On Thursday, QCR Hldgs (NASDAQ:QCRH) discussed second-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below.

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Summary

QCR Holdings reported strong second-quarter net income and record quarterly GAAP earnings per share, driven by robust loan production, higher net interest income, and disciplined expense management.

The LIHTC lending business continues to perform well, with plans to explore alternative loan sale structures to free up regulatory capital and improve transaction economics.

The company reaffirmed guidance for 10%-15% annualized loan growth and $60-$70 million in capital markets revenue over the next four quarters.

Expenses were managed effectively, with a slight increase in noninterest expense, while the efficiency ratio improved to 54.6%.

Management highlighted digital transformation as a strategic priority, expecting cost savings and improved operational efficiency post-core conversions.

QCR Holdings has repurchased 4% of outstanding shares and plans to continue opportunistic buybacks, supported by strong capital and share repurchase program.

The company maintains strong asset quality, with improvements in nonperforming assets and criticized loan ratios, and plans to stay under the $10 billion asset threshold until 2027.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Good morning and thank you for joining us today for QCR Hldgs' second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Following the close of the market yesterday, the Company issued its earnings press release for the second quarter. If anyone joining us today has not yet received a copy, it is available on the Company's website at www.qcrh.com. With us today from management are Todd Gipple, President and CEO, and Nick Anderson, CFO. Management will provide a summary of the financial results and then we will open the call to questions from analysts.

Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that some of the information management will be providing today falls under the guidelines of forward-looking statements as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. As part of these guidelines, any statements made during this call concerning the Company's hopes, beliefs, expectations and predictions of the future are forward-looking statements and actual results could differ materially from those projected.

Additional information on these factors is included in the Company's SEC filings, which are available on the Company's website. Additionally, management may refer to non-GAAP measures which are intended to supplement but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAAP measures. The press release available on the website contains the financial and other quantitative information to be discussed today as well as the reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures.

As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and will be available for replay through July 30, 2026, starting this afternoon, approximately one hour after the completion of this call. It will also be accessible on the Company's website. I'd like to turn the floor over to Mr. Todd Gipple at QCR Hldgs.

Todd Gipple, President & CFO

Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining our call today. I'd like to start with the highlights of our second quarter performance and some thoughts about our business and then Nick will walk us through the financial results in more detail. We are pleased to report strong second quarter net income and record quarterly GAAP earnings per share, reflecting the continued strength of our diversified business model and the consistent execution of our strategy.

Adjusted earnings per share was also near record levels exceeded only by the fourth quarter of 2025. Performance in the quarter was supported by robust loan production, a rebound in capital markets revenue, higher net interest income, continued strong momentum in wealth management and disciplined expense management. We also continued to strengthen our excellent asset quality, generated meaningful growth in tangible book value per share and returned capital to shareholders through opportunistic share repurchases.

Return on average assets was a strong 1.51% and earnings per share increased 28% from the prior year quarter, reinforcing the earnings power, durability and scalability of our diversified platform over the past four quarters. Our strong financial performance has increased tangible book value per share by $8 or 15% since June 30th of last year while we returned approximately 56 million of capital to shareholders through share repurchases. These results demonstrate our ability to generate attractive returns, meaningfully compound tangible book value and deploy capital in a disciplined manner to support long term shareholder value creation.

Our traditional banking business continues to deliver healthy organic loan and deposit growth reflecting strong commercial and industrial activity across our markets. Our multi charter structure that results in very high levels of responsiveness and creates strong client relationships enables us to consistently take market share from our competitors. Our banking model that creates local decision making, autonomy where it matters and consistency in operating process everywhere else continues to be a significant competitive advantage allowing us to make decisions close to the client while still benefiting from the scale and resources of the broader company. This model also helps us attract and retain talented bankers who value local decision making, strong client relationships and the opportunity to grow within a larger high performing organization. Our digital transformation remains a key strategic priority and the successful completion of our second core conversion in April marks another important milestone in that journey. Modernizing our technology stack will deliver meaningful benefits for both our clients and employees, expanding our service capabilities, enhancing the client experience and driving further operating leverage.

