First Business Finl Servs (NASDAQ:FBIZ) reported third-quarter financial results on Friday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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Summary
First Business Finl Servs reported record pre-tax, pre-provision, and bottom-line earnings for Q3 2026, with a 6% increase in earnings per share (EPS) compared to the previous quarter.
Total loans grew 10% annualized, marking the 20th consecutive quarter of loan growth, while core deposits increased by 14% annualized, enhancing the company’s funding profile.
The company maintained a strong net interest margin of 3.80%, with expectations of a slight decline in Q4 due to normalized prepayment fees and upward pressure on funding costs.
Nonperforming assets increased slightly due to a multifamily loan in Southeast Wisconsin; however, overall asset quality remains stable, with net charge-offs well-controlled.
The company executed a buyback program, repurchasing 41,058 shares, and plans to continue share repurchases based on stock price and capital priorities.
First Business Finl Servs is on target or ahead of its strategic plan metrics, focusing on relationship-driven growth, funding profile improvement, disciplined expense management, and prudent capital allocation.
The company anticipates continued strong core deposit growth and approximately 10% annual loan growth for 2026 and 2027, with a stable outlook for profitability and shareholder returns.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good morning. Welcome to the First Business Finl Servs third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star one to raise your hand. Please note this event is being recorded and today’s comments may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those discussed.
Please refer to the Company’s earnings release, investor presentation, and SEC filings for additional information, including risk factors and reconciliations of any non-GAAP financial measures. I would now like to turn the conference over to First Business Finl Servs President and CEO Dave Seiler. Please go ahead.
Dave Seiler (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you and good morning everyone. We appreciate you joining us today and I’m pleased to report an outstanding third quarter of 2026 for First Business Bank. We produced record pre-tax, pre-provision and bottom-line earnings that reflect our consistent execution against our long-term strategic plan. Our earnings per share grew 6% compared to $1.84 in the second quarter, or 15% when you take out the 14 cents of net one-time benefits. Last quarter earnings per share were also up 15% year over year, and on a year-to-date basis, EPS grew 20% over earnings for the first nine months of 2025.
These outcomes were driven by strong operating fundamentals, as reflected in pre-tax, pre-provision earnings that grew 13% year over year and 14% on a year-to-date basis. This record performance and double-digit growth show the compounding earnings power our team has produced through high-quality, well-priced loan growth that is predominantly funded by relationship-sourced core deposits. For the third quarter, total loans were up 10% annualized, marking our 20th consecutive quarter of loan growth. Core deposits were up 14% annualized, outpacing loan growth and further strengthening our funding profile. Tangible book value per share grew 13% year over year and 13% on a compound annual basis over the past five years, reflecting the consistent value creation that is central to our long-term strategic plan. These results reflect a consistent theme: We are a focused business bank executing at a high level, growing the right way, and building long-term shareholder value.
Our five-year strategic plan is our operating manual and our North Star. Our current plan runs through 2028, so last quarter represented the halfway point of our plan period. You can reference slide 5 in the earnings supplement, which shows our progress against the plan’s key metrics that define success for First Business Bank over the long term. On revenue growth, we’re tracking at 10% year to date, in line with our long-term annual target of 10% or better. This is despite a modest fee income headwind related to our exit from our out-of-footprint SBA business last quarter. Other areas of fee income have grown meaningfully, and our strong net interest margin and balance sheet growth have supported 11% growth in year-to-date net interest income. On the efficiency ratio, our outstanding year-to-date result of 57.87% was helped by Q3 coming in at an impressive 55.12%, which Brian will cover.
These results include some benefit from Q3’s favorable expense timing and robust net interest margin, but more importantly they demonstrate the compounding benefit of positive operating leverage—revenue growing faster than expenses quarter after quarter, yielding meaningful efficiency gains. We do not manage to a single quarter’s efficiency ratio, and we expect to see this metric tick up in the short term as we invest for profitable and scalable growth.
Our priority is to operate with modest positive operating leverage on an annual basis. If we do that right, as we have historically, the efficiency ratio continues to improve over time. On core deposits to total funding, we ended the quarter at 76.7%, above our long-term target of greater than 75% and meaningfully improved from the 74% we reported in mid-year. This reflects a favorable mix shift, which included substantial growth in noninterest-bearing deposits in the third quarter. While some of this increase was temporary in nature, the overall improvement in funding mix reflects the successful execution of our treasury management strategy.
