Home Bancshares Q2 2026 Earnings Call - Record Profitability and Mountain Commerce Synergies Outpace Loan Growth Uncertainty

Operator: Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Home Bancshares, Inc. second quarter 2026 earnings call. The purpose of this call is to discuss the information and data provided in the quarterly earnings release issued after the market closed yesterday. The company presenters will begin with prepared remarks, then entertain questions. Please note, if you would like to ask a question during the question and answer session, please press star then one on a touch tone phone. If you decide you want to withdraw your question, please press star then two to remove yourself from the list. The company has asked me to remind everyone to refer to their cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements. You will find this note on page three of their Form 10-K filed with the SEC in February 2026. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and this conference is being recorded.

If you need operator assistance during the conference, please press star then zero. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Donna Townsell, Director of Investor Relations.

Donna Townsell, Director of Investor Relations, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to our second quarter conference call. With me for today’s discussion is our Chairman, John Allison; Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank; Kevin Hester, President and Chief Lending Officer; Brian Davis, our Chief Financial Officer; Chris Poulton, President of CCFG; and Scott Walter of Shore Premier Finance. Home Bancshares reported another solid quarter, generating a record net income as adjusted of $128 million while significantly expanding our balance sheet and maintaining strong profitability, loan growth, stable margins, and improving book value underscoring the strength of our franchise. Most importantly, we accomplished all of this while maintaining strong credit discipline and preserving the profitability that has long differentiated our company. Our team is prepared to provide you with more details about the quarter with our opening remarks today coming from our Chairman, John Allison.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Well, thanks, Donna. It’s been another quarter come and go. The second quarter of 2026 was sure full of records for the record book. Shared lots of records for the record book, excuse me. There were a couple of items that I think we should talk about. Number one is our merger with our friends with Mountain Commerce. It’s evident that some of our merger earnings came through a little earlier and a little stronger than we anticipated, as we felt some of the earnings impact in the first quarter. We got to like that because this trade was non-dilutive, and therein lies the benefit of a non-dilutive trade. A successful merger is where the two companies should be creating more value together than either company can achieve separately. In our view, the meaning of that is one plus one should equal three, not 1.75.

With our deal being a three, both groups immediately start sharing the benefits of their union. In this merger, Mountain Commerce and Home Bancshares shareholders will equally enjoy the ride together. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the quarter, though, was the surprising loan growth for the legacy footprint. We were forecasting a negative $600 million in loans and actually had a plus $26 million. That’s a $626 million swing on the loan side. As a result, we will no longer forecast next quarter’s loan growth. We don’t do a very good job of that. The problem is that our customers are really a group of outstanding little entrepreneurs that are constantly looking for opportunities that we only learn about most of the time when they need a funding request.

Many of them do a deal on the spot, commit to do a deal on Monday and say, "We’ll close on Thursday with cash." The good news is, we know their limits, and they know our limits. The second quarter performance speaks for itself. During the quarter, we incurred approximately $12.7 million of merger-related expenses. Excluding these expenses, the earnings were, and you’re going to get to hear it again, EPS of $0.64 and earnings of $128.1 million after tax. That’s an 8.4% increase from last quarter and almost 12% from 6/30 of 2025. Revenue $295 million at 10.6% from the prior quarter from $266.7. Adjusted pre-tax, pre-provision net revenue reached a company record at $171 million. When you adjust for the efficiency ratio, it came out 40.46. Good job by both teams, Mountain Commerce and Home Bancshares on the expense side.

An adjusted ROA of 2.09. Stable margin of 4.51, same as last quarter, up six basis points from 6/30 of 2025. I said good job for MCB and Home on the expense side. On an adjusted basis, these performance numbers are some of the best our company has ever run. I want to thank all our associates for an amazing quarter, and that includes our new partners, Bill Edwards and his outstanding Tennessee team. We have completed the conversion of our legacy company in June, and I think it went as smooth and as good as it could be expected. On to Mountain Commerce. We stepped up stock repurchases during the quarter. From first quarter, we repurchased 500,000 shares, and this quarter, we repurchased 1.5 million.

I said our goal was to repurchase over a short period of time the shares that we issued in the Mountain Commerce transaction, and we are already approaching the halfway mark M&A, we’re looking at some other opportunities. With the non-performing loan that we told you about last quarter, our stock took a drop even though it was a 2% plus ROA. Again, repeating, it’s one of the most profitable banks in America, in the top 10. We bid on a good opportunity, because our stock was temporarily depressed, and we hold our standards high because we do not dilute our shareholders, our bid was not acceptable to the other opportunity. We’ll hope to revisit that company soon as our stock has recovered.

As to the large non-performer, there has been significant movement from last quarter’s report. We stand by our comments that we expect no further loss. The loan was non-performed, no income was recognized in this quarter for the loan, or this would have even been a stronger quarter. While work remains, we’re encouraged by the progress that has been done this quarter. I have to say here that Kevin Hester, Davy Carter, and Mike Cook, I want to thank, a special thanks to them. They spent a lot of time on this non-performer. They took the bull by the horns and protected the shareholders of Home Bancshares. Thank you, guys, for a great job. That’s a solid testament to the quality commitment standards of our people. Mike Cook now taking over the leadership, a while back, took over the leadership of the Dallas region.

