Alerus Financial Corporation Q4 2025 Earnings Call - Balance-sheet Repositioning and Fee-heavy Franchise Poised to Drive 2026 Growth

Conference Moderator: Good morning, and welcome to the Alerus Financial Corporation earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Today’s call will reference slides that can be found on Alerus Investor Relations website. You can also view the presentation slides directly within the webcast platform. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions for analysts and institutional investors. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear automated messages saying your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please note, this event is being recorded. This call may include forward-looking statements, and the company’s actual results may differ materially from those indicated in any forward-looking statements.

Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements are listed in the earnings release in the company’s SEC filings. I’ll now turn the conference over to Alerus Financial Corporation, President and CEO, Katie Lorenson. Please go ahead.

Katie Lorenson, President and CEO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I appreciate this opportunity to share reflections on the year and offer some perspective of the strategic position and momentum of our company as we enter into 2026. Joining me today is Alerus CFO, Al Villalon, COO, Karin Taylor, Chief Banking and Revenue Officer, Jim Collins, and Alerus Chief Retirement Services Officer, Forrest Wilson. 2025 was a milestone year for Alerus, in which we demonstrated not only strong core financial performance but significant execution of major strategic initiatives that positions the company for sustainable organic growth and a return to top-tier profitability and performance. I’m incredibly proud of the team, not just for the financial results, including posting a core ROA of 1.62% this quarter, but for the collaborative efforts to accomplish these initiatives during the year.

It is evident through our ability to set goals, hold each other accountable, and exceed expectations that the leadership team and the talent throughout this company is exceptionally strong and deep. One of the most notable, notable accomplishments of 2025 was delivering results well above our committed targets, both financial and non-financial, in our first full year of operating as a combined organization with Home Federal. We delivered an adjusted ROA of 1.35% and an adjusted efficiency ratio of 64.45%, in addition to a net retention rate of deposits close to 95% and critical retention of key talent throughout the organization. These results solidify our integration capabilities of aligning people, systems, resources, and culture quickly and effectively.

Our focus in 2025 was to continue to enhance our commercial bank and to sustainably improve returns while focusing on our long-term strategy. In the back half of the year, we executed a purposeful deleveraging plan, actively managing loan paydowns and pruning marginal credits to strengthen our balance sheet and improve our flexibility. As we saw success in these initiatives, we took disciplined action to sell our legacy low-yielding available-for-sale securities portfolio. This balance sheet repositioning improved our earnings power going forward, reduces our AOCI volatility, enhances capital generation capacity, and gives us greater flexibility for lending in our markets. The deliberate steps we took position Alerus for stronger performance and tangible book value growth in 2026 and beyond, and demonstrates our commitment to creating long-term sustainable value for our clients, our communities, and our shareholders.

On the banking side, we saw a steady build in momentum throughout 2025, especially in the second half of the year. Excluding the purposeful reductions in CRE, the targeted loan sales, and our selective managing of renewals, organic loan growth for the year would have been closer to mid-single digits. Of note, our strategic entry into the mid-market C&I space gained real traction as we moved through the year, and we enter 2026 with strong pipelines. Organic core deposit growth also picked up momentum in the back half of the year, with the focus shifting from retention as the team members worked through the deposit systems conversion. We are seeing some nice large opportunities for mid-market and government not-for-profit treasury management in early 2026, which should enhance our deposit growth through the year.

From a margin perspective, strong pricing discipline on both sides of the balance sheet throughout the organization drove the core NIM higher. Non-performing loans ticked up higher with the migration of an acquired purchase participation that was previously identified as a problem loan. This is a multifamily property in the Twin Cities with a 15% reserve, and it should resolve relatively quickly. Our largest non-performing exposure continues to be a large multifamily loan in the Twin Cities with a book balance of approximately $32 million. This property now has multiple offers and is currently 74% leased. We are reserved at about 17% and continue to expect resolution by mid-year. Leading credit indicators showed meaningful improvement over the second half of 2025, including a 30% reduction in criticized asset levels.

