Meet The New Agency SEO Template From The Avada Team
Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium.
See Our Top Notch Services
Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium.
Our Work
Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium.
Our Plans
Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium.
Standard
- 5 Projects
- 5 GB Storage
- Unlimited Users
Premium
- 10 Projects
- 15 GB Storage
- Unlimited Users
Professional
- 15 Projects
- 30 GB Storage
- Unlimited Users
Extreme
- Unlimited Projects
- Unlimited Storage
- Unlimited Users
Our News
Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium.
With problems behind it, Home BancShares preps for a deal
Forward look: Home BancShares in Conway, Arkansas, has signed a letter of intent for its first bank deal in more than three years.Expert quote: "I believe in fixing your existing problems before you make a new move. That's exactly what Home has been doing for the past three years," Chairman and CEO John Allison said.Key insight: Home's third-quarter return on assets of 2.17% is nearly double the industry-wide average, according to FDIC statistics. Conway, Arkansas-based Home BancShares appears poised to dive back into the merger-and-acquisition arena after three-and-a-half years on the sidelines.The $22.7 billion-asset Home, which completed its last deal in April 2022, recently disclosed that it's signed a letter of intent to buy an unnamed bank. "We'll be moving forward on that," Chairman and CEO John Allison said on a conference call with analysts last week. "It's someone we like and runs a good business. … We're excited about the opportunity." Home BancShares CEO John Allison Though he did not discuss the location of the prospective seller, Allison did note that the company has "several billion dollars" of assets.With the merger-and-acquisition activity moving into high gear, a number of other regional banks, including the $83.2 billion-asset First Horizon Corp. in Memphis, Tennessee, and the $211 billion-asset, Buffalo, New York-based M&T Bank Corp., have indicated they're potential buyers. Allison, 76, has been a prolific acquirer. He said on the company's most recent earnings call he's been involved in roughly four dozen transactions during his 42-year banking career, including 18 since co-founding Home in 1998. All went off more or less without a hitch — until the $919 million, all-stock acquisition of Lubbock, Texas-based Happy State Bank, which closed in April 2022.The deal should have been a triumph, giving Home, the parent of Centennial Bank, a presence in the Lone Star State. Instead, Home has been beset by asset-quality issues and a bitter, long-running legal dispute. Allison characterized the episode as a "fiasco" on the Oct. 16 conference call.Home was reluctant to consider new M&A opportunities while the Happy situation was still in flux, Allison said. Now, though, with the asset-quality problems in check and its lawsuit successfully concluded, the company felt comfortable enough to resume searching for merger partners."I believe in fixing your existing problems before you make a new move. That's exactly what Home has been doing for the past three years," Allison said on the conference call. "We waited until we had our arms around multiple problems before we moved again."The decision to proceed with a letter of intent was bolstered by a solid third-quarter earnings report, which saw Home report net income totaling $123.6 million, up more than 20% from the same period in 2024. Home's third-quarter return on assets of 2.17% was nearly double the industry-wide average of 1.13%, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. statistics."We're back producing top-tier best-in-class numbers once again," Allison said.Home "remains one of our favorite stories," Hovde analyst Brett Rabatin wrote in an Oct. 17 research note. The potential combination with the as-yet-unnamed seller "will likely be accretive to expectations for the next two years in our view, and a $2 billion-asset to $4 billion-asset-sized transaction could meaningfully move the needle," Rabatin added.An acquisition makes strategic sense, given Home's "limited opportunity to drive profitability meaningfully higher on its current asset base," Janney Montgomery Scott analyst Brian Martin wrote Monday in a research note.Home's loans totaled $15.3 billion on Sept. 30, up 3% from the third quarter of 2024. Deposits grew 4% year over year to $17.3 billion. At the same time, the ratio of nonperforming assets to total assets, which peaked at 0.63% a year ago, declined to 0.56% on Sept. 30."I'm a pretty happy camper," Allison said on the conference call. "Everything is holding together pretty good."The third-quarter earnings report and Allison's disclosure of the letter of intent came a week after Home settled a lawsuit it had filed against several former Happy employees in 2023. The bankers quit Happy to join a competitor following the company's sale. Home claimed they took confidential information and used it to lure away clients and other employees.Home settled the case earlier this month, with the defendants agreeing to pay an undisclosed sum. Home has received a partial payment and hopes to have the remaining balance paid by year-end, according to Allison.
