Huntington Bancshares Q4 2024 Earnings Report

Huntington Bancshares EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.34
• Consensus EPS: $0.31
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.03
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.27

Huntington Bancshares Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: $1.87 billion
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Huntington Bancshares Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 1/17/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Friday, January 17, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

Huntington Bancshares (NASDAQ:HBAN) is a regional bank holding company based in Columbus, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1866, the company provides full-service commercial and consumer banking services, including deposit accounts, loans, mortgages, credit cards, wealth management, and insurance services. The company operates over 900 branches across Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

The company's leadership team is led by Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer Stephen D. Steinour. Steinour has been with Huntington Bancshares since 2009 and has led the company through significant growth, including acquiring FirstMerit Corporation in 2016, which expanded the company's presence in the Midwest. Other key leadership team members include Zachary J. Wasserman, Chief Financial Officer, and Helga Houston, Chief Risk Officer. 

Since 2020, Huntington Bancshares has seen unsteady growth in its key financial metrics. The company reports increased revenue and increased profits. The company's profit margin has remained steady at around 25% over the past few years. The company's debt levels have remained manageable, with a debt-to-equity on par with industry peers. The company's ownership structure has also remained stable. The largest institutional shareholder, Vanguard Group, Inc. Huntington Bancshares, trades at a price-to-earnings ratio below the industry average. The company's price-to-book ratio is slightly below the industry average as well. These metrics suggest that the company may be undervalued relative to its peers in the banking industry.

Regarding market performance, Huntington Bancshares has performed well in recent years. The company's stock price has steadily risen over the past three years recovering from a collapse in the stock price in Q1 of 2020. The company's trading volume has also remained steady, with an average daily volume of around 7 million shares.

The banking industry is highly regulated, and regulatory changes can significantly impact the industry. In recent years, there have been several regulatory changes that have affected the banking industry, including changes to the Dodd-Frank Act and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. These changes have increased compliance costs for banks and have placed additional regulatory burdens on the industry.

Huntington Bancshares faces competition from other regional and national banks, as well as from non-bank financial institutions. In particular, the rise of fintech companies has disrupted the traditional banking industry, with many consumers turning to digital banking solutions. Huntington Bancshares has responded to this trend by investing in its digital banking capabilities, including the launch of its digital-only bank, Huntington Digital Bank, in 2020.

Looking ahead, Huntington Bancshares has several growth opportunities. The company has continued to expand its presence in the Midwest through acquisitions and organic growth. It has also invested in its digital banking capabilities to meet changing consumer preferences. The company has also focused on expanding its wealth management and insurance services to provide additional sources of revenue. Additionally, the company has identified several markets where it believes it can expand its commercial and consumer banking services.

Despite these growth opportunities, Huntington Bancshares also faces several risks and challenges. Changes in consumer preferences and technology could disrupt the traditional banking industry, and regulatory changes could increase compliance costs and place additional regulatory burdens on the industry. Additionally, increased competition from fintech companies and non-bank financial institutions could impact the company's market share and revenue growth.

Huntington Bancshares Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Greetings and welcome to the Huntington Bancshares 4th Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Tim Sadabras, Director of Investor Relations.

[Operator]

Please go ahead.

[Timothy Sedabres, Executive VP & Head of Investor Relations at Huntington Bancshares]

Thank you, operator. Welcome, everyone, and good morning. Copies of the slides we will be reviewing today can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website, www.huntington.com. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and a replay will be available starting about 1 hour from the close of the call. Our presenters today are Steve Steinauer, Chairman, President and CEO and Zach Wasserman, Chief Financial Officer.

[Timothy Sedabres, Executive VP & Head of Investor Relations at Huntington Bancshares]

Brendan Waller, Chief Credit Officer, will join us for the Q and A. Earnings documents, which include our forward looking statements disclaimer and non GAAP information are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. With that, let me now turn it over to Steve.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

Thanks, Tim. Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Thank you for joining the call today. Building on a good Q3, we delivered very strong Q4 results, which Zach will detail later. 2024 was an exceptional year for Huntington with our teams delivering accelerated growth over the course of the year.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

We're very grateful to our 20,000 colleagues who drove these results, while living our purpose every day as we make people's lives better, help businesses thrive and strengthen the communities we serve. Now on to Slide 4. There are 5 key messages we want to leave you with today. First, we drove record fee revenues and accelerated growth of loans and deposits. This reflected contributions from both existing and new businesses.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

Our investments into new geographies and capabilities are delivering attractive returns and we're seeing accelerated contributions from these new areas. We delivered sequential growth in both spread and fee revenues in the quarter. We move into 2025 with strong momentum. We are poised to deliver record net interest income and fee revenues for the full year. 3rd, we are executing our down beta action plans and lowering deposit pricing.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

This supports management of net interest margin through a dynamic interest rate environment. 4th, we are achieving strong credit performance. This is a direct result of our disciplined client selection and rigorous portfolio management aligned with our aggregate moderate to low risk appetite. 5th, through execution of our growth strategies, we are driving profit momentum into 2025 and beyond. I'll move us on to Slide 5 to recap our performance last year.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

2024 was a breakout year for Huntington. Our many years of consistent and disciplined management benefited us as we came into the year with robust liquidity and capital as well as stable credit. This position of strength enabled us to accelerate growth in our core, add new capabilities and teams, and expand into new geographies in North and South Carolina, as well as Texas. We're just getting started here. We believe our investments and focused execution will deliver robust organic growth in future years.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

