Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Demi and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Business First Bancshares 3rd Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number 1 or your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt Seeley, Senior Vice President, Director of Corporate Strategy and FP&E. You may begin.

Thank you. Good morning, and thank you all for joining. Earlier today, we issued our third quarter 2026 earnings press release, a copy of which is available on our website along with the slide presentation that we will reference during today's call. Please refer to slide three of our presentation, which includes our safe harbor statements regarding forward-looking statements and the use of non-GAAP financial measures. For those of you joining by phone, please note the slide presentation is available on our website at www.b1bank.com. Please also note our safe harbor statements are available on page six of our earnings press release that was filed with the SEC today. All comments made during today's call are subject to the safe harbor statements on our slide presentation and earnings release. I'm joined this morning by Business First Bancshares Chairman and CEO Jude Melville, Chief Financial Officer Greg Robertson, and President of B1 Bank, Jerry Vascocu. After the presentation, we'll be happy to address any questions you may have. And with that, I'll turn the call over to you, Jude.

Okay, thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Monday mornings come with plenty of competing priorities. We know that, and we appreciate you spending part of yours with us. When we spoke in July, we told you we expected a stronger second half, loan growth picking up, deposits rebounding, and continued progress on margin. I'm pleased to say the third quarter delivered on each of those. I describe it as simply a quarter in which good execution turned into good results. Loans grew a little over 7% annualized, led by the Houston pipeline we talked about last quarter, and deposits grew at a similar pace, which gave us the opportunity to pay down higher costs, broker funding, and borrowings. Margin expanded another 12 basis points on a core basis, and expenses stayed in check. Added up, these incremental improvements produced our strongest core profitability in several years. And with our shares trading below what we believed the business-first franchises were, we continued buying back stock while still growing tangible book value. The one area where progress came slightly slower than we'd hoped is credit. Non-performing loans moved down only modestly this quarter, primarily due to timing restrictions already in motion. We expect to show further progress on non-performing loans in the fourth quarter. One thing worth noting is that while we had an uptick in NCOs, these were primarily loans previously discussed in this forum, the bulk of which were already fully specifically reserved for as we worked on resolution over the course of the year. This is important, though less visible in the numbers, we completed the progressive conversion in August. Conversions are rarely as easy as they look from the outside, and I want to thank our North Louisiana clients and teammates. both in North Louisiana and throughout the company for making this one as smooth as any I can remember. It positions us to hit the ground running in a region where investment activity continues to build. Looking ahead, the set of opportunities across our footprint is as broad as I've ever seen it. North Louisiana is now home to not only Meta's largest data center, but also in the northwest corner of the state, Amazon's roughly $20 billion commitment. The opportunities in Houston and Dallas speak for themselves. and Southwest Louisiana keeps delivering steady growth, something we expect to continue as SpaceX's $100 billion investment gets underway. We were pleased to add a six-person lift out of a commercial team in Tyler, Northeast Texas' largest city, giving us the opportunity to begin filling in the I-20 portion of our footprint between Dallas and Shreveport. Finally, our financial services group, now serving more than 200 banks with the addition of American Planning Corp., is growing revenue at better than 20% annualized. Our job is to pursue these opportunities with the same discipline we got at this point. And if we can do that, we expect to see continued improvement in core profitability, not over the rest of the year, but into 2027. Again, thank you for your time and attention. And with that, I'll now turn it over to Greg.

