WesBanco Inc 2026 Q3 Earnings Call

Good afternoon. Welcome to WesBanco Inc.'s third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Leading the call today are Jeff Jackson, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Dan Weiss, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Today's call, an archive of which will be available on our website for one year, contains forward-looking information. Cautionary statements about this information and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures are included in our earnings-related materials issued yesterday afternoon, as well as our other SEC filings and investor materials. These materials are available on the investor relations section of our website, wesbanco.com, and all statements speak only as of October 22nd, 2026, and WesBanco undertakes no obligation to update them. I would now like to turn the call over to Jeff.

Jeff? Thanks, John, and good afternoon, everyone.

Today, we'll review our third quarter performance and share our current outlook for fourth quarter. Our third quarter results demonstrate continued momentum across our franchise, particularly in three areas. We delivered strong sequential quarter and year-over-year loan growth. We saw accelerating growth in our targeted expansion markets. And we drove solid profitability through disciplined execution and positive operating leverage. Turning to our financial performance, our third quarter results reflect the continued strength of WesBanco's disciplined growth strategy and relationship-focused banking model. For the quarter ending September 30th, 2026, we reported net income available to common shareholders of $86 million, excluding merger and restructuring charges, or $0.89 per share. Our year-to-date results demonstrate how disciplined growth and improving operating leverage are translating into stronger profitability.

Adjusted earnings per share increased nearly 7% to $2.72, while our return on average tangible common equity remained nearly 17%. We also improved return on average assets to 1.3% and lowered our efficiency ratio to 52%. Our capital position also remains solid with a CET1 ratio of 10.6%, which continues to provide flexibility to support our growth expectations. The defining driver of our momentum this quarter was once again strong loan growth. Total loans increased 5.1% year-over-year and 8.7% annualized sequentially as our teams converted pipeline opportunities across our footprint. C&I growth was particularly strong, increasing 11% year-over-year and 16% quarter-over-quarter annualized. Through the first nine months of the year, our commercial teams generated record loan production of nearly $4 billion, a 70% increase from prior year period.

As we mentioned last quarter, we expected developers to continue to seek permanent financing and the sale of properties during the third quarter, but at a slower pace than the first half of the year. However, we experienced another sequential quarter increase as CRE payoffs totaled approximately $370 million during the third quarter, which caused nearly a 1% headwind to loan growth and a $1 billion headwind over the past 12 months. Despite that headwind, we generated $1 billion of net organic loan growth over the past year, demonstrating the soundness of our strategy and strength of our teams and our markets. A recent mid-Atlantic win illustrates how our relationship-focused model is contributing to this momentum. A cross-functional team developed a relationship with a prominent family-owned business in the Baltimore region and ultimately secured an eight-figure commercial loan, a seven-figure deposit relationship, and treasury management services.

More importantly, it positions us to compete for the company's broader banking relationship. This is a great example of how collaboration across our teams can turn individual relationships into meaningful multi-product opportunities. Reflecting our team's ability to successfully convert loan opportunities, our commercial pipeline was $1.8 billion as of September 30, with half of this from our loan production offices and former Premier markets. The pipeline has remained stable in the few weeks since the quarter end, giving us confidence in our ability to outpace CRE payoffs and deliver on our outlook of mid-single-digit loan growth in 2026. We remain excited about the opportunities in our targeted expansion markets of Florida and Tennessee as our new teams have hit the ground running. Since launching in the second quarter, our Florida team has developed $300 million in new loan relationships and a similar-sized pipeline.

While the early majority of closed loans are CRE and owner-occupied related, nearly a third of the C&I across the various industries like healthcare, wholesale, and transportation. We are encouraged by the breadth of diversified opportunities we're seeing in South Florida and continue to evaluate additional areas where we can leverage our relationship banking model. Further, we remain on track to open our financial centers in Fort Lauderdale, West Palm, and Naples during the first half of 2027. Tennessee provides another strong proof point of our expansion strategy. Since entering the market in 2023, we have organically built a loan portfolio of more than $750 million, now representing nearly 4% of our total loans. We opened another loan production office in Knoxville, June of last year, and recently expanded our national presence, adding a highly experienced team of approximately 20 bankers and staff with deep roots in community banking.

In less than three months, the team has leveraged their extensive networks to close $100 million in new loan relationships, nearly half of which are C&I across industries like healthcare, recreation and entertainment, and finance and insurance. Finally, we're proud to have been recognized recently by Forbes as one of the world's top performing banks, and to have earned our ninth consecutive Outstanding Community Reinvestment Act rating from the FDIC. Both recognitions reflect the strength of our franchise and the commitment of our teams to delivering for our customers, communities, and shareholders. I would now like to turn over the call to Dan to walk through the financials and outlook in more detail.

Dan? Thanks, Jeff, and good afternoon.

For the third quarter, we reported GAAP net income available to common shareholders of $85 million or $0.88 per share. When excluding restructuring of merger-related expenses, third quarter net income was $86 million or $0.89 per share. To highlight a few of the third quarter's year-over-year accomplishments, we grew adjusted earnings per share nearly 7%, driven by our disciplined growth strategy that delivered strong annualized loan growth of nearly 9%. We posted record fee income levels across several categories and maintained our efficiency ratio in the low 50% range. We ended the quarter with record total assets of $28.5 billion, which included total portfolio loans of $19.9 billion and securities of $4.5 billion, with the securities book representing approximately 16% of total assets. Total portfolio loans increased 5.1% year over year due to our organic growth of nearly $1 billion.

Based on our current pipeline and strong loan production, we expect to generate mid-single-digit growth for the year, despite the elevated commercial real estate payoffs. Deposits of $21.6 billion increased 1.5% year over year and were roughly flat sequentially as higher cost CDs migrated to money markets and other transaction accounts. As we mentioned previously, we expect our loan growth to outpace deposits in the near term as we lead with lending in our new expansion markets. That said, our 91% average loan to deposit ratio positions our balance sheet well for additional loan growth in the coming quarters. Our credit quality metrics remain solid. Most notably, our criticized and classified loans decreased $93 million or 55 basis points from the second quarter to represent 3.19% of total loans.

This significant improvement in credit quality resulted in a four basis point reduction in the allowance for credit losses to total portfolio loans at September 30th to 1.08% of total loans, or $215 million. Net interest income for the third quarter was $227 million, an increase of $10.2 million, or 4.7% year over year, driven by loan growth, upward loan repricing, and higher security yields. This increase was a significant contributor to the 5% year over year growth in both pre-tax and net earnings and the 7% increase in adjusted earnings per share. The third quarter net interest margin of 360 improved seven basis points year over year, primarily due to lower funding costs, and was flat for the second quarter when excluding the additional three basis points of accelerated accretion from an early payoff during the second quarter.

Total deposit funding costs, including non-interest-bearing deposits, declined 12 basis points year over year to 180 basis points, reflecting the runoff of the higher cost CDs. On a sequential quarter basis, increased just a couple of basis points, demonstrating our discipline over deposit pricing. Turning to fee income, we continue to see great traction across our franchise for our fee-based services as we earned record fees from service charges on deposit products, digital banking services, and treasury management. For the third quarter, non-interest income increased $1 million, or 2.2% year over year, to $46 million. When excluding the impact of net security gains and losses, fee income increased 5.4% year over year. The third quarter reflects a full quarter's benefit of approximately $750,000 from the increase in deposit account fees that we implemented in June.