The results in 2024 included growing average deposits by over $7,500,000,000 and growing average loans by over $3,500,000,000 Our growth accelerated over the course of the year with our new initiatives increasing contributions to our overall results. Additionally, our fee revenue businesses are performing exceptionally well. Within payments, we brought in house our merchant acquiring capabilities and increased treasury management products and services. Within wealth management, we're expanding advisory household relationships 9% year over year and gathering increased wealth assets from our customers. Capital Markets set a new quarterly record for revenue in the 4th quarter at $120,000,000 an increase of 74% from a year ago.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

Turning to slide 6, let me take a moment to share the top level revenue trends we've delivered. The organic growth we are driving continues to significantly outpace our peer group. We are well positioned to drive attractive and sustained revenue. These revenue growth trends support expanding PPNR into 2025 and beyond. Now let's turn to Slide 7.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

The growth opportunities today are the most attractive they've been since I joined Huntington. We have 3 primary areas of focus. These include executing the organic growth strategy I shared earlier, driving revenues higher and maintaining our consistent approach to risk management. We have numerous growth levers, both in our existing markets and businesses as well as the collective set of expanded geographies and new capabilities. We see substantive opportunities to expand loans, deposits and value added fee revenues.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

These efforts will result in sustained revenue expansion in both fee and spread revenue. Huntington benefits from a consistent approach to risk management that has served us well for many years. We expect this bedrock principle to remain unchanged as we maintain our aggregate moderate to low risk appetite. Zack, over to you to provide more detail on our financial performance.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone. Slide 8 provides highlights of our 4th quarter results. We reported earnings per common share of $0.34 Return on tangible common equity or ROTCE came in at 16.4% for the quarter. Average loan balances increased by $7,000,000,000 or 5.7% versus last year. Average deposits increased by $9,700,000,000 or 6.5% versus last year.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

CET1 ended the quarter at 10.5 percent and increased roughly 30 basis points from last year. Adjusted common equity Tier 1 including AOCI was 8.7%. Tangible book value per share has increased by 6.9% year over year. We maintained strong credit performance and are positioned to continue to outperform. Net charge offs were 30 basis points stable from the prior quarter.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Allowance for credit losses ended the quarter at 1.88%. Turning to slide 9, consistent with our plan and prior guidance, year over year average loan growth continued to accelerate. Loan growth in the 4th quarter increased 5.7% year over year, rising from 3.1% year over year in Q3. Average loan balances increased sequentially by $3,700,000,000 or 2.9%. This exceptional loan growth reflects strong production and contributions from our existing and new businesses.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

During the quarter, new initiatives represented $1,100,000,000 in growth or 30% of the total net loan growth. Growth from new initiatives continued to accelerate as we have guided previously increasing from approximately $700,000,000 $500,000,000 in the prior two quarters. Of the $3,100,000,000 of loan growth from existing businesses, we saw $766,000,000 from auto, dollars 421,000,000 from regional banking, commercial and industrial, dollars 511,000,000 from asset finance, $327,000,000 from higher auto floorplan balances, dollars 85,000,000 from seasonally higher balances within distribution finance, dollars 165,000,000 from all other consumer categories net, including increases from residential mortgage and home equity offset by lower RV marine balances and approximately $800,000,000 collectively across the commercial bank. Of the $1,100,000,000 of loan growth from new initiatives, the largest contributions in the quarter came from funds finance, North and South Carolina and Texas. Offsetting a portion of this growth was lower commercial real estate balances, which declined by $465,000,000 Turning to slide 10, the result of our accelerated loan growth continues to be a differentiated position compared to our peers.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Over the last year through the Q3, the peer group reported lower loan balances, down nearly 3% at the median. During this time, Huntington outperformed the median by approximately 6%. Importantly, we have sustained deposit growth to self fund our expanded loan balances with deposit growth also substantially outperforming peers on a cumulative basis. Turning to slide 11, we delivered deposit growth through the Q4. Average deposits increased by $2,900,000,000 or 1.9%.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

This growth was led by our commercial customers. Non interest bearing deposits expanded, growing by approximately $800,000,000 on average, totaling 18.6 percent of total deposits. We lowered our overall cost of deposits in the quarter by 24 basis points to 2.16%. This is consistent with the trajectory we shared in our mid quarter update and reflects our disciplined deposit pricing. On to slide 12.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

During the quarter, we drove a $45,000,000 or 3.3 percent growth in net interest income. This reflects over 6% growth year over year and net interest income has increased for the 3rd consecutive quarter. Net interest margin was 3.03 percent for the 4th quarter, up 5 basis points from the prior quarter. The change in net interest margin included 3 basis points lower spread net of free funds, more than offset by 3 basis points benefit from lower cash balances and a 5 basis point benefit from lower drag from the hedging program. Turning to slide 13, our level of cash and securities at year end decreased to 28% of total assets, as we saw modestly lower cash balances in the quarter.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

We expect to operate at or around this level going forward. We have continued to reinvest securities cash flows into treasuries, and as previously stated expect to manage the duration of the portfolio at approximately the current range. As previously disclosed, we sold approximately $1,000,000,000 of corporate securities during the Q4. This repositioning was beneficial to risk weighted assets and capital ratios and resulted in a pre tax loss of $21,000,000 with an earn back of less than 2 years. Turning to Slide 14, we continue to manage our hedging program with 2 objectives in mind to protect net interest margin from a lower rate environment as well as to protect capital from a potential higher rate environment.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

