds in that industry that we're paying some attention to. I think going back to what Randy said about deposit aggregation, same thing on the loan side. We really try to bank the longtime operators in the markets, and that's no different in the ag sector with banking the longtime multigenerational growing families. They've weathered these time and again, and we see that happening this time.

Got it. Maybe going back to Texas. You've noted in the past it's still a bit too early to see impacts from disruption in the state. I'm just wondering if you've seen any emerging trends of being able to capitalize on displaced customers or new team members or in any other part of your footprint where there may be dislocation or disruption. Thanks. Yeah. We're watching that carefully.

I think by that you mean bigger banks coming in, acquiring some banks in our markets and what the implication of that is. There's really two areas that we're keeping an eye on. One is in Colorado with PNC's purchase of FirstBank. I would say that the preliminary is still early and got a lot of respect for PNC. At the same time, we do see some customers starting to move and to our benefit. As these bigger banks come into the markets like this, their ability to carry forward a community banking that people have become used to is still kind of up for judgment. Initially, it seems that there is some good movement our way with some very good customers. We're very happy to talk to those customers and take advantage of that opportunity.

In Texas, we've got some very strong commercial lending leadership, I think they're having good success Talking to people and bringing on incremental talent that we're finding as a result of some of the recent acquisitions. I'd say overall, right now it feels like it's favorable for us. Again, some very good banks, larger banks, maybe a little too early to say that's a conclusion, early trends are positive for us.

Thanks for the color. I'll step back.

Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Kelly Motta of KBW. Your line is open. Hi.

Thanks for letting me jump back on. I did want to ask a question about capital management, just because in light of your improving profitability, capital continues to build. I appreciate the commentary on M&A, any other thoughts as you look ahead here about capital management? Thank you. Yeah, Kelly, we'll have Byron give you some color on that.

We've been talking a lot about that. Obviously because we're increasing capital and the industry is increasing capital broadly, we see that as something that's going to continue here. We'll let Byron fill in the blanks there.

Yeah, Kelly, our capital is strong. As you point out, it will continue to grow with our earnings growth. It's early yet. We're still evaluating our outlook for capital build. I would say we have a lot of flexibility in how we approach capital return, and we're keeping all of our options open. We're having discussions ongoing around this topic and evaluating all of our options.

Appreciate that. Thanks. Thank you.

I show no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn it back to Randall Chesler for closing remarks.

All right. Well, thank you, Dee Dee. Thank you for the folks for your questions. We appreciate it. We appreciate everybody dialing in in the summer and taking time to check in on how things are going. Hope you have a great day, great weekend, and great rest of the summer. Thanks for dialing in. This concludes today's conference call.

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