Simmons First Ntl Reports Q2 2026 Results: Full Earnings Call Transcript

Simmons First Ntl (NASDAQ: SFNC ) released second-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Friday. Read the complete transcript below. APIs provide real-time access to earnings call transcripts and financial data. Visit to learn more.

The full earnings call is available at Summary Simmons First Ntl reported a strong focus on growing high-quality core customers, with checking accounts increasing over 1% year over year. The company is experiencing fierce competition in deposit markets, but remains optimistic due to strategic initiatives and recent loan production at near four-year highs. Loan growth is projected to be in the low to mid-single digits for the year, with a current annualized growth rate of 7%, despite seasonal fluctuations. 5% this quarter.

Simmons First Ntl is committed to maintaining a disciplined approach to credit and pricing, with a conservative outlook on net charge-offs remaining below 25 basis points for the year. Management highlighted success in CNI and CRE loans, emphasizing full relationship banking as a key to attractive returns. They remain comfortable at the top end of their net interest income growth guidance of 9-11% for the year. The company's capital position allows for opportunistic share repurchases, with a focus on prioritizing organic growth investments.

Full Transcript Daniel Hobbs, Chief Financial Officer at Simmons Bank We've had a little bit of success there, but not a ton. So we're willing to let those go off at high prices. And then public funds is very seasonal and you typically see that this time of year. We're not losing any customers there.

It's just seasonal outflows. And then if you think about just the wholesale funding, we're really just taking a capitalistic approach to how we think about broker deposits and FHLB funding. And you will see that we've kind of moved more into FHLB this quarter just because the spread of that price is material enough for us to do that. And we will continue to be opportunistic and flexible around that.

We're short duration in both of those. And so that's how we're thinking about that. And just as we go forward again, our focus on growing high quality core customers is our biggest focus. One last thing, as you think about for customers, we grew checking accounts over 1% year over year and linked quarter.

So that's an indication of some of the things that we're doing that are working and start to pay off. And we'll be doubling down on those things over the next 12, 24 months. Jay Brogdon, President Hey David, I'll jump in. This is Jay just with one other incremental comment.

One of the things in your question that you alluded to is just what's the competitive environment out there? And so all of the things Daniel said and what I would say unsurprisingly is that deposit competition is very, very fierce. And our outlook is that that's going to continue. We saw that throughout the second quarter.

We've seen that for a couple of quarters now and really expect that to continue. And so when I think about all of the kind of underlying fundamentals in terms of that Daniel just discussed, in terms of our ability to begin to see origination and growth and success in the highest quality categories of the funding base amidst that backdrop. That's actually very encouraging to me. David Garner, EVP, Executive Director of Finance & Accounting and Chief Accounting Officer Okay, that's great.

Similarly encouraging I thought was, you know, the loan production side, I mean at near four year highs, you know, obviously, you know, like 3% annualized growth. But I was just hoping you could touch on the lending landscape across your footprint. Where are you seeing opportunities, your willingness to compete on pricing, to continue to drive growth and just how do you think about rebuilding the pipeline and expectations for growth as we look forward? Jay Brogdon, President Yeah, so I would say, you know, there too am encouraged from a loan growth perspective.

I think we kind of have low to mid single digit outlook for this year from a loan growth perspective, we're at maybe 7% annualized loan growth year to date. So, you know, we would be comfortably at kind of the top end of that outlook halfway through the year. You know, obviously the second quarter growth wasn't as strong as the first quarter, but that, as you indicated, David, and as we disclosed in the materials, wasn't a sign of a lack of production. We had a great quarter of product production.

All of that production would fit squarely into our strong standards in terms of both credit underwriting as well as pricing. And I don't see us unrelenting in our focus in either of those areas of generating production. And so when you think about generating good growth in the second quarter, some of that growth obviously offset by a healthy level and an expected level of pay downs, I look at a very strong amount of growth in the unfunded commitment bucket due to some of that production, continued health in the pipeline, and really a good top of funnel in terms of the opportunities we're seeing across the footprint and across asset classes.

And you know, I'm certainly optimistic as we think about our ability to grow loans out into the future as a result of all of those things. I think the only thing I'd balance against that is maybe just that a balanced view on what Daniel talked about impacting the consumer in terms of some of the macro factors that are out there. We're not going to stretch for growth right now. We are going to stick to our discipline, be unapologetic if the growth for some reason isn't there.

But we are certainly seeking to add clients and add good assets, both in terms of relationships on the funding and on the loan side