Operator
Thank you for standing by. My name is Jordan, and I'll be your conference operator today.
At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the First Commonwealth Financial Corporation Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Release Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.
After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press * followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad.
If you'd like to withdraw your question, press *1 again. Thank you.
I'd now like to turn the call over to Ryan Thomas, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Ryan Thomas
Thank you, Jordan, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today to discuss First Commonwealth Financial Corporation's fourth quarter financial results.
Participating on today's call will be Mike Price, President and CEO; Jim Reske, Chief Financial Officer; Jane Grebenc, Bank President and Chief Revenue Officer; Brian Sohocki, Chief Credit Officer; and Mike McCuen, Chief Lending Officer. As a reminder, a copy of yesterday's earnings release can be accessed by logging on to fcbanking.com and selecting the Investor Relations link at the top of the page.
We have also included a slide presentation on our Investor Relations website with supplemental information that will be referenced during today's call. Before we begin, I need to caution listeners that this call will contain forward-looking statements.
Please refer to our forward-looking statements disclaimer on page 3 of the slide presentation for a description of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. Today's call will also include non-GAAP financial measures.
Non-GAAP financial measures should be viewed in addition to and not as an alternative for our reported results prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these measures can be found in the appendix of today's slide presentation.
With that, I will turn the call over to Mike.
Mike Price
Hey, thank you, Ryan, and welcome, everyone. Headline performance numbers for the fourth quarter include core EPS of 43 cents per share, which beat consensus earnings estimates alongside a net interest margin that expanded to 3.98%, a core ROA of 1.45%, and a core efficiency ratio of 52.8%.
During the fourth quarter, average deposits and total loans grew modestly at 2.8% and 1.2% respectively due to seasonal headwinds and several larger commercial loan payoffs. Net interest income grew as the margin expanded on the heels of healthy new commercial loan volume at good rates.
Deposit costs fell 1 basis point to 1.83%. Fee income was flat as gains in SBA were offset by seasonal declines in wealth and mortgage.
Our fee income at 18% of total revenue compares favorably to peers, and we have a concerted effort and long-term focus on growing fee income through our regional banking model. Wages and incentives remain pressured due to market conditions.
The provision for credit losses decreased by $4.3 million compared to last quarter to $7 million. The elevated prior-quarter provision was reflective of the continued resolution of a previously disclosed dealer floor plan credit.
The credit required no further reserve in the fourth quarter. While NPLs increased 4 basis points to 94 basis points versus the prior quarter, we are appropriately reserved for these loans and did not experience a provision impact like the third quarter.
Nonperforming loans include both the unguaranteed portion of SBA loans and the government-guaranteed portion of any SBA loan which is owned by the bank. As of December 31st, 2025, $98 million of nonperforming loans included $39.2 million of total SBA loans, of which $31.2 million was government-guaranteed.
As a result of our 94 basis points of NPLs, 32 basis points is guaranteed. In the fourth quarter, we repurchased $23.1 million of our stock, or 1.4 million shares at $15.94 per share.
We repurchased 2.1 million shares in total in 2025, which, incidentally, is roughly two-thirds of the 3 million shares we issued in the Centric Bank acquisition. For the year, core EPS of $1.53 compares favorably to the consensus earning estimates of $1.40 that was in place in December of 2024, as well as the highest revised mid-year consensus estimate of $1.54.
Net interest income of $427.5 million in 2025 was up an impressive $47.2 million year-over-year. While net interest income benefited in general from higher-for-longer interest rates, more specifically, net interest income was driven by better loan yields, good loan volumes, lower deposit costs, and a better commercial business mix.
All this mixed together drove the NIM markedly higher over last year. Loan growth was 8.2% annualized and 5% without the Centric Bank acquisition, as commercial banking, equipment finance, and indirect led the way.
Average deposit growth of 6.1% for the year largely kept pace with loan growth and was approximately 4.2% without Centric Bank. Here, money market and CDs accounted for over $534 million in growth, while noninterest-bearing DDA added another $116 million to a now $10.3 billion depository.