Our wealth management business also delivered excellent results with AUM growth of 9% and revenue increasing 7% on a linked quarter basis. Our success in this business reflects the long tenured expertise of our team and the power of our local relationship driven model which connects high value clients in each of our communities with our dedicated wealth advisors. As we continue to expand advisory relationships, wealth management provides a growing source of recurring fee income, deepens client engagement and further diversifies our revenue mix.

Our LIHTC lending business continues to perform exceptionally well as the demand for affordable housing remains robust driven by a lack of supply and ongoing affordability challenges nationwide. This business is a key differentiator for our company delivering highly profitable and annually consistent results across a variety of interest rate environments and market conditions. Our strong relationships with industry leading LIHTC developers combined with market demand position us well to grow this business and further strengthen our financial performance.

Given the robust pipelines in our traditional and LIHTC lending platforms, we are reaffirming our guidance for gross annualized loan growth of 10% to 15% over the final two quarters of 2026. We are also reaffirming our capital markets revenue guidance of 60 million to 70 million for the next four quarters. During the quarter, we executed 444 million of LIHTC loan offtake transactions consisting of a Freddie Mac permanent loan securitization and a construction loan portfolio sale.

As we have discussed in prior quarters, Freddie Mac significantly increased the complexity of their M-Series securitization program since our previous M-Series transactions. For example, the length of the offering document increased from a bit more than 100 pages to more than 400. In addition to the added legal costs this complexity created, there were other costs that were not part of our prior M-Series transactions. While the pricing of the underlying securities was quite strong and actually outperformed our expectations on this securitization, the transaction costs under the revised program increased significantly over prior securitizations, creating the loss on this transaction. As a result, we are working with other third parties on alternative loan sale structures for our permanent LIHTC loans that we believe will be significantly less complex, take far less time to accomplish, and result in better economics. It is also anticipated that these alternative structures will result in a complete sale of the underlying loans without the retention of the first loss B tranche, fully removing the loans from risk based assets and more effectively freeing up regulatory capital.

We are actively working on these alternatives and are expecting an execution in early 2027 for our first transaction under this revised structure. The construction loan portfolio transaction this quarter marked our second successful sale to a private investor, further demonstrating the strong demand for these assets. The ability to sell LIHTC construction loans allows us to support our developer clients throughout the entire project lifecycle by providing both construction and permanent financing solutions.

This capability strengthens our value proposition to our clients, driving market share gains and incremental capital markets revenue. While these LIHTC offtake transactions temper balance sheet growth in the near term, they enhance long term profitability by creating more capacity. That capacity is then rapidly redeployed into new originations, allowing us to replace the earning assets quickly and expand our capital markets revenue, creating greater ROAA and ROAE.

The second quarter demonstrates our LIHTC flywheel in action, building an asset light, capital efficient and revenue heavy business in affordable housing. These LIHTC offtake transactions are also allowing us to strategically manage our total assets under the 10 billion asset threshold this year. We anticipate growing beyond 10 billion sometime in 2027 and we will be fully prepared for the associated organizational impacts that would occur in mid-2028.

As we continue to build on the planning efforts we began back in 2023, the strength of our franchise is reflected in our performance across all three of our core lines of business. Over the past five years we have driven a five year earnings per share CAGR of 14%, a five year tangible book value per share CAGR of 12.5% and a five year total shareholder return of 268%, the highest in our peer group. We have a proven high performance operating model and we hold ourselves accountable for consistently driving shareholder value.

Through continued investments in our people and our technology, combined with disciplined expense management, we are well positioned to sustain our top tier financial performance. I want to thank our more than 1,000 teammates for their hard work and their strong commitment to our high performance culture. They take exceptional care of our clients, our communities and each other as they deliver long term value for our shareholders. I will now turn the call over to Nick to provide further details regarding our second quarter results.

Larry J. Helling, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Todd. Good morning, everyone. We delivered strong second quarter results with net income of $36 million, or $2.19 per diluted share. Net interest income remained solid at $68 million, increasing $500,000, or 3% annualized, from the first quarter. Robust earning asset growth more than offset the impact of the LIHTC offtake transactions, driving higher interest income as average earning assets increased $46 million. Our NIM TEY declined 3 basis points from the first quarter of 2026 and came in below our guidance range.