That region now reflects the credit culture of Home’s operating and underwriting standards. It’s certainly nice to have those loan problems for the most part behind us now. There is some work to be done. We think we see the light at the end of the tunnel. In our environment where industry loan growth remains challenging, exceptional loan growth should always be examined carefully. Growth generally comes from a combination of pricing, structure, terms, or credit standards. When there is robust, stand-out, extraordinary loan growth in an environment that does not support that kind of loan growth, one should look closely at the right structure and terms. It’s extremely important that your entire team, from the top down to the junior lender, must have lending experience. Not only lending experience, but quality lending experience with skin in the game.

At Home, that starts with me at the top as an asset quality hawk who’s spending my sixth decade in the lending process. We believe in quality lending. I have been involved in over 50 M&A deals. Happy was certainly the most difficult. Even with all the problems associated with the acquisition, we have worked our way through those problems with a good partnership of Happy and Home employees together. We opened a new branch in Rockwall, Texas, led by Kane Pierce. We’re excited about that, glad to be in Rockwall, and this is a new branch, not a replacement. New events included hiring our first in-house counsel, Mr. Jeff Campbell, who will fill the role of corporate counsel. We want to welcome Jeff to the family and look forward to working with him.

Donna, I just want to make a quick recap of the quarter, if you’ll allow me to do that.

Donna Townsell, Director of Investor Relations, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Go ahead.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: I want to leave this with the investment community. Record adjusted income, record revenue, loan growth from a negative $600 and a $626 million swing, stepped up repurchases from $500,000 to $1.5 million, PPNR, a record $171 million, an adjusted efficiency ratio of 40.46%, stable margin of 4.51%, and Mountain Commerce already being a contributor sooner than expected. That has gone well. Continued confidence in Home’s credit culture. When you look at the adjusted earnings, the profitability metrics, the efficiency ratio, the stable margin, elevated share repurchases, and strong balance sheet growth, I believe Home’s second quarter once again produced one of the strongest banking performances in America. You know, Your Honor, I rest my case. Back to you, Ms. Donna.

Donna Townsell, Director of Investor Relations, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Thank you, Johnny. It was another amazing quarter. Our next report will come from Stephen Tipton.

Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Thanks, Donna. As Johnny mentioned, the second quarter of 2026 was a strong showing with the inclusion of Mountain Commerce Bank in Tennessee and a little organic loan growth from Legacy Centennial Bank. Adjusted earnings, particularly excluding merger expenses, were $128.1 million, producing a 2.09% return on assets, the same as last quarter, and a 16.82% return on tangible common equity, which is on a TCE ratio of 13.22%. The reported net interest margin was 4.51%, in line with Q1, all while adding $1.5 billion in loans and deposits from Tennessee. The core margin, excluding event income, was 4.47% and in line with where we guided to on the call in April. The overall loan yield, excluding event income, averaged 6.96% and exited the quarter at 6.99%, while interest-bearing deposit costs averaged 2.38% and exited the quarter the same at 2.38%.

Total deposit costs were 1.85% in Q2 and exited the quarter at 1.84%. Strong non-interest income was a highlight for the quarter at over $53 million. Higher loan recovery income, fee income at CCFG, and increases from our SBIC investments were the primary drivers and got us back to levels we saw in quarters two, three, and four of 2025. Switching to the balance sheet, legacy deposit balances declined in Q2 by $179 million as a result of tax payments and seasonal outflow in April. It’s worth noting deposit balances increased by $86 million in May and over $200 million in June to end the quarter at $19.1 billion. Loan production rebounded in the second quarter to just over $1.4 billion, with nearly $1 billion of that production coming from the community bank footprint.

Switching to capital, we repurchased 1.5 million shares of stock during the quarter for a total of $40.4 million. As of June 30th, we have over 15 million shares remaining available for repurchase under our current authorization and nearly $450 million in cash at the parent company. Tangible book value per share grew $0.45 to $15.32, or an annualized increase of 12.1%. Capital levels remain extremely strong, with common equity tier 1 capital ending at 16.4% and total risk-based capital at 19%, and reserves to total loans of 1.92%. We’re proud of the second quarter results here at Home, particularly with the inclusion of our partners at Mountain Commerce, and look forward to the second half of 2026. With that said, I’ll turn it back over to you, Donna.

Donna Townsell, Director of Investor Relations, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Thank you, Stephen. To close out our prepared remarks, Kevin Hester has the lending report.

