Participants

Adriano M. Duarte; Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations Officer; Provident Financial Services Inc

Anthony Labozzetta; President, Chief Executive Officer, Director; Provident Financial Services Inc

Thomas Lyons; Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer of Provident and Provident Bank; Provident Financial Services Inc

Mark Fitzgibbon; Analyst; Piper Sandler

Billy Young; Analyst; RBC Capital Markets LLC

Tim Switzer; Analyst; KBW

Feddie Strickland; Analyst; Hovde Group

Manuel Navas; Analyst; D.A. Davidson

Presentation

Operator

Good morning and welcome everyone to the Provident Financial Services Inc fourth quarter earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions).
I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Adriano M. Duarte Head and Investment Relations officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Adriano M. Duarte

Thank you, Christoph. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter earnings call. Today's presenters are President and CEO Anthony Lavazza, and Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Thomas M. Lyons. Before beginning their review of our financial results. We ask that you please take note of our standard caution as to any forward-looking statements that may be made during the course of today's call. Our full disclaimers contained in last evening's earnings release. Which has been posted to the investor relations page of our website provident.bank.
Now it's my pleasure to introduce Anthony Lavazza, who will offer his perspective on our fourth quarter, Tony.

Anthony Labozzetta

Thank you, Adriano. Happy new year, everyone and welcome to the Provident Financial Services earnings call. The fourth quarter of 2024 was characterized by a more favorable macroeconomic environment with continued growth. Additional interest rate cuts improved performance in the banking sector and an optimistic outlook.
The Provident team maintained solid core performance and profitability. Thanks to the excellent asset quality, good deposit growth and the increasing contributions of our fee-based businesses. During the quarter, we reported net earnings of $48.5 million or $0.37 per share. Our annualized adjusted return on average assets was 1.05% and our adjusted return on average tangible equity was 15.39%. Our adjusted pretax pre-provision return on average assets was 1.53% for the fourth quarter.
We are pleased with our core financial results and are confident in our ability to build on this momentum going into 2025. At the end of 2024 our capital levels remained healthy and comfortably exceeded levels deemed to be well capitalized. Normalizing for changes in AOCI our tangible book value per share grew $0.34 to $14.71.
And our tangible common equity ratio was consistent with the trailing quarter at 7.67%. As such, our board of directors approved a quarterly cash dividend $0.24 per share payable on February 28. During the quarter, our deposits grew $248 million or 5.4%. Annualized. The average cost of total deposits decreased 11 basis points to 2.25% and the average cost of interest-bearing deposits decreased 15 basis points. Our total cost of funds decreased 14 basis points to 2.48%, which remains favorable relative to our peer group.
As a result, our core net interest margin expanded four basis points. However, our reported margin compressed three basis points to 3.28% due to a decrease in purchase accounting accretion. During the fourth quarter, our commercial lending team closed approximately $713 million new commercial loans. However, we experienced approximately $328 million in loan payoffs resulting in a modest growth in our portfolio.
This quarter's production consisted of 53% commercial real estate, 47% commercial and industrial loans. Roughly one half of the C&I production was in our specialty lending. While on the topic of lending, we are excited to announce that as of Monday Bill Fink, has joined us as our new Chief Lending Officer following the retirement of John Rad. Bill is responsible for leading our commercial lending growth strategy and brings with him over 30 years of experience in commercial banking. Credit administration and an impressive track record in credit risk management and operational strategy.
In the past 20 years, bill worked at TD in numerous leadership positions and most recently spearheaded its middle market and asset-based lending businesses with responsibility for a $24 billion portfolio. I am very confident that you will succeed in driving responsible growth in our commercial lending group. In addition to hiring Bill, we have added more resources to our lending teams and have expanded our lending presence in Pennsylvania and West Chester.
Our credit quality is strong and for the quarter continue to improve as our nonperforming loan ratio decreased 8 basis points to 39 basis points. This ratio compares favorably relative to our peer group. Our net charge offs also decreased to $5.5 million from $6.8 million in the trailing quarter which is also low. Relative to our peer group. We are confident in our underwriting and portfolio management standards as well as the quality of our portfolio.
We have seen a modest decrease in our total loan pipeline to approximately $1.8 billion, in the fourth quarter from approximately $2 billion, in the preceding quarter. The weighted average interest rate is 6.91% compared to 7.18% in the trailing quarter. The pull through adjusted pipeline including loans pending closing is approximately $1 billion. This quarter Providence feed-based businesses continued to excel. Provident protection plus had 19% organic growth in the fourth quarter as compared to the same period last year. In addition, it had over 16% organic growth over the last 12 months and its retention rate was 100%. Beacon Trust assets under management grew to $4.2 billion, which represents a 7.5% growth relative to last year.
Income improved 12% relative to the last quarter of 2023 and was driven by good investment performance. As we enter 2025, we are pleased that the merger is now behind us. The fundamentals of our company are strong, and we have built a solid foundation for growth. We are optimistic about the operating environment and our ability to build our business, which will help us produce even more value for our customers employees and stockholders.
Now I'll turn the call over to Tom for his comments on our financial performance.