Thank you, Jude. And good morning, everyone. As always, I'll spend a few minutes reviewing our results, and we'll discuss our updated outlook before we open up to Q&A. The third quarter GAAP net income and EPS available to common shareholders was 23.2 million and 71 cents per share and included 3.5 million in merger-related expense and 21,000 loss on sales securities. Excluding these non-core items, non-GAAP core net income and EPS available to common holders was 26 million and 79 cents per share. From our perspective, third quarter results marked another quarter of strong financial performance, generating a 1.17 core ROAA and a core efficiency ratio of 61.1% core. Core pre-tax pre-provision earnings for the third quarter was $36.3 million and exceeded our expectations. Our third quarter earnings results were highlighted by better-than-expected margin expansion, balanced loan and deposit growth, and disciplined expense controls. The third quarter benefited from recognizing substantially all cost saves from progressive acquisition and a full quarter impact of the loan sale of lower yielding loans. The strong financial results allowed us to remain active repurchasing our common shares during the quarter. On our balance sheet, total loans held for investment increased 21.4 million or 7.2% annualized on a linked quarter basis, led by our Houston, Texas, and southwest Louisiana markets. Based on unpaid principal balance, Texas loans were unchanged from the prior quarter at 35% of our portfolio. Total deposits increased 141.2 million, or 7.7% annualized, driven by a 119.1 million increase in interest-bearing deposits and 22.1 million increase in non-interest-bearing deposits. The increase in interest-bearing deposits was largely attributable to $180.1 million in commercial money market accounts, partially offset by the decision to pay down roughly $66 million in higher-cost broker deposits during the quarter. During the quarter, we also managed to repay $108 million in FHLB borrowings, bringing our total FHLB balances to $334.2 million. Looking ahead to Q4, we do see some opportunity to further reduce borrowings and broker deposits. Lastly, I think it's worth mentioning the slight increase in tangible book value for share, which increased approximately 1.7% annualized during the link quarter. While this is not a significant increase on an absolute percentage basis, we feel positive movement in tangible book value for share while being active in our buyback plan and while interest rate pressured AOCI certainly a noteworthy highlight of the quarter. Moving on to the margin, Our GAAP reported third quarter net interest margin increased 13 basis point linked quarter to 3.86%, while the non-GAAP core net interest margin, excluding purchase accounting accretion, increased 12 basis points from 3.68% to 3.80% for the quarter ended September 30th. The margin performance during the third quarter was driven by improvement in loan yields and slight decrease in funding costs due to the previously mentioned reduction in broker deposits and reduction in FHLB balances. The margin also benefited from a full quarter impact of the progressive loan sale which occurred in late Q2 of this year. Loan discount accretion during the third quarter was roughly $1.2 million and was driven by higher than expected early paydowns. However, going forward we expect loan accretion to average about $500,000 for the next few quarters. On a linked quarter basis, cost of total deposits decreased two basis points, while total loan yields increased 10 basis points. Core loan yields, excluding loan discount accretion for the third quarter, was 6.66%, up nine basis points from the prior quarter. Total cost of deposits for the month ended September 20, 2026 was 2.25%, which was relatively consistent for the Q3 26 full quarter weighted average. We are pleased with our continued ability to hold a line of new loan yields during the quarter, with a weighted average of new and renewed loan yields of 6.99 for the third quarter and 7.13% for the month of September. I'd like to make a note of a few takeaways to slide 19 in our investor presentation. We continue to see 45 to 55% overall deposit betas achievable regarding any future rate changes. I'd also like to point out Overall core CD balance retention rate was 77% during Q3. This impressive statistic reflects our team's continued focus on maintaining and retaining core deposit relationships. Our baseline assumption is that interest rates remain flat for the remainder of 2026 other than the recent September increase in Fed funds. We would expect additional rate hikes to slightly benefit our net interest margin and net interest income in the near term. On the income statement, GAAP non-interest expense was $60.5 million and excluded $3.5 million in non-reoccurring acquisition conversion-related expense, which included $1.23 million in lease termination expense. Core non-interest expense for the third quarter was $56.9 million, down $1.4 million from the prior quarter. This was below our expectation for the quarter and was driven by an acceleration in recognizing cost saves from the Progressive acquisition. Recall, we completed Progressive's core conversion in mid-August of this year. Third quarter gap and core non-interest income was 12.5 million. Gap results did include 21,000 loss on sales securities. Non-interest income results for the third quarter were slightly below our expectations, primarily due to the lower than expected SBIC revenue and Swapfee Revenue. As we have mentioned in the past, some of our non-interest revenue business can be lumpy from quarter to quarter, but over the immediate and longer term, we do expect a steady build in overall contribution. Lastly, in credit quality, I'd like to mention the modest improvement in credit quality during the quarter, highlighted by our 30-day or more pass-through ratio, 0.48% holding stable over the last three quarters. The ratio of non-performing loans compared to loans held for investment decreased two basis points to 1.24% at September 30th, while the ratio of non-performing assets compared to total assets decreased one basis point to 1.22% compared to the linked quarter. I'd like to mention the increase in charge-offs during the third quarter was attributed to a single previously identified and fully reserved commercial relationship. This credit cleanup is consistent with our previous conversations and we expect continued resolution as we move forward over the next few quarters. That concludes my prepared remarks. I'll hand the call back over to you, Jude, for anything additionally before opening up to Q&A.