While we had another quarter of net recoveries and a slight reserve release, the allowance for loan losses remained robust at 1.53% of total loans. In addition, capital accretion boosted the TCE ratio to 8.72%, putting the balance sheet in a strong position for organic loan growth. Moving on to our ultimate differentiator, our fee income businesses, where we grew core revenues 7% year-over-year. Although our most recent acquisitions have been strategic bank additions in key markets like Rochester, Minnesota, and Phoenix, Arizona, we have maintained fee income at over 40% of total revenues, almost three times the average of most financial institutions. Notably, we ended the year with assets in our retirement and wealth divisions at nearly $50 billion, or ten times the assets in our banking division.

Our retirement division delivered strong results, including robust sales, continued better-than-industry client retention, and growth in plans and participants. We ended 2025 with the strongest revenue momentum this division has seen. Momentum we believe will continue into 2026 and beyond. Our retirement business remains integral to our overall success, providing over a quarter of the company’s funding and serving as a powerful internal source of wealth management opportunities.... In 2025, we continued to expand our national presence through partnerships anchored in our distinguished reputation for outstanding client service. As the 25th largest provider in the country, and with a new leadership team in place, we will continue to invest in technology and AI to enhance scalability and improve margins.

During the year, we successfully converted our entire wealth business onto a new system, achieving 100% client retention, thanks to excellent execution by our support teams and the high-touch service delivered by our wealth advisors. This reinvestment strengthens our foundation and positions us to advance our strategic plan to double the number of advisors across the Alerus franchise, with the aspirational goal of growing our wealth assets at the same pace as our banking assets. Earlier this month, we finalized the first step in building our next generation team with the selection of our new wealth management leader, an experienced professional with deep expertise in wealth, trust, and institutional advisory, and a proven ability to recruit talent and drive key strategic initiatives.

On a core and reported basis, we saw strong operating leverage, even as we modernized our systems, implemented new core platforms, and strengthened our digital capabilities, while we produced record levels of sales throughout many of our business lines. We did this all while managing our headcount down over 6% from its peak in October 2024. These upgrades allow us to move faster, create more consistency in client experience, and operate with greater scalability. They also ensure we’re building a future-ready organization, one that is ready to embed AI and automation where it improves quality, efficiency, and client insights. CET1 capital levels ended the year at 10.28%, up from 9.91% a year ago, giving us ample flexibility to support growth, sustain our dividend, and selectively pursue opportunities.

Our primary focus remains on organic growth and strategic hiring as we continue to see meaningful talent and market share opportunities stemming from recent M&A disruption in the Twin Cities. As the second-largest locally led financial institution in the market, with $55 billion in banking, wealth, and retirement assets, nearly $300 million in adjusted revenue, and over $600 million in market cap, Alerus is well positioned to capture this momentum. Over the past several years, we have successfully lifted out high-performing teams and professionals, leveraging our deep expertise in C&I, private banking, and wealth management. The strong synergies across these business lines, combined with our expanding physical and brand presence in the Twin Cities, position us to continue attracting top talent, growing C&I relationships, and serving more high-net-worth clients. As we enter 2026, we do so from a position of strength and are set for continued momentum.

We have a unified and clearly defined strategy, a modernized operating environment, a de-risked, future-ready balance sheet, durable, diversified revenue engines across banking, wealth, and retirement, strong capital and liquidity, a deep leadership team built for the next chapter, and a culture centered on accountability to each other, our shareholders, our clients, and our communities. We expect to continue generating positive core operating leverage, expanding tangible book value, and delivering top-tier long-term returns. The work we did in 2025, integrating, modernizing, de-risking, and aligning, creates the conditions for stronger and more consistent performance in the years ahead. With that, I will hand it on, hand it over to Al Villalon.

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Thanks, Katie. Before I start, let’s recap at a high level, 2025, as you can see on page 8 of our investor deck that is posted on the investor relations part of our website. We just posted record-adjusted earnings and over 21% adjusted return on tangible equity after the biggest acquisition in company history. Also, we continued our strategic balance sheet repositioning to ensure continued success in deriving shareholder value creation. For the past several years, the company’s risk and return profile has dramatically improved for the better. Change takes time, and change will continue as the environment changes. I’ll now jump to page 11 of our investor deck to go over financials in more detail.