For the year, noninterest income fell only $3 million year-over-year despite another $6.3 million in Durbin amendment debit card headwinds that resulted from crossing $10 billion in assets. In short, our fee businesses are filling the gap.
In sum, 2025 was a year in which strong growth in spread and fee income more than offset the impact of higher expenses and lost Durbin interchange income, resulting in year-over-year improvements in PPNR, core EPS, core ROA, and efficiency. During the year, and oh by the way, the team completed the acquisition of Centric Bank and grew deposits 3% annually for the year.
Before I turn the call over to Jim, I wanted to take a moment to recognize Jane Grebenc, who will be retiring at the end of March. Jane has been a friend and a mentor to me and many other leaders throughout her distinguished career, and she has left an indelible mark on First Commonwealth.
Jane's dedication, leadership, and wisdom have played a pivotal role in the strategic transformations that have helped position First Commonwealth as a top quartile performer. Thank you, Jane.
With that, I will turn it over to Jim Reske, our CFO.
Jim Reske
Thanks, Mike. Core operating results for the fourth quarter of 2025 continued the momentum of the third quarter.
Core ROA improved 11 basis points to 1.45%, and core ROTCE improved 93 basis points to 15.83%. Spread income increased $2.1 million from the previous quarter, primarily due to a 6-basis-point increase in the net interest margin.
The yield on earning assets increased 3 basis points, while the cost of funds decreased 3 basis points. Looking ahead, our NIM guidance is little changed from last quarter: a near-term dip as our margin, through our variable-rate loans, fully reflects fourth-quarter rate cuts, followed by gradual improvement each quarter, ending year 2026 at around 4%.
At year-end, we designated a portfolio of approximately $225 million in commercial loans as held for sale. These loans represent a pool of commercial loans that were originated primarily in our Philadelphia MSA, which the bank had previously decided to exit in order to focus the bank's resources on customers in other areas.
Subsequent to that decision and communication to borrowers, a bank approached us with an offer to purchase the portfolio. Since discussions regarding that sale are ongoing, we moved the portfolio to held for sale as of year-end.
The ongoing effect in 2026, should the sale be consummated, would be to reinvest the cash proceeds from the sale of $225 million in loans into lower-yielding securities at a rate differential of approximately 1.5%. The sale, if consummated, will also have the ancillary benefits of improving our liquidity and our capital ratios.
As Mike mentioned, total average deposits increased $72 million, or 2.8% annualized, over last quarter. Seasonal outflows in public funds were more than offset by growth in consumer checking and time deposits, along with growth in small business and corporate money market deposits.
Core noninterest income of $24.3 million decreased $200,000 from the previous quarter. SBA gain-on-sale income increased by $800,000, but this was more than offset by a $700,000 decrease in wealth advisory fees and a $200,000 decrease in swap fees.
In 2026, we expect noninterest income to be relatively flat over 2025. Though longer term, as Mike mentioned, we would expect our regional model to improve fee income results.
Core noninterest expense of $74.3 million increased $1.7 million from the previous quarter, mostly due to increases in salaries and benefits as we filled a number of open positions in the fourth quarter. The bank, however, was able to achieve positive operating leverage over last quarter.
The core efficiency ratio remained below 53%, and we expect to be able to limit operating cost increases to approximately 3% year-over-year looking ahead. Mike mentioned our buyback activity in the fourth quarter.
I would add that remaining repurchase capacity under the current program was $22.7 million as of December 31st, 2025. On top of that, an additional $25 million of share repurchase authority was authorized by our board yesterday.
Of course, we only repurchase shares using excess capital generation in any given quarter, which effectively caps repurchase activity at approximately $25 to $30 million per quarter. With that, we'll take any questions you may have.
Operator
At this time, I'd like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press * then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. We'll take a brief moment to compile the Q&A roster.
Your first question comes from the line of Daniel Tamayo from Raymond James. Your line is live.
Daniel Tamayo
Thank you. Good afternoon to everyone.