Kevin Hester, President and Chief Lending Officer, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Thanks, Donna. As Johnny noted, we found a way to post marginal organic growth in loans in the second quarter, which looked very difficult when we talked 90 days ago. This included flipping what was an anticipated large payoff early in the quarter into a hold with even a slight increase, which put us on a good path for the rest of the quarter. In last quarter’s remarks, I mentioned that Q3 payoffs appeared high as well, and that is still the case. In fact, the gap is higher now than it was 90 days ago. Johnny joked about us not being very good at forecasting, and we discussed on the last call some of the reasons why early projections can be skewed toward declines. That said, we have work to do in order to post loan growth in this quarter.

Regarding Johnny’s comments about loan growth in general, we are seeing loan rates from the competitors creep lower and lower, while probabilities for the next Fed interest rate move are up rather than down. We will continue to maximize loan opportunities while trying to protect our strong NIM so that we can continue to post best-in-class profitability. Asset quality remains solid with an eight basis point drop in non-performing loans and a four basis point drop in non-performing assets. Early stage past dues remained under 50 basis points, and loan loss reserved coverage of non-performing loans improved to 177%. As others have said, we began the quarter with the Mountain Commerce Bank acquisition, and from a lending perspective, the combination’s gone very smoothly. The similarity of their markets and their lending philosophy to ours will result in a shorter learning curve and earlier meaningful contribution.

On that note, Donna, I’ll send it back to you.

Donna Townsell, Director of Investor Relations, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Thank you, Kevin. Johnny, unless you have additional comments, I think we’re ready for Q&A.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: I do want to talk about loans a little bit. On Wednesday’s loan committee, we approved about $350 million worth of loans. That’s primarily the hits coming from our South Florida group that really have a lot of things going on. J.C. and David and their teams are doing an outstanding job in Florida. There’s $350 million worth that just, I knew those were coming, I didn’t know they were coming this quarter. One of them we’ve been working on for several years, and it’s going to be the best and most fabulous project ever built in Miami, Florida. We’re excited about being in that loop with that team of people, and it’s a fantastic facility that’s being constructed, and it is one of our customers.

They have lots, they said the second half they’re going to bring even more, that’s pretty exciting from that aspect. Some of this is construction, they put their money in first, but it is loan growth that’s coming down the pipe for us before long. You never know from one day to the other. As I said, our FBL guy bought another FBL thing, and we didn’t know he was on that transaction. Kevin just visited with another one. We’re working on it. It’s hard to, as I said, it’s like catching a grease pig in a ditch. You think you got him, and he gets away from you. Maybe we’ll catch him this quarter. That’s all I got to say, Donna. I’m ready for Q&A if the rest of you are.

Donna Townsell, Director of Investor Relations, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Okay. Operator, we’ll turn it back over to you.

Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Jon Arfstrom with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Kevin Hester, President and Chief Lending Officer, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Hey, thanks. Good afternoon.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Good afternoon, John.

Jon Arfstrom, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: I know you guys just gave us a bunch of information on loan growth or not loan growth, I’m a little bit confused on it. What does your gut tell you today on it? Kevin, you talked about maybe more pay-downs expected in Q3 than you had expected in Q2. Maybe the indication is down, Johnny, you’re talking about a bigger pipeline. I know you said it’s hard to predict, but what does your gut tell you for loan balances in the near term?

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: We have probably more going on in the Florida market right now than we’ve ever had going on in that market. It is quite explosive. We have been working on some of the projects. We had basically billions of dollars worth of opportunities that are going to come our way. It may be the next 60 days, it may be six months, they’re coming. Those projects are coming from our long-term customers in that market, it’s just hard to tell when they pull the trigger. Overall, I’m pretty optimistic. We were going to be down $600 million. We ended up moving up $26 million, and that happened just all of a sudden. It came in, and it’s kind of surprising. We’re not very good at projecting future loan growth. Seems like when I say we’re going to have it, we don’t.

When we say we’re not going to have it, we do. I think it’s going to be, to keep it at where it is, I think we’ve got to work hard, I don’t think it’s a problem with that. We had our lenders conference in Florida recently, I told the group, I said, "We’re projected to be down X number of dollars. I need you all to step up." I don’t know if they just reached in their pocket and brought some stuff that they were going to bring next quarter in, it all came in pretty fast, pretty quick, including the $100 million piece of credit, another $40 million piece of credit, some really good customer credit. We don’t sacrifice quality and margin for loan growth. We’re not going to do that, and we didn’t in this cycle. Kevin, you got any comment?

Kevin Hester, President and Chief Lending Officer, Home Bancshares, Inc.: No, it is all fair. I mean, payoffs are where they are. We outran them this quarter, and we will continue to try to do that. Will that happen every quarter? We do not know till it happens.

Jon Arfstrom, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Yep.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: The answer is you’re-

Kevin Hester, President and Chief Lending Officer, Home Bancshares, Inc.: You are confused

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: still confused.

Kevin Hester, President and Chief Lending Officer, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Yeah, you’re still confused.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Still confused, right? That’s We did our job.

Kevin Hester, President and Chief Lending Officer, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Yeah.

Jon Arfstrom, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Yep. I’ll probably hold it flat in the model. That’s my guess. Chris Poulton, I think last quarter he also talked about maybe some pay-downs in Q2 and Q3. Those balances are a little bit lower, any help on what you’re seeing in the pipeline there, and kind of expectations for activity in your business?