Thomas Lyons

Thank you, Tony and good morning, everyone. As Tony noted, we reported net income of $48.5 million or $0.37 per share for the quarter. Excluding charges related to our merger with Lakeland Bancorp earnings with $62.9 million in the current quarter or $0.48 per share with a core ROA of 1.05%. Further adjusting to the amortization of intangibles. Our core return on average tangible equity was 15.39% for the quarter. Note that all merger related charges have now been recognized with no further merger expense to be recorded in 2025.
Excluding merger related charges, pre-tax, pre-provision earnings for the current quarter were $91.8 million or an annualized 1.53% of average assets. Revenue totaled $205.9 million for the quarter, and our core net interest margin increased four basis points from the trailing quarter to 2.85%. Including 43 basis points of purchase accounting accretion our net interest margin was 3.28% for the fourth quarter. We're currently projecting them in the 3.35% to 3.45% range for 2025.
Our projections include two additional 25 basis points rate reductions in September and December 2025. During the quarter, we reclassified $151.3 million of non-relationship equipment lease loans to held for sale. Excluding this transfer period and total loans were essentially flat for the quarter as growth in multifamily and commercial loans was largely offset by reductions in CRE construction, residential and consumer loans. December closings were strong. However, and our pull through adjusted loan pipeline at quarter end was $1 billion, with a weighted average rate of 6.98% versus our current portfolio yield of 5.99%.
Deposits increased $248 million or an annualized 5.4% from the trailing quarter to $18.6 billion, at December 31st. With growth driven by municipal and consumer noninterest bearing and money market balances. As a result, our loans to deposit ratio decreased slightly to 101%. The average cost of total deposits decreased 11 basis points to 2.25% this quarter. Asset quality remains strong with non-performing loans representing just 39 basis points of total loans NPAS to assets declining to 34 basis points.
Total delinquencies at 57 basis points of loans and criticized and classified loans totaling 2.67% of loans. Net charge offs were $5.5 million or an annualized 12 basis points of average loans this quarter. The provision for loan losses decreased to $7.8 million this quarter, reflecting specific reserve requirements and some deterioration in the macroeconomic variables that drive our Cecil estimate. This increased our coverage ratio to 1.04% of loans on December 31st.
Noninterest income decreased to $24 million this quarter mainly due to fewer boldly benefit claims and a seasonal reduction in insurance agency income. Noninterest expenses excluding merger related charges were $114 million with expenses to average assets declining to 1.90%. And the efficiency ratio improving to 55.4% for the quarter. Noninterest expenses for the quarter included certain items that are not expected to recur in the 2025 run rate. Including a $1.4 million litigation reserve charge and approximately $1.6 million of year-end adjustments to incentive accruals.
We currently project quarterly core operating expenses of approximately $112 million to $115 million for 2025. Our effective tax rate for the quarter fell to 22.6% due to a $4.2 million benefit recorded on the revaluation of certain deferred tax assets. We currently expect our 2025 effective tax rate to approximate 29.5%. Regarding projected 2025 financial performance, we currently estimate return on average assets of approximately 1.15% in return on tangible equity of approximately 16% with an operating expense ratio of approximately 1.80% and an efficiency ratio of approximately 52%.
That concludes our prepared remarks. We'd be happy to respond to questions.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions)
Mark Fitzgibbon, Piper Sandler.