On a reported basis, net interest income increased 4.7% over the prior quarter, while adjusted non-interest income increased 8.3%, which excludes the loss in securities and other one-time items. Net interest income grew due to a decrease in our cost of funds. Fee income grew as revenues grew both in our retirement and wealth segments. Overall, fee income, excluding the loss in securities, continued to remain over 40% of revenues and over double the industry average. Let’s dive into drivers of net interest income on the next slide. Turning to page 12, in the fourth quarter, net interest income continued to reach new heights at $45.2 million, and our reported net interest margin increased to 3.69%. Total cost of funds decreased 16 basis points to 2.18%.

We also had 52 basis points related to purchase accounting accretion and non-recurring items in the quarter. Excluding these 52 basis points, core interest margin was 3.17%, a 12-basis point improvement from the third quarter. We continued to remain disciplined in pricing on both loans and deposits. In the fourth quarter, we saw new loan spreads of 258 basis points over Fed funds, while deposit costs were coming in at 116 basis points below Fed funds. These spreads make up what we call a new business margin of 374 basis points. This is a very strong margin, which we continue to expect to build core net interest income and will replace purchase accounting accretion. Let’s turn to page 13 to talk about our earning assets.

At the end of the fourth quarter, loans decreased 1.3% over the previous quarter. The decrease in loans was driven by strategic downsizing of the loan portfolio to help improve our overall risk profile. As previously mentioned, we pushed out credit risk from non-core loans and did not renew certain relationships. Overall, our loan mix remains around 50% fixed and 50% floating. On investments, we sold $360 million of available-for-sale securities, which represented over 68% of total AFS securities.... The securities sold had an average weighted yield of 1.7% and a weighted average duration of 5.1 years. Proceeds from the securities sale were reinvested into new investment securities with a weighted average yield of 4.7% and a weighted average duration of just over 3 years.

Excluding balance sheet derivatives, we remain slightly liability sensitive. Any 25 basis point cut in Fed funds should help improve our net interest, net interest margin around 5 basis points. Turning to page 14, on a period-ending basis, deposits declined 5%, mainly due to the calling in of over $165 million in broker deposits and the running off of another $45 million in other wholesale funding to optimize our cost of funds. Excluding the intentional optimizations, deposits declined approximately only $10 million, or 0.2% from the prior quarter. Despite the overall decline in deposits, our loan-to-deposit ratio was 96.6%. Lastly, since the close of the acquisition of Home Federal, our deposit retention rate remains close to 95%. Turning to page 15, I will now talk about our banking segment, which also includes our mortgage business.

I’ll focus on the fee income components now, since net interest income was previously discussed. Mortgage saw only a 4.2%, 4.2% decrease in originations during the quarter. We usually see a bigger seasonal slowdown in mortgage, but we saw refi activity pick up in the fourth quarter. Currently, we are seeing the usual slowdown originations as January is off to a slower start. Lastly, we saw approximately $1 million in swap fee income this quarter. As a reminder, swap fee income tends to be lumpy from quarter to quarter. On page 16, I’ll provide some highlights on our retirement business. Total revenue from the business increased to $17.3 million, a 4.6% increase over the prior quarter. Most of the increase was driven by growth in both asset and transaction-based fees.

Assets under administration and management increased 2.1% due to market performance and net positive asset flows into our retirement business during the quarter. Synergistic deposits within our retirement segment grew 5.6% over the prior quarter. HSA deposits grew over the prior quarter to over $203 million. HSA deposits continue to remain a strong source of funding for us, as these deposits only carry a cost of 10 basis points. These deposits are a valuable source of funding for the bank, which are not reflected in the margin information in this slide. Turning to page 17, you can see highlights of our wealth management business. On a linked quarter basis, revenues increased 13.4% to $7.4 million, while end-of-quarter assets under management increased 0.8%, mainly due to market performance.