Our year-to-date return on average tangible common equity of 16% is ahead of target. As pre-tax, pre-provision earnings continue to compound and our balance sheet scales, our internal capital generation grows as well. You can see this in the tangible book value growth line. We will prudently deploy this capital to ensure we grow shareholder value in tandem. You saw in our release that we executed our buyback program this quarter. We’ll continue to repurchase shares under the plan as it makes sense given our stock price and other capital priorities over time.
We are on target or ahead of target across every major dimension of our strategic plan, and we’re doing it the right way through relationship-driven growth, a funding profile that continues to improve, disciplined expense management, and prudent capital allocation. Turning to production, our 10% annualized loan growth reflects true new business production across our markets and niche C&I lending businesses during the quarter. CRE loans were the primary source this quarter and were up approximately 77 million, or 14% annualized from the second quarter. Our South Central and Southeast Wisconsin markets showed particular strength. These are markets where we have deep relationship infrastructure and experienced teams.
The production we’re seeing there is a direct reflection of the investments we’ve made in banker talent over the past several years. It’s also a model for the growth we believe we can achieve over time in our other smaller markets. We also saw solid contributions from our higher-yielding niche C&I lending businesses. For example, Floorplan Lending added 13 million of new loan outstandings during the quarter, up 9% from the second quarter. Our new originations have been more than sufficient to absorb the industry headwind of elevated payoffs and still deliver on our 10% loan growth target.
I’ll point out that year-over-year loan growth was also 10%, reflecting consistent relationship-driven production across our bank markets and specialty lending businesses. Our loan pipelines have moderated somewhat heading into the fourth quarter, primarily reflecting the timing of client activity. That said, our longer-term growth outlook remains strong, and we continue to target approximately 10% annual loan growth. We remain confident in achieving that level of growth for 2026 and 2027.
On the funding side, deposit growth in the third quarter was outstanding and continued to reflect the underlying strength of our relationship model. Core deposits grew 101 million during the quarter, representing 14% annualized linked-quarter growth and marking the fourth consecutive quarter of growth exceeding 80 million. This outpaced loan growth for the third quarter and followed a robust first half of 2026. Noninterest-bearing deposits were notably strong, up 57 million from June 30th.
While a portion of these balances may be temporary, treasury management fees provide another measure of underlying growth in new deposit relationships. These fees, which are included in service charges on deposits, increased 15.9% during the first nine months of 2026 compared with the prior-year period, providing further evidence of strong relationship growth. Winning the primary operating account is competitive work, and we’re pleased with the outcomes our bankers are earning across our markets.
Looking ahead, we expect core deposit growth to remain healthy through the remainder of 2026 and into 2027. Turning to asset quality, nonperforming assets increased 2.2 million during the quarter. The primary driver was an additional 5.7 million nonaccrual multifamily loan tied to a previously disclosed relationship in Southeast Wisconsin. In total, that relationship had 22.7 million in nonperforming loans and 3.3 million in performing loans as of September 30th. The broader portfolio remains stable, and we are not seeing systemic stress across any particular industry or geography.
I’d characterize overall asset quality as stable. Our year-to-date net charge-offs remain well controlled, and allowance for credit losses stood at 1.06% of total loans at September 30, which we believe is appropriately calibrated to the risk profile of the portfolio. With respect to our two largest nonperforming relationships, both are actively being worked through, but we do not expect resolution on either of these in 2026. The foreclosure process on the land parcels of our 22.7 million nonperforming relationship in Southeast Wisconsin has been extended from Q4 of this year into Q1 of 2027.
Our 6 million asset-based lending loan continues through the legal process. The court date for resolution of this loan has also been extended into Q1 of 2027. We continue to believe that we will have full collection of that loan. Finally, I’ll reiterate our commitment to our four key objectives: prioritizing high-quality relationship-based growth, diversifying our revenue streams, maintaining long-term positive operating leverage, and preserving a culture that attracts and keeps the highest-quality talent. We believe consistent execution of these growth strategies will continue to support strong shareholder returns. Now I’ll hand it off to Brian.