However, the underlying drivers reflect the strength and momentum of our franchise. We continued to maintain deposit pricing discipline in a competitive environment, driving a further decline in our cost of deposits during the quarter. This progress, along with the accretive impact of the LIHTC offtake transactions, was more than offset by a shift toward higher-cost, non-core funding and lower loan yields, primarily due to reduced loan discount accretion and nonaccrual activity.

Looking ahead, we continue to benefit from repricing lower-yielding loans into higher market rates, with new loan origination yields exceeding loan payoff yields by 19 basis points when excluding the LIHTC offtake transactions. While we have already captured a meaningful portion of deposit cost relief since the Fed began cutting rates in 2024, we continue to focus on improving our funding costs through mix optimization and disciplined pricing. Since 2024, our cost of funds has declined 83 basis points compared to a 61 basis point decline in earning asset yields.

Our quarterly NIM TEY declined modestly from the first quarter. However, the monthly trend was more positive after early-quarter pressure. NIM improved and stabilized in May and June, with June exceeding the quarterly average by 1 basis point. As a result, we view the second quarter NIM as more of an improving intra-quarter story than a continuation of downward NIM pressure. We are encouraged by the strength of our lending pipeline and ongoing customer demand, which continue to support profitable growth opportunities across our footprint.

Combined with our disciplined approach to deposit costs, this positive momentum supports our guidance for a relatively static third quarter NIM TEY assuming no Federal Reserve rate changes. We recognize investors value clear guidance around NIM and we want to be as transparent as possible. Given the active management of our balance sheet, including robust earning asset growth, funding mix changes, deposit pricing, and LIHTC offtake transactions, NIM can fluctuate in either direction from quarter to quarter.

Our focus remains on managing those dynamics in a disciplined way and ensuring that balance sheet growth translates into stronger net interest income and improved profitability. Our current balance sheet position remains modestly liability sensitive. Based on that positioning, we would expect each 25 basis point decrease in the Fed funds rate to increase NIM TEY by 1 basis point and NII by approximately $1,000,000. Conversely, a 25 basis point increase in rates would be expected to have a similar but more muted impact in the opposite direction, as our historical lag in deposit repricing would likely keep the near-term effect closer to neutral.

Upside to our third quarter NIM is supported by our strong loan pipeline and repricing opportunities on approximately $127 million in fixed-rate loans. Those fixed-rate loans scheduled to reprice currently yield 5.81%, which we would project to reset nearly 40 to 50 basis points higher. We also project our nontaxable investment yields to continue expanding, supported by a solid pipeline of new municipal bonds yielding between 7% and 7.5% on a tax-equivalent basis.

Noninterest income totaled $29 million in the second quarter, including $15 million from capital markets revenue and $6 million from wealth management swap fee. Capital markets revenue of $17 million increased $6 million, or 56%, from the prior quarter, partially offset by a $1.3 million loss from the Freddie Mac LIHTC securitization. Our LIHTC lending team closed 22 projects during the quarter, including four new developers. As we continue to expand our LIHTC platform, our wealth management team delivered strong results with revenue up 7% from the prior quarter, with strong market performance combined with the addition of 170 new client relationships and $483 million in new assets under management year to date. Noninterest income performance this quarter highlights the strength of our diversified revenue model. Over the past five years, about 33% of our total revenue has been generated from noninterest income compared to 23% for our proxy peer group. The breadth of our capital markets and wealth management platforms provides a meaningful source of earnings diversification, reduces reliance on spread income, and supports more consistent profitability across changing interest rate and economic environments.

Now turning to our expenses, noninterest expense for the second quarter was $53 million compared to $52 million for the first quarter. The $1 million linked-quarter increase primarily reflected higher salary and benefits expense associated with increased capital markets activity, as well as higher professional and data processing expense related to investments in our digital transformation. The increase in salary and benefits expense was partially offset by an $825,000 linked-quarter decline in stock-based compensation expense, as most of this expense is recognized in the first quarter, as well as higher deferred loan origination costs associated with strong loan growth. Even with the modest increase in noninterest expense this quarter, our expenses were below our guided range as other expense categories came in better than anticipated, including the timing of digital transformation investments. Our results this quarter drove a 310 basis point improvement in our efficiency ratio to 54.6%. For the third quarter, we are lowering our noninterest expense guidance to be in the range of $54 to $57 million, assuming capital markets revenue and loan growth are within our guided ranges, and includes our continued investments in our digital transformation initiatives.