Congratulations to Jane on your retirement. I guess first on the credit side, and I apologize, I don't think I heard anything, but if I did, apologize if I missed it, but just curious, you did, Mike, touch on the impact of the SBA guaranteed and the NPLs, but just thoughts on where the net charge-offs and provision might go in 2026, and then if you have any update on the floor plan loan that had been giving you guys some issues, where that stands at the end of the quarter as well.
Thanks.
Mike Price
The charge-off guidance we normally give is 25 to 30 basis points, and the floor plan credit, we have maybe a $1.5 million left to resolve. Is that right, Brian?
Brian Sohocki
I'll jump in there. Thanks, Mike.
First I'll just start in the fourth quarter for the dealer floor plan loan. We ended the year with a $2.5 million outstanding balance, we're nearing resolution with just a number of cars left in the liquidation process.
There was no additional reserve, as noted previously, and we have just a small release, about $80,000 in the quarter. Since you mentioned the net charge-offs, there was a $2.1 million charge in the fourth quarter related to the dealer floor plan loan, and all within that 47 basis points that was reported on an annualized basis.
I concur with Mike's guidance on the forecast moving forward.
Daniel Tamayo
Great. Thanks, guys.
As it relates to the provision or reserves, with the reserves coming out over the last couple quarters, does this feel like a pretty good run rate for stability just over 130, or you think that still can trickle down?
Brian Sohocki
I wouldn't say there's any change to our philosophy. Credit costs remain manageable.
Reserve levels remain strong, consistent with peers, slightly ahead in some cases at the 132. Where we've seen emerging stress, we've already responded, whether that's through the specific reserves in prior quarters.
We've kept our qualitative overlays in place, and overall comfortable that the reserve is just appropriate, reflecting where the risk is in the portfolio.
Daniel Tamayo
Okay. Thanks.
Maybe just changing gears here, but just as it relates to that loan sale that you're expecting here probably near term, is that something you could see happening more in 2026 in terms of additional loans being moved off the balance sheet, or was this kind of a one-off situation that you don't see recurring?
Mike Price
It's more of a one-off. We really withdrew from that market, our branches, and kind of our C&I, commercial banking, depository ground game.
About 2 years ago, we sent customers letters, and this is kind of, really one of the last acts of the play. Mike McCuen is our Chief Banking Officer, he's on the line.
Do you want add anything for Daniel, Michael?
Mike McCuen
No, I think you covered it, Mike. Taking those resources that Jim alluded to, investing in the other markets that we have a retail locations makes all the sense in the world for our business model.
Daniel Tamayo
Okay. Terrific.
Thanks for the color, guys. Appreciate it.
Mike Price
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Karl Shepard from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is live.
Karl Shepard
Good afternoon, and congrats, Jane. I guess I wanted to start on your loan growth expectations.
It looks like you had pretty good production in some of the segments, maybe you're targeting, and then you had the payoff headwind. I guess just kind of what's the build-up for loan growth in '26 and just kind of talk about maybe health of the pipelines and what you're seeing in your markets.
Mike Price
I think, last year we grew 8%, 5% without, 5% without Centric Bank, and I I would expect that kind of loan growth to continue. Although we really had, elevated, payoffs, probably in excess of over $200 million from the second half of the year to the first half of the year.
That created some palpable headwinds. We feel like our our business banking, mortgage could have a good year, although we'll sell that, and really, we just feel good about our commercial pipelines, commercial real estate, and elsewhere.
We had really let our construction portfolio, attrite, and we feel that is going to build and add probably 20-plus million of, drawdowns a month. We feel like we're well-positioned.
Typically, the first and the fourth quarter are a little slower for us than the second or third, and that's where we get most of our loan growth in a given year. The payoffs are indeed a little elevated, and, but I suspect, just like we were here last year, I think we probably guided to maybe 5% to 7%, and and we got to 5%.
And, that's again without the Centric Bank. And, I think we're well-positioned, and our teams are maturing, and we're just, I think we get a little better every year.
Karl Shepard
Okay. Then, I guess, maybe one for Jim.