Thanks, Greg. You know, I would just summarize by saying we've been, I think, fairly transparent and consistent in the things that we've been speaking about to you over the past few quarters. and a bunch of other things that we've been working on as a bank. Not that complicated, healthy growth, discipline on the expense side, making sure that we execute on acquisitions, and then making sure that we're thinking through our capital allocation decisions. I think what we saw in the third quarter was those elements of incremental improvement coming together to produce good results. We look forward to continuing to focus on those broad principles as we navigate the opportunities and inevitable challenges that we'll have over the next few quarters. We look forward to it. With that, I will turn it over for any questions anybody might have.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask the question, you will need to press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We do request for today's session that you please limit to one question and one follow-up. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Matt Olney with Stephens, Inc. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks. Good morning, everybody. I want to start on the long growth front. Good to see some strong trends this quarter. It sounds like Houston was a big driver. Any more color on the pipelines from here? And then I guess the second part, you mentioned the lift out of a team in Tyler. We'd love to hear about expectations that you have for this team. Thanks.

Sure, I'll start us off, Greg. We do see the Houston pipeline that we've been building beginning to turn into actual all-the-books production, which is exciting. I believe that will continue and you know one one thing we're especially pleased with is that as whenever you recruit bankers over often they have a period of non-solicitation and a number of the members of our expanded team are operating under that or have been able to produce even without those constrictions so we'll look forward to when we pass the year mark and and others. We're very pleased with the progress there and anticipate that will continue. Also saw good moderate loan growth in parts of Louisiana. Southwest Louisiana and the Capital Region are doing well and North Louisiana as well. We saw some positive movement. One interesting thing that we're seeing, I talked a fair amount last quarter about the The Meta Development in Northeast Louisiana, where we now have a significant presence. We've been there for a number of years, but it, of course, was added on to with our progressive acquisition. And one interesting thing about that is we're actually seeing an uptick in loan production in other parts of our footprint related to the Meta investment. So when you think about who is actually moving materials and being involved in the construction. Quite a bit of it we're seeing is coming from South Louisiana. Some of the uptick in fundings in Baton Rouge and Lake Charles and Lafayette have come from companies already prepared and actively serving in the Meadow area. So it's been nice to see the kind of network effect of our footprint being the only community bank in Louisiana that's truly Louisiana-wide in terms of our footprint. We're seeing benefit in multiple areas, which we would expect to continue. So I know Greg can talk a little more about that in terms of details if you want to, Greg.

Yep. Yeah, Matt, we think going forward, Q4, we feel like the mid to upper single-digit growth with the pipeline that we're seeing, as you mentioned, continued build out of Houston is what we're expecting to see, more in line with kind of a replication of the performance in Q3. I think one of the things that we're seeing, and this is kind of moving away from loan growth, but I think it's a result of loan growth, is the probably noticed risk-based capital had a slight decline. I think that the impact of some of the unfunded commitments for these types of business you was referring to with some of our better clients, that underfunded commitment portion does drag on capital a little bit. So that is short term, and we feel like we'll be We feel good about the pipeline, for sure.

Matt, I know your second question was on Tyler, which we're excited about. At the beginning of the year in our board planning process, we've discussed areas of our footprint that we would be most excited about. filling in. I guess it's the right word. It's a new venture, but it also is squarely within our current footprint. And Tyler was top of that list. We feel like there's really a good growth story in East Texas. And Tyler is kind of the jewel of East Texas in that regard. And so when you think about it being not only what we could do in Tyler, but as a window to the rest of East Texas, partial long view, those other growth areas along I-20. We're excited about the long-term opportunities that we have there. The team that we partnered with came out of a community bank there at Tyler, and I feel like they'll be able to hit the ground running and make a material difference for us, not only in the long term, but over the next year as they work to transition their book to ours. We have a good history not only being able to move business, but because of the size of our balance sheet relative to most community banks in the area, we can actually allow them to do more with their current clients. So we're excited about the opportunity to enable those bankers to better serve their clients and look forward to seeing what they can do.