Mark Fitzgibbon

Hey guys, good morning. First question I had Tom, I guess I'm curious how you hit that $26 million fee projection in like the 3rd and 4th quarter. When insurance revenues declined seasonally. What kind of the offset there are, I mean, what are some of the other items that you anticipate being higher, to mitigate that seasonal decline in insurance?

Thomas Lyons

Yes, that's an average over the course of the year mark. So we're going to see seasonal improvement in the first half of 2025. In addition, there's some volatile items in there regarding gains on loan sales, swap, fee, income. SB a loan sales.

Adriano M. Duarte

Insurance contingency in the first quarter, which makes it higher than $26 million right.

Thomas Lyons

And also Boli death benefit claims, we don't model those, but there's a actuarial component to that where we see some recognition of income there. So overall we expect the $26 million a quarter is a reasonable number.

Mark Fitzgibbon

So is it for the bowling number? Is it a normal run rate excluding death benefits? Sort of two and a $2.3 million? Is that the right number?

Thomas Lyons

Is that on top of what we reported? I think. So, that's.

Adriano M. Duarte

Correct. This quarter had none. So that's a typical run rate mark.

Anthony Labozzetta

Okay, great.

Mark Fitzgibbon

And then I guess your expense guide looks like it assumes some pretty heavy lifting, I guess, what are some of the bigger pieces of that? Where do we have cost energies coming? Is it, residual stuff from the Lakeland deal or is there are other things where you think you can sort of reduce expenses on.

Thomas Lyons

I mean, we kind of worked off of the beginning, reported expense for this quarter mark back out that the non-recurring items and I mentioned a few of them in the comments, took into account the additional payroll, employer payroll taxes in the first quarter. Work through the full cost savings which were realized at the end of Q4. So we took full benefit for that in Q1. We get to, I'm getting about $113 million, $114 million for the first quarter. So the $112 million to $115 million guide seems reasonable. We'd expect to see that stabilize, maybe even trail off a little bit in the back half of the year.

Mark Fitzgibbon

Okay. And I think you said you're assuming 225 basis points cuts in rates, what is each 25 basis points cut mean for NIIR the margin.

Thomas Lyons

To be Honest, not a whole lot. The balance sheet is so neutral that we ran a number of scenarios both with growth and different rate cut environments, and very tightly clustered in terms of NIM and the difference in net interest income is at most a couple of million dollars up or down a couple 100 basis points even.

Mark Fitzgibbon

Okay. And lastly, Tony, I guess I'm curious from your perspective, what are sort of the top two or three priorities for the company right now.

Anthony Labozzetta

So a few of, provident, we're pretty good at the risk management and our balance sheet is pretty strong. So as we move into 2025 and beyond this year. In no particular order, I would probably say the, continuing to build on our culture and nurture the team dynamics of bringing two companies together. Our growth, growth and growth is still going to be our biggest focus for this year in all sectors. I think some of the things that we're excited about is the changes that are happening in our commercial bank and treasury management and seeing some good dynamic growth there and deposits.
Our fee based businesses will still drive and lastly, I would say huge focus about deepening share across the channels that's big. And I think with the Lakeland merger, being able to deploy some of that is also going to be very creative for us. And we want to do this while NIIR know you mentioned it while we're maintaining operational efficiency. So that that's really the focus for me and the team as we move into 2025.

Mark Fitzgibbon

Thank you.

Operator

Billy Yong, RBC Capital Markets.

Billy Young

Hey guys, how are you? Just I guess first just kind of like a bigger picture question, kind of looking at your adjusted returns for the quarter and your 2025 return targets. Just kind of, how do you think about how do you think those returns kind of stack against your longer-term franchise goals? Do you see room to kind of and do better than that longer term?

Thomas Lyons

I think there's the continued ability to gain efficiencies and scale which should continue to improve the returns metrics overall.

Anthony Labozzetta

Yes, I would add to that we've done Yeoman's job a lot of effort this year in building the foundation for an organization that could be some good strong growth. We done much and I think we're prepared and I think as we continue to build, we won't have to scale up at the same level so we can take advantage of that. We put some good dynamics for loan growth in this coming year. And we'll continue to look at areas to become even more efficient. So I think it's really growing our businesses and being able to handle the scale without adding to the operating expenses.