This outlook reflects our disciplined approach to expense management under our 965 strategic model, which is designed to keep annual noninterest expense growth below 5%, driving operating leverage, improving efficiency, and enhancing profitability. Moving to our balance sheet, total loans grew $217 million for the quarter, or 12% annualized, excluding the impact of the LIHTC offtake transactions and the planned runoff of the M2 portfolio. The robust loan growth was fueled by strong production across both our LIHTC and traditional lending businesses and was in line with our guidance.

Our 7% annualized traditional loan growth, excluding the M2 portfolio runoff, indicates healthy client demand and continued strength across our markets. We also increased our high-performing securities portfolio by $77 million late quarter, including $45 million of privately placed municipal investments at tax-equivalent yields near 7%. In connection with the LIHTC securitization, we retained the BP tranche of $33 million at a tax-equivalent yield of 8.5%.

Total core deposit activity in the second quarter normalized from the exceptional first quarter performance, decreasing $324 million. The decline primarily reflected the company's intentional reduction of higher-cost correspondent and public fund balances supported by liquidity generated from the LIHTC offtake transactions and a steady increase in noninterest-bearing deposits. On a year-to-date basis, core deposits have increased by $85 million, or 2% annualized.

We also delivered our third consecutive quarter of noninterest-bearing deposit growth, reflecting continued progress on a key strategic priority for our team. We remain focused on growing core deposits, optimizing our funding mix, and maintaining disciplined deposit pricing in a competitive environment. Our strong asset quality further improved during the quarter. Nonperforming assets totaled $40 million, a decrease of $3.4 million from the prior quarter, which resulted in the NPA to total asset ratio improving by 4 basis points to 0.41%.

The ratio of criticized loans to total loans and leases also improved to 1.91%, the lowest level since the fourth quarter of 2019. The company recorded total provision for credit losses of $4.7 million during the quarter compared to $2.5 million in the first quarter, which reflected a benefit from the reversal of credit loss expense related to loans transferred to held for sale. Net charge-offs were $3.3 million during the second quarter, a decline of $600,000 from the prior quarter.

As we continue to benefit from the positive trends in charge-off activity from the wind-down of the M2 equipment finance portfolio, during the second quarter we returned almost $13.5 million of capital to shareholders, with approximately 150,000 common shares repurchased. We continue to deploy capital through opportunistic share repurchases during the quarter at an attractive multiple relative to tangible book value. Since we began repurchasing shares last year, we have repurchased 675,000 common shares, approximately 4% of total shares outstanding, returning a total of nearly $56 million to our shareholders.

The share repurchase program authorized in October 2025 enhances our capital allocation flexibility and allows us to balance organic growth, shareholder returns, and capital strength while reinforcing confidence in our long-term outlook. Our performance resulted in another quarter of strong growth in tangible book value per share, which rose $2.17, or 15% annualized. This growth was driven by strong earnings during the quarter, partially offset by share repurchases.

Our tangible common equity to tangible assets ratio increased 40 basis points to 10.71%. The common equity tier 1 ratio increased 14 basis points to 10.68% and our total risk-based capital ratio increased 13 basis points to 14.13%. These quarterly changes reflect the combined impact of strong earnings, loan sales, and share repurchases during the quarter. Finally, our effective tax rate for the quarter was 8%, up from 7% in the prior quarter, reflecting stronger capital markets activity which impacted the mix of our tax-exempt income relative to our taxable income.

Our tax-exempt loan and bond portfolios have continued to support a low effective tax rate. Assuming a revenue mix in line with our guidance ranges, we estimate our effective tax rate to continue to trend in the range of 8% to 10% for the third quarter of 2026. With that added context on our second quarter results, let's open the call for your questions. Operator, we are ready for our first question.