Okay. All right. Well, I appreciate the color, Jude and Greg, on that front. And if I switch over to core margin, I'm curious also at expectations there. I mean, the 380 margin we're at now is the highest we've seen in a while. So congrats on that. We'd just love to appreciate expectations on the core margin from here. And it sounds like you're not expecting any rate changes in the near term, at least, but would love to kind of appreciate your outlook if you sensitize that based off higher rates from here. Thanks.

Yeah, we expect the margin to expand in Q4. I'll put a little bit of context to that. The 25 basis point rate hike that we saw in September, with our balance sheet being slightly asset sensitive, 53% of our loan book is variable price. So we did get some benefit. All of those have repriced by now. As a result of that, it It would lead you to believe that we should see some margin expansion. I will say that with a caveat, as we move through Q4, what we're seeing is some competitive rate pressure on the deposit side. For example, there are some specials we're seeing out there pretty much across the markets that are very nearing one-year broker borrowings rates. We're going to keep an eye on that. Our bankers have been doing an excellent job of recruiting new relationships and managing funding costs, but it is something to stay aware of. That, with our build that we seasonally get in Q4 from municipalities, that does have an impact on the liability side from a cost standpoint. So we're going to keep an eye on that. I think we feel like margin expansion in the fourth quarter is very achievable. but we'll have to continue to manage the liability side of it.

You know, we started really talking publicly about a year ago about the margin being our priority over growth and we think we can do both but we will continue to focus and prioritize on incrementally improving that margin as we can and this level of growth on the loan side and particularly when it's match funded feels like a pretty healthy natural rate. And so we can continue to have this moderate healthy growth and maintain a little bit of incremental improvement on the margin each quarter. I think we'll all be very pleased with the results.

Okay. I appreciate the commentary and congrats on the results. I'll step back. Thanks.

Next question comes from the line of Freddie Strickland with Healthy Group. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning. I just wanted to ask a couple questions here on fees. It was a $500,000, I think, step down in the other fees line versus both last quarter and last year.

Was there any one item driving that?

I would say not necessarily. I think it's just

Seasonally, as we continue to work through different types of client bases, I think that's just a movement that you would expect to see. No major step back from a total standpoint. I think on the non-interest income side, I think the thing that we felt like really underperformed expectations, as we mentioned, was the SBIC and the timing of the income from those investments sometimes is a little bit tricky. And then also the swap revenue that we've seen quarter over quarter. I think the yield curve has a little bit to do with that and also some timing of some deals that are coming through the pipeline. We expect to see that start to trend back up, though.

I think we've been able to talk a few times about how one of the, you know, the good side of this part of the business is that it's generally non-spread based, right? So it's a diversifier, but the challenge sometimes is that the earnings can be a little bit lumpy quarter to quarter and really have to take a step back and look at the overall longer term trend. And, you know, we still remain on pace to, to improve revenues 20% and bottom-line earnings 20% year-over-year, which would be, I think, the third year that we've done that. We anticipate that that trim will continue. It just might be a little up and down as we get there, but that's the nature of that type of business, and it's a good thing. So we think we'll revert to the mean a little bit in the fourth quarter and should see a little... Again, not a major uptick, but maybe a little bit back to the norm in the fourth quarter and that line item.

One driver, Betty, in that group is it's not always predictable to control the revenue coming off of it. As you mentioned, it's kind of lumpy. But one thing we're proud of is while growing the business, I think the banks that we serve now that make up part of that revenue stream are over 200 banks. So as we continue to grow and add relationships with banks, you would hope that that would continue to offset some of the lumpiness.