We have remained relatively stable in our hedging position since November. We continue to monitor the likelihood of potential rate scenarios and will remain dynamic as we adjust to the rate environment. Moving to slide 15. On a GAAP basis, non interest income increased by $154,000,000 from the prior year. On a core underlying basis, adjusting for the impacts of the loss on securities, CRT transactions and the pay fixed swaptions mark to market from the prior year, fee revenues increased by $96,000,000 or 20%.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Moving to slide 16, we have continued to see powerful acceleration from our focus on 3 strategic fee businesses. For the full year, fee revenues as a percentage of total revenue increased to 28% from 26% the prior year. Within payments, we saw 8% growth year over year in the 4th quarter, driven by a 16% increase in commercial payment revenues benefiting from higher treasury management fees and the launch of our new merchant acquiring model. Wealth management fees increased by 8% from the prior year. AUM continued to grow, increasing 16% from the prior year, with wealth advisory households having increased by 9%.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Finally, capital markets completed a record quarter with $120,000,000 in revenue. That's up 74% from the prior year. Our KapStone Group had a phenomenal quarter helping to lead our strong capital markets results. Turning to Slide 17, GAAP non interest expense increased sequentially by $48,000,000 and underlying core expenses increased by $57,000,000 from Q3. The primary driver of the increase in expenses was in personnel costs, largely comprised of higher revenue driven compensation expense, which was $42,000,000 higher in the quarter.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Slide 18 recaps our capital position. Common Equity Tier 1 ended the quarter at 10.5%. Our adjusted CET1 ratio inclusive of AOCI was 8.7%, up approximately 10 basis points from a year ago. Our capital management strategy remains focused on driving our top priority to fund high return loan growth while also driving capital ratios higher. We intend to drive adjusted CET1 inclusive of AOCI into our operating range of 9% to 10%.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

On Slide 19, credit quality continues to perform very well. Net charge offs were 30 basis points for the quarter, stable from Q3 and within one basis point of that level over the past 4 quarters. For the full year, net charge offs also totaled 30 basis points, well within our through the cycle range. Allowance for credit losses was at 1.88 percent, lower by 5 basis points from the prior quarter. This reflects the continued strong credit performance and loan portfolio growth.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Turning to Slide 20, the criticized asset ratio improved for the 3rd consecutive quarter to 3.76%. The non performing asset ratio ended the quarter at 63 basis points relatively stable over the prior three quarters. Let's turn to Slide 21 for our outlook for 2025. We expect to continue to drive robust loan growth with balances expected to increase between 5% and 7% for the full year. Deposits are also expected to sustain growth with balances increasing between 3% 5%.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

We see net interest income on a dollar basis growing between 4% 6% this year. As noted, this level would reflect record net interest income on a full year basis. We will maintain our focus on key fee revenue areas including payments, wealth management and capital markets, which we expect to lead to non interest income growth between 4% 6% for 2025. Expense growth will be driven by sustained investments and revenue producing initiatives, albeit at a moderately lower pace of growth than we saw in full year 2024. We expect expense growth between 3.5% 4.5%.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

The pace of expense growth will in part be driven by revenue levels and the associated variable compensation expense. Importantly, we see positive operating leverage for full year 2025. Related to credit, we expect net charge offs for the year to be between 25 and 35 basis points. The effective tax rate for the year is expected to be approximately 19%. Let me also share a couple of thoughts on where we see trends for the Q1 compared to

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

the

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Q4. We expect average loan balances to grow approximately 2%, average deposits to be relatively stable sequentially, net interest income on a dollar basis to be lower by approximately 2% to 3%, reflecting normal day count headwinds as well as a modestly lower net interest margin. Fee revenues normalizing in the Q1 given seasonality and recognizing the record level we delivered in the 4th quarter. Fee revenues are expected to be approximately $500,000,000 in the Q1 and then expand from that level over the course of the year. Expenses are likewise expected to be lower in the Q1 given the strong year end production levels we delivered in the 4th quarter.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

We forecast expenses to be down approximately 2% from the 4th quarter, the exact level of which will fluctuate dependent on revenue driven compensation. With that, we'll conclude our prepared remarks and move to Q and A. Tim, over to you.

[Timothy Sedabres, Executive VP & Head of Investor Relations at Huntington Bancshares]

Thank you, Zach. Operator, we will now take questions. We ask that as a courtesy to your peers, each person ask only one question and one related follow-up. And then if that person has additional questions, he or she can add themselves back into the queue. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. Today's first question is coming from Anant Gosling with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Manan Gosalia, Equity Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Hi, good morning.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Good morning, Anant.