Chris Poulton, President of CCFG, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Sure, John. It’s Chris. Well, we did get the pay-downs this quarter that we had anticipated, yet we were still kind of flat, which means we had good production. I think we’ve originated $800 million-$900 million so far this year. I think that still looks pretty good for us as we continue. That’s a pretty good number run rate for us. I think like Johnny said, we work on some things, they go away. Sometimes we let them go away, sometimes they come back. We’re seeing a number of things come back our way. As we say, if you love somebody, set them free. We let them go and test out the market and come back, sometimes we can work a transaction out.

I’ll be making a West Coast swing, I think, next week, and have a whole bunch of things lined up that were things we probably worked on several months ago that now they want to sit down and talk. I feel good about there being opportunities out there. Like Johnny said, will they come in in the next couple of weeks or the next couple of months? I think we’ll see. I don’t see anything different now than I did before about our opportunity to be able to get transactions on our terms if we’re patient. I just think it’s always about being patient here. It’s hard to predict loan growth when your goal isn’t loan growth.

Jon Arfstrom, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Yep. Okay. All right. I’ll step back. Thanks, guys.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Thanks, John.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Brett Rabatin with Hovde Group. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Brett Rabatin, Analyst, Hovde Group: Hey, guys. Good afternoon.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Hey, Brett.

Brett Rabatin, Analyst, Hovde Group: Hey. Wanted to start on the margin. It sounds like you’re being able to grow core deposits. Everyone’s concerned about competition and funding costs moving higher. Wanted to see if all those were sticky, and then just if you can hold the loan yields and not see too much matriculation on the deposit side. It seems like the margin, at least on a core basis, could hold up pretty well. Wanted to get some additional color on how you guys see things playing out. Obviously, you’ve typically been a little bit asset sensitive. If we get a rate hike, what does that mean for you?

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Hey, Brett, this is Stephen. I can take the last part first. Yeah, I guess our ALCO model shows almost a 6% increase in an up 100 basis point environment. If the Fed did move a quarter or a half, I think it’s a net positive for us. On the deposit side, our folks have done a great job in

Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Negotiating rates on money markets and CDs. We’re seeing competition in the four plus percent range. I think most recently, half of our CD maturities automatically renew at our lower rates. The other half, they’ve negotiated in about the 3.5% range. They’ve done a good job there working relationships to keep what we have. Through loan committees and our presidents have folks out pushing opportunities for deposit growth to supplement the loan side. At $451 reported and $447 without it in income, I think if we can keep it in that range, we would be pleased.

Brett Rabatin, Analyst, Hovde Group: Okay. That’s helpful. Just around the, you had really strong growth in fees, particularly service fees, trust, and mortgage. Were any of those, do you think, impacted by any seasonal factors, or can those levels be sustained? Any thoughts on just the outlook there for growth or if maybe those numbers were a little bit high for Q2?

Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Hey, Brett, this is Stephen again. As I mentioned in my comments, there were a handful of items that were up in Q2 from Q1. I think on the call last quarter, we talked about non-interest income was about as low as it could be at $44 million, adjusted for the marketable securities. We were about $52.5 million, $53 million, adjusted for that this quarter. Some of that’s wealth management. Like you said, trust, financial services, our alignment with Ameriprise, they’re kind of hitting their stride, and both of those areas are doing well. Some of that should continue. The loan recoveries, some of Chris’s fee income in CTSG that comes when payoffs are a little higher, some of that’s gonna bounce around.

I think our view is if you look at the last five quarters, it averages about $50 million over the past five quarters. That’s kind of where we would expect things to be over the long term.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Well, first quarter was kind of an anomaly. We normally have much more income there. We didn’t get it. We didn’t get the kick that we normally get, and that happens maybe one quarter out of four annually. Sometimes not, but revenue was down as a result of that. We got no kick, just nothing. $50 is a good number, somewhere in that number, give or take $50.

Brett Rabatin, Analyst, Hovde Group: Okay, great. Appreciate all the color. Congrats on the quarter.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Michael Rose with Raymond James. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Michael Rose, Analyst, Raymond James: Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Johnny, just as it relates to Mountain Commerce, you said that, I think in the press release too, that it’s contributing earlier and stronger than what you expected. Can you just give some greater color there on what you mean, maybe just in terms of expense savings, revenue synergies, or just any other color broadly you have on what would qualify that statement from your view? Thanks.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: As we’re going through the quarters, first month, second month, and third month together, I could see that, I could feel the income by looking at the income statement that we’re getting extra income from somewhere, and it had to be coming from there, basically. Some of it was improvement at home, but a lot of it was coming from them. I really didn’t expect that. I guess I was shocked by the fact I didn’t expect that kick that quick. We converted in November, and that’s about a $5.5, $6 million savings to the company that we’ll pick up at that point in time. I think I wasn’t prepared for it that quick, and I saw the numbers and the revenue numbers and all of it coming together and just was extremely pleased with what I was seeing on the data reports.