Just on the buyback, quite a bit of authorization out there now, and stock's a little bit higher than maybe where it was in 4Q when you were active. Just how do you want us to think about that?
Jim Reske
It's really more about capital deployment right now. There is a price sensitivity to it.
We always operate on a grid so that we can, and we use the same words every time, we want to keep a little bit of dry powder available if prices dip. That's kind of why, if you look back in the calendar year 2025, for a good part of the year, we weren't buying back anything, and then later part of the year, we stepped up the buybacks.
Right now, the capital ratios, we're just generating so much capital to easily self-capitalize loan growth at the level we want it. If our future guidance is mid-single digits, we're generating far more capital than it takes to capitalize that kind of loan growth.
I'll repeat myself. I know we've said this in gatherings before, but we don't want to accelerate loan growth beyond what we think we can organically do.
We do it at the right pace for our region, for our credit appetite, for our demographics, based on the rate environment. For all those reasons, the loan growth rate is where we want it to be, and then we still generate a ton of capital.
We have to do something with that other than just let the capital ratios go up, up, up. That's why we are doing the buyback and will continue to do more this year.
Karl Shepard
Thank you.
Mike Price
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Kelly Motta from KBW. Your line is live.
Kelly Motta
Hi. Good afternoon.
Thanks for the questions, and congrats, Jane, on your retirement. Just to start off, I'd love to kick it off on margin.
It came in quite a bit above where I had been expecting. You guys noted you had some payoffs.
I'm just wondering if there was any loan fees in there, or if that's a good run rate to go off of. As we look ahead, I appreciate the commentary about the reinvestment from the HFS portfolio when that closes, but how we should be thinking about these dynamics here.
Thank you.
Jim Reske
Kelly. Jim.
Hey, great question. Thanks.
We were really pleased with the margin performance this quarter as well. You recall last quarter, we were giving guidance that we expected a dip.
First thought when we saw the margin coming in so strongly was, is the dip actually happening the way we thought it was going to happen? It did.
It did. The rate cuts hit the variable-rate loan portfolio, the SOFR-based loan portfolio, took that down.
You nailed it. We had some other things that offset that.
The part you nailed is we had some payoffs, and we had some pay-downs in loans that were previously on nonaccrual status. When they did that, we recognized interest on those loans that been on nonaccrual.
That and some other factors together worked together, offset that hit we took in the variable-rate portfolio and kept the margin performance really strong in the fourth quarter. Looking ahead, we think that the Fed cut rates a couple times here in the fourth quarter in December.
That's not fully reflected yet. We're going to feel that in the SOFR-based loan portfolio, the variable portfolio.
That's going to hit in the first quarter, dip that down a little bit. Then all the other factors that have been working to keep it going strong, the continued upward repricing of the fixed-rate loans, the macro swaps coming off of the remainder of that in 2026, including a big chunk in May, that'll really help keep the margin up, and so that's why we kind of have this forecast of drifting upward to around the 4% level in 2026.
Hope that gives you some additional
Kelly Motta
No, that's super helpful. Maybe turning to the expenses.
Q4 it was up about a million and a half, I think. Just wondering if that was just kind of year-end true-ups, and then as we think ahead, it seems like you're calling for pretty strong margin here, solid loan growth, so as we look ahead, your expectation for expenses, any places you're hiring, and how we should think about that run rate.
Thanks.
Jim Reske
Just the efficiency was certainly on the back of the revenue side. We're normally very, very good at the expense side in obtaining operating leverage, and we have a nice little chart in our investor deck that shows that we're pretty good at putting our shoulder to the wheel.
We'll need to do that and hustle this year, watch our FTE count closely. That being said, we've invested pretty heavily in our commercial bank, our equipment finance group, and we expect more production there, and we expect for those investments to pay off for us.
We can do a little better job on the expense side as well, and we've invested pretty heavily, quite frankly, the last 2 years. I think, yeah, $25 million or so, [chuckles] up over 2 years, and we were a little higher than we thought we would be, but that's just a matter of discipline, and we're pretty disciplined group.
