Huntington Bancshares (NASDAQ:HBAN) executives told investors the company entered 2026 with “strong momentum,” citing broad-based organic growth and progress integrating its recently closed Veritex and Cadence partnerships. Speaking at an RBC-hosted event, Brant Standridge, president of Consumer and Regional Banking, and CFO Zach Wasserman emphasized a “super regional” operating model they said is producing revenue, earnings, and tangible book value growth, while expanding the company’s ability to reinvest and return capital to shareholders.
Management highlights “multiple engines” for growth
Standridge said Huntington’s strategy is built around a differentiated model with several growth drivers across lines of business, paired with a disciplined integration playbook designed to capture both cost and revenue synergies. He described what the company called a “flywheel” in which execution drives results, results increase capacity to invest in talent and capabilities, and those investments accelerate growth.
In Consumer and Regional Banking, Standridge pointed to a local delivery model with “in-market teams” that bring Huntington’s broader platform into local regions. He said Huntington has 21 regional presidents with decision-making authority and full profit-and-loss responsibility, a structure management believes supports consistent growth when combined with digital capabilities and disciplined risk management.
Organic growth tracking to 2026 guidance
Standridge said core performance has remained strong. Excluding the impact of closing the Cadence partnership “last month,” he said Huntington’s core delivered $1.2 billion of loan growth and $1.3 billion of deposit growth, putting the company on track to achieve standalone 2026 guidance of 11%–12% loan growth and 8%–9% deposit growth.
He said momentum has been broad-based across customer segments and geographies, with regional banking, middle-market banking, specialty lending verticals, and asset finance contributing. He added that Texas has been leading Huntington’s expansion geographies. On funding, management said deposit gathering has remained strong, driven by gains in primary relationships in both business and consumer segments, and that lending pipelines remain healthy.
Integration updates: Veritex complete; Cadence retention and planning highlighted
Standridge said Huntington’s partner integration capability is a “core differentiator,” pointing to Veritex as an example. He said the Veritex integration is complete and moved from announcement to systems migration in 187 days, with the bank on track to achieve identified cost synergies and the full run rate expected to be in place by the second quarter. He also said early customer and colleague engagement is already contributing to revenue synergies.
On Cadence, Standridge said Huntington completed talent decisions early and that retention is “tracking at the top end” of expectations. In the Q&A, he provided details on employee retention efforts, saying the company identified 1,000 revenue producers and offered retention packages, with five people declining. He also said that out of 6,500 Cadence colleagues, 66 had turned over since announcement, with about half considered regretted attrition.
Standridge added that Huntington uses dedicated integration teams so frontline colleagues can remain focused on serving customers rather than integration tasks.
Synergy targets and expected timing
Management reiterated synergy expectations for the two partnerships, saying they are expected to deliver $435 million of cost synergies at full annual run rate. Veritex is expected to reach a $70 million annual run rate by next quarter, while Cadence is expected to deliver a $365 million run rate in the fourth quarter. Wasserman said the synergies are projected to reduce 2026 operating expenses by approximately $340 million, with an additional $100 million benefit in 2027.
On revenue synergies, management described several categories, including expanding Huntington’s lending capacity and product set into partnership markets and generating incremental fee revenue through capabilities such as merchant acquiring, capital markets, dealer floor plan, equipment finance, and wealth management. Standridge pointed to traction in Texas, including in the auto segment, where he said some Cadence customers lacked access to auto-oriented products such as floor plan financing.
Management said it expects cumulative revenue synergies to exceed $500 million over the next three years, reaching $300 million in 2028 and continuing to grow. In the Q&A, Wasserman added that revenue synergies are expected to be $50 million to $75 million in 2026, $150 million in 2027, and $300 million in 2028.
Financial outlook and increased share repurchases
Wasserman said that on a standalone basis excluding Cadence, first-quarter net interest income is tracking within the company’s standalone guidance range of 10%–13%. He said fee performance is tracking to 13%–16% annual growth guidance, citing momentum across payments, wealth, and capital markets, while expenses excluding Cadence remain in line with expected 10%–11% growth for the full year. Wasserman said the company expects revenue growth to significantly outpace expense growth and remains confident it can deliver 150–200 basis points of core operating leverage and 500–600 basis points of total operating leverage in 2026. He said Huntington expects to exit the fourth quarter of 2026 with an efficiency ratio below 55%.
Including Cadence, Wasserman said the combined company’s full-year contribution from Cadence is expected to be approximately $1.8 billion of net interest income, $300 million of fee revenue, and about $1.1 billion of operating expenses.
Wasserman reiterated a 2027 earnings per share target of $1.90–$1.93 and said the company expects to expand return on tangible common equity to 18%–19%. He also said internal capital generation is expected to support high single-digit to low double-digit tangible book value per share growth through 2027 and beyond, while maintaining an “attractive” dividend payout.
A key update from the event was an acceleration and increase in share repurchases. Wasserman said Huntington has repurchased $150 million of shares in “the last couple weeks” and now expects approximately $550 million of repurchases in 2026, above its earlier expectation of $200 million. He attributed the increase to book value dilution at the close of the Cadence transaction being “substantially better” than initially expected, describing it in Q&A as about $350 million less dilution, with those dollars redirected into repurchases.
For 2027, Wasserman said Huntington expects to seek a new repurchase authorization to expand its existing $1 billion program and increase repurchases to $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion, bringing planned repurchases for 2026 and 2027 to about $1.7 billion. He said that would equate to retiring roughly 2% of shares in 2026 and about 4.5%–5% cumulatively by the end of 2027.
In closing remarks and Q&A, both executives said they are monitoring market volatility but are not seeing impacts on the business at this time. Wasserman said credit “looks terrific,” while Standridge said commercial customers have adjusted to external shocks and that weather affected some consumer volumes in January, but nothing currently “alarmed” the company.
About Huntington Bancshares (NASDAQ:HBAN)
Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ: HBAN) is a bank holding company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, that provides a broad range of banking and financial services through its principal subsidiary, Huntington National Bank. The company’s operations are centered on retail and commercial banking, and it serves individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses, and institutional customers.
Huntington’s product offerings include traditional deposit and lending products, consumer and commercial loans, mortgage origination and servicing, auto financing, and business banking solutions.
