Hilltop Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HTH) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Hilltop Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HTH) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript April 24, 2026

Operator: Thank you for standing by. My name is Jordan, and I’ll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Hilltop Holdings First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call and I would now like to turn the call over to Matt Dunn. Please go ahead.

Matthew Dunn: Thank you. Before we get started, please note that certain statements during today’s presentation that are not statements of historical facts, including statements concerning such items as our outlook, business strategy, future plans, financial condition, credit risks and trends in credit, allowance for credit losses, liquidity and sources of funding, funding costs, dividends, stock repurchases, subsequent events and impacts of interest rate changes as well as such other items referenced in the preface of our presentation are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management’s current expectations concerning future events that, by their nature, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Our actual results, capital, liquidity and financial condition may differ materially from these statements due to a variety of factors, including the precautionary statements referenced in the preface of our presentation and those included in our most recent annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC.

Please note that certain information presented is preliminary and based upon data available at this time. Except to the extent required by law, we expressly disclaim any obligation to update earlier statements as a result of new information. Additionally, this presentation includes certain non-GAAP measures, including tangible common equity and tangible book value per share. A reconciliation of these measures to the nearest GAAP measure may be found in the appendix to this presentation, which is posted on our website at ir.hilltop.com. I will now turn the call over to Jeremy Ford.

Jeremy Ford: Thank you, Matt, and good morning. For the first quarter, Hilltop reported net income of approximately $38 million or $0.64 per diluted share. Return on average assets for the period was 1% and return on average equity was 7.1%. To summarize the quarter, PlainsCapital Bank reported a continued expansion in net interest margin while generating year-over-year growth in both core loans and core deposits. PrimeLending narrowed its operating loss when compared to the first quarter of 2025 as the mortgage business benefited from higher origination volumes. And HilltopSecurities delivered strong earnings as net revenues across its business lines showed good momentum to start the year. At PlainsCapital Bank, a favorable 3.38% net interest margin and the continued execution on a robust loan pipeline helped to produce $47 million of pretax income and a 1.2% return on average assets for the quarter.

Operating results at the bank were supported by active management of the deposit portfolio and a further remixing of earning assets into core loans. This combination led to an increase in net interest income of $8 million versus the first quarter of 2025. Results in the quarter included a $1.8 million provision expense. This was largely driven by a stressed auto note credit that we have discussed in prior quarters. Will is going to provide further commentary on credit in his prepared remarks. The bank is poised to deliver continued core loan growth as we seek to organically recruit talented bankers to our platform and expand on our existing customer base by offering value-enhancing products and services. Additionally, we expect to grow core deposits on a year-over-year basis, but we anticipate modest seasonal volatility in core deposit balances.

We believe the backdrop of a healthy Texas economy and a constructive shape to the yield curve will continue to provide a favorable operating environment for PlainsCapital Bank. Moving to PrimeLending, where the company reported a pretax loss of $2 million during the first quarter. The improvement in financial results was primarily driven by year-over-year increases in loan origination volumes and gain on sale margins as well as cost structure enhancements that were implemented in 2025. However, overall profitability within the mortgage business remains under pressure from stubborn headwinds such as affordability and the interest rate lock-in effect. The spring and summer months historically drive elevated origination volumes at PrimeLending.

However, persistent volatility in long-term interest rates creates greater uncertainty around second and third quarter production than in a typical year. Given the structural challenges that homebuyers currently face, we anticipate that overall volumes will be materially impacted by prevailing mortgage rates. We remain focused on achieving internal productivity metrics to best position the business for profitability in this prolonged mortgage cycle. During the quarter, HilltopSecurities generated pretax income of $15 million on net revenue of $116 million for a pretax margin of 12.7%. Speaking to the business lines at HilltopSecurities. Public finance services continued to produce solid top line results as it delivered $23.6 million of net revenue.

which is a modest decline versus last year’s robust first quarter. Structured finance showed strength in a volatile interest rate environment as the business line delivered net revenue of $23.6 million benefiting from a material increase in DDA lock volume on a year-over-year basis. In Wealth Management, results further improved versus the prior year’s first quarter from higher advisory fees and transaction fees. We continue to see organic growth in the wealth business in the midst of a competitive operating environment. Finally, fixed income services delivered $14 million of net revenue which was a 58% increase compared to the first quarter of 2025, primarily from strong sales volumes. Despite the highly volatile interest rate environment, HilltopSecurities produced a solid first quarter and improved pretax income by 60% on a year-over-year basis.

The firm continues to add scale to our core competencies and deliver value to our clients. Moving to Page 4. Hilltop maintained strong capital levels with a common equity Tier 1 capital ratio of 19.1%. Additionally, tangible book value per share increased to $31.97. During the period, we returned $11.8 million to stockholders through dividends and repurchased $47.5 million in shares. Thank you. And I’ll now turn the presentation over to Will to discuss our financials in more detail.

