Trustmark Corporation Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call - Record 2025 earnings, NIM steady and mid-single-digit growth guidance for 2026

Conference Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Trustmark Corporation’s fourth quarter earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation this morning, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press Star, then one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press Star, then two. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Mr. Joey Rein, Director of Corporate Strategy at Trustmark.

Joey Rein, Director of Corporate Strategy, Trustmark Corporation: Good morning! I’d like to remind everyone that a copy of our fourth quarter earnings release and the presentation that will be discussed this morning are available on the Investor Relations section of our website at trustmark.com. During our call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and we’d like to caution you that these forward-looking statements may differ materially from actual results due to a number of risks and uncertainties which are outlined in our earnings release and in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At this time, I’d like to introduce Duane Dewey, President and CEO of Trustmark Corporation.

Duane Dewey, President and CEO, Trustmark Corporation: Thank you, Joey, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us again this morning. With me are Tom Owens, our Chief Financial Officer, Barry Harvey, our Chief Credit and Operations Officer, and Tom Chambers, our Chief Accounting Officer. Trustmark’s momentum continued to build throughout the year, resulting in record earnings in 2025. Our traditional banking business drove continued loan and deposit growth, a strong net interest margin, and solid credit quality. Our mortgage banking business achieved increased production and significant improvement in profitability, while revenue in our wealth management business reached an all-time high. In our presentation this morning, I will provide a summary of our performance and discuss forward guidance before moving to your questions. Now, turning to Slide 3, our financial highlights. Our fourth quarter results reflected continued significant progress across the organization.

Net income totaled $57.9 million, representing diluted EPS of $0.97 a share, up 3.2% linked-quarter and 5.4% year-over-year. For the full year, Trustmark achieved a record net income of $224.1 million, representing diluted earnings per share of $3.70. Net income from adjusted continuing operations increased $37.8 million, or 20.3% in 2025. This level of earnings resulted in a return on average assets of 1.21% and a return on average tangible equity of 12.97%. From the balance sheet perspective, loans held for investment increased $126 million, or 0.9% linked-quarter, and $584 million, or 4.5% year-over-year.

Our loan portfolio remains well diversified by loan type and geography. Our deposit base declined $131 million, or 0.8% linked quarter, driven in part by a decrease in public fund deposits of $290 million dollars, $219 million dollars. Year-over-year, deposits increased $392 million, or 2.6%, driven by growth in commercial and personal balances of $568 million. The cost of total deposits in the fourth quarter was 1.72%, a decrease of 12 basis points linked quarter. Our strong, cost-effective core deposit base is a continuing strength of Trustmark. During the fourth quarter, we repurchased $43 million, or 1.1 million shares of our common stock.

For the year, we repurchased $80 million, or 2.2 million shares, which represented 3.5% of outstanding shares at year-end 2024. As previously announced, we have authorization to repurchase up to $100 million of Trustmark common shares during 2026. This program continues to be subject to market conditions and management discretion. Revenue in the fourth quarter totaled $204 million, while revenue for the full year totaled $800 million, a record year at Trustmark. Net interest income in the fourth quarter totaled $166 million, which produced a net interest margin of 3.81%. For the full year, net interest income totaled $647 million, up 8.4% from the prior year. Non-interest income in the fourth quarter totaled $41 million, up 3.3% linked quarter.

In 2025, non-interest income totaled $164 million, representing 20.5% of total revenue. Non-interest expense increased $1.2 million, or 0.9% linked quarter. For the year, non-interest expense totaled $512 million, an increase of 5.5% from the prior year. Diligent expense management continues to be a focus of our organization. From a credit perspective, net charge-offs in the fourth quarter were $7.6 million and included one individually analyzed loan totaling $5.9 million, which was reserved for in prior periods. Net charge-offs represented 0.22% of average loans in the fourth quarter. For the full year, net charge-offs were thirteen basis points of average loans. The provision for credit losses in the fourth quarter totaled $1.2 billion.

The provision for both loans held for investment and off-balance sheet credit exposure were impacted by positive credit migration, loan and unfunded commitment growth, and the macroeconomic forecast. In 2025, the provision for credit losses was $12.9 million. At year-end, the allowance for credit losses represented 1.15% of loans held for investment. Again, very solid credit performance. We’ve been active on the capital management front, issuing $170 million of 6% fixed to floating sub-debt in the fourth quarter, the proceeds of which were used to repay $125 million of existing sub-debt and for general corporate purposes. This action further strengthened our regulatory capital position. At year-end, the CET1 ratio was 11.72%, while our total risk-based capital ratio was 14.41%.