Revenue increased due to an increase in asset-based fees. Page 18 provides an overview of our non-interest expense. During the quarter, non-interest expense increased 2.7%. The increase was partially driven by an increase related to the opening of a new facility in Fargo, North Dakota. We also saw an increase in technology expenses driven by new core systems such as our wealth and online banking platforms. Professional fees increased related to the balance sheet restriction that occurred at the end of 2025. Turning to page 19, you can see our credit metrics. During the quarter, we had net recoveries of 3 basis points. The quarter-over-quarter decrease was primarily driven by $1.9 million recovery in the third quarter of 2025 related to a loan that had previously been charged off.

Non-performing assets were 1.27%, an increase of 14 basis points from the prior quarter, driven by a slight increase in non-performing assets and a decrease in overall assets. I’ll discuss our capital liquidity on page 20. Our tangible common equity ratio improved to 8.72% versus 8.24% in the prior quarter. We continue to have close to $2.8 billion in liquidity to help support loan growth and any liquidity events. We remain committed to driving tangible book value growth, with excess capital being used to support organic loan growth, our dividend payout, and share repurchases. Now turning to page 21, I’ll update you on our guidance for 2026. We expect the following: For 2026, we expect loans to continue to grow at a mid-single digit growth rate.

We expect to grow deposits in the low single digits. As previously mentioned, we have ample liquidity to meet any loan growth in excess of deposit growth. For 2026, we’re expecting our net interest margin to be around 3.5%-3.6%, which will include about 16 basis points or just over $8 million of purchase accounting accretion and no early payoffs. This is close to a 60% reduction of purchase accounting accretion from 2025. You’ll continue to see improvement in core interest margin, replacing purchase accounting accretion for 2026. As a reminder, improvement is not linear. With the aforementioned guidance, net interest income is projected to grow low to mid-single digits for 2026.

We expect our adjusted non-interest income to grow in the mid-single digits, driven by continued core growth in our wealth and retirement businesses. No swap fee income is included in this guidance, as it tends to be difficult to estimate and dependent on client demand. Overall, net revenue is poised to grow mid-single digits. Non-interest expense is expected to grow low single digits, which shows our commitment to driving positive operating leverage. For 2026, we expect our ROA to exceed 1.2% for the year. We do not have any further Fed cuts in our expectations for 2026.

And again, for every 25 basis points cut in rates, we expect them to improve about five basis points. While we showed the underlying potential of this better and bigger company in 2025, 2026 is about continued improvement of our core businesses to drive higher return, to drive returns higher. So get on the bus and buy some Alerus. With that, I’ll open up from Q&A.

Conference Moderator: The first question comes from Brendan Nosal of Hovde Group. Your line is now open.

Brendan Nosal, Analyst, Hovde Group: Good morning, everybody. Hope you’re doing well.

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Hey, Brandon.

Brendan Nosal, Analyst, Hovde Group: Maybe just starting off here on kind of balancing dynamics for 2026, you know, with the mid-single-digit loan guide and the deposit guide for low single. You know, totally get that you have the liquidity to, you know, fund the loan growth that you’re seeing coming through. Maybe just speak to your comfort bringing up the loan to deposit ratio from current levels, and is there any kind of internal ceiling that you want to manage around from here?

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Brendan, thanks. This is Al. We try to manage around a 95% loan to deposit ratio, but we also acknowledge that we typically see that tick up as we see some outflows from our public funds, especially in the second and third quarter of every year. But we look to usually have around a 95%-96% loan to deposit ratio.

Brendan Nosal, Analyst, Hovde Group: Okay. Okay, thanks. Maybe turning to expenses. Just kind of curious, you know, with what you have underlying, that outlook in terms of tech investments or room for team ads across the year, kind of baked into that outlook.

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: So in terms of team ads, I’ll let Jim talk about that, but we do have ads incorporated into that guidance. Also, from a tech standpoint, too, we’ve incorporated our contracts that have some variable costs going up over the year and also the new platforms we’ve just implemented.

Jim Collins, Chief Banking and Revenue Officer, Alerus Financial Corporation: Yeah, we have ads for specifically in the wealth areas embedded in the expenses in 2026 and a number of ads in commercial banking embedded in the expenses for 2026.