William Furr: Thank you, Jeremy, and I’ll start on Page 5. As Jeremy discussed, for the first quarter of 2026, Hilltop reported consolidated income attributable to common stockholders of $37.8 million, equating to $0.64 per diluted share. The quarter’s results included 7% growth in net interest income, driven by ongoing efforts to manage deposit levels and costs, coupled with approximately 5% year-over-year average HFI loan growth at PlainsCapital Bank. In addition, PrimeLending and HilltopSecurities delivered growth in fees driven by improved origination volume and margins in mortgage and improved fixed income trading results during the first quarter of 2026. I would like to remind all call participants that the prior year’s first quarter results included $41.8 million of revenue and $28.8 million of net income related to the sale of the merchant banking investment and a legal recovery at Plains Capital Bank.

Turning to Page 6. During the first quarter, Hilltop’s allowance for credit losses declined by $2.5 million to $89 million. This decline is largely attributable to a modest improvement in the overall credit quality of the portfolio, including the net impact of positive credit rating migration, payoffs and new loan growth during the quarter. While the economic condition impact during the first quarter was limited, we do believe that the macroeconomic environment, including the geopolitical landscape will continue to provide volatility and uncertainty in future periods. As we’ve stated since the introduction of CECL, we believe that the allowance for credit losses could be volatile and the future changes in the allowance will be driven by net loan growth in the portfolio credit migration trends and changes to the macroeconomic outlook over time.

As of March 31, allowance for credit losses of $89 million yields an ACL to total loans HFI ratio of 106 basis points. Turning to Page 7. Net interest income in the first quarter equated to $112 million, including $1.3 million of purchase accounting accretion versus the prior year same period Net interest income increased by $7 million or 6.7%, reflecting our ongoing efforts to prudently lower deposit costs while continuing to focus on growing customer deposits and relationships across the franchise. At this point in the rate cut cycle, the team at Plains Capital Bank has achieved an interest-bearing deposit beta from the first 175 basis points of reductions from the Federal Reserve of 74%. While we’re pleased with these results to date, we recognize that competitive intensity and pricing pressures could escalate in the future.

Our current expectation for a through-the-cycle interest-bearing deposit beta is 60% to 65%. In addition to the improved interest-bearing deposit beta outcome, Hilltop’s overall asset mix has improved versus the prior year with average excess cash levels declining by approximately $1.1 billion, while average HFI loans have grown by approximately $407 million. We expect that this mix shift will continue to benefit net interest income into the future quarters. Currently, our estimates for future NII and NIM reflect our expectation that the Fed will execute 2 additional rate reductions in 2026. I’m turning to Page 8. First quarter average total deposits were approximately $10.6 billion and have declined by approximately $82 million or less than 1% versus the fourth quarter of 2025.

On an ending balance basis, deposits declined by $347 million to $10.5 billion from the prior quarter ending balance level. The decline in deposit balances reflects the expected outflows during the quarter from certain of our public entity and commercial clients, specifically related to seasonal distributions. Our expectation is that deposits will stabilize and grow throughout the second half of 2026. Looking at the chart on the left of the page, we’re very pleased with the stability in our noninterest-bearing deposits as our banking teams continue to focus on growing relationships, including growth in our treasury management suite of products. During the quarter, total interest-bearing cost declined from the prior quarter by 20 basis points to 249 basis points as of March 31.

Given the current market conditions, including a competitive operating environment, we do expect that interest-bearing deposit costs will begin to stabilize at these levels until we see additional movement from the Federal Reserve. Moving to Page 9. Total noninterest income for the first quarter of 2026 equated to $188 million. First quarter mortgage-related income and fees increased by $5 million versus the first quarter of 2025, reflecting growth in loan origination volumes of 16%. While the mortgage market had begun to stabilize during the fourth quarter of 2025 and the beginning of the first quarter of 2026, the volatility created by concerns over the Iran conflict has impacted markets interest rates and slowed mortgage demand during the latter part of the first quarter.

Given the uncertainty regarding the ongoing conflict and its impact on inflation, yields and housing demand, we are maintaining our mortgage production volume expectation at $9 billion to $10 billion for the year. In addition, we expect the gain on sale margins will remain relatively stable at the current levels given these environmental challenges. Further, revenue from principal transactions, commissions and fees increased by $11.2 million, driven primarily by growth in fixed income services, coupled with growth in wealth management and structured finance. The most significant driver of the decline in revenue recorded in other noninterest income, related to the sale of merchant banking investment during the prior year same period, which as noted on the slide, equated to $41.8 million.