Billy Young

Got it. Thank you for that. And then just switching to [Long lof] a little bit, I think we've spent the last couple of quarters talking about kind of improving activity and better customer sentiment hasn't really shown up in the bottom-line numbers yet, but I kind of understand there's some moving parts this quarter. It feels like, payoff activity was a little bit elevated this quarter. It's been a little bit of a headwind. Kind of, do you need to see that moderate? A little bit to kind of get to your 5% growth target for 2025 or what is it that gives you confidence that you'll get there.

Anthony Labozzetta

Well, I think if you remember last quarter, we gave a little bit of caution that we might see some creep prepayments and we saw some of that this quarter, we also had about 50% of the $328 million that I mentioned was just maturities or and loans and sale of the underlying property. So that's just something that you can't really gauge and about half was refinancing away from us. So the way I feel comfortable about it is, we've made some good dynamic changes in our commercial bank.
We have good leadership team there that across all our segments that can really build our business. We're seeing activity if the operating environment cooperates and the rate cycle, I think that we're going to really jump ahead, right. So there's those small headwinds that I mentioned, but we have the appropriate complement to be able to produce growth in excess of the numbers that we're guiding you guys on.
And just to give you a sense, the $712 million, that we closed this quarter, we really need to be somewhere at the size of the bank that we are now between $24 billion, and $25 billion. We need to be closer to about 800 million to 900 million of production and then you take about 40% of that and that's what really affects those to your outstandings. That's sort of the algorithm or calculus that, that we do, and so we're able to see that $712 million in this environment. So again, the only thing I would caution is the operating environment in terms of providence, product capacity and having the right complement the right leadership, the right go to market strategy, enhancing our treasury management.
I'm pretty excited about that and I think '25 is going to is going to demonstrate that, but we've had so some headwinds of change, obviously John retired our CLO we've got new changes there. We see opportunities coming from even the legacy organizations and some of those change agents have come to us from. So long winded answer to say, I know it hasn't showed up in our results in the last couple of three quarters, but we're feeling pretty good about the foundation to build as we move forward.

Thomas Lyons

Yes, if I could just add a couple of thoughts, Tony, I think our market position currently is very strong. I know some of our competitors have some other internal issues that they're dealing with. And so I think we have the ability to be a real dominant player in the over the next year. I think Tony, referenced a little bit some of the distractions we saw with integration and core systems conversion, all that's behind us now. So I think there's a full focus on moving forward. And then in Tony's, prepared comments, he did reference Bill Fink joining us as Chief Lending Officer and some other ads in the revenue producing side that we expect to see really generate some growth, so pretty optimistic.

Anthony Labozzetta

So I would answer, I would say one last thing if you on that, we've been historically very strong on growing the CRE side of the business. If you look at the under the real [build] underlying sort of silver lining in our commercial growth in our production is that most of the growth we've seen has come in the C&I space and our specialty lending businesses which have done really well. If our CRE, which I think we could amp up, we had some noise around CRE this year if we could amp up our CRE to the traditional levels. Which I think that's probably easier for us to do than the other side that we should achieve the numbers that we're value to and maybe over achieve.

Billy Young

Appreciate it. Thank you for taking my questions.

Operator

Tim Switzer, KBW.

Tim Switzer

Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. My first one is on the kind of looking for a little bit more clarity on the expense outlook. It's kind of a wide range there and you're talking about $113 million to $114 million for the first quarter, but then maybe trails down a little bit in the back half of the year. What would be driving that improvement later in '25. Is that like seasonality or some initiative you have that would maybe be coming offline.

Thomas Lyons

Yes, typical seasonality Tim with the employer payroll tax thresholds being achieved and some of the utility maintenance kind of costs that you see in the colder months of the year being a little bit more elevated in the first quarter.

Tim Switzer

Okay, and what would maybe drive you, I guess to the higher end of your range if you're thinking $113 million, $114 million in Q1 and then down from there.

Thomas Lyons

Only additional investments in terms of core operating expense. I mean, things that come that I consider to be outside of operations would be decisions made around resolutions of nonperforming assets as an example where you might take a loss that's not reflected in these core projections.

Tim Switzer

Okay. And sorry if I missed this earlier, but is this quarter a good level for purchase accounting accretion going forward?