Brendan Nosal, Analyst, Hovde Group: Okay, fantastic. Thanks for the color and taking my questions.

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Thanks, Brian.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Rulis of D.A. Davidson. Your line is now open.

Jeff Rulis, Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Thanks. Good morning. Question on the loan growth expectations and even the fourth quarter runoff. You know, I want to get a read on a portion of which was credit trimming, maybe in the - take it the fourth quarter first and any idea of kind of the portion of that runoff that was maybe driven by you or credit trimming?

Jim Collins, Chief Banking and Revenue Officer, Alerus Financial Corporation: I’ll take that. This is Jim. A fair amount of it was designed, right? We certainly wanted to run out some of the marginal credits or the credits that were credit related. But we also wanted to drive out orphan credits or non-full relationship credits and pare down our CRE concentrations and really build up our C&I. So as we look at our portfolio and know that the profitability of C&I is a lot higher than our CRE and changing our mix, we’re paring down our CRE, we’re building up C&I. We don’t want orphan relationships, we want full relationships, and we want to push out any marginal credits that we think might end up in the credit box. And we will continue that philosophy in 2026.

That’s why we’re looking at a mid percentage of loan growth in 2026.

Jeff Rulis, Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Jim, if I were to look at kind of year-over-year, you know, low single digit in 2025, mid in 2026, and understand the mix focus there, but would you fair to say the sort of targeted or designed runoff in 2026, that’s less of a headwind than you saw in 2025?

Jim Collins, Chief Banking and Revenue Officer, Alerus Financial Corporation: Yes, I would.

Jeff Rulis, Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Okay, great. And somewhat related on the... Katie, I think you touched on the linked quarter, non-accrual lift. Again, what was that in terms of type and segment?

Karin Taylor, COO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Sure, Jeff, this is Karen. I can take that. The increase was related to a multifamily loan that we acquired. It is here in the Twin Cities. We’ve got a 15% reserve on it. There are already offers on the property, and so we expect that that will resolve certainly in the first half of this year.

Jeff Rulis, Analyst, D.A. Davidson: That’s great. And, and last one for me on the margin. Al, the trajectory of that through the year, it’s a, it’s a, you know, 10 basis point range, 3.50 to 3.60. But, you know, and, and again, does not assume rate cuts. I appreciate the language there. But through the course of the year, is it, is it kind of steady state 3.55, or kind of do you see it building throughout the year? Any, any color on the pace of the margin over the year?

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Yeah. Thanks for the question, Jeff. It’s going to be gradual, and the way I determine it, it’s just going to be really dependent on how our deposit flows ebb and flow, especially, you know, as we see those summer months come in and our public funds go out. So I would expect some gradual improvement in there, but that’s why I made the comment, it’s not really linear.

Jeff Rulis, Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Okay. Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. One moment for our next question.... Our next question comes from the line of Nathan Race of Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

Nathan Race, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Yes. Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Just going back to the margin discussion, Al, I was wondering if you had the dollar amount of accretion in the quarter, and maybe what’s a good starting point for the core margin, ex accretion, just given the full benefit of the securities portfolio reposition that you’ll have in the first quarter?

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Yep. So last year, we had approximately about $20 million of purchase accounting accretion for 2025. This year, we’re looking for about $8 million. And I would say that that eight is pretty evenly spread out. So I’d say a little bit just a little bit over $2 million in the first quarter and kind of scaling down to just right at $2 million in the fourth quarter. And then I think a good exit rate right now is looking at the 317 that we had in the fourth quarter and growing it from that.

Nathan Race, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Okay, great. Really helpful. And then, Katie, your comments around kind of trying to double the wealth management, advisors across the franchise going forward. I was wondering if you could just speak to kind of the timeline and kind of where you’re at in terms of, you know, that headcount, and then kind of where you’re looking to add, you know, additional depth to the wealth management team going forward across the advisor?