OPERATOR

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your telephone keypads. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, you may press star and two. Again, that is star and then one to join the question queue. We'll pause momentarily to assemble the roster.

Our first question today comes from Nathan Race from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead with your question.

Nathan Race, Analyst at Piper Sandler

Hey guys, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions.

Todd Gipple, President & CFO

Morning, Nate.

Nathan Race, Analyst at Piper Sandler

Morning, Todd. I was hoping you could just elaborate a little bit more on some of the nuances to the offtake transactions on the LIHTC side of things that you're planning for next year and how that's going to free up some balance sheet and capital capacity and also how that translates into kind of the buyback appetite going forward in light of kind of where the stock trades today.

Todd Gipple, President & CFO

Sure. Thanks, Nate. Yeah, we talked about over the last couple of calls that Freddie Mac significantly increased the complexity of its M Series program since the few transactions we had done earlier. For example, the length of that offering document went from a little over 100 pages to more than 400. So several quarters ago, when we knew that these expenses were really growing in the M Series, we started exploring other alternatives, and we're very pleased that we're working with some other third parties on an alternative loan sale structure that would really take those loans completely off our balance sheet.

We would not be securitizing them. We expect that those alternatives will result in a complete sale of the loan, which gets us out of the business of retaining the B tranche. So to your point, it really will help us more effectively free up regulatory capital. We expect to be able to do that sometime in early '27. I don't really anticipate that we're going to be doing much in the way of offtake the remainder of this year, other than we may do another modest construction loan sale if we need to just be comfortably under $10 billion at year end.

We don't want to cut that too close. The perm early in '27 will in fact free up regulatory capital. That's going to allow us to continue to be opportunistic with respect to share repurchases. We're very pleased to have done 4% of outstanding shares. We're very happy about that. That was at a blended weighted average cost of around $83 per share. So very effective repurchase. And we do have about 1.2 million shares yet available. So we will continue to be opportunistic as we run a little more capital-light in the LIHTC business.

So, Nate, I hope that gives you the answers you're looking for.

Nathan Race, Analyst at Piper Sandler

Yeah, that's really helpful. Thanks, Todd. And you know, it sounds like the LIHTC pipeline kind of remains consistently strong. So I was wondering if you could just kind of speak to kind of the trajectory for capital markets revenue in the back half of the year. I think just given the guidance, that would imply a decent ramp up in that revenue over the next few quarters. So just want to confirm that. And of course, I appreciate that you'll have some seasonality in 1Q of '27 as well.

Todd Gipple, President & CFO

No, Nate, really appreciate the question. Excited to talk about the LIHTC business a bit more. We had a very strong second quarter with that $16.7 million of capital markets revenue. Really proud of the team. They closed 22 projects during the quarter. That's really in the normal wheelhouse for us. Somewhere in the 22, 25, 27 range is typical. Really happy that four of those projects were with new developers. As we continue to expand our reach and over the last few quarters, we've created relationships with and finance projects for three of the most successful LIHTC developers in the country.

And we're already working on additional projects with these developers, some that will happen even yet this year. So we now have relationships with 18 of the top 20 affordable housing developers in the country. We've added seven new developers to the client list thus far in '26, and we expect those to create additional projects in the future. So we have a tremendous team. The developers love working with us. Once they have that experience from our team, they tend to come back to us on future deals.

Pretty exciting to share this data point. We actually have one developer that has now completed 60 projects with us since we've been in this business. So incredibly pleased with the team's performance. They're working really hard to grow the business and very proud of what they're creating in terms of the future. Our future pipeline at the midpoint of the year here is really strong. Actually, it's similar to this time last year, which created some great results in the back half of the year.

I think, Nate, that's probably the basis of your question. Are we expecting that again? I do want to be clear. This isn't guidance. This is really just a data point in terms of how we feel about the business. But I would say we feel very good about the growth in the business and the growth in new developers.

Nathan Race, Analyst at Piper Sandler

Okay, that's great to hear. Very helpful. I appreciate all the color. I will step back. Thanks again.

Todd Gipple, President & CFO

Thanks, Nate.