Kelly, you mentioned the word "true-ups." There were a couple things that were one-offs that hit us in the fourth quarter that are not part of our thinking going forward, we had some contract terminations and some other things.
In addition to what we said in our prepared remarks about filling open positions, as Mike talked about the staff increases. A couple of those one-offs are not in our future forecast for our operating expense going forward.
Kelly Motta
Great. Thanks for the color.
I'll sit back.
Jim Reske
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Breese from Stephens Inc. Your line is live.
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Matthew Breese
Hey, good afternoon.
Jim Reske
Good afternoon, Matt. ):
Matthew Breese
I had a couple questions, maybe first starting with the NIM. It sounds like the guidance is calling for around a 4% NIM by the end of the year, and I'm usually just a bit skeptical the sustainability of 4% NIMs.
One thing we've been hearing a lot about this quarter is spread compression, both on the C&I and CRE front. I guess I had a two-part question, which is, one, how does the pipeline yield look, and what are you getting for spreads on new C&I and commercial real estate business?
Then maybe just touch on expectations around deposit costs for 2026.
Jim Reske
I'll hand it over to Mike McCuen in a minute for the loan expectations, but when I look at our commercial variable and the new stuff we're putting on, it's 7.3%, in the last quarter, and commercial fixed is in the high 6s. Even our indirect is in the high 6s, and that's kind of at that 2.5-year point on the shoulder of the yield curve, and we like that.
I don't know. Replacement rates still look good even with rates down this past quarter, our commercial variable, the replacement rate was low, but nevertheless, it was still positive.
Mike Price
I'll interject quickly, and then Mike McCuen, turn it over to you for just thoughts on the market, the spreads, the spread compression, cuz you'll give that kind of real-time color. In the fourth quarter, we didn't see a real differential on the rates that were for the variable-rate portfolio, the ones that were coming on and coming off.
That says in the aggregate, there wasn't an evidence of a lot of spread compression of that portfolio. As Mike was talking about, all the fixed-rate loans still nicely repricing upward.
Because those are all repricing towards the middle of the curve, if the yield curve inflects a little bit, the drop in the short end won't affect that dynamic a whole lot. I think, Matt, we talked about that before.
Just the variable-rate portfolio, the ones that came on and came off was a 1-basis-point differential in the fourth quarter. Not a lot of evidence on that macro level of spread compression.
I'll turn it over to Mike McCuen to confirm.
Mike McCuen
Just specifically on the segments, I would start with our business lending to the family-owned owner-operated business. We put a real focus on that about a year ago, and we're seeing healthy growth in that segment.
I would say that's the prime-plus-based business. I don't see that changing from a spread perspective.
Secondly, the EF Equipment Finance Group, yeah, they're doing mostly fixed-rate loans. Their yields are holding up pretty well.
Then thirdly, I would say the commercial real estate business, that's a little trickier because, as probably you heard from others, the agency markets, the insurance markets are very aggressive these days. We have a pretty healthy pipeline, and we have a number of construction loans that are converting to permanent markets.
The balancing act is those spreads are compressed, and we're trying to maintain our discipline around the real estate business, not just from a rate perspective, but also from a structure, term, recourse, all those things that go into those decisions. As our construction loans roll off, we have every chance to match those rates.
We, in many cases, choose not to and let those move on, and then grow the construction loan portfolio, which, by the way, is up around $120 million over the last year, and that will lead to future funding. That's a quick snapshot of why we're a little more comfortable based on the segments that we play in, versus large corporate, investment grade, things like that.
Yeah. ):
Matthew Breese
Got it. Okay.
It still sounds like you're putting on loans accretive to where the average yield is, and I'm assuming there's still some room to reprice deposits down. I guess, Jim, as we look to 4Q '26 and beyond, do you feel like there's momentum to carry the NIM above 4% as we get into 2027, all else equal?
Jim Reske
I'll borrow the phrase everyone says that the crystal ball gets fuzzy that far out, and we usually don't give guidance that far out anyway, but I know we've talked about this before. If we look ahead in the projections, and again, it's really fuzzy, I'll hedge that again, the NIM would hover in the low 4s in 2027 in the current projection.