Thomas Lyons

Yes, I think it's a good base Tim, it's a little bit unpredictable because of the volatilities in the cash flows. I mean, what happened to us this quarter is we saw fewer prepayments of loans that had acquisition discounts, and we actually saw some pre-payments of loans that had acquisition premiums in the SBA book that was acquired. There's not a lot of premium loans left in there, it's about total of about $2.4 million, but that was about $800,000 of the reduction in the current quarter.

Tim Switzer

Okay. And I think we've asked this before but, are you guys considering a securities restructuring just given the change in the yield curve and with some of your lower yielding assets, it seems like it could give you a nice earn back relative to click.

Thomas Lyons

No, Tim, I think we continue to feel that it's appropriate to hold the assets. We don't see that again, an inefficient market. We don't see the earn back in a short enough time frame to warrant that we did do the restructuring in connection with the acquisition of about $550 million at the Lakeland acquisition because there it made sense. The hit to equity was already baked in through the purchase accounting.

Anthony Labozzetta

You might want to add that we're thinking about this thoroughly since we made the announcement on the lease.

Thomas Lyons

That's true. I mean, we did decide as you saw in the orange lease to exit the non-relationship portion of the equipment lease financing business. So I consider that a restructure, it's not a big spread business and we think there's, it's just not attractive from a building, the franchise point of view and better use of capital.

Tim Switzer

Okay. That makes sense. Thank you, guys.

Operator

Feddie Strickland, Hovde Group.

Feddie Strickland

Hey, good morning. I was wondering if you can update us on the opportunity with upcoming CD maturities and what you're seeing on repricing CDs today.

Thomas Lyons

Yes, CDs were pricing over the next 12 months, total, about $3 billion, $1.2 billion in the first quarter. About 57 basis points to pick up in the first quarter when I talked about how neutral our balance sheet is. It's funny if you look at floating rate loans are about $4.8 billion, and the maturing CDs and borrowings are about $4.3 billion, over the next 12 months. And then the flexibility on the rest of the other, the liability side of things.

Anthony Labozzetta

We also have a slight repricing downward on some of the specialty pricing deposits for the non-CDs.

Thomas Lyons

That makes up the rest of the difference in why I say that regardless of the rate environment really, the impact on the NIIM is fairly minimal.

Feddie Strickland

Well said, got it and then wanted to dig into fees really well, in particular, two questions on that number one, is there an opportunity to move that average fee higher from that 73 basis points or so? And then the second portion of that is PC one of the opportunities go to the non advisory portions of the wealth business.

Thomas Lyons

I don't think that there's a lot of ability to up the fee rate. The 73 is pretty strong relative to the industry and the peer group.

Anthony Labozzetta

Exactly. I think the game for us in the is to just to up the A1 and if we can keep the fee at that relative level, I think that will be the success in that space. The second part of that question was with, is that the, I didn't get the second part.

Thomas Lyons

Could you repeat if again.

Anthony Labozzetta

I mean, like just.

Feddie Strickland

Grow the non-advisory portions of the business?

Anthony Labozzetta

Yes, I think that that's been growing. For us, I think we, this year, I think we did, I think $300 million something of new. Mostly outside bank growth in that business. It's not a what I would call a material segment of our space. But it's a good contributor and ultimately, I think we, I would love to see more graduation from that space and into as assets build and into more of our beacon wealth business. So having more of a synergy there but ideally, I think from my perspective, I see the greatest promise for us is to continue to synergize across the channels and have our aum growth on the Beacon side is going to be the greatest path for improved profitability.

Thomas Lyons

I'm not sure if we understood but let me just check the question. I think Tony was referring to the non-deposit investment products outside of Beacon, but I think you might have been asking about non-advisory services provided by Beacon. Is that correct? Things like the tax estate? That kind of.

Feddie Strickland

That's correct. I was just wondering whether that, I guess the pie grows a little bit for those sections relative to the non-advisory or relative to the advisory part of the business.

Thomas Lyons

It does, but it's a relatively small portion really the money at Deakin has made through the advisory services.

Feddie Strickland

Got it. And just last question, I wanted to touch on credit. I know there's not AP in terms of MPAs, but could you talk about potential opportunities to resolve some of the nonperforming loans over the course of 2025.

Thomas Lyons

We continue to work with the customers. We look at note sales to see where they make sense. On the REO side, we start, we're trying to work through a couple of resolutions on the remaining. I think it's about $9.6 million left in real estate owned. We expect to see some of that continue to move. We do a pretty good job of retaining those non-performing assets for a relatively short period of time. I think.