Jim Collins, Chief Banking and Revenue Officer, Alerus Financial Corporation: This is Jim. I’ll take that one. We have 26 advisors now in all the markets. We certainly want to add more advisors in our larger markets, the Twin Cities, Phoenix, and Wisconsin. We’ve already added one this year, which will start here in a couple of weeks. We’ve had slated for another six, six or seven, the rest of this year, spread out throughout the markets. We will take the opportunity to add talent where we find it. So I’m not exactly sure at this point where we’re going to find it, but we plan to actively recruit. We are actively recruiting in all markets. So it depends on where we find it, but we are actively recruiting in all markets.

We plan to add those, throughout the year, but again, it’s all, it’s all dependent on when we find the right talent at the right time.

Nathan Race, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Okay, perfect. That’s helpful. Thanks, Jim. Then would just be curious to get an update. You know, you guys still, even with the balance sheet reposition in the quarter, you know, still have nice excess capital position, and, you know, that should continue to build, just given the profitability improvement that was alluded to in the guidance. So maybe just curious to get an update from Katie in terms of if you’re feeling more optimism these days in terms of the opportunity set out there to perhaps augment the retirements platform via acquisition.

Katie Lorenson, President and CEO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Sure. Thanks, Nate. I would, on the capital front, priorities remain consistent with what they’ve been over the course of the past several quarters and years. So organic growth, number one, team lift outs, market share opportunities, dividends, buybacks, and obviously on the M&A front, and that retirement and HSA space is continues to be a priority for us. We continue to expand and deepen the conversations that we’re in with potential partners. And those that, again, that’s agnostic to location in the country, we’ll remain selective and disciplined and make sure that they’re good matches. But I would say, overall, yeah, we continue to build our pipeline of potential partners in that space.

Nathan Race, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Okay, great. Very helpful. I’m sorry, if I could just sneak one last one in for Al on the expense.

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Go for it, Nate.

Nathan Race, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Sorry. Yeah, sorry.

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Go for it, Nate.

Nathan Race, Analyst, Piper Sandler: On the occupancy, on the occupancy expenses, I appreciate that that included the, the cost with the location in Fargo. Does the increase from 3Q to 4Q, does that kind of come out, starting the first quarter?

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Oh, there is some of that in the fourth quarter, but then, we had actually. There’s gonna be a tick up in occupancy because we did have opening of a new facility as well.

Nathan Race, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Okay. So any thoughts on just a better run rate for that number going forward?

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Well, I mean, we’re still looking at, you know, again, low single digits for expenses over the year. I mean, we exited, you know, the quarter roughly around $51 million. I mean, I would just grow up from that.

Nathan Race, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Okay, fair enough. I appreciate all the color. Congrats on a great call.

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: No problem.

Nathan Race, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Thanks, everyone.

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Thank you.

Katie Lorenson, President and CEO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Thank you.

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Appreciate that, Nate.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Damon DelMonte of KBW. The line is now open.

Damon DelMonte, Analyst, KBW: Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Hope you’re all doing well. First question relates to the loan growth. You know, how much of your view on the growth is being driven just by, you know, continued strong underlying economic trends versus opportunities that are being created through, like, market disruption from M&A?

Jim Collins, Chief Banking and Revenue Officer, Alerus Financial Corporation: I would say what I see going into 2026, it’s probably for us, it’s probably mostly market disruption and market share from the talent that we’ve acquired over the last three years. So if I was to guess, it’s probably gonna be 70/30. Seventy from the talent and the relationships that they know at other banks and market disruption, and 30% of just economic growth. That’s my best guess rolling into 2026 at this point. But talking to business owners, it feels like 2026 is going to be a good year for a lot of businesses.

Damon DelMonte, Analyst, KBW: ... Great. I appreciate that color. And then with respect to credit and trying to think about provision, Al, any, any thoughts on kind of how you see the, the provision playing out over the upcoming quarters?

Katie Lorenson, President and CEO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Yeah, Damon, this is Karin. I’ll take that. You know-

Damon DelMonte, Analyst, KBW: Oh, hi, Karen.

Katie Lorenson, President and CEO, Alerus Financial Corporation: I think the provision, the provision in 2026 is going to be driven by loan growth and macroeconomic factors. We feel that we’re adequately reserved on those non-performing deals. And with improving credit metrics, we think the primary growth in reserve will be loan growth.