Depends on lots of factors, and lots of things could change between here and then. By then, our macro swaps will be fully off, and so we'll have the benefit of that.
We think there's room to drop deposit rates a little more. We've been pretty thoughtful about that, watching the rates in the market that have been around us.
In 2025, that was a big issue. We thought it'd be very difficult to fund the loan growth with deposit growth and drop rates at the same time, and yet we did it very successfully in 2025.
We think we can continue that in 2026 as well. Set up the margin as well.
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Matthew Breese
Got it. Okay.
Then last one before I'll hop back in the queue. I feel like you laid a few breadcrumbs on the stock buyback front.
At least in the very near term, the next one or two quarters, should we be penciling in $25, $30 million in buybacks per quarter?
Jim Reske
It's hard for me to definitively say it'll be the next two quarters because it's not entirely dependent on the stock price, but it is sensitive to the stock price. If the price shoots up, we'll slow the buyback down, and it would not all be in the first half.
If the price stays where it is or goes lower, then a lot of it will be in the first half. Even then, though, it may not all be in the first half.
We intend to use the authority and be fairly aggressive with it overall, but there's still price sensitivity to it. ):
Matthew Breese
Thank you. Thanks.
Operator
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, press *1 on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Manuel Navas from Piper Sandler.
Your line is live.
Manuel Navas
Hey, good afternoon. On the NIM, how big of a dip are we looking at this first quarter?
Did you discuss, I might have missed it, how much the NPLs benefited the NIM this quarter, like a dollar amount or 4 basis point in the NIM? Just trying to quantify what's going to come out of the NIM next quarter.
Jim Reske
All told, it was about 3 basis points, the total impact of the NIM. It was a little bit bigger.
I just isolated the impact on that one portfolio because we spent a lot of time looking at the variable-rate portfolio in the fourth quarter to say why didn't the yield of that portfolio drop the way we thought it was going to drop. The answer is what I said before: it did drop for the impact on SOFR, but it was offset, I think, by these nonaccruals and a couple of other factors, too.
The overall effect on the total NIM for the nonaccruals coming back was about 3 basis points for the fourth quarter. Sorry, what was the other part of your question?
Manuel Navas
Then from there, how big of a dip are we looking at in the first quarter?
Jim Reske
The amount of dip we think is anywhere from 5 to 10. I'm hedging that way because we always hedge our forecast because they're always within 5 or 10.
I think, yeah, on the bottom going forward. Then it drifts upward around 5 basis points a quarter.
It ends up not quite 5 basis points a quarter. It drifts upward enough to end the year at around 4%.
Manuel Navas
As those loans are sold, your loan-to-deposit ratio ex those loans is in the low 90s. You could be a little more aggressive on deposits, right?
Jim Reske
Yes and yes. Thank you for noting that.
It's a big part of our thinking, actually. We're happy to see that loan-to-deposit ratio.
Then securities we buy will be current rates. They won't be underwater, they're perfectly available to sell to have liquidity to fund loan growth if we wanted to.
Of course, we have ample borrowing capacity, liquidity is not an issue, but it does give us a little more liquidity, a little more dry powder to fund future loan growth, and then also not be so aggressive at the margin on deposit rates to fund the loan growth. We're probably two Are there some other
Manuel Navas
Okay.
Jim Reske
No, we're probably two-thirds of our peers in terms of the deposit beta over the last year in terms of cost of deposits. If they're down 33, we're down about 22.
We've done that on purpose, and we've really probably kept them a little higher than we could because we wanted the growth, and we didn't want the borrowings, and so we achieved both. That's kind of the balance, but I think there's probably in the long run, if rates go down, more downward opportunities.
We'll keep trying to grow the deposits. The other thing is it's also has to be a game of acquiring new accounts, noninterest-bearing, new checking, and we have a sales force that, under Jane's leadership and Mike's leadership, has really delivered that for us, and we'll continue to be that drum.