Yeah, same thing as we grew our core bank. In the early days, particularly being a business bank, the individual client exposure could be fairly lumpy. And rather than try to run off some of those bigger clients, we actually grew into them so that the lumpiness became more diversified and a large enough group that changes in individual client relationships mitigated through the number of client relationships. And to Greg's point, we're building a large number of banks in which we have a relationship, and the larger we can get that group, then the less lumpy individual transactions will appear.

Good opportunity for us to keep working on as we continue to grow that part of the bank.

That's great. And just on that same topic, I mean, is there any potential impact I should think about if we do see rate increases and higher long-end yields? How does that impact SSW and the FIG Group? Lower gain on sale and swaps most likely, but just curious how SSW and the FIG group in particular might see changes with where the yield curve is.

I think we'd have to keep an eye and pay attention to, you know, SSW, their RIA, so assets under management matter, so AOCI negatively impacts that. but they historically, if you look back at their earnings since our partnership with them, they've not only added banks to offset some of this like we were talking about previously, but also if you compare their performance versus the industry, the impact of AOCI was significantly less than industry. So we feel good about the way they manage that portfolio It will be impacted, to your point, but I think they are doing the things not only on a day-to-day basis, but also by adding additional banks to offset the income impact as well.

I think that's a really good point, and not to get too easy, but SSW, who, as you know, worked with us for 17 years before we officially partnered with them, SSW guides their clients in the construction of their investment portfolios to focus more on cash flow than on yield. And one of the things that that has done is meant that the duration risk as rates increase has been lower than it has been for non-SSW peer banks. So I think from proving out their worth to potential clients, we actually have a good story to tell there. And as rates move, I think that story will be only more apparent and visible and be more A great proof point to potential clients that we offer value in a way that's different from just a normal brokerage type arrangement. The other thing about managing for cash flow versus just yield is that it means that as rates rise, then they'll have the opportunity to reinvest that cash flow faster than some other banks that aren't following that same philosophy. Again, that should be an opportunity to serve our client banks at an even higher level, which should ultimately benefit them in terms of being able to grow the client base. In banking, whether it's the SSW part of the world or the core bank, it's not really rate movements that get you, it's how quickly the rates move that get you. Right now, it feels as if it's going to be a fairly measured rate of increase, which I think is something that we can all manage through much less painfully than the March Madness days and times at which they had to move rates a lot quicker in order to get them what they thought needed to be done. So we don't view it as a negative. We view it as an opportunity.

Yeah, and, Fede, I think another point DataPoint, you know, outside of the SSW relationship with a lot of these banks, our FIG group manages slightly over $300 million in deposits from other banks as well. So that's a part of our balance sheet. And, you know, the funding cost on that is, you know, between 75 and 90 basis points below what a one-year FHLB and broker would be today. So, you know, It's on the higher price, but it's also, relative to other funding types, cheaper and helps solidify those relationships with multiple products.

Perfect. That's great, Keller. Thank you both. I'll step back.

Next question comes from the line of Michael Rose with Raymond James. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Greg, I just wanted to start on expenses. I think you said that essentially all of the progressive cost saves have been realized through the third quarter. Obviously, this quarter's results were better than expected. Just how should we think about the growth rate from here, starting point for the fourth quarter, and then as you continue to invest in bankers, infrastructure, and technology as we move into next year, how should we at least initially think about You know, a base rate of expense growth for you guys. Thanks.

It's a great question. I think what we expect in the fourth quarter is be about 57 is the base case starting there. And then, you know, low single digit organic growth rate going forward over the next year. I think what we expect is to grow Maybe not as aggressively as we did with our Houston team left out in numbers, but we want to continue to fill in organically bankers in our markets to deepen those relationships that we have in our existing markets, and that'd be Texas and Louisiana.

Okay, that's helpful. And then I wanted to go back to Matt's question on the margin. I think I heard that the new and renewed Long Production was at 713 in the month of September. I think you guys said that you don't have any more rate hikes built in, but the forward curve certainly does. I know you guys are rate sensitive, but I guess the real question is, you know, is there opportunity for you to kind of, you know, continue to lag deposit cost increases? And should we kind of contemplate at least some additional margin expansion in the, at least in the earlier part of next year? Thanks.