If you remember, we get a daily P&L statement here, and you begin to see it, and you think, "Where’d that come from, and how’d that happen?" It was just all positive. That’s basically it, Michael. I felt it over the quarter, day by day as we operate.

Michael Rose, Analyst, Raymond James: Certainly appreciate that color. It’s obviously a good deal for you guys. Maybe just going back to loan growth. I know we’ve already kind of talked about it a fair amount, but you do have pretty good momentum here, as you mentioned, $350 million recently approved loans. I guess, do you think with Mountain Commerce in the fold and maybe some bridging into some higher growth economies now that Dallas is back in a bigger way and what’s going on in Texas, could we think about structurally better loan growth from Home than we’ve seen in recent years? Or is this the competitive environment, particularly given that some of those markets are more competition, just going to be harder?

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: I can agree with that we could have better loan growth. I don’t want to talk about what other people are doing because it sound like I’m throwing stones, but we’re seeing some ridiculous stuff being done by some people in the marketplace, and it’s just really frustrating. We’re not going to do that. We got all the capital. We got tons of capital. It’s a powerful earnings machine, and we’re going to continue to do what’s right, and we’re not going to get off into chasing rainbows. We’ve never done that. We’re not going to start doing it now. We’re seeing structure and terms that, I mean, they’re just ridiculous. We’re seeing that. We’re not going to do that. We’re going to continue to, as I said, keep the quality, the margin and stability. We’re going to price that over loan growth.

Could we get loan growth. Anybody can get loan growth. Hell, it’s nothing to loan growth. You can get all you want. Give it away, change the terms of the structure, and you can load the wagon. You can just absolutely load the wagon. That doesn’t mean that it’s going to long-term be good. You can look at the asset quality of Home over the past, since we’ve been public, basically, and look at the quality of what we produce. We’ll continue to do that. We’re not going to change. We’re not going to run off into the sunset. I got people pushing me to lower our standards and go do that, and they can do that after I’m gone. After I retired, I go in the house. They can do that. They’re not going to do it while I’m here.

Michael Rose, Analyst, Raymond James: Totally understand, Johnny.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: I don’t plan on going anytime soon. What was it we had? What was the drink we had here before with Michael?

Donna Townsell, Director of Investor Relations, Home Bancshares, Inc.: It was Slurpees.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Slurpees. The quarter was so good.

Michael Rose, Analyst, Raymond James: Yeah

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: I told them before, I said, "We should’ve had Slurpees this quarter with Michael." He should’ve bought us Slurpees. Anyway.

Michael Rose, Analyst, Raymond James: I’ll line it up for you next quarter. How about that?

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: That’d make for a great quarter for us. Go ahead.

Michael Rose, Analyst, Raymond James: Yep. Just one follow-up on that. Just in the absence of loan growth, just assuming that the competition does remain intense here in the nearer term, how should we think about the pace of buybacks? Is kind of what you did this quarter what we should kind of contemplate, or is there room to maybe even move that higher, just given what’s out there and how profitable you guys are?

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: We do what we say we’re going to do. We said we’re going to buy back the number of shares that we issued in Mountain Commerce. We’ll look for opportunities. They gave us a great opportunity last quarter. That’s when we stepped up and bought $1, because they took us down and gave us, I think our average was $25 or something. Stephen? Yep, $25? $26. $26. That was a great opportunity for us. If, in fact, we get an opportunity, we’ll be extremely aggressive. It is our intention to buy that back because it is our intention to do another M&A deal on the heels of Mountain Commerce.

Michael Rose, Analyst, Raymond James: All right. Makes sense. I’ll step back. Thanks, guys.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: All right. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Operator: Your next call comes from the line of Stephen Scouten with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Who we got, man? It’s Steven.

Stephen Scouten, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Hello, can you guys hear me? Sorry about that.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Yes.

Stephen Scouten, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Appreciate it, guys. I’m curious, just following up on those M&A comments, Johnny, kind of what you’re seeing in the market right now, with bank stocks up kind of across the board. If that’s making the conversations more palatable or if sellers’ expectations just continue to go higher because the group trades up. Just kind of wondering how those dynamics are playing out in the conversations you’re having.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: They said a rising tide raises all ships, or whatever they say. Rising tide raises all ships. We’re seeing that in the marketplace right now. It’s a pretty good space. Bank space is a pretty good place to be. The last deal, when our stock was down, and we bit on, and I understand they wanted a better trade, had they taken that, they’d be up 25% today. It’s almost basically the same. It’s how many of their shares for our shares and what that trade means. We’re not seeing a lot of M&A out there right now. People are looking at their balance sheets, and they’re thinking about, "Is this a diluted transaction?" We’re not seeing a lot of that, and we’re certainly not going to do that.