Additionally, the board announced a 4.2% increase in Trustmark’s regular quarterly dividend to $0.25 per share from $0.24 per share. This dividend is payable March 15, 2026, to shareholders of record on March 1, and takes our full year dividend to $1 per share. As previously mentioned, we repurchased $80 million of Trustmark common stock during the year, including $43 million in the fourth quarter. At year-end, tangible book value per share was 30.28, an increase of 2.3% from the prior quarter and 13.5% from the prior year. I’m very pleased to report that through share repurchase activity and quarterly dividends, Trustmark returned approximately 61.8% of net income to 2025 shareholders. Now let’s focus on forward guidance, which is on page 15 of the deck.

We’re providing full year guidance for 2026, as well as the 2025 benchmarks upon which the guidance is based. We expect loans held for investment to increase mid-single digits for the full year 2026, and deposits, excluding brokered deposits, to increase mid-single digits as well. Securities balances are expected to remain stable as we continue to reinvest cash flows. We anticipate the net interest margin will be in the range of 3.8%-3.85% for the full year, while we expect net interest income to increase mid-single digits. From a credit perspective, total provision for credit losses, including off-balance sheet credit exposure, is expected to normalize. Non-interest income for full year 2026 is expected to increase mid-single digits, as is non-interest expense.

We will continue our disciplined approach to capital deployment with a preference for organic loan growth, potential market expansion, M&A, or other general corporate purposes, depending on market conditions. I would point you to pages 17 and 18, showing Trustmark has made significant improvement in its financial performance over the last several years. We’re committed to maintaining that momentum into 2026, and with that, I would like to open the floor up to questions.

Conference Operator: We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Steven Scouten with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Analyst: Yeah, good morning, everyone. Thanks. I guess-

Duane Dewey, President and CEO, Trustmark Corporation: Good morning.

Analyst: You know, this morning, obviously, we got another transaction that kind of impacts some of your larger markets, along with a lot of recent activity. And I know we talked about maybe 21 production hires back in the third quarter. Curious, how many new hires maybe you had in fourth quarter, if any, and if these deals kind of accelerate any of your thoughts around talent acquisition in 2026?

Duane Dewey, President and CEO, Trustmark Corporation: Well, good morning, Steven. In the fourth quarter, I think in the third quarter, we announced 29 total new hires, 21 of them production-oriented. In the fourth quarter, that number was in the range of 13 new production hires for the quarter. They’re in all markets and in several different disciplines throughout the company, so we continue to focus on organic expansion and bringing in new talent into the organization. As we talk, and we’ll go through the rest of the question-and-answer session here, we’ll talk about loan growth and seeing some of the diversified loan growth that through these new hires, we’re starting to see C&I, our equipment finance team, and so on, they all continue to now show improved performance and improved growth. So we’re very pleased with that effort.

As it relates to the M&A activity, that does create some opportunity. I mean, with each transaction, both in our home core markets as well as in a market like Houston and so on, it does create some... disruption, both clients and personnel. And so we continue to monitor that and stay in touch in the markets and continue to recruit actively. So, we see it generally as a positive and look forward to that continuing throughout 2026.

Analyst: Okay, great. And maybe just, my other question would be kind of around the, the guidance for, for 2026, around credit in particular, just this idea of normalizing, I guess, credit costs. Can, can you frame that up at all potentially or, or kind of give some color on what that, what that means to you all, just kind of within the context, maybe if net charge-offs for 2025 were around 13 basis points, if I’m looking at that correctly? So just kind of wondering how to, how to frame up what you might expect within that normalizing from a charge-off and a reserve perspective.

Barry Harvey, Chief Credit and Operations Officer, Trustmark Corporation: Steven, this is Barry. I guess starting with the charge-off piece of it, you know, I would think, you know, that 13-15 basis points of average loans is kind of where we would expect to see ourselves on an ongoing basis. We don’t, we don’t really see anything that unusual about 2025. We probably did have a few credits, a large, a few larger commercial credits than we do today, that we got resolved during 2025, and that did result in a little bit of loss in some of those credits. But and we really don’t have today, we don’t have those credits that we’re dealing with or ones of similar size.

So I would think 13-15 basis points of average loans for net charge-offs would be a good range for us, what we might expect to see. And then as it relates to provisioning, you know, to us, 14-18 basis points of improvement we see from a credit quality standpoint. We’ve had substantial improvement in credit quality during 2025. For example, criticized for the year are down $181 million, classified are down $57 million for the year. You know, so as we work through some of these credits, some of those upgrades and some of those are going to be pay downs as well as moving out of the bank.