Manuel Navas
Are there other impacts from the sale of these loans across OpEx, across your more focus away from the Philly area? Are there other impacts in the loan loss reserve?
Anything in those areas that we can start to plan for now?
Jim Reske
I could give a financial answer. The impacts on loan loss reserve, the marks, all that was felt in the fourth quarter.
That's all reflected in the financials already. In terms of operational expense, there's not much.
We have a couple physical locations there. We exited a while ago, there's nothing further from a facilities expense standpoint to come.
It does allow management bandwidth to refocus on other areas. Mike McCuen, I don't know if you want to comment on that more.
This is more of a how we run the business kind of a question.
Mike McCuen
No, Philadelphia is a great market. It's also very, greatly competitive.
The investment to really compete the way we'd like would be too great, and that money can be used in other markets for producers, physical locations, where we already have really good presence and we want to grow those. It's just a trade-off we made, and I think we'll see more profitable growth in some of those other markets than we otherwise would.
Nothing against Philadelphia. It's a great market, just there's a lot of competitors there.
Jim Reske
Manuel,
Manuel Navas
the only other That's great.
Jim Reske
Sorry.
Manuel Navas
Oh, go ahead. Go ahead.
Jim Reske
Just the financial aspect. These were already relationships we had decided to exit, it was kind of a slow bleed on the loan growth.
It was a net against other loan growth. That'll be relieved now that we're moving it to held for sale.
Manuel Navas
I appreciate some of the extra commentary. Yep.
Jim Reske
You bet.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Breese from Stephens Inc. Your line is live.
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Matthew Breese
Hey again. I just had one more, but wanted to be cognizant of everybody.
The securities book has been in this kind of 350 to 365 range, but yields have been down for the last couple quarters. Jim, you had mentioned buying some at-the-market-type securities with the HFS portfolio, I'm assuming that's a 475 pick up, and then so I was hoping for maybe securities yields outlook for the first quarter.
Then cash flow estimates for the year, I would think at some point here, either late this year or next year, we start to see a more aggressive pickup in securities yields, but was hoping for some help there.
Jim Reske
No, it's a great point. The portfolio has a duration between 4 and 5 years, so that right now, the philosophy is just replace the runoff.
Just replace the runoff. The opportunities we get, the number I gave a moment ago when I talked about the reinvestment of the HFS loans upon sale if consummated into securities was assuming a repurchase rate of about 4.5%, but you're right.
We just looked the other day, and we've seen some opportunities more in the high 4s. It depends day to day, but I was using a 4.5% rate just as a rule of thumb right now.
You see some pickup and you see some opportunities for some plain vanilla investments that are more like 475 right now. That will naturally allow the securities portfolio to drift upward as well.
The position holds in the balance sheet right now is about where we want it, and so we're not really expanding it. We're just replacing the runoff.
Does that help? ):
Matthew Breese
Yeah. Just curious, is that 4- to 5-year duration, is that good to use for 2026?
I haven't quite done the math yet on what that means for quarterly cash flows, but
Jim Reske
I don't have ):
Matthew Breese
It can be lumpy sometimes.
Jim Reske
It can be. Obviously, a lot of those are mortgage-backed securities, a couple years ago, rates fell, then durations all extended.
Let me see if I have the duration of securities portfolio right now. Right now, the duration of the securities portfolio is actually only 4.28.
4.28 in the fourth quarter. There should be some repricing opportunities as that rolls over.
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Matthew Breese
Okay. I'll leave it there.
Thank you very much.
Jim Reske
Yep.
Operator
That concludes the question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Mike Price, President and CEO, for closing remarks.
Mike Price
Hey, thank you, as always, for your interest in our company. Great questions.
Look forward to being with a number of you over the course of the next quarter, and we're excited about the future of our company. We're excited to grow it, maintain operating leverage, add to our fee businesses, that's a big goal, in our regional model, really deliver good, low-cost deposit growth in each of our markets.
We have enough diversity of lending businesses. I think we're less worried about growing the loans long-term than funding them with low-cost core deposits.
Thank you for your time today, and stay warm.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining.
You may disconnect.