Having people say, "Johnny, with your currency right now, you could go buy this and that, and this and that, if you just take a little dilution." We don’t dilute. That’s what the world would like for us to do, and then they could say, "Hell, they diluted that last deal." Anyway, we don’t do that. We’ll continue to do what we’re doing. I think there’s opportunities out there in the marketplace, the deals either work or they don’t work, as I’ve said in the past. They’re either creative, or Our stock’s back up close to two times tangible book now, that gives us the ability to move up and make somebody happy if they want a better price. You trade with somebody last month, and they get the stock, and it’s up, I don’t know, 30% since then.

It just depends. Timing means so much, as you know. Timing is the key to where their stock is, where our stock is, and if it works or it doesn’t work. We’ll just hold tight. We hold tight on it. It’s worked for this company for the last 25 years to hold tight on underwriting and hold tight on acquisitions and do the right thing. I think we could see a stock market turnaround here before too long. Things are not as strong as they have been, I don’t think it’ll be bank stocks. I don’t think it’ll be Home. I kind of went around the horn there, I don’t know if I answered anything that you asked or not.

Stephen Scouten, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Yeah, that’s helpful context, for sure. I appreciate that. Kind of maybe thinking about expenses for a minute. I feel like last year into the beginning of this year, you were kind of pinging around a $113 million, $114 million a quarter kind of range that you were hoping to hold everyone to. What’s kind of the number in your mind today, Johnny? Where you’d like expenses to stabilize and what you guys think you can achieve there?

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Well, I think somewhere in that range is fair. What do we have, $12 million? What did we come out with?

Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Yeah, $12.7 million. If you take the $12.7 million out, it’s about $122.7 million, which I think is kind of last quarter where we said, with Mountain Commerce, their current expense run rate, where we would land, and then once we get converted in November, we will get a good portion of those cost savings out at that time. We’ll see a little benefit from that in Q4, and then obviously all of it next year.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Think about how efficient Home operated, and then you add Mountain Commerce, how efficient Bill operated, his group, and then we’re going to get some additional savings. We’re getting some income, and we should get some additional savings coming up here pretty quick. I’m optimistic we can hang in that range in the $120 million.

Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Yes, sir.

Stephen Scouten, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Maybe just one last clarifying question back on the previous conversation around loan growth and payoffs and whatnot. I think on last quarter’s call, you guys had talked about thinking there could be maybe $1 billion in payoffs. Kind of curious where you actually ended up seeing that number come in, it sounds like maybe it was slightly better than what you’re projecting there. Just as you think about third quarter and beyond, if it’s north of that $1 billion a quarter number, or just kind of framing that payoff dynamic conversation up a little bit.

Kevin Hester, President and Chief Lending Officer, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Hey, this is Kevin. Last quarter’s number was $1 billion, a little bit over $1 billion. This quarter could be there. It’s a little early, but it could be scheduled for that.

Stephen Scouten, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Okay. That magnitude’s kind of the same, and then if you’re doing $1 billion forward production, just kind of depends on how it all funds up and the timing of everything of when and if you can see loan growth. Is that the right way to think about it, Kevin?

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: That’s exactly the way. This is the toughest time in the bank space is rates are going down or going up. It’s better for us they go up. When they start down, when the rates start down, then people try to jump ahead of a loan rate and go in and cut the rate a point and a half or so and cut a deal with somebody and tie it up, and this is the toughest. Going up is a lot easier than going down. This is a battle. You take one customer at a time, and you fight the battle, and this is, in our history, third or fourth time we’ve fought that battle, and we’ll continue to fight the battle this time. It’s not necessarily all rate.

The structure of some of these deals and the loan-to-cost or loan-to-value ratios have kind of gone out of whack. It reminds me of around late 2000, 2004, 2005, ’04, ’05, when people were doing stupid stuff. We’re seeing some of that in the marketplace, and that’ll come home to haunt people, I believe. We’re just not going to play the game. We don’t have to. We got a good machine that’s generating really good, solid income, and the difference between a record month and not a record month is how much risk we want to take, and we’re not big risk takers.

Stephen Scouten, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Yep. Makes sense. That’s really helpful color, and congrats on another great quarter. Appreciate it, everyone.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: All right. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Operator: Your next call comes from the line of Matt Olney with Stephens. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Matt Olney, Analyst, Stephens: Hey. Thanks, guys. I guess going back to the discussion around the competition for loans, Kevin, I think you mentioned pricing’s getting tighter. Any more numbers you can put behind this in the market? Then for Home Banc, any color on just the production yields you guys have seen more recently?

Kevin Hester, President and Chief Lending Officer, Home Bancshares, Inc.: I’ll let Stephen cover the yields. We were talking about those before the meeting. I think he’s got those written down. I’ll let him cover those. We are seeing some things in the fives, the high fives, the mid fives. As Johnny said, it’s not just rate. It is rate and structure in the same deals. You can kind of get by with giving rate, or you can give a little structure. You get your rate and get your risk covered. We’re seeing it both ways, that’s the challenge is that you give rate and structure away, like Johnny said, it’s easy to grow if you’re willing to do that. That’s simple. Anybody can do that.

Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Matt, it’s Stephen. We were at about six and three quarters, 675, 676 on production in the second quarter.