[Manan Gosalia, Equity Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Good morning. Zach, can you talk about the confidence around the NII guidance range? It's a tighter range than last year. And I asked because I know there's a lot of uncertainty from trade and immigration and tax policy. So I just wanted to get a sense of what's embedded in that guide from a macro perspective.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Yes. Great question, Manav. I appreciate your focus on that. And the short answer to your question is we're very confident that we can drive revenue growth within that range. Ultimately, the way we see the year playing out, obviously, still pretty dynamic here in terms of short term rate outlook and what's going on in the kind of valley in the longer term part of the curve.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

But we see the ability to manage the NIM within any reasonable range of 0 cuts to up to 2 or 3 cuts at approximately flat throughout the course of 2025, rising as we go into 2026 and beyond with the normal upward sloping yield curve and just continued growth in high return areas, but generally flat in NIM for 2025. It's really going to be loan growth, therefore, and earnings asset growth overall that drives the revenue performance this year. And we think we've set the range at a level that's very achievable and within the run rates that we're seeing now.

[Manan Gosalia, Equity Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Got it. And you're growing loans faster than deposits this year. It sounds like you're reversing some of the trend that we've seen in 2024. Can you talk about what's driving that? And does that give you more room to flex on deposit costs as you go through the year?

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Yes. Another great one. Look, in terms of loan growth, we're running right now in the 4th quarter, we just posted 5.7% growth, greater than the 5% that we've been calling out for some time in terms of the exit growth rate we'd see. Feel really good about that. As we noted in some of the prepared remarks, about 60% of that coming from the core, 40% from the new initiatives.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

So a really good mix of growth. As we go into 2025, that 5% to up to 7% growth in loans is for

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

the most part just sort

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

of continuing on that run rate. We think the growth composition in 2025 will be approximately half and half between the core and the new initiatives. So, continue to see nice balance, particularly great performance across the board. As we as you think about the loan to deposit ratio, we were very intentional over the course of the last couple of years to drive strong deposit growth. I think we talked a number of times before this.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

To some degree, we were prefunding what we expected to be accelerating loan growth. And so we're pleased to see that plan play out well. As we think about the plan for 2025, growing deposits still pretty well here between 3% 5%, core funding most of the loan growth, but also benefiting from the fact that we had taken the loan to deposit ratio down a bit. So I think that does set us up pretty well to continue to drive the beta plan, which has outperformed thus far

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

into the Q1 and still

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

see further down deposit pricing even as we accelerate loan growth.

[Manan Gosalia, Equity Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question is coming from John Pancari of Evercore. Please go ahead.

[John Pancari, Senior Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Good morning.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

Good morning, John.

[John Pancari, Senior Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Related to that growth that you're just talking about on the loan side, can you maybe help us with the new money loan production yield that you're bringing on these new loans at, so overall new money production yield versus your existing yield? And then maybe more specifically underneath that, what is the new money yield on that $1,100,000,000 this quarter generated from the new initiatives?

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Appreciate the question, John. And not going to dive into the depths of that, but I'll sort of talk about this at a high level. The yields we're seeing ultimately are very consistent with kind of spread levels we've got in the business overall. That's why you're seeing that pretty consistent level of NIM. Obviously, the business being roughly 50% fixed asset production, those are keyed off of the belly of the curve, the other 50% being variable keyed off of the shorter end.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

One thing I didn't say just a minute ago when Manal was asking was that if you sort of unpack what's going on in yields and NIM, we continue to benefit from quite a bit of fixed asset repricing given where the ability is. And so all those things will help us together to get to that stable NIM we talked about before.

[John Pancari, Senior Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Okay. All right, Zach. Thank you. And then just hopping to the capital, the I know the CET1 to 10.5 that's down to adjusted for AOCI 8.7 and I know you're targeting 9 to 10 including of that. So fair to assume I know buybacks are still kind of on hold.

[John Pancari, Senior Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI]

How long do you see that? Do you see a potential change in that outlook as you look at the capital generation that you're forecasting for the year? Just trying to figure out how we should think about capital return.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Yes. Yes. Good question. And as you think about capital for us, we're focused on the goals that we've had that are unchanged, most important of which is funding high return loan growth. And so we're pleased that that's really been a great opportunity for us to deploy our internally generated capital.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

At adjusted CET1 ratio of 8.7%. Our objective remains the same, which

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

is to drive that up into the 9%

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

to 10% operating range. And I expect that we'll do that within the first half of twenty twenty five and then continue to drive that higher solidly within that range. My working forecast at this point, John, is that if we continue to see RWA growth and loan growth as we're forecasting, it will likely be bouncing around the kind of the low 9s throughout the course of 2025. It obviously also depends on where the longer end of the yield curve is, which is where the AOCI marks trend. Under that scenario, there's relatively little capacity to do share repurchases in the near term.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Over the longer term, as we continue to drive CET1 up into that range, I would expect us to return to a more normal distribution, including share repurchases. So 2025 will, to some degree, really be dependent on that pace of loan growth and where the longer end of the yield curve ends up coming through.

[John Pancari, Senior Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Okay, great. All right. Thanks, Zach.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question is coming from Ebrahim Poonawala of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Ebrahim Poonawala, Managing Director - Head of North American Banks Research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Hey, good morning.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Good morning, Abraham.

[Ebrahim Poonawala, Managing Director - Head of North American Banks Research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

I guess, Zach, just following up on the comments around the loan to deposit ratio. As we think about, let's say, loan growth meets deposit growth in 2025, Just talk about your expectations around the incremental margin and what's the incremental cost of deposits that are coming on relative to where you see the rest of the book repricing?