As we continue to experience that, then that obviously will help our provisioning, and that is obviously what helped our provisioning quite a bit this quarter as well as it did in Q3. And so as that—if that trend continues, which we don’t know if it will or won’t, but we do expect some improvement. But if that trend continues at that pace, then we might expect a little lower provisioning cost than we’re anticipating right now. But right now, 14-18 basis points of average loans feels about right.

Analyst: Fantastic. That’s great color. Congrats on all the progress in 2025. Appreciate the time.

Duane Dewey, President and CEO, Trustmark Corporation: Thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Gary Tenner with D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.

Analyst: Thanks. Good morning.

Duane Dewey, President and CEO, Trustmark Corporation: Morning, Gary.

Analyst: Great, great color on that provision question. I just wonder on the other guidance areas. I mean, it looks like the guidance really falls well within expectations, kind of, you know, exiting 25 into 2026. Can you talk about just, you know, the lever points that you see as it impacts the guidance, whether it’s growth, fees, expenses, kind of where you see the most sensitivity, you know, and leverage potentially as we work through the year?

Tom Owens, Chief Financial Officer, Trustmark Corporation: Well, Gary, I’ll start. This is Tom Owens. As you said, our guidance is pretty consistent with the range of analyst estimates coming into 2026. You know, with respect to levers, in terms of how it falls to the bottom line and EPS, obviously, loan growth is going to be a key driver. We can talk a little bit also about capital deployment during the year, and I think those things are going to be interrelated. You know, we’ve been pleased with our ability to continue to drive capital accretion at the same time that we’ve been supporting solid loan growth and deploying capital via share repurchase. So, probably the biggest levers are probably going to be that relationship between loan growth and capital deployment.

Duane Dewey, President and CEO, Trustmark Corporation: Yeah, I would add to the response there. So we’re seeing improving conditions in the mortgage market, and we saw it in 2025 starting to take shape. You know, things that impact that business, some of the MSR hedging and those sorts of things, showed significant improvement, and so that reflects in our non-interest income category. As mentioned in the prior comments, in 2025, we had record net income in our wealth management businesses. Not, excuse me, at least record revenue in those businesses. And so I think, you know, we, we’ve invested there. We continue, and when we talk about production talent, we’re adding talent in those businesses as well across our footprint. So, you know, we see potential for some improvement, at least as we’ve guided mid-single digits, if not better, in some of the non-interest income categories.

Expense management is going to be a continued focus for us. We’ll see where that leads in this year, but at this point, we’re good at mid-single digits. So it really, it’s a continuing improving position across the whole both income statement, and as Tom noted, the balance sheet plays a critical role in that, obviously, so.

Analyst: Thanks. I appreciate the color there. And then just a follow-up, specific to wealth management, in the fourth quarter, the pickup, you know, in revenue there sequentially, what the driver was?

Duane Dewey, President and CEO, Trustmark Corporation: It’s just general improvement in asset values. Asset values drive fee revenue. But it’s a combination. Asset value improvement, I think, is a positive in that business, but also new account acquisition. We, we’ve invested, like I said, we invested in the business. We have new talent, we have great leadership in that business, and a really focused effort across the organization on cross sales, on cross pollination across our commercial businesses and the like. So it’s all starting to really take hold and take shape and show improvement. I would also note, part of that business, we do have a brokerage team also that we converted from one brokerage platform to another in the third and fourth quarters.

That new platform on the brokerage side is also generating new revenues and new opportunities for us, so we’re optimistic on that front as well.

Analyst: So, to be clear, there are nothing unusual on that line in the fourth quarter, more just kind of increase-

Duane Dewey, President and CEO, Trustmark Corporation: Nothing unusual.

Analyst: And equity value. Okay.

Duane Dewey, President and CEO, Trustmark Corporation: That’s accurate, yes.

Analyst: Thank you.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Feddie Strickland with Hovde Group. Please go ahead.

Analyst: Hey, good morning. Wanted to start on the expense guidance. Curious to see what’s the cadence of expense growth throughout the year? Is it relatively steady as you make these investments in new talent, or is there any particular quarter that’s higher?

Tom Owens, Chief Financial Officer, Trustmark Corporation: He’s asking about the timing of increases in non-interest expense.