Matt Olney, Analyst, Stephens: Okay, great. Thanks for that. I guess maybe similar question, Chris Poulton. I know your borrowing base is very unique and differs a lot from what Kevin was talking about, but curious what you’re seeing on the competitive side as far as pricing and structure as well.

Chris Poulton, President of CCFG, Home Bancshares, Inc.: We don’t see much on structure because I think the deals tend to be a little bit more bespoke. So, we see price. Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen price probably come down 50 basis points or so overall, I think in the market. Sometimes it comes down a little more. We see price, I would say, a lot more in two areas. One, construction. Every once in a while, you get some folks step in and just get really aggressive on construction. Again, not necessarily on a lot higher leverage on the non-recourse side, but you do see every once in a while somebody will step up and get pretty aggressive on price for a few months. They generally do that, and then they fill up, and they go away for a little while.

On the facilities side as well, I think that’s where we probably see most of the structure piece, where I think folks that are getting into that facilities space might underestimate how much structure they’re going to need. Otherwise, I think it’s just the normal kind of thing where every once in a while somebody’s got to put some money out and burn a hole in their pocket, and they get aggressive.

Matt Olney, Analyst, Stephens: Yeah. Okay. All right, guys. That’s all from me. Thank you for the color.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Thanks, Matt.

Operator: Your next call comes from the line of Brian Martin with Brean Capital. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: Hey, good afternoon, everyone.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Right, new to you.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: Hey. Good. Thanks, Johnny. Maybe just one last one on the expenses. Stephen, I think you talked about the conversion in November and kind of the pace kind of holding where it’s at today. If we think about 2027, and you get the savings post-conversion, is it best to look at that run rate where you’re ending the year similar to what we look like going into 2027? Given that you’ve got inflation obviously, but you’re going to get the savings coming out in the fourth quarter, so maybe not much change in the run rate from 4Q heading into 1Q. Is that a fair way to think about it, or is that not the right way?

Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank, Home Bancshares, Inc.: No, I think that’s fine. Again, we’re within a benefit, call it half a million dollars a month, give or take, post-conversion with MCB. Bill’s done a great job, Bill and Kevin both, in have seen some cost savings opportunities along the way already. The bulk of that comes out November, December, and then we’ll have our typical beginning of the year merit raises and those kinds of things. That’ll offset it out.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: Got you. Okay. Just remind me, the savings you expect from the transaction in terms of, I guess, with dollars or I guess however you frame up the savings you’re anticipating coming from the Mountain Commerce.

Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Yeah. We modeled 20%, which was about five and a half million annual.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: Okay. The bulk of that comes in the fourth quarter or post fourth quarter?

Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Correct.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: Correct. Okay. Got you. Thanks, Stephen. Maybe Johnny, just on the M&A. It sounded like there was a trade you guys were on, now you’re off it, maybe come back to it. Just in terms of the kind of your comments about the conversations maybe being a little bit less today. Sounds like, not putting words in your mouth, maybe there’s nothing imminent, but your discussions are ongoing, and maybe if that’s accurate, you can confirm that. Just if in terms of sizing or geography, kind of where you’re any change in terms of where the interest is?

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to do sizing or geography. I like the people, and I like the company, and I like their geography. I’m going to go back and revisit that. I’ve sent them the information for the call, and I actually called them afterwards. I said, "I couldn’t get there because I would’ve deluded myself because they had my stock down to," what? 170 or something, Stephen? Some number. I said it wouldn’t work for me. He said, "Well, that didn’t work for us." I said, "I understand." We’re going to go back and revisit that if they’re interested and see if we can put something together that makes some sense. It’s another nice trade, appears to me. A good little bank and similar to Mountain Commerce to me in lots of respects.

Not the same geographic area, but

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: I got you.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: way they operate their business. They’re just good operators. They run a good number.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: That’s helpful. Maybe just one on non-performings or just credit quality. I know you mentioned some improvement there, all the hard work that Kevin and team had done. Can you just frame up kind of the outlook or how you’re thinking about the pace of NPAs and charge-offs as you look in the coming or maybe just the pace of NPAs, or just how you see some of the improvement unfolding here in the next 12 months or 6 to 12 months, however you want to frame it up, just to see a path of improvement.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: I don’t see any difference. We stand by what we said before. There’s no more on the larger one. There’s no loss coming. We’re not going to take any loss. We stand by that. Outside of that, we cleaned up a little stuff this quarter, and we just tend to peck at it a little bit if there’s one or two that sticks their head up. We’re mostly through that. I’m not looking for anything any different on the charge-offs. Maybe better from here on than what it has been. It’s where it is or a little better. That’s what I think. There’s nothing coming that anybody’s concerned about.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: Okay.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: It’s good.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: Go ahead.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: It’s actually good right now.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: Okay. Just in terms of how much improvement in non-performings, given kind of the lifting you’ve already done, what could we see over the next 6 to 12 months? Could we see a significant decline in non-performings, or is it more of a slow grind, I guess, however you frame it up?