Anthony Labozzetta

We have a good group in the resolution area and they have good active strategies on the best path out for all the things that are moving into. So we're pretty comfortable, but things don't stay in there forever and there's a good exit strategy.

Feddie Strickland

All right, great. Thanks for.

Operator

Manuel Navas, D.A. Davidson.

Manuel Navas

Hey, good morning. Could you speak a little bit more to the kind of the wild cards around the NIM range? What could get you to the top? and what could get you to the bottom?

Thomas Lyons

Really, the biggest driver is the shape of the curve. So long as the longer end stays somewhat anchored, you on the 10-year side of things. Especially that's where we see a little bit of a pickup rates down versus rate up rates up is that we see more benefit to the wholesale funding cost and a little bit on deposits. But at deposits, you get to a level where I think the data starts to drop more. But that's really the primary challenge there is just that the shape of the curve changes interiorly and efficiently.
The other thing would be the accretion which has volatility and growth overall, right? We talked about last quarter, I believe and we're going to continue to execute on that adding some for the securities portfolio. I'd like to see that get up to about 15% of assets. The spread on that is a little lower so it could drive the NIM down a bit but still give us greater net interest income.

Anthony Labozzetta

Sorry.

Manuel Navas

That, great. You've been able to lower deposit costs pretty well. Is there any difference in the first 75 basis points versus December cut? And is that, is there still going to be some deposit costs felt into the first quarter beyond CD repricing?

Thomas Lyons

Yes, you'll see cuts that were effective January 1.

Manuel Navas

Okay. A any difference in the difficulty of those cuts or push back?

Thomas Lyons

No, when the initial cuts came through, the communication was pretty clear that there were going to be continued movements in line with the fed for the most part. So I would expect.

Anthony Labozzetta

A lot of those communications happen between the Relationship Managers and a lot of our customers. So not only did they inform about the rate cut, but they informed about prospective rate cuts and what the impacts would be. So it should, -- since the stability is there and we haven't, we're pretty comfortable that the clients are well informed and their behaviors. One of the things we saw this Quarter Act, which wasn't clearly pointed out. We also saw some good consumer deposit flowing.
Most of that growth happened in the consumer side, both [non-bearing ] and interest bearing and also some municipal, our business deposits were actually cycling down through the payments of bonuses, taxes, et cetera, which we didn't see any account closure. So most of that will we expect to kind of recycle back in. So with the consumer activity coming back, which has been the outflows over the last, since COVID. I think that is probably a good indication that that flows in and of our commercial deposits come back in. It should bode well for our growth as we move forward.

Manuel Navas

I appreciate that is can you expand a little bit more on the just kind of shifting gears to the opportunity geographically you brought up Pennsylvania and Westchester just could you add some more color, maybe sizing or timing of that opportunity?

Anthony Labozzetta

Sure. In my spoken comments earlier, I mentioned that we had more compliments to our current lending teams in our present markets. In addition to that, we've also expanded by having I think a four-person team into Pennsylvania, and I think two more individuals into the free space in Pennsylvania. And so that will help us to grow the, we have a sort of a more focused strategy in building out our Eastern Pennsylvania marketplace, which we have a good presence in. And I think those folks will help us build that in tandem working with our other, -- our retail side.
We're looking at both building, not only the commercial but the treasury management and the deposits as well in that market. And then we've added some compliments in the Westchester, New York and not West Chester, Pennsylvania to be able to build out some of the lending in that space. So we're pretty comfortable and I think -- they'll think coming on board, perhaps he'll build out his team from folks that follow him. And it's pretty exciting time, I know it's not showing up in the balance sheet just yet, but I'm pretty comfortable that we've set the foundation for good growth as we move forward.

Manuel Navas

Thank you. I appreciate the commentary.

Thomas Lyons

Thank you.

Operator

That concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the call back over to Antonio Labozzetta, for closing remarks, Tony.

Thomas Lyons

Sure.

Anthony Labozzetta

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone and appreciate the good questions this quarter. I'm pretty comfortable and optimistic for Provident's future. I wish you all a good 2025 and look forward to having conversations with you in the near future. Thank you.

Operator

This concludes the meeting. Thank you all for joining you. May now disconnect.