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
Thanks, Dave. Good morning, everyone. Our net interest margin came in at 3.80, up 2 basis points from the second quarter and up 12 basis points from 3.68 in last year’s third quarter. You can see a breakdown of this on slide 8 of our earnings supplement. The linked quarter improvement reflected a stronger contribution from loan yields apart from fees in lieu of interest, along with a more favorable funding mix as strong core deposit growth reduced our reliance on wholesale funding.
These benefits more than offset a lower contribution from loan fees. Fees in lieu of interest, primarily prepayment fees and asset-based lending fees, declined $468,000 from the second quarter to $2.8 million. Even with that decline, they remained above historical averages and contributed 31 basis points to our third quarter margin. Together, balance sheet growth and margin expansion supported a $4.2 million, or 12%, increase in net interest income from last year’s third quarter.
This reflects the compounding benefit of balance sheet growth combined with disciplined pricing and improved funding profile. Looking ahead, we expect the fourth-quarter NIM to decline from the third-quarter level of 3.80, primarily reflecting a more normalized prepayment fee contribution and modest upward pressure on funding costs as certain deposit relationships reprice and we compete for new business. That said, we expect NIM to remain comfortably above our long-term target range of 3.60 to 3.65 for the next few quarters. Longer term, our branch-light business banking model gives us flexibility to compete for deposit relationships while maintaining attractive overall profitability.
We intend to use that flexibility to fund our annual loan growth goal of approximately 10%. As elevated loan fees normalize and we continue to compete for relationship deposits, we expect some moderation in margin over time. We therefore continue to view 3.60 to 3.65 as an appropriate long-term NIM target range. Over the longer term, we are generally interest-rate neutral in the near term; however, that neutrality depends on our ability to manage deposit betas amid heightened competition.
Turning to fee income, we saw a modest decline from the second quarter. As a reminder, prior periods included revenue from the nationwide SBA lending business we exited in the second quarter. The second quarter also included unusually elevated income from a limited partnership investment totaling $729,000. Swap fee income increased $393,000, reflecting fluctuations in the interest-rate environment and deal timing. Private wealth fees declined $82,000 from the second quarter, reflecting the absence of $247,000 in seasonal tax processing fees recognized last quarter.
New money growth remains strong at $80.6 million. Limited partnership investment income was lower this quarter, reflecting normal variability in the timing and amount of realized and unrealized gains. We continue to expand and invest in our diversified fee income sources including private wealth, treasury management, and SBIC limited partnership investments. Private wealth continues to be the standout contributor. Its year-to-date fee income increased 13% and the business now represents approximately half of our quarterly fee income.
That growth was consistent with an 11% year-to-date increase in assets under management and administration, which reached approximately $4.2 billion at quarter end. Private wealth provides capital-light recurring revenue that grows alongside our clients’ wealth and benefits from its increasing integration with our commercial banking relationships. We view private wealth as one of the most durable and differentiated growth drivers in our fee income portfolio.
As our commercial relationships deepen and our clients’ financial needs become more complex, we see meaningful opportunities to expand those relationships into private wealth. We also expect limited partnership investment income to grow over time as our SBIC portfolio matures, although the timing and amount of quarterly income remain variable. Overall, our fee income mix is more recurring, relationship-driven, and diversified than it was several years ago, giving us confidence in its ability to support sustainable revenue growth.
Turning to expenses, total expenses decreased $1.7 million from the second quarter. The decrease included a $381,000 SBA recourse benefit recorded as a reduction of expense and approximately $250,000 of lower tax credit investment impairment expense. Excluding those items, expenses decreased approximately $1.1 million, or 4%, primarily reflecting a full quarter of lower compensation expense following the reduction in FTEs associated with our exit from nationwide SBA lending.
The decline in compensation expense also reflects the absence of approximately $405,000 of severance expense recognized. We also benefited from favorable expense timing as some planned spending shifted into the fourth quarter. We therefore expect expenses to increase next quarter. That increase will also reflect planned investments in marketing, selective banker hiring, and technology, all intended to expand our capacity for future growth. Some of those initiatives are launching in the fourth quarter and will build during 2027.