Yeah, the lag is the key. That's a great point. I think what we think is all things being equal as long as rates are measured. We think, you know, low to mid single digit margin expansion quarterly, depending on that lag, is probably achievable and reasonable.

First in the fourth quarter and then depending on how many moves happen going forward. All right, that's helpful. I'll step back. Thanks, guys. Thanks.

Next question comes from the line of Gary Tanner with DA Davidson. Your line is open.

Thanks. Good morning. I just wanted to follow up on, Greg, your comment about the September loan yields. Just curious if you're seeing any kind of pressure on demand or transactions as it relates to the higher rate environment.

We're pleased with the demand we're seeing and the pipeline we're seeing. And I think the rate environment is a component of it. But what we're experiencing is with new bankers and new teammates, their pipeline and moving that business hasn't really shown any decay due to the 25 basis point rate move. We're excited about it. More recently, saw loan committees with multiple new deals presented with all rates around the 7% mark, which we were very happy with that. We feel good about the pipeline. So far, the rate environment doesn't look like it's decayed any of the work our bankers have been doing to move those relationships over.

Thank you for that. And then in terms of the deposit beta that you had noted that's in your deck, I assume that's sort of based on the existing deposit base, but if you're able to further reduce the broker deposit amount, the overall cost of deposit should increase at a pace below the beta that you're targeting. Is that the right way to think about it? Or is that inclusive of changes in the mix?

No, that's the right way to think about it.

Great. Thank you.

Next question comes from the line of Christopher Marinap with Breen Capital. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning. I wanted to ask about Dallas, and is Dallas de-emphasized, or what would be the outlook for there? Again, appreciate all the success in Houston that you've called out this quarter and last quarter, too.

Yeah, no, not to emphasize, but we hired a new market leader there about two months ago, and he's jumping in and beginning to make his mark. And, you know, we did have, if you look at our asset quality upticks that we had earlier in the year, they were, I'd say the bulk of them came from the Dallas area, and again, not a A huge number when you think about the amount of growth that we've been able to put on the books over the past seven, eight years. But we certainly have an opportunity to kind of hit the reset button a little bit on some of those relationships. And that's why it's been a little flatter as of late. But in terms of the potential and opportunity going forward, we're as excited about Dallas as we've ever been. Maybe we don't talk about it quite as much because it's kind of a given just being Dallas. We've been talking more about some of the newer opportunities within our footprint, but Dallas remains actually our largest individual market. And as we continue to add bankers there, we anticipate really good things from Dallas as well. So as we talk about our overall growth goals, those include performing well in Dallas over the next few quarters as well.

Great, Jude. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. And then just to follow up on sort of the announcement by SpaceX to do big development in South Louisiana, what does that mean from your standpoint, both for commercial and also residential activity?