It does remain important to recognize that both fixed income services and structured finance businesses, HilltopSecurities can be volatile from period-to-period as they are impacted by interest rates, overall market liquidity and production trends. Turning to Page 10. Noninterest expenses remained relatively stable from the same period in the prior year, declining by $3 million to $248 million. During the prior year same period, expenses were impacted by $4.8 million, resulting from the net impact of the merchant banking investment sale and the recovery recorded in professional services. Looking forward, we expect expenses other than variable compensation will remain relatively stable as the ongoing focused efforts related to streamlining our operations and improving productivity continue to support lower headcount and improved throughput across our franchise, helping to offset the ongoing inflationary pressures that persist in the market.

Turning to Page 11. First quarter average HFI loans equated to $8.3 billion, which grew by $218 million or 2.7% versus the fourth quarter levels. Continuing from 2025 and into the first quarter of 2026, we have continued to see solid activity across our commercial loan pipelines. Growth in the pipeline has been geographically dispersed centered in commercial real estate lending. Further, while the most recent pipeline trends are encouraging, we are monitoring for any negative demand impacts resulting from the current conflict in the Middle East, higher interest rates and higher oil and gas prices. Based on the current business flows, we are expecting full year average HFI loan growth to range between 4% and 6%. As noted in prior quarters, we continue to retain mortgages originated PrimeLending and would expect to continue to do so in the coming quarters.

Our expectation is that we will retain between $10 million and $30 million per month. I’m moving to Page 12. First quarter’s results include $4.3 million of net charge-offs. This quarter’s net charge-offs largely reflect the write-down of loans within the auto note finance credits that we’ve discussed over prior quarters. During the first quarter, the net charge-offs in the Auto Note portfolio equated to $3.6 million. As shown in the chart in the upper right of the page, nonperforming assets increased modestly, driven largely by the negative migration of one credit in our commercial real estate portfolio. Regarding credit overall, we’ve not seen any prevailing trends that cause undue concern in our portfolio. However, we do continue to monitor all aspects of the portfolio very closely as higher interest rates, international conflicts and higher energy prices could have a negative impact on our clients over the coming quarters.

Moving to Page 13. As we move through the second quarter of 2026, there continues to be a lot of uncertainty in the market regarding interest rates, inflation and the overall health of the economy. We are pleased with the current positioning of our balance sheet and the ongoing work that our team is executing each day to move our company forward through what has been an ever-changing operating environment. As is noted in the table, our outlook for 2026 reflects our current assessment of the economy and the markets where we participate. Further, as the market changes and we adjust our business to respond, we will provide updates to our outlook on future quarterly calls. Operator, that concludes our prepared comments, and we’ll turn the call back to you for the Q&A section of the call.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Woody Lay from KBW.

Q&A Session

Hannah Wynn: This is Hannah Wynn in for Woody Lay. My first question is on the NII range that you gave. I saw it bumped up this quarter from your previous guidance. And I was wondering if you could give a little color into this and where you’re seeing loan yields come on and also where you might expect this to change if we don’t end up seeing a rate cut this year.

William Furr: Thanks, Hannah, for the question. Well, as we noted kind of in the prepared comments, we’ve seen what we believe to be pretty solid loan growth. We expect that loan growth to continue throughout the year. We’re also seeing, as we noted, an improved deposit beta, the 74% through the cycle, while we would expect that likely diminishes if there are additional Fed rate cuts, we’re very pleased with kind of where that has positioned us. So that was the basis in large part for the increase in the guide. As it relates to overall loan yields, our going on loan yields during the quarter were about 6.5% overall. So that’s — we view that as pretty favorable.

Hannah Wynn: Okay. Great. And then my other question is on the capital front. I know you guys were active again on buybacks this quarter and wondering where you expect this activity to continue and also where you would put M&A in your capital priorities right now?

Jeremy Ford: This is Jeremy. Yes, we were active. I think we’re being more consistent with our repurchases this past quarter. And we have an authorization of $125 million for the year. So we’ll be market dependent. We’ll be looking for us to be consistent in our share repurchase and M&A is always available to us. We have the resources and the balance sheet. I think that — so it would be a priority if we have the right strategic fit or if it is also a financially compelling transaction.

Operator: Next question comes from the line of Matt Olney from Stephens.

Matt Olney: I want to dig more into your mortgage expectations for the remainder of the year. Will, I think you mentioned you’re keeping the mortgage volume guidance for the full year unchanged. I guess some of the other — I think some of the other third parties have moved more cautious if rates have increased in recent months. So anything else you can share about your outlook here? And I see you’re assuming some Fed cuts in the NII guidance. I’m curious if you’re also assuming lower rates with your mortgage outlook.