OPERATOR

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one. To withdraw your question, you may press star and then two. Again, that is star and then one to join the question queue. And ladies and gentlemen, at this time, and showing no additional questions, that will conclude today's question-and-answer session. Actually, we do have a follow-up question from Nathan Race from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead with your follow-up.

Nathan Race, Analyst at Piper Sandler

Yeah, hi guys. Just figured I'd follow up if there's no other questions in the queue. Maybe Todd, you can just touch on, you know, the near term—or Nick—the expense run rate. I appreciate that. But you know, just assuming you guys kind of hit the guidance for the next 12 months on capital markets revenue, it sounds like, you know, we're squarely within that kind of, you know, sub-5% expense growth range, you know, for next year. I know it's a little early to be thinking about '27, but is that still a reasonable estimate along those lines?

Todd Gipple, President & CFO

Nate, really appreciate the follow-up. We have heard from several analysts that today is the biggest day in releases and a lot of folks are distracted on other calls. So Nate, we really appreciate the questions. We certainly anticipate staying in our guardrail of 5% in terms of expense growth next year. We talked a little bit about the fact—Nick talked on the call, our early opening comments—that we really expect to stay in the guardrails both from '27 and even into '28 when we expect to have Durbin and some of the rigor of the regulators really rolling into our structure.

So we're very committed to that. It's been a challenge, I would say, to do that while we're building the bank of the future and still paying for the bank of the past. But our people are doing a tremendous job with that project, and all of our folks are very mindful about efficiency and effectiveness in terms of cost. So long answer to your short question, but we intend to stay in there. Nick, I think you might have an add.

Nick Anderson (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah. So Nate, I would just maybe highlight a little bit some of the work we're doing in the digital transformation area. So we do expect some significant cost savings from lower licensing costs from the new core, efficiency in staffing and processing costs from the operating of our banks on a single core. And we also have negotiated some payment and interchange economics on our debit card and interchange fees that should pay off here. So all of this will create some operating leverage as a result of the investments that we're making today.

So the way to think about this is not necessarily a single step down immediately after we get through these conversions in April of '27, but more of a gradual improvement in the expense run rate. And so that improvement again is going to come from the duplicate systems that get decommissioned, our legacy contract costs start rolling off, processes get standardized, and our staffing efficiency improves. So we expect those benefits to build through 2027 with more of a visible impact here in 2028.

So appreciate the question and the opportunity to elaborate a little bit.

Nathan Race, Analyst at Piper Sandler

And Nick, do you think some of those cost synergies around the core, around those conversions, is that going to be, you know, largely absorbed by maybe some incremental investments to prepare to be over $10 billion at some point?

Nick Anderson (Chief Financial Officer)

I'm sorry, Nate, our line cut out a little bit. Would you mind repeating that?

Nathan Race, Analyst at Piper Sandler

Yeah, I was just curious if, you know, some of the cost synergies from converting the remaining charters' systems, if that's going to be mitigated to some degree by maybe just some additional investments as you guys prepare to cross over $10 billion down the road.

Nick Anderson (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, yeah, no, fair, fair question. And actually should be timely in that regard. Now I would highlight that we've been building in some costs for $10 billion—approaching $10 billion—over the last two to three years. So we've been adding some incremental staff to support that initiative or that hurdle. And so it's, again, I would point back to my earlier comment that not necessarily an immediate change in overall expense run rate, but should be a nice offset, if you will, when it comes to thinking about some of the additional staffing that we've been absorbing through the process here.

So fair comment, fair way to think about it. I think our approach has been we're optimistic. We've built in, under our 5%, you know, 965 model in terms of keeping our noninterest expenses under that 5% over the last several years, and we intend to continue doing that. And again, as you start modeling some of this out, 5% would be the high end. Now, as we get some chance post-conversion to start optimizing some additional processes, I would expect us to likely have an opportunity to be below 5% in our annual run rate there.

Nathan Race, Analyst at Piper Sandler

Okay, great. And then just given that the LIHTC offtake transaction seemingly occurred late in the second quarter, Nick, can you help us with just maybe a better starting point for earning assets in 3Q?