At the same time, we remain disciplined in managing expenses. Our strategic plan targets approximately 10% annual revenue growth, with expenses growing at a modestly slower pace to deliver positive operating leverage on an annual basis. On taxes, our 14.8% effective tax rate for the third quarter was within our normalized operating range. That compares to 7.2% in the second quarter, which included a $1.5 million benefit from the reversal of a deferred tax asset valuation allowance. Including that second-quarter benefit, we expect our effective tax rate for full year 2026 to be between 13% and 15%. Looking ahead, we currently expect a normalized effective tax rate of approximately 15% to 17%, reflecting our business mix, tax credit investments, and tax-advantaged income from our investment portfolio.
Our tax credit investments support the communities we serve while contributing to stronger after-tax returns. For the 12 months ended June 30, our adjusted effective tax rate was approximately 16.7% compared with a peer median of 22.3%. While the benefit varies from quarter to quarter, our tax strategy has consistently strengthened after-tax returns and supported our return on average tangible common equity. Turning to capital, we ended the third quarter with a strong capital position and continued to generate capital through earnings. We remain disciplined in deploying that capital to support long-term growth and shareholder value. As shown on slide 15 of the earnings supplement, our CET1 ratio was 9.65% at September 30 compared with our internal target of 9.5%. Our total capital ratio was 12.25%, also above our internal target of 12%. Our first priority for capital remains reinvesting in the franchise by funding attractive loan growth and supporting broader organic growth.
We believe this is the most effective way to compound earnings and create long-term shareholder value. When our capital generation exceeds the needs of the business, we also have the flexibility to return capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. We view share repurchases as an attractive use of capital when our stock trades below our assessment of its long-term value and when repurchases compare favorably with other capital deployment opportunities.
During the third quarter, we repurchased 12,000 shares for approximately $835,000 at an average price of $69.55 per share. We repurchased another 29,058 shares from October 1st through October 23rd. In total, we repurchased 41,058 shares for approximately $2.9 million at an average price of $69.70 per share. Over that period, we will continue to evaluate capital deployment opportunities based on their relative risk-adjusted returns while maintaining capital levels that support our growth plans and provide appropriate flexibility across economic conditions.
And now I’ll hand it back over to Dave.
Dave Seiler (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks, Brian. This was an outstanding quarter. Our strong balance sheet growth and efficient execution combined to produce record earnings, outstanding profitability, and continued tangible book value expansion. We focus on controlling the controllable, and today that means driving high-quality loan and deposit growth, adding talent, opportunistically diversifying our revenue sources, investing in technology, and protecting the strong First Business Bank culture that drives our success.
We have a strong outlook for the remainder of 2026 and 2027, and we look forward to updating you on our progress. Thank you for taking the time to join us today. We’re happy to take your questions now.
OPERATOR
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Damon Del Monte with KBW.
Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Damon Del Monte (Analyst at KBW)
Hey, good morning, guys. Hope everybody’s doing well. Thanks for taking my questions here. I guess just first question on the outlook for loan growth. Dave, it sounds like you expect the fourth quarter to be slower than what we’ve seen the first three quarters of the year. Could you just give a little bit more color around that, please?
Dave Seiler (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Sure. Hi, Damon. So right now our pipeline is showing like it’s a little softer than it had been in some of the previous quarters. But one thing about us is, we tend to do fairly good-sized loans, so one or two loans could get us back in line with where we would expect to be. So I don’t think it’s anything systemic. We’re not seeing any changes in our market that we think bode for slower loan growth into the future, but just that our pipeline right now as we look at Q4 is a little bit softer.
Does that answer your question?
Damon Del Monte (Analyst at KBW)
Yep, that’s helpful, thank you. And then maybe with regards to the margin, Brian, can you just kind of unpack again the 3.80 reported number and kind of the fees in lieu of interest impact this quarter versus like what a normalized level is?
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
Sure, yeah, happy to. So a 3.80 reported this quarter, that includes 31 basis points of the fees in lieu of interest, compared to 36 last quarter, so 5 basis points less there. So actually a little bit of improvement in, well, the core margin in the quarter. The last five-quarter average is about 25 basis points. That’s where we think we’d be assuming normalized prepayments. We’ve had above-average prepayments the past two quarters. So that’s where if you kind of use 25 instead of 31, that brings you down to 3.74.