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: That’s really up to the other side of the fence sometimes. We can see that, but we’re not walking away. We expect to collect everything that we have out there. We’re not going to accept anything different.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: Okay. Just remind me.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: I really don’t see any changes. It may get better from here, quite honestly. The charge-offs, we had, I don’t know, $5 million this quarter come out.

Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Yeah. It’s closer to six, we had almost $3 million of that was specific reserves on loans that we charged off. We had matched up to specifics. If you take that out, then it was really just a normal quarter.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: We’re actually, it’s really a marked improvement in asset quality here. You should have no concerns about asset quality.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: Okay. Yeah, remind me the size of the largest credit that you talked about last quarter. Where does that stand today or what level is that at?

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: It’s where it was. It’s a little less than $100 million. It’s still where it was.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: Okay.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: That’s one that we have seen some movement on, if reasonable heads stay together, we’ll wrap that up. If they don’t, then we’ll fight the battle. There you go.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: Got you. Okay. Last one from me, sorry, was just on the margin, Stephen Tipton. Can you just frame up, I know you said that your hope is to see the margin maintained, its kind of current core level, if you will. Just the puts and takes, what could take that better or worse? Then just maybe the opportunities you have on the Mountain Commerce book in terms of loans and deposit, where there’s opportunity to pick up there.

Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank, Home Bancshares, Inc.: There’s certainly opportunity on the deposit side with Tennessee. They’ve got about $300 million in CDs that mature in the second half of the year that we should get some marked improvement on yield there, or potentially let some roll off. As we’ve always said, I would say competition is probably the biggest threat, particularly on the deposit side. We’ve got a billion and a quarter in CDs that mature in the second half of this year, that’s in the mid threes. Like I said earlier, we’ve done a good job and then kind of in or below that range on where we renew, if competition forces that higher, that’s probably a risk. Our folks have done a great job, and expect that to continue.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: Okay, not much pressure on the asset side, I guess. I know you’ve talked about the loan yields and kind of what you’re seeing in the market. Maybe it’s just you’re not going to push forward with some of those loans at those rates, it sounds like?

Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank, Home Bancshares, Inc.: That’s right.

Brian Martin, Analyst, Brean Capital: Yeah. Okay. All right. I think that’s it for me, guys. Thanks, and congrats on a great quarter.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Thank you very much.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Catherine Mealor with KBW. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Catherine Mealor, Analyst, KBW: Thanks, everyone. Good afternoon.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Afternoon, Kathryn.

Catherine Mealor, Analyst, KBW: Two last questions, just some nitty-model questions. Maybe first on fees. Fees were a big beat relative to our expectations, I think you mentioned there was a bully gain and higher SBIC investment income. Can you quantify maybe how much that increase was in SBIC and how we should think about a normalized run rate going into next quarter?

Brian Davis, Chief Financial Officer, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Yeah, that increase was about $2.4 million for those equity investments that we have.

Catherine Mealor, Analyst, KBW: Okay. Great. Then anything else in the fee line that you felt like was artificially elevated?

Brian Davis, Chief Financial Officer, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Well, we did have our purchase accounting accretion go up $2.5 million, and $1.5 million of that was just related to Mountain Commerce. The rest of it has been from older stuff paying off.

Got it. Okay.

Normal ones.

Catherine Mealor, Analyst, KBW: Do you think that PAA comes down from the $3.6 million?

Brian Davis, Chief Financial Officer, Home Bancshares, Inc.: If the payoffs stop. Mountain Commerce will be the same next quarter, I guess, as it were this quarter. The other, if we get the payoffs, that’s the key. About $900,000 of it was payoffs, early payoffs on loans that we generated the income.

Stephen Tipton, Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Bank, Home Bancshares, Inc.: It does happen periodically, and it may happen next quarter too.

Brian Davis, Chief Financial Officer, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Yeah, you never know.

Yeah.

Usually there’s always something paying off.

Catherine Mealor, Analyst, KBW: Yeah, no, that’s helpful. Just about $900,000 of it was from early payoffs, not just your scheduled PAA accretion.

Brian Davis, Chief Financial Officer, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Correct.

Catherine Mealor, Analyst, KBW: Okay. That’s great. That’s helpful. Okay, great. That’s all I got. Everything else was asked and answered. Thanks. Great quarter.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. It was a great quarter for us. Thank you.

Operator: We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Allison for closing remarks.

John Allison, Chairman, Home Bancshares, Inc.: Thanks, everyone, for your participation today. Thanks for supporting Home Bancshares. We work at it. Even though we had a 2% ROA and we’re in the top 10 in the nation the first quarter, we felt like we didn’t do a very good job. We work hard at it, and we’ll continue to work hard at it, as you know. Hopefully things will settle down in the marketplace, and we’ll have more loans and generate more income. That’s our game, is to continue to grow the company over a period of time through both organic growth and M&A. We hope to be able to tell you about another deal before long. Thanks, everyone. We look forward to visiting with you in the future.

Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.