Damon DelMonte, Analyst, KBW: Great. And I may have missed this earlier, but are you guys anticipating some of those non-performers moving off here in the upcoming quarters to kind of lower some of those ratios?

Katie Lorenson, President and CEO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Yeah, we’ve got several in that bucket where we expect resolution in the first half of the year.

Damon DelMonte, Analyst, KBW: Okay, great. And then just last question on the tax rate. You know, what’s a good tax rate we should think about here for 2026?

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: 24%, Damon.

Damon DelMonte, Analyst, KBW: Perfect. Okay, that’s all that I had. Thanks so much.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of David Long of RJ. Your line is now open.

David Long, Analyst, RJ: Good morning, everyone.

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Hey, David.

David Long, Analyst, RJ: Hey, on the deposit side, just curious what you’re seeing on competition, both from your retail deposits, from the HSA deposits. Does it differ across the different platforms? And is the pricing that you’re seeing, do you feel like it’s rational?

Jim Collins, Chief Banking and Revenue Officer, Alerus Financial Corporation: This is Jim. I think it’s very competitive. I think in all markets, it’s competitive. It’s competitive on the retail side, it’s competitive on the commercial side. I think we have a fairly good strategy in place for 2026, but it will be again very competitive across the boards. Is it rational? Generally speaking, yes. I think in pockets, you’ll find some banks that are being aggressive. You can say that’s a little irrational sometimes, but generally speaking, I think I would just put it as very competitive. So 2026 will be very competitive for deposits. That’s, you know, Al’s comment earlier, that will be the kind of the part of the NIM that will be, how it will be affected throughout the year on where that kind of levels out throughout the year.

So, we’re going to work extremely hard on that piece throughout the entire year, but it’s going to be very competitive.

David Long, Analyst, RJ: Great. And then just to follow up to that, as you’re thinking about the loan growth in the next year, how will the mix look differently with your guide at the end of 2026 versus what we’re looking at here at the end of 2025?

Jim Collins, Chief Banking and Revenue Officer, Alerus Financial Corporation: As I commented earlier, we’re really focused on full C&I relationships. So the portfolio in 26 is really gearing up like we’ve trended towards the end of 25, is really full C&I relationships. So we’re trying to change the mix to more full C&I and less CRE. So the goal at the end of 26 is to change that mix to more more C&I, more mid-market C&I. Hopefully, that answers your question.

David Long, Analyst, RJ: Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s definitely helpful. And looking at the deposit side, too, how do you see the concentration on the deposit side changing?

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Hey, David, before I answer that question, first, I just want to congratulate you and your Indiana Hoosiers on winning a national title. I hope to feel that euphoria someday with Notre Dame. But to answer your deposit question, I mean, we are seeing some of the -- we’re continuing to see some erosion on the non-interest bearing side because the environment is still very competitive. We’re still seeing, you know, our non-maturity deposit rates around the 2%-3% level in terms of, you know, new rates for new accounts coming in. So we’re still going to see some shift from non-interest bearing to interest bearing.

David Long, Analyst, RJ: Great. Thanks, Al. Unfortunately, I did not take up your advice and purchase the options for tickets using the CFP website, but I was able to attend the game in Atlanta at the Peach Bowl, so it was a ton of fun. Thanks.

Al Villalon, CFO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Congrats.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. Again, as a reminder to ask a question, you’ll need to press star one one on your telephone. I’m showing no further questions. This concludes our question and answer session. I’ll now turn the conference back over to Katie Lorenson for any closing remarks.

Katie Lorenson, President and CEO, Alerus Financial Corporation: Thank you, and thank you everyone for your time today. Thank you to all of our team members across this great company. The progress we’ve made together reflects the team’s hard work, the strength of our strategy, and the resilience of our diversified business model. I also want to thank our shareholders, our clients, and our communities for their trust and partnership. We’re excited about our outlook as we enter 2026 with confidence, momentum, and a clear vision for the future. Thank you, everyone.

Conference Moderator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.