Yeah, well, much like the Meta investment, maybe even on a bigger scale, it's a tremendous opportunity for Louisiana and therefore a tremendous opportunity for us. Given our footprint and we were already excited about the opportunities in Lafayette area, Acadiana area, even without SpaceX. I think they've done a nice job of diversifying their industry exposure over time. And so if you were to ask me six months ago what area of Louisiana was up, Most excited about, of course, we would talk about North Louisiana with the data centers, but I would have also put Lafayette there as an area that we want to continue to invest in and take advantage of the growth opportunities there. So that's only been magnified now that SpaceX has made their announcement. It's really hard to quantify a $100 billion investment in an area that hasn't seen a lot of that type of investment over the years, and so it's It's difficult to say with any specificity what that means or then it's going to be really good for the economy and that should impact both commercial opportunities and residential opportunities over time. When you think about our prioritization of new branches within Louisiana, that's most likely to be our number one priority to make sure that we capture our fair share of the benefits. I think there's still some I think there's still some things to figure out in terms of specifically where the activity will take place. I don't mean the actual spaceport itself, but when you think about roads being constructed, for example, to access the facilities and where the executives that are working there will be living, there's still a little bit of work to be done in terms of planning. So I think it's something that we'll probably see a little On the commercial side, we'll probably see the benefit sooner. There are already companies at work and the infrastructure from a commercial standpoint is already in place. And I don't mean the physical space for it, but I mean the companies that can support the work to build out the infrastructure are already active and in place. So I would expect to see more commercial uplift in the and a number of others. So, I think there's a lot of potential in the near term, but then over the long term, there should be a lot of residential impact as well as some of the pieces of the puzzle fit in. But $100 billion is a lot of money, a lot of investment, and when they're successful, I doubt that that will be the last investment. You're already seeing some of the other areas of the state where we have data centers and things of that nature are expanding their investment, and in the same way. So a little hard to quantify exactly what the benefits will be, but they're going to be significant. They'll be large and they'll be meaningful. And then it's going to be an operating plan. You know, one of the concerns about the data center investments that has been raised has been what happens after construction in terms of the actual jobs created and not that worried about with the data centers because the investments are so large that the construction periods are I think I saw the meta construction just on the current investment. It's not scheduled to be complete until 2031, so we still have a number of years to go there. But when you think about the spaceport with SpaceX, that's an ongoing operation that will employ individuals for a long time to come. And we'll have other ancillary industry developments as vendors and other experts choose to co-locate in the area. So I think that's one that will be meaningful for a long period of time and we feel like we're well-placed to be an active participant in that development. Really, I don't remember in my lifetime, and I'm a lifelong Louisiana resident, 52, and I don't remember a time in which There was as much excitement about the economic opportunity here in Louisiana.

Great, Jude. Thank you for sharing all that background. I appreciate it, and thanks for hosting the call today. Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. That concludes the question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Jude Melville for closing comments.

I just want to mention that I just want to mention that I appreciate the North Louisiana integration process that we just went through. The smoothness of it speaks to the teammates that we inherited and to our own team in terms of their proactive and positive jumping into the opportunity and while the progressive teammates have been and some of our teammates since the beginning of the year when we formally closed the acquisition. It's exciting to share a name and share processes and truly operate as a team. So again, I want to thank them for the positivity which they jumped in. I also want to reiterate my appreciation for the Tyler team that took the risk to come join us. Look forward to supporting them. I'll get to see some of them tomorrow, in fact, and look forward to that. I would say the things that this, in closing, the things that we've been working on, again, are working, and it's nice to have some optionality. When you think about our focus on growing Tangible Book, I know on a percentage basis, as Greg said, we didn't grow significantly, but it was positive and we would have actually grown significantly more, I think over 14% tangible bulk if we hadn't had the AOCI impact and if we hadn't done share buyback. So it's nice to have that optionality when you think about the difference in our balance sheet in our P&L today versus a year ago. You can kind of summarize it in saying that we've built in more optionality whether that be from a healthier funding base and many more. I love that optionality and plan on continuing to maximize that opportunity in the coming quarters and years. You know, it really was a little bit of a boring quarter in some ways, you know, if you think about it. And it's exciting to be boring in a way because we're a bank, so we like that. And I want to continue that. And I appreciate everybody's time and everybody's efforts over time that have led us to this spot. I'm excited about continuing. I look forward to visiting with you again. Matt, you had something you wanted to add?

Might have one more, it looks like. Looks like someone's got a follow-up question here. I want to see if we can get them in, if possible. Betty, I don't know if that was you, is what it looked like it might be.

I want to make sure we get all questions addressed. Let's see. Operator, could you potentially open up Betty Strickland's line with Hovde Group?

One moment, please. One moment, please. Okay, Freddie Strickland with Hovde Group.

Your line is open. Please go ahead.

The late follow-up here, not sure if you can hear me, but just wanted to ask about credit.

It seems like there's still credit improvement on the horizon here. Maybe some items just took a little longer to get to the finish line than you expected. How should we think about the workouts and overall level of NPAs the next couple quarters?

Thanks. Thanks, Betty. You know, we still expect to reduce NPAs in the fourth quarter. I think they'll continue to work. You know, as resolutions happen in that type of business, sometimes they're delayed as you work through the process. We feel pretty confident that some of those delays in the third quarter will pull through into the fourth quarter, and you'll start seeing reductions, you know, and many more.