And then just expectation of, while there may be some temporary benefits from the deposit betas as we see some rate hikes, we will continue to compete on both sides of the balance sheet, and we continue to think that that long-term target is appropriate.
Damon Del Monte (Analyst at KBW)
Got it. Okay, that’s helpful. And then I guess if I could quickly squeeze in on expenses here. I heard the commentary about, you know, why it was down this quarter and kind of the reinvestment expectations. Do you think all that kind of materializes here in the fourth quarter, or we maybe have a little step-up in the fourth quarter and then, you know, those investments carry over into the beginning part of ’27?
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, I would say it’s probably more of a little step up in the fourth quarter. I can specifically talk to marketing where we know we have some initiatives that were planned for earlier in the year that are going to happen now in Q4. So that’s going to be about $300,000. We think a marketing increase and so, all else equal, that’s kind of the modest increase in Q4. But then we have other initiatives going on that will carry into 27, like we talked about, that revolve around new bankers and some technology and some additional marketing spend.
Damon Del Monte (Analyst at KBW)
Okay, so do you think total expenses for next quarter could stay under 27 million? Okay. Okay, great. That’s all that I had. I’ll step back. Thank you.
Dave Seiler (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Okay, thanks, Damon.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Nathan Race with Piper Sandler. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Nathan Race (Analyst at Piper Sandler)
Hi guys, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Just going back to your comments around the kind of healthy core deposit gathering expectations you expect to continue into 4Q and next year. Curious what you’re seeing in terms of incremental cost of deposits these days. Obviously, you guys have a higher-cost deposit base relative to most peers, but just curious what the incremental cost of deposits is relative to kind of right around 2.70% all-in in the third quarter.
Dave Seiler (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Right. I think, well, I mean big picture, I think for us deposits are always competitive. We’re going out, we’re talking with commercial clients, and larger commercial clients are very aware of what the market is. That said, I haven’t seen a big shift, or we haven’t seen a big shift, in the deposit costs. I wouldn’t say it’s more competitive than it has been for the past three or four quarters. It’s about similar. Brian, do you want to talk about it specifically?
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, I would say we monitor money market funds as a proxy as well for alternative rates, and that’s really around 3.80% right now through a basket of funds we look at. And so I would say that’s close to what we’re seeing and just more aligned with SOFR at this point for new money on the liquidity side. And then on the CD side, they are over four right now. But if we are doing that, we’re able to match-fund those on the asset side.
Nathan Race (Analyst at Piper Sandler)
Got it, that’s helpful, thanks. And Brian, can you just remind us the beta expectations on the deposits you call out on slide nine that are, you know, not indexed but managed to some degree?
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, I mean we plan for an 80% beta on existing business, and we have been better than that over time. If you look on slide—I think it’s slide 10 of the materials—overall rate cycle, we’ve beaten that. But we conservatively plan for 80%, knowing that we’re going to have to compete, knowing that we’re going to want to fund that 10% loan growth with core funding.
Nathan Race (Analyst at Piper Sandler)
Okay, got it. And then if I could just take one last one in on wealth management—obviously, nice momentum year to date, and I think you guys are probably tracking for low double-digit year-over-year growth this year. I mean, just based on some of the hires that you guys are alluding to and just the momentum in that line of business, do you foresee anything on the horizon to derail low double-digit growth in the next year, assuming equity markets behave?
Dave Seiler (President and Chief Executive Officer)
So did you say do we anticipate low double-digit growth for next year?
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
Trying to think about the sustainability of that, Dave?
Dave Seiler (President and Chief Executive Officer)
No, I think we think that growth is very sustainable based on the hires we made and the progress we’re making, particularly in our non-Madison markets. The majority of our private wealth business is in Madison, and we are now growing our southeast Wisconsin market and our Kansas City market. So, you know, we feel good about that.
Nathan Race (Analyst at Piper Sandler)
Okay, great. I appreciate all the color. Thanks guys. Congrats on a great quarter.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Rulis with DA Davidson. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Jeff Rulis (Analyst at DA Davidson)
Thanks. Good morning. One of the questions on the credit side, the Wisconsin relationship—I just want to understand that as that resolution comes in first quarter and beyond, can that come in kind of piecemeal? As I remember or recall, there were pieces of land there that maybe as you get resolution those can be—not all at once—but it might be kind of measured pieces of that as it resolves. Is that fair or no?