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Yes. Good questions. The loan to deposit ratio we ended with that was kind of exiting Q4 level was 79%. So it really gives us a powerful opportunity to continue to drive loan growth faster than deposit growth for some period of time, even though we're looking to core fund. The marginal spreads we're seeing now are very consistent with us.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Mentioned earlier in Todd's prior question to what we've seen in the past. And I think obviously in the near term, we'll continue to see acquisition deposit rates come down and benefit from the lower yield curve is what's going on with Fed funds reductions. But over the longer term, we'll continue to see that NIM begin to rise as we go into 2025 and the end of 'twenty five, excuse me, into 'twenty six and beyond.

[Ebrahim Poonawala, Managing Director - Head of North American Banks Research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Got it. And I guess just one quick one on the fee outlook around payments, wealth management, cap markets. How much of the fee growth is tied to lending? Or I'm just trying to think through if lending or loan growth is slower, could you still have a fee revenue backdrop which could be in line or better than what you've guided this morning?

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Fundamentally, the fee strategies are there to support the overall core business. And so the faster the core business grows, the more fee revenues opportunities there are, of course. And it'll give you a sense as you look at some of our new growth initiatives in the Carolinas, in Texas and some of the new specialty commercial businesses. As those grow, we're seeing nice pull through in terms of fees, particularly treasury management, Ebrahim. With that being said, another core element of the fee strategy is really penetrating the opportunity more fully.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

So wealth management, for example, I wouldn't consider to be highly correlated with loan growth more around kind of what we're seeing in terms of penetration. So broadly correlated, but I think also very independent in terms of the strategies that we're driving. My expectation over the long term is we'll see payments, wealth management, capital markets all being high single digit to low double digit growth in revenues in a pretty sustainable way over the course of the long term.

[Ebrahim Poonawala, Managing Director - Head of North American Banks Research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Got it. Thank you.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question is coming from Brian Foran of Truist. Please go ahead.

[Brian Foran, Managing Director at Truist Securities]

Hey, all. I guess the first part I definitely recognize that your 25 loan and deposit growth guide, most of your peers so far seem to be like flat, up 2%. So you're continuing peer leading growth. But just in terms of like it's kind of like flat to decelerating in terms of growth rates from where we are now. And conceptually, like why would you decelerate?

[Brian Foran, Managing Director at Truist Securities]

Is it macro inputs? Or is it seasoning of investments? Or what would to the extent the growth rates are flat to decelerating, what would drive that kind of change in the derivative, I guess?

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Yes. Great question, Brian. And I appreciate you recognizing this pure leading performance because we certainly feel pretty good about that. The way I think about it is sustaining the current run rate of loan growth. Again, we talked earlier, 5.7% year over year in Q4.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

It's pretty much spot in the middle of the loan growth range. And certainly, there's potential that will be at the high end of that range, which would represent acceleration actually of loan growth. Deposit growth of 3% to 5% is somewhat of a deceleration from the growth rate we saw in 2024, but really reflective of us not needing to grow deposits as much and purposely driving down the cost of deposits and benefiting from frankly that really advantageous position we have in loan to deposit ratio. So a great way to manage the NIM overall in the face of sort of dynamic interest rate environment we got at this point. Over the longer term, I would expect to really well match fund with core deposits kind of in the business model as you go out past 'twenty five.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

But we're kind of managing just the dynamic nature of the environment right now. And so that's how I think about it, sustaining about accelerating loans and really purposely managing the deposit volumes to show that we can have a solid NIM and drive overall revenue growth, which is the objective I can add.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

Brian, this is Steve. There's also seasonality. We're a very large asset finance lender, as you know, and that typically has a very strong 4th quarter. And so, annualizing on that 4th quarter doesn't reflect seasonality in Asset Finance and some other businesses that are seasonal in nature. But we're coming into 'twenty five with momentum.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

We have had we're about 50% better this year to last year with pipelines in most of the businesses. So we've got a lot of confidence in the loan growth within the range we talked about and perhaps if the outlook continues to be robust, we'll have an opportunity to exceed.

[Brian Foran, Managing Director at Truist Securities]

That's really helpful. Maybe as a follow-up, the 8 states and 3 verticals, the 8 verticals in 3 states, anything you would highlight as kind of the standout on the good side? Anything that's been maybe a little bit more challenging? And as you think about investments for 2025, is it mostly about continuing to invest in the 8 and the 3? Or is there anything that could potentially be new verticals or new states on the docket?

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

Well, Brian, great question. Thank you. We've invested in the core markets as well as these 3 new geographic markets and then these 8 verticals. So we've added several 100 RMs and new business generators in the last year and a half. We're very pleased with the overall performance.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

We've had some outstanding results. We're off to a strong start in both Carolinas and Texas. Our funds finance business has ramped up faster than any business we've had any specialty business we've had. They're all doing reasonably well. In aggregate, they're ahead, meaningfully ahead of expectations.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

The regional geographies, the Carolinas and Texas, on a direct expense basis all actually made money last year. So we like the start. We're confident. We have excellent colleagues who are who joined us and we're well positioned to continue that growth. So organic growth is our priority and we'll continue to look for growth from those where we've made investments.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

And at the same time, as you saw earlier this month, we launched 2 others with Arrow and Defense and FIG. And there will potentially be additional specialty verticals as we go forward, probably not at the rate of the last year and a half, however.