Duane Dewey, President and CEO, Trustmark Corporation: Throughout the year?

Tom Owens, Chief Financial Officer, Trustmark Corporation: Throughout the year, and was it chunky?

Duane Dewey, President and CEO, Trustmark Corporation: Yeah. Well, what you see is. This is Tom Chambers. What you see is, you know, the last half of the year, we end up having our annual merit increases across the company. So you’re gonna have a natural increase starting on July 1st of that quarter. And then, really, there’s nothing else unusual unless it’s, you know, mortgage commissions and revenue-generating business. Yeah, I would just say, yeah, it’s the second half of the year, we do tend to merit increases go into effect July 1st each year, and so that hits in the second half of the year. Assuming performance is sufficient and so on, sometimes in the second half of the year, we true up for year-end bonuses, production, commissions, those sorts of things.

So, yeah, I would say the second half of the year typically is a bit more, a bit higher level of increase than in the first half of the year. And across our overall organization, you know, we continue to look at and make technology investments and other things that are just the normal course of expense increase that impacts us every year. But I would say going into 2026, that’s pretty much it.

Analyst: Got it. That makes sense. And just wanted to ask conversations on M&A. I mean, would you say a deal is any more or less likely in 2026? And just quick refresher on preferred geographies, what you’re looking for in terms of partners. Just curious in general on M&A.

Duane Dewey, President and CEO, Trustmark Corporation: Yeah, I would, I would say first and foremost, I mean, the increase in discussion and consideration, there probably is a fairly significant increase across our markets and markets we serve and where we have interest. That has not changed really, as we’ve talked for some time, between Houston up to Dallas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee. I mean, we cover such a large geographic footprint that are very, very attractive markets, and we have interest in those markets. We’ve talked about size ranges of $1 billion-$10 billion, but you know, it’s all opportunistic.

We have to see the opportunity, we have to see a good cultural fit, and we continue to create relationships and build rapport, but we are not gonna be focused on doing a deal. We’re focused on our organic strategy at this point, and if a M&A opportunity presents itself in a good market that provides talent, that provides market opportunity, and so on, then we will take advantage of that. We do feel from a overall operating, profitability, capital, et cetera, perspective, we’re in the best position we’ve been in to do that in quite a while, but we’re gonna be cautious and selective in that process.

We have felt that the buyback has been a good route to utilize capital to this point, and we’ll continue to consider that as we move forward as well, so.

Analyst: All right, great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Duane Dewey, President and CEO, Trustmark Corporation: Thank you.

Conference Operator: ...Again, if you have a question, please press star, then one. The next question comes from Christopher Marinac with Janney. Please go ahead.

Analyst: Hey, thanks. Good morning. Just to continue on the M&A, question from Feddie, do you think that there’s a scenario where you don’t do an M&A deal because there’s too much happening around you? You know, Steven mentioned the Texas deal this morning. You obviously have a much bigger merger in your backyard that’s happening this year with a competitor going away. Is there a scenario where you don’t do anything on M&A, you simply focus organically just to take advantage of opportunities and people, exclusively?

Tom Owens, Chief Financial Officer, Trustmark Corporation: I think that’s a great, that’s a great point, and that’s, you know, again, there is a good amount of disruption, and, and good companies all, all, you know, moving their organizations forward, but at the end of the day, it creates opportunity sometimes for those of us in the marketplace. And so that, that is absolutely a very accurate, consideration for us. And, and as we have talked about our organic strategy, you know, if you look at, markets like Synovus, Pinnacle, Cadence, Stellar, I mean, they’re all in markets we serve. They all create some opportunity, and, we’re, we’re, looking forward to considering what options we have for that organic strategy, and, we see it as significant.

I think that’s a very good point, and I think it’s, you know, it is strong enough consideration that, yeah, you may see us not do a deal.

Analyst: Great. Thank you for that. Just to follow up on sort of the deposit success that you talked about in the prepared remarks. Are you doing anything to incent deposits differently than you had in past years?

Tom Owens, Chief Financial Officer, Trustmark Corporation: So, Chris, this is Tom Owens, and so, I, I’m guessing with your question, you’re talking about internal incentivization, and the answer there is yes, that has been an increasing area of focus for us, obviously, is, deposits, customer acquisition and balance acquisition. And so when you look at, for example, our, our CRM, bonus templates and the drivers in the templates, we’ve, increased our emphasis on, deposit growth there. And I’ll just say, I mean, we’ve been pleased with, you know, when you look at our competitive stance on deposits and where we, where we rank in terms of deposit costs, we’ve been, pleased with our ability to grow balances cost effectively.