William Furr: Thanks for the question. From a mortgage perspective, what we’re kind of asserting here is we don’t have clear visibility into the buying season for the second and early part of the third quarter. What we do see, and we noted in our comments was more muted demand in March and certainly directly after the conflict began overseas. And so as a result of that, we likely are moving. We would say we’re going to — we’re still within the range. But if we — historically, we guided — if you look through our guidance, it’s kind of midpoint. And so as we see softness, you could move to the lower end. But that said, it all depends on how temporary kind of the effects are and how the overall market recovers once the conflict is resolved.

So we’re kind of cautiously optimistic there. And I know the team at PrimeLending continues to work hard to grow the business and originate mortgages for our customers. So that’s the primary view there. As we get more clarity around the impacts and the longevity of the impacts, we’ll provide more perspective next quarter.

Matt Olney: Okay. Well, what about — specifically about your rate assumptions. I mean we see the NII assumptions and the rate backdrop there. But what about the broker-dealer, the mortgage piece? Are you assuming any rate changes in other — is it kind of through the entire enterprise? Just any more color on your rate assumptions.

William Furr: Yes. So we — our current assessment is 2 additional rate cuts, and we apply that across all of our businesses consistently. We also apply that to all of our guidance consistently. So that is the basis. I’d tell you, if we got no cuts, and that was all that occurred, which is also a pretty static and sterile analysis. But if that occurred, you could see NII move higher $8 million to $10 million, and then we would see likely a slightly better or improved revenue perspective in HilltopSecurities as well.

Matt Olney: Okay. Appreciate that. And then as far as the net interest margin, great margin performance this quarter. It looks like the driver, interest-bearing deposit costs went lower. I was hoping you could speak to any more drivers of the margin performance this quarter? And just how sustainable do you think these levels are?

William Furr: Yes. So I think from a deposit perspective, we feel good about the work the team has done. The 74% interest-bearing deposit beta through this point in the cycle, we feel very good about and it’s higher than we’ve historically modeled or experienced. That said, there — and we noted this, there continues to be kind of ongoing competitive intensity. And by virtue of that, we could see the need to increase deposit rates modestly. That said, we’re going to be cautious and thoughtful about that because we are focused on growing overall relationships and deposit balances over time. And that’s why I noted that our kind of through the cycle, if we get some additional Fed activity in terms of downward rates, we’d expect to see that beta back up to the 60% to 65% level.

And so that’s kind of how we’re thinking about it. As you look at NIM, we do believe we’ve kind of gotten to a peak NIM level given a consistent Fed. And so we would guide NIM flat to modestly down from here. And again, we feel good about the guidance we provided on NII as it relates to both interest rates as well as our balance sheet positioning and our overall deposit cost.

Operator: Your final question comes from the line of Cole Martin from Raymond James.

Cole Martin: I’m on for Mike Rose this morning. Just on expenses, I was hoping you could talk through your nonvariable expenses guide of 0% to 2% and kind of what the puts and takes would be to really get to flat growth this year? And then also how much of that is technology driven?

William Furr: Yes. So I think the guide really presumes, I’d say, normal inflationary increases in personnel-related expenses as well as our technology service provider costs. Those are in there. We are obviously making thoughtful investments across the franchise to grow our bankers, our client-facing and customer-facing associate groups. And so that’s really the basis of what would drive it higher. And we would expect it to be modestly higher on a year-over-year basis, just given those investments that we’re making. Obviously, we continue to make investments in technology, our data platforms, the deployment of AI where practical across our organization certainly is a key focus as well. And those investments are kind of considered in the guidance as well as we look forward.

So from an expense perspective, we are very pleased with the work the team has been able to do to drive productivity throughout the organization and keep our expenses other than variable compensation relatively stable over the last couple of years, but we do continue to see inflation, and we also expect to continue to make again, investments in client-facing resources as well as technology to continue to position the organization to be successful into the future.

Cole Martin: Great. And then on deposits, I was hoping you could give a little bit of color on how much of an impact deposit competition that’s had and kind of where you see the health of the consumer going out through 2026?

William Furr: Yes. So I think deposit competition remains robust for sure. And what I would say is we’ve seen largely rational behavior, what we would call largely rational behavior by the competitive set through this portion of the rate cycle. And so we’ve been able to operate within that. And so when I say rational, we don’t see a lot of competitors offering rates that we would call irrationally high, even though there’s certainly activity out there to kind of grow clients and teaser rates and the thing and the like. So from that perspective, we feel like the competitive intensity is still there. It’s pretty high. But that said, it seems rational at this point.

Operator: There are no further questions. That concludes the question-and-answer session and today’s call. You may now disconnect.