Dave Seiler (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, I think that’s fair, Jeff. There are five land parcels we’re talking about. We expect to get control of those at about the same time, and then it’s a matter of finding buyers for those parcels. I mean, that could happen at the court date and that could happen sometime after the court date. So I wouldn’t expect them all to happen at exactly the same time. And then in terms of—
Jeff Rulis (Analyst at DA Davidson)
Can you—oh, go ahead.
Dave Seiler (President and Chief Executive Officer)
I was going to say there are also several multifamily projects that will take a little bit longer, but we feel good about where we are and our ability to resolve those.
Jeff Rulis (Analyst at DA Davidson)
Great, thanks. And I guess, legally, you can’t really advertise those pieces. I don’t know if you could put feelers out—if there’s any sense for the reception of that land in the market. You feel pretty good, I would imagine, on valuation, but just wanted to check in on that piece as you unload it and any initial conversations.
Dave Seiler (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Right. Well, you’re right, we can’t advertise it. But it’s a little different for this relationship, getting land back at a time—usually when you get land back and land deals go south, it’s typically because of low demand for land and no building and that sort of thing. That’s not what we’re seeing in the markets. So we feel like there is some demand for the land. And we know a lot of folks—when we do get control of it, we know a lot of folks that we can talk with about those.
And it is a little bit known in the market. Several people have expressed interest.
Jeff Rulis (Analyst at DA Davidson)
Great, thanks. And maybe just a housekeeping: you kind of mentioned run rates on fees and expenses, but at this point the SBA exit is fully in the run rates of Q3. Is that correct?
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
Yes, that’s correct.
Jeff Rulis (Analyst at DA Davidson)
Okay. Okay, great. And just the last one, Brian, I rattled through those buyback numbers. What was that in the quarter and what was it quarter to date?
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
Yep. So in the quarter we bought back 12,000 shares for a total of, I think, about $835,000, and then an additional 29,058 shares in October to date.
Jeff Rulis (Analyst at DA Davidson)
Okay. And just checking into that appetite—obviously seems like you’re leaning in a bit and it sounds like that’s a pretty viable tool for you going forward. That’s outside of funding for growth. It sounds like you’re pretty committed. And I guess, checking in on the price sensitivity of valuation, if you could just talk about the buyback a little bit more going forward.
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, so we’ve used $2.9 million to date of the $5 million authorized. And we think there could still be opportunity going forward too. We evaluate—kind of like we talked about—the intrinsic value of the stock relative to other opportunities. And, thinking about our 12-month forward expectations internally, we feel that there’s still opportunity relative to the other capital allocations.
Jeff Rulis (Analyst at DA Davidson)
Appreciate it. Thanks.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Brian Martin with Breen Capital. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Brian Martin (Analyst at Breen Capital)
Hey, good morning everyone. Can you talk a little bit about—maybe it’s more Brian—just on the, I think you talked about some of the dynamics with the margin this quarter, Brian, but just in terms of it sounds like it’s elevated for a bit and it’s going to maybe trend lower. I guess, timing-wise, just how you’re thinking about there—maybe just what that inflection is. Is it just the funding side that kind of brings it back ultimately to the range?
And just broadly, how you’re thinking about that over the next, call it, five quarters or so, just trending.
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah. I think what you stated is accurate, and I would expect on the funding side is where we see more of the pressure going forward, based on what we’re seeing from in the quarter so far—one or two days of the first rate hike—and with expectations of another hike in December, and just understanding how we value core deposit funding. So historically that’s where we’ve seen the pressure to, I’ll say, compress our elevated—temporarily elevated—margin from a rate movement.
So we still believe in our neutrality on the yield curve, but on the short end of the curve we do have some of that temporary benefit in the rate hike that we will give back with growth and core funding.
Brian Martin (Analyst at Breen Capital)
Okay, so kind of back in that—back in your range sometime next year. We’ll see how rates go, and I guess that’s how to think about it for now. Okay, gotcha. And then maybe just about loan growth—can you talk about, as you talk about some of the hires you’re anticipating, what drives loan growth in 27? And do higher rates impact that? Is it less real estate, more other lines? Just kind of curious how you’re thinking about growth next year.