You look at personal and commercial balances are up 4.4% year-over-year, and I think on an average balance basis in the fourth quarter over a year ago quarter, they’re up 4% plus. So we’ve been very pleased with our ability to do that, to continue to fund solid loan growth.

Analyst: Great, Tom. Thank you for that. I appreciate it.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Catherine Mealor with KBW. Please go ahead.

Analyst: Thanks. Good morning.

Tom Owens, Chief Financial Officer, Trustmark Corporation: Morning, Katherine.

Analyst: Morning, Katherine.

All right. One little nitty question on the margin. Tom, can you- do you have any color you can give us on where deposits maybe are ended the quarter or are exiting the quarter, just to kind of get a sense as to where we’re going to start 2026, just as we factor in the full impact of the recent rate cut?

Tom Owens, Chief Financial Officer, Trustmark Corporation: Yeah, it’s a little difficult to hear you there, Catherine, but I think I got the question. This is Tom Owens. And so before I answer that specifically, Catherine, I also want to make the point because, you know, when I looked at the pre-call notes from the various analysts, I’m not sure everyone picked up on it, but our net interest margin, that 2 basis point linked quarter decline, from 383 in the third quarter to 381 in the fourth quarter, was essentially a function of the accelerated recognition of capitalized costs from the 2020 sub-debt issue, which, as you know, we refinanced during the quarter. So that was about $1 million, $1.1 million, that we took through the income statement, through net interest income, specifically.

And so adjusted for that, we would have been at 3.83%, which would have been our second consecutive quarter at that level. And so now this gets back to your question because it’s also the jumping-off point for our guidance for NIM in 2026. But, you know, the range we put out there of 3.80%-3.85% is pretty tight, you know, relative to the ranges that you see from some other banks. But we’re running right in the middle of that range right now, at 3.83%. And then with respect to your question about deposit cost, you know, our guidance is for a decline from 1.72% to 1.61%, here in the first quarter. And I think if you looked at month-to-date in January, we’re running at about 1.63%.

And so of course, we, you know, have our CD book continues to reprice here during the quarter, and so that should drive us another basis point or two lower for the full quarter, all other things equal.

Analyst: Yeah, that’s super helpful. And thank you for pointing out that other million-dollar cost that you mentioned. And then my last question is just on the buyback. Is it fair—I mean, I know growth is improving and you’ve got M&A out there, but your stock isn’t expensive and you’ve got a lot of capital. I mean, is it fair to put your entire authorization in our expectations, you know, for the year? Do you feel like you have enough capital where you could really lean into the buyback today, but still have enough capital for a future deal? Or are you a little bit more price sensitive on that? Just trying to kind of put a range on buyback opportunity.

Tom Owens, Chief Financial Officer, Trustmark Corporation: Okay, well, there’s a lot there, but I’ll start with giving you the range and the way to think about it. So, you know, you’ve heard us talk in the past about a continued accretion in our regulatory capital ratios, and talk about 12%, for example, as a ceiling on CET1 in terms of where we would want to operate. We ended 2025 at 11.72% in our CET1, and without any deployment via share repurchase, even with funding very solid, you know, even robust loan growth in 2026, you know, our internal projections are that we would end 2026 slightly above 12%. So, you know, as Duane said, we’ve got the $100 million authorization.

I mean, a way to think about it is if we did no deployment via capital, assuming very solid loan growth, we would end the year 2026 slightly above 12%. If we did every penny of the authorization of $100 million, that would take us down to about 11.5%. So somewhere in between there, call it a range of $60 million-$70 million, is what would essentially keep our capital ratios where they are. And again, at 11.72%, that’s kind of the, that’s kind of mid-range between 11.5% and 12% in terms of CET1. But so to your question of is it fair to put all $100 million in your model?

I think that is, you know, I would probably guide you probably more to a range of $60 million-$70 million in all likelihood, and that range is based on, you know, trying to manage our capital levels where they are today, assuming the solid loan growth that we have in our projections.

Analyst: Good. Super helpful. Thank you, Tom.

Conference Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Duane Dewey for any closing remarks.

Duane Dewey, President and CEO, Trustmark Corporation: Well, thank you for joining us today on the call. June 2025 was a record year for Trustmark. We’re very pleased and proud and look forward to keeping that momentum into 2026. We look forward to joining back up with you for our first quarter call at the end of April. Y’all have a great rest of the week.

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