Popular Bank exits mortgage lending
Puerto Rico-based Popular Bank announced it is exiting home lending, the second institution to make the decision in a little over a month. The company said competitive pressure and the wish to focus on areas with greater revenue potential motivated their exit from the mortgage segment. "As part of our ongoing efforts to improve profitability, we decided to exit the U.S. residential mortgage origination business," said Jorge Garcia, chief financial officer of parent company, Popular Inc., in its third-quarter earnings call on Thursday. "We don't believe, given our funding profile and deposit branches in the U.S., that that's a business that we really want to be in at this time," he added, noting the decision would impact a unspecified number of employees. Popular serves customers in Florida, New Jersey and New York on the U.S. mainland. Along with its decision to cease mortgage originations, the bank also announced it would close four New York metropolitan area branches. The move comes as the company reported net income of $211 million in the most recent quarter across both mainland and Caribbean operations, with mortgage activity in its Puerto Rico business leading to an increase of $129 million in balance. How the mortgage industry is changing under current market conditionsThe costs of mortgage lending under current housing market conditions has resulted in a changed business landscape with a steady stream of mergers and exits as companies re-evaluate their business strategies. Three years after market shifts first drove interest rates to more than double from early 2022 levels, several waves of consolidation have hit the mortgage industry, with the trend continuing well into 2025. Stubbornly sticky rates, compounded by housing affordability obstacles, left many nonbank lenders struggling with profitability and opting to merge. The challenges with offering mortgages, likewise, is driving some depository institutions to leave the segment altogether. Earlier this year, both Ally Financial and WaFd Bank announced they would eliminate mortgage units, followed by Blue Ridge Bankshares a few months later. Popular's exit is the second such departure in a little over a month. In September, New Jersey's Oceanfirst Bank made the same decision to exit but said it would continue offering its customers mortgage options through a new partnership with Embrace Home Loans.On the other end, the merger-and-acquisition trend led Oklahoma's Bank7 to grow its mortgage team in 2025 with the acquisitions of nonbank lender First American Mortgage.
Primelending management cautiously optimistic about 2026
After another money-losing quarter for Primelending, Hilltop Holding's mortgage subsidiary through Plainscapital Bank, company management was cautiously optimistic about the future.In the third quarter, the mortgage business lost $7.2 million on a pretax basis. While it did turn a pretax profit of $3.2 million in the second quarter, in the three prior periods, Primelending lost money, including $8.7 million on pretax basis for the third quarter of 2024.Volume was $2.3 billion, compared with $2.43 billion in the second quarter and $2.31 billion one year earlier. Margins for the third quarter were 234 basis points, compared with 228 basis points three months prior and 224 basis points one year ago. Hilltop management believes revenues and production from the mortgage segment have begun to stabilize, said William Furr, executive vice president and chief financial officer, during the conference call.Why Hilltop's management has mixed views on mortgage"We also feel that it remains important to note the ongoing challenges in mortgage banking provide a combination of higher interest rates, home prices, insurance and taxes remain constrictive to overall market demand," Furr continued. "That said, even in the face of these challenges, we do believe that the overall mortgage market is slowly improving, and we expect that this improvement could continue into 2026."Primelending's management is focused on cost optimization and improving productivity across the middle and back-office functions, as well as growing its client-facing sales team and optimizing pricing, all in support profitable growth in the future, Furr added.Subdued origination volumes in the second quarter persisted into the following three months, a result of the industry-wide slump during the traditionally busy summer season, said Jeremy Ford, Hilltop's chairman, president and CEO on the call."While gain on sale margins did increase on a linked quarter basis, this was more than offset by a decline in origination fees," Ford said. "However, there were positive developments from the quarter as mortgage rates did modestly subside and home inventory saw a further reversion back towards more normalized levels."How the industry forecast affects Primelending's outlookThe latest Mortgage Bankers Association forecast had an estimate of $565 billion of production in the third quarter, up from $515 billion in the second quarter.In the fourth quarter, normally not a strong period, it is predicting $567 billion. This will be followed by $546 billion, $569 billion and $566 billion over the next three quarters, the MBA forecast said."Homebuyers do continue to face affordability challenges, and we expect heightened competition for mortgage origination volume to keep margins and fees under pressure," Hilltop's Ford said. "As we enter the seasonally slower fourth and first quarters of the year, we will continue to focus on reducing fixed expenses, while recruiting talented mortgage originators in order to restore stand-alone profitability at Primelending."At the corporate level, third quarter net income attributable to Hilltop was $45.8 million, compared with $36.1 million for the period ended June 30, while last year it was $29.7 million.
What Our Clients Say
Ability proceeds from a fusion of skills, knowledge, understanding and imagination, consolidated by experience.
Beauty is when you can appreciate yourself. When you love yourself, that’s when you’re most beautiful.