[Brian Foran, Managing Director at Truist Securities]

Thank you so much.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question is coming from Jon Arfstrom of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[Jon Arfstrom, Managing Director - Associate Director of US Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Steve, just maybe following up on that a little bit on loan growth. You or in your prepared comments, you said these are some of the most attractive opportunities you've seen since you've joined Huntington and 50% higher pipelines. Can you talk a little bit about the borrower feedback that you're hearing over the last few months? And then if you could touch a little bit also on the core growth, the $3,100,000,000 in core growth was obviously much stronger and you guys flagged lower CRE. So just kind of curious if there's a sentiment change and what's driving that core growth?

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

John, the borrower sentiment, the customer sentiment, I should say, is consistently positive. The outlook post election has changed. You see it in the confidence measures indices that are a small consumer business. And we're not now I've probably been out with 100 or so customers and prospects since the election and it's almost 100% or more positive about 25% and beyond. So there is a consensus, I think, of expected growth, increased inventories.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

We saw record asset finance in the 4th quarter, about $600,000,000 more than we did previously as a record. And I think that reflects sort of an unlocking of expectations. There was a lot of deferred finance activities, I think, in the first half of the year and then waiting to see the election and then decisions were made and significant investments reflected in the Q4. December was a very robust month for us, for example, in the Asset Finance side. Side.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

So we're heading in the momentum we have. It is reflective, I think, of the settlement and gives us a lot of confidence as we come into the year. In terms of the core growth, again, we have some seasonality in that core growth in the Q4 with Asset Finance. And commercial real estate, we believe is close to bottoming out. We're prepared to increase the outstandings and commitments.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

In CRE, the book has performed exceptionally well. In aggregate, the group is performing exceptionally well. So while we're talking about home growth, feel the same way about fees and deposits with our 2024 performance. And so we come into the into the meeting with a lot of confidence in terms of our growth.

[Jon Arfstrom, Managing Director - Associate Director of US Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Good. That's very helpful, Steve. And then one more for you with the new administration coming in and some changes in the regulatory leadership. What regulatory changes would you like to see? What could help Huntington?

[Jon Arfstrom, Managing Director - Associate Director of US Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Thanks.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

I think the business community as a whole will benefit from a more positive pro business orientation with the new administration. And so I think you'll see more acquisition and combinations in the business community as a whole. I think in banking, we'll have more stability and less uncertainty about liquidity and capital and other issues. I think the banks generally are well capitalized and this overhang of Basel III, I think, will get addressed fairly quickly. Beyond that, I believe a more constructive dialogue about willingness to do business in with less oversight and constraint is probable and we'll just have to see if that develops.

[Jon Arfstrom, Managing Director - Associate Director of US Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Okay. Thank you. Very nice results.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question is coming from Matt O'Connor of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

[Nathan Stein, Vice President Equity Research at Deutsche Bank]

Hey, everyone. This is Nate Stein on behalf of Matt O'Connor. I wanted to ask about the NIM components. In October, you said NIM should be above 3% in the second half of twenty twenty five, but you're above 3% now. I heard you say modestly lower NIM in the Q1, but can you elaborate on your NIM outlook for the full year?

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Sure. This is Zach. Thanks for the question. Across the course of the year, I'm expecting to see approximately 3% NIM, plus or minus a few basis points on a quarterly basis, but generally pretty flat throughout the course of this year. As I mentioned a minute ago, we do continue to see the opportunity to drive NIM higher as we go into 'twenty six and beyond, particularly driven by the just continued normalization of an upward sloping yield curve.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

If you kind of unpack the drivers of NIM in 2025, one major benefit for us, which we've seen through powerfully throughout the course of 2024 as well as fixed asset repricing. To give you a sense in 2024, we had about 12 basis points of benefit from fixed asset pricing. As we go into 2025, I'm seeing continued benefit. And just based on the kind of increases in the belly of the curve and the slightly longer part of the yield curve recently seeing about 10 basis points likely a benefit from fixed asset repricing in 2025. That will continue to be a really powerful headwind.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Also back it will continue to 2026 and beyond by the way. So that will be one of the drivers of a longer term continued move higher in NIM. Another factor that will be helpful for us is deposit pricing and interest bearing liability costs continuing to reduce. We did significantly accelerate beyond what our initial plan had been. Deposit pricing actions in the Q4.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

It's one of the reasons why we drove outperformance in the Q4 more than we would have expected. And we continue to feel pretty confident here about being able to drive beta as we previously indicated and see deposit costs come down through the course of the year. Clearly, that will be to some degree a function of what's going on with the interest rate environment. And are we in the extended pause or are there further rate reductions and what the strong market and client sentiment is around where interest rates will go. But we do see further opportunity to reduce funding costs.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

The offset to that would clearly be the 50% of our loans that are in variable pricing status will follow SOFR. SOFR will come down into the Q1 from the Q4 on average, just given the kind of late Q4 Fed Fund reduction we saw in December. So it's one of the reasons why I've called out likely a little lower net interest margin here in the Q1. But over the course of the year, we're able to balance the variable yield in line with funding cost reductions. And then the last factor is hedging.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

We saw in the Q4 a benefit as the hedge drag continued to reduce as we had previously indicated. I expect to see a further modest benefit as we get into the middle part of this year. And then if the curve stays as it is, probably a few basis points of drag into the back half of the year. If you look kind of across the totality of the year in terms of hedging, likely a couple of basis points benefit on a full year basis and relatively similar here between Q4 and Q4. So several puts and takes.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

If I take a step back for us, the NIM outlook for 2025, it's a pretty dynamic environment and the drivers are different on a quarterly basis, but the net result of that should be about flat throughout the course of this year and then rising as we go into 'twenty six and beyond.