Nick Anderson (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, so overall, when I think about the moving pieces, I think when we're modeling out for Q3 here, we do expect average earning assets to be approximately about $100 million lower, just given the lower starting point here for Q1. But we do expect to add about $200 million of earning assets period over period by the time we get to the end of Q3. So that really is reflecting the strong loan growth that we put out the guidance range and reaffirmed, and then also continuing to have some success in growing our municipal bond portfolio.

So hopefully that helps you kind of model that out here in Q3.

Nathan Race, Analyst at Piper Sandler

And then just with some of those moving pieces on the left side of the balance sheet, can you kind of just speak to the trajectory for borrowings that look like they're up a bit in the quarter? And just, you know, what you're seeing in terms of the deposit-gathering pipeline and what kind of, you know, the prevailing cost to, you know, add core deposits are these days.

Nick Anderson (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, so certainly deposits normalized after a very strong Q1. A lot of that decline was largely intentional as we let some of the higher-cost correspondent, public, and brokered balances roll off. We were anticipating, as you clearly are aware, the liquidity that would come in from the LIHTC offtakes. And then we also wanted to stay disciplined on our pricing. So year to date, core deposits are still up. Brokered balances actually are down 50% since last June.

We also marked our third consecutive quarterly increase in noninterest-bearing deposits, which is a key strategic priority for us. And so here, as we've already entered Q3, we have already seen some deposit growth here through July and continue to feel good about our overall funding position. So while our level of borrowings at the end of Q2 was up from Q1, a lot of that really just related back to the exceptional $400 million growth in deposits that we had in Q1, and again, a lot of that being driven from correspondent.

Nathan Race, Analyst at Piper Sandler

Okay, understood. And then maybe just one last one, if there's no other questions. Todd, I think, you know, last quarter you were a little bit more upbeat on kind of the M&A environment and what that could portend for QCR Hldgs going forward. So just curious, you know, how you're thinking about, you know, acquisition opportunities these days. I know you guys have a lot on your plate in terms of the core systems conversions and getting everything on one platform, but, you know, just curious on how you're kind of thinking about, you know, the M&A environment and what opportunities may or may not be more actionable for you going forward.

Larry J. Helling, Chief Executive Officer

No, Nate, thanks for the great question on that. Yeah, as we've said over the past couple years, M&A hadn't been a big priority because of this digital transformation project. But candidly, by next April we'll be done with our last conversion. And as you know, M&A conversations take time to come together. So we have been a little more intentional about visiting with folks about opportunities. I just want to reiterate though, our strike zone is very tight for M&A. We have incredible organic momentum, growing EPS and TBV per share. So the hurdle, the bar for M&A is pretty high because of our organic performance. But as you well know, banks in this size range of what we would be looking at 1.5 to 5 billion, fair amount of opportunities there. And some of those banks, for one reason or another, are looking for great partners and we feel that we are a great partner. For those on the call, I would just refer to page 27 in the investor deck we released alongside our 8-K. On page 27 we show what we were able to do in central Iowa with the CSB acquisition. Buying a $500 million bank and turning it into 1.3 billion bank organically 10 years later and improving profitability from the 1% ROA to 1.3. So that's why we think we are a good landing spot for some folks that may want to join forces. So we are hearing from some people that are thinking about that. Nothing imminent, nothing on the front burner, maybe not even anything technically on the back burner.

But as you know, those talks are heating up a little bit and we will be through with this huge project next April. So our capacity for it is opening back up. Our interest in it is opening up a bit more as a result. But just want to end where I started. The strike zone is really tight. It's going to have to be a really great fit for us because we have so much going on organically. That's rewarding shareholders. So thanks for the great question, Nate.

Nathan Race, Analyst at Piper Sandler

Sure thing. I appreciate all the color guys. Thanks again.

Larry J. Helling, Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Thanks for hanging with us, Nate.

Nathan Race, Analyst at Piper Sandler

Thank you.

OPERATOR

And once again, at this time, showing no additional questions, I'd like to turn the floor back over to Todd Gipple for any closing comments.

Todd Gipple, President & CFO

Thanks for joining us on the call today. We really appreciate your interest in our company, and we look forward to seeing you in person sometime soon. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you.

OPERATOR

The conference has now concluded. We do thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.

Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.