Dave Seiler (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, so we are looking at adding a few producers in various markets, particularly where we’ve had some success—for example, asset-based lending, where we’ve had some really nice growth over the past few years. Our Kansas City market—one of the things that we think allows us to have the kind of growth that we do is our diversified growth engines. I think last quarter our growth was coming from Kansas City and northeast Wisconsin and asset-based lending; this quarter it’s southeast and south-central Wisconsin, along with our floor plan finance.
So I think one of the benefits of our model is the ability to grow from multiple channels, and I think that allows us to have smoother growth, and that’s what has allowed us to be successful from a growth standpoint.
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
Brian, I would add too that we’re always comfortable with our CRE growth, but I think we’re really excited about the C&I side too. Just based on what Dave mentioned with asset-based lending and factoring—ABL in particular with the leader we have in place there—we also have a new leader in place in our floor plan finance area. And so some of those C&I areas we’re really excited about in terms of the runway they have there, and you combine that with some of these smaller markets that we’re seeing a lot of nice growth in, like Kansas City, really makes us feel comfortable with our continued 10% growth rates.
Brian Martin (Analyst at Breen Capital)
Gotcha. Just remind me, Brian, where are the specialized segments today as a percent of the whole portfolio?
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
It’s right around 23% total.
Brian Martin (Analyst at Breen Capital)
Twenty-three. Got you. Okay, perfect. And then maybe just last one for me was—obviously the efficiency ratio has really trended great here. Your comments, Brian, about operating leverage next year—I guess expectations are still that we see some improvement, even given the significant benefit you’ve seen this quarter. Improvement.
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah. So when I think about that, I look at kind of year to date, 2026, we’re at just over 58% efficiency ratio. Like we talked about, we’re going to have a little bit of a pickup in expenses in Q4. But our goal, and how we plan, is to continue to look for positive operating leverage on an annual basis. So that’s what we will plan for and that’s how we’ll look to 27.
Brian Martin (Analyst at Breen Capital)
Gotcha. Okay, perfect. That’s all I had. And again, congrats on the quarter, guys.
Dave Seiler (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Okay, Brian, thanks.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Nicholas Helloko with Raymond James. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Nicholas Helloko (Analyst at Raymond James)
Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Most of them have been asked and answered already, but maybe one, just thinking about the next couple of years here. You know, you’ve alluded to the expectations for operating leverage to continue. You’ve demonstrated this ability to produce, you know, a 16% return on tangible common equity year to date. Any thoughts about how much further that could continue to expand as we look out to 2028 relative to your, your goal above 15% by 2028?
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
Well, I mean, so you know, if we continue our growth and we continue positive operating leverage, those numbers will get better. Right. We’re not quite ready to give a target in terms of efficiency ratio, where we think that could go in the next five years. When we released our last strategic plan, our goal was to get that number below 60%. We’ve done that. We’re a little bit ahead of schedule. Something we may look at is adjusting that. We’re about halfway through our strategic plan.
We may adjust our target on that. We’re just not ready to do it at this point. But obviously with our goal of positive operating leverage, that’s our goal is to improve it.
Dave Seiler (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Yep. And I would add that, you know, our current five-year plan goes through ’28, and we by no means think we can do positive operating leverage into perpetuity and drive our efficiency ratio down to zero. But in the current five-year plan, we think that’s possible. We are a growth company. We want to be a growth company, and so that’s going to incrementally have some step-up costs along the way that then we’ll grow into that growth. So, but the current five-year plan we think it’s achievable, and we’re ahead of plan.
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
And we think on some of the, you know, the operating expense areas, you know, we are working hard to increase productivity using technology tools like AI, robotic process automation. All of those things are helping us drive that number down a little faster than we expected in terms of efficiency ratio.
Nicholas Helloko (Analyst at Raymond James)
Awesome. That’s helpful. Thank you very much.
Brian (Chief Financial Officer)
All right, thanks.
OPERATOR
We have reached the end of the Q and A session. I will now turn the call back to Dave Seiler, CEO, for closing remarks.
Dave Seiler (President and Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you for joining us today. We appreciate your time and interest in First Business Finl Servs. Have a great day.
OPERATOR
This concludes today’s call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.
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