[Nathan Stein, Vice President Equity Research at Deutsche Bank]

Okay, great. And then separately, can you talk about the securities repositioning you did this quarter? You sold $1,000,000,000 of securities. I get there was a big march up in the long end of the yield curve. But are you planning on doing more of these repositionings?

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Yes. Great question. So the short answer to your question in terms of more is not likely. The repositioning that we did was selling about $1,000,000,000 of corporate securities that had a higher risk weighted asset excuse me, weight on them. And so by selling them and repositioning the portfolio, we were able to unlock capital, Also at a pretty attractive earn back, the teams have now completed the reinvestment of new securities at the higher yields and we expect to see a less than 2 year payback on that.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

So pretty tactical, pretty marginal, I think, in overall size, but attractive in and of itself. One of the things that is different with Huntington and perhaps others in the regional banking space is that because we had so effectively hedged the securities portfolio before the rate cycle began that the opportunity to do significant repositionings is simply just smaller. And so the plan we have with the securities portfolio is just to continue the current approach and benefit from those hedges that we have put in place in the past.

[Nathan Stein, Vice President Equity Research at Deutsche Bank]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question is coming from Erika Najarian of UBS. Please go ahead.

[Erika Najarian, Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

Hi, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. The question I'm getting a lot from investors and I'm sure you'll address this at Investor Day Is where are you sort of in the investment cycle? I think that investors have fully embraced the accelerated revenue growth at Huntington and really appreciated that you invested when everybody else was battening down the hatches.

[Erika Najarian, Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

And as we think about just going forward, do you feel like the opportunities are still there and that we're going to be at a heavier lift from an investment standpoint now and I'm sure we'll hear about it in a few weeks or is there sort of a point in time where you feel like you can enjoy widening positive operating leverage because you had so front loaded the investment spend?

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

Erica, this is Steve. Thanks for the question. We have momentum in the investment decisions we've made or as a result of the investment decisions we've made. And we have been approached on almost all of those specialty businesses, those verticals and essentially the same in the regions as well. So we're seeing business come to us, business opportunities come to us via a number of avenues, sometimes directly to management, sometimes through colleagues, but very seldom in the last year and a half that we used a recruiting firm for any of our new colleagues and these investments.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

So there is a list of areas that we've maintained over the years that we have explored. We continue to update that list. If we happen to have an approach going forward that we think makes sense or we see an opportunity that makes sense, we will look to pursue that. So we are not at the end of an investment cycle. Having said that, we have significant momentum now and confidence in our growth and the potential because so many of these are relatively new to continue to press forward and we intend to do that.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

We'll talk more about it at the upcoming IR Day on February 6. But we're performing exceptionally well. We have momentum. The last I think it would be a mistake to pull back prematurely and I believe we're going to see more opportunity again in 2025.

[Erika Najarian, Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

Got it. And just a follow-up, I know it's an off cycle year for Category 4 banks on the stress test. I'm wondering how you

[Erika Najarian, Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

feel

[Erika Najarian, Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

about participating this year and readdressing that stress capital buffer?

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Yes. Erica, this is Zach. I'll take that one. Our stress capital buffer right now is at the minimum, 2.5 percent and so which we were pleased to see

[Erika Najarian, Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

So you

[Erika Najarian, Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

leave it alone. Got it.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Clarify. So we'll leave that one alone. We run internal stress tests every single year. It's a very rigorous process. And we continue to feel very, very good about the ability of the capital base to withstand stress environments as we go from

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

here.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

Sure. Because as you saw a year and a half ago, the falling into deposit franchise, the absolute amount of insured to total, the backup facilities that Zach and our treasury team have put in place gives us just a unique position of confidence combined with capital and stable credit, notwithstanding challenges at that moment, we remain very confident in our credit, as you've heard it. And we'll run the stress test and obviously review output carefully and we're in a period where there's more geopolitical volatility, etcetera. We think our capital and overall position is very strong and when we look at capital plus reserves, we're top tier.

[Erika Najarian, Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group]

Excellent. Thank you.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Thank you, sir.

[Operator]

Thank you. We're showing time for one final question. The final question today is coming from Brian Foran of Truist. Please go ahead.

[Brian Foran, Managing Director at Truist Securities]

Hey, I was just trying to wrap my head around provisioning for and reserve build first release in 2025. And I know under CECL, it's almost impossible to forecast and guide with any kind of precision. But can you just talk about like where you're on the one hand, you got a reserve for loan growth, which is pretty good. On the other hand, I didn't realize it till just now, but I mean your criticized assets are now down 20% over 9 months and your reserve is pretty high versus peers while your charge offs are pretty low. So kind of where do you see the puts and takes?

[Brian Foran, Managing Director at Truist Securities]

I mean, should we think about dollars of reserve release in 2025? Or is it more about provision that brings the ratio down, but it's a stable reserve in dollars or just kind of any kind of central tendency that you would give us on whether we should be thinking about reserve for lease build or somewhere in between?

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

Yes. Brian, great question. This is Zach. I'll take that. If you think about our reserve, I'll take a kind of step back and frame it strategically and I'll zoom in a little bit more tactically and answer some of the nuance of your question.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

But strategically, the goal for us is to always maintain a very rigorous and robust reserve Really, as Steve just said a second ago, not only protection against credit scenarios, but also in that form of capital. So we feel really good about where the reserve has been. If we look across the arc of time, when we at CECL day 1, our credit reserve was 1.70. In the kind of worst period of COVID, that had risen to around 2.3%, if my memory serves me, in the early part of 2020. When much of the industry pretty rapidly reduced those reserves in 2021, we also reduced them somewhat, but nowhere near at the same pace because we knew that the economic environment was still somewhat unsettled and had a lot to play out as ultimately came to pass.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

So put us in a really strong position. With that being said, we always expected that as the economic uncertainties that have really been out there for the last couple of years, Will there be a soft landing? Will there be a hard landing? Will there be no landing at all? What will be the kind of the trajectory of the industry environment and even the political environment uncertainties?

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

As those would resolve, there would be an opportunity if those result favorably, as they ultimately have been doing, to reduce reserves. And also fundamentally to watch the performance of the book, which has been really good. And so what you've seen, for example, last 4 quarters is a gradual and modest release of reserves reserve ratio even as we've actually maintained dollars or increased dollars as the loan growth as the loan portfolio improves. So where we stand today, $188,000,000 is obviously higher than that CECL day 1 at $170,000,000 presuming

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

that

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

the economy continues to perform well, that the outlooks continue to be solid. And particularly given the loan growth we expect to see, it is not improbable to see that ACL coverage ratio as a percent continue to go down even if the dollars might be flat to higher given loan growth.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

So that's sort of how

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

I think about it strategically. To your point, we look at this quarter by quarter by quarter, it really is an extraordinarily rigorous analysis. And so there's no predetermination of any of that. We're going to see the world play out on each quarter. But presuming that everything continues to play out as we're talking about, I would assume that over time, there will be further reduction in the ACL coverage ratio, and we'll continue to drive loan growth higher.

[Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP at Huntington Bancshares]

So the dollars may be more flat to growing, but the ratio would likely decline.

[Brian Foran, Managing Director at Truist Securities]

That's awesome. If I could sneak one last one in. I get a lot of questions about if M and A kind of eases, will Huntington be a buyer? And I would say with the context, there's 3 or 4 other regional banks, 5 or 6 even that I cover who I get the same question. So it's not unique to you.

[Brian Foran, Managing Director at Truist Securities]

But maybe you could just remind us where you are in terms of deal mode, attractive, unattractive right now on the priority list, not on the priority list. Certainly appreciate you've shown the ability to grow organically and there's a lot on your plate there, but it is something that comes up a lot.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

Brian, Steve, great question. I was wondering when this might come up. We've said over the years that we're very focused on driving top quartile organic growth. We've just made a significant number of investments. And in the core, as well as what we talk about with these regional expansions and 8 verticals.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

So the core also is getting a fair amount of investment in. And we're managing expense. Zach has shared this over time, reducing core expense as on a continuous basis through a number of actions and yet investing so there's a net expense growth. We really like this equation. We believe we have significant core opportunity of growth as well as with these new investments, and we're very focused on that.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

The business is performing exceptionally well, And we've shown the ability over time to be able to do, I think in the last decade, 2 bold loan depository acquisitions and we're thrilled with Capstone and it just had a record quarter. So there is a capacity to do things, but the priority is organic growth. And we're as we've said before, we're highly disciplined in the selection. TCF was a home run, nearly $500,000,000 of expense reduction, big revenue generation synergies and some great businesses along with great colleagues. So if it makes sense, we would look, but our priority, to be very clear, is organic growth.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

Thanks for the question.

[Operator]

Thank you. That brings us to the end of the question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Steinar for closing comments.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

So in closing, our team just delivered exceptional results for the Q4 highlighted by our leading loan and deposit growth and record fee income. Credit trends, as you saw, remain stable. We're very pleased with the overall risk management disciplines we have had in place now for years. Our management team is focused. We're executing our strategies that we shared earlier, and we expect to sustain the growth momentum into 'twenty five and beyond that we just illustrated.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

We look forward to sharing more details on the growth outlook during our upcoming Investor Day on February 6. We hope

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

many of you will be

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

able to join us in person for this event. As a reminder, collectively, the Board executives, our colleagues are top 10 shareholders, and we believe this strong alignment is important to sustaining value creation for all shareholders. And second, finally, thank you to all of my colleagues. Just you did an outstanding job, great quarter. So for those on the call, we're grateful for your interest in Huntington.

[Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO at Huntington Bancshares]

Have a great day.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect your lines or log off the webcast at this time and enjoy the rest of your day.

Participants

Executives

• Timothy Sedabres, Executive VP & Head of Investor Relations
• Stephen Steinour, Chairman, President & CEO
• Zachary Wasserman, CFO & Senior EVP

Analysts

• Manan Gosalia, Equity Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• John Pancari, Senior Managing Director & Senior Research Analyst at Evercore ISI
• Ebrahim Poonawala, Managing Director - Head of North American Banks Research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch
• Brian Foran, Managing Director at Truist Securities
• Jon Arfstrom, Managing Director - Associate Director of US Research at RBC Capital Markets
• Nathan Stein, Vice President Equity Research at Deutsche Bank
• Erika Najarian, Managing Director & Equity Research Analyst at UBS Group