Huntington Bancshares Inc to Acquire Cadence Bank Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Jon Arfstrom - RBC Capital Markets Inc - Analyst : Thanks. Good morning, guys. Stephen Steinour - Huntington Bancshares Inc - Chairman of the Board, President, Chief Executive Officer of Huntington and President, Chief Executive Officer of Huntington Bank Good morning, Jon.

Question: Jon Arfstrom - RBC Capital Markets Inc - Analyst : Yeah, okay. Thank you. And then key drivers of the 200-basis-point lift in the combined return expectations of the company, is that just Cadence? Are there other drivers? Is it revenue synergies? Can you just help us understand that big lift in return objectives? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. OCTOBER 27, 2025 / 12:30PM, HBAN.OQ - Huntington Bancshares Inc to Acquire Cadence Bank Call

Question: Jon Arfstrom - RBC Capital Markets Inc - Analyst : Yes, okay. Yes, investment plan was question three and four for me but thank you guys. Appreciate it.

Question: Erika Najarian - UBS Securities LLC - Analyst : Hey, good morning. Maybe I'll just ask Jon's question about the investment plan. So just the first part of this first question is, the way you answered the question, Zach, on the ROTCE, it sounds like it's all numerator driven versus capital driven, particularly given your comments on the capital impact. Additionally, could you detail some of those investment plans, if you could, and also maybe just reassure some investors that are seeing the sentence that there are no branch closures, but you're getting 30% cost saves anyway?

Question: Erika Najarian - UBS Securities LLC - Analyst : And Steve, the follow-up question is for you. You've been CEO of Huntington for a very long time and have built a very strong culture. As you expand inorganically, how do you make sure that the Huntington culture is the prevailing culture of the pro forma company? And how do you balance that with retaining the top talent and making sure that you're not being poached by opportunistic banks as this deal gets integrated? Stephen Steinour - Huntington Bancshares Inc - Chairman of the Board, President, Chief Executive Officer of Huntington and President, Chief Executive Officer of Huntington Bank Well, that's a great question, Erika, as well. And we are very intentional about the teams that we bring on in any combination like this. And a lot of that groundwork has already been done in terms of selections. And over the next weeks, there'll be more internal communication around that. Cadence is a nearly 150-year-old company like Huntington in many, many respects, very customer service-focused, very much about communities We align incredibly well culturally with them. Again, we've had four months of significant interaction at multiple levels in the company to have this appreciation for their values and the nature of how they operate. And so we're highly confident in our ability to execute, including the cultural elements. We spend a lot of time on that. And we'll begin that today. We'll be in Tupelo, Mississippi today. We've got 23 stops over the next two weeks that the management team will be doing. We're going to touch more than half the colleagues in these first two weeks, and part of this will be with the view of engaging them but also retaining the key colleagues, most of whom have already been contacted. Brant Standridge - Huntington Bancshares Inc - Senior Executive Vice President, President - Consumer and Regional Banking Erika, if I could just add to that, what Steve is describing is really a partnership approach to these opportunities, and it's proven that that leads to less disruption. And the company, as you've noted, has been successful in executing this approach. TCF was a great example. Veritex is off to an excellent start. And also, as you look at the buildout of the commercial bank and the commercial verticals that we've been able to build, that is another example of where this partnership approach can be quite significant. And the last comment I'll just reinforce is this has been a significant part of the diligence. Myself and Dan have actually traveled to a number of markets in the Huntington footprint so that that team had a good understanding of our operating model so that we could assure going in that we REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. OCTOBER 27, 2025 / 12:30PM, HBAN.OQ - Huntington Bancshares Inc to Acquire Cadence Bank Call would have a high level of alignment through this process. So we feel confident that we can deliver in these markets, and we feel confident that we'll have key leaders in place that can assist in doing that.

Question: Manan Gosalia - Morgan Stanley & Co Ltd - Analyst : Hi. Good morning, all. Stephen Steinour - Huntington Bancshares Inc - Chairman of the Board, President, Chief Executive Officer of Huntington and President, Chief Executive Officer of Huntington Bank Good morning.

Question: Manan Gosalia - Morgan Stanley & Co Ltd - Analyst : Great. Thanks for that. And then maybe as a follow up, can you talk a little bit more about the integration process? You just closed Veritex. Now you're buying Cadence, which is also in the process of integrating a couple of acquisitions. Does that make the integration process a little bit more challenging, or maybe it takes a little bit longer? Can you just speak to that? Brant Standridge - Huntington Bancshares Inc - Senior Executive Vice President, President - Consumer and Regional Banking A couple of points I would make. This is Brant. First of all, as it relates to the organic plans that we have in North and South Carolina and other places, those are fully funded, and we have dedicated teams, and so those things continue. We have also dedicated resources to our integration planning and execution, and those resources have been obviously operational for quite some period of time. And the integration with Veritex is going quite well. In fact, we would plan to execute the conversion early first quarter. Steve mentioned this a number of times, but as it relates to Cadence, we also have a lot of early planning that's taken place. The technology, the integration teams have been meeting well in advance of today's announcement. We've had lots of conversations about operating model and key talent decisions, which will be helpful as we move into the integration. And we've also had a chance to take the timelines for both integrations and stack them on top of each other and have a level of confidence that we can effectively deliver both. The last comment I would make is the company has a history with the rigor that we display of executing these integrations both efficiently and seamlessly, and I would expect we will do that in these two as well. Stephen Steinour - Huntington Bancshares Inc - Chairman of the Board, President, Chief Executive Officer of Huntington and President, Chief Executive Officer of Huntington Bank These have been purposely sequenced, Manan. And we're going to be very busy, of course, and very focused. We're going to drive organic growth at peer-leading levels, and we're going to get these two integrations done very successfully. So we have a lot on our plate. We're fully committed to delivering both.

Question: Ken Usdin - Bernstein Autonomous LLP - Analyst : Hey, guys. If I could clean up a couple of quick things, first of all, the loan rate mark, the $1.56 billion, you have a general sense of what that expected life is for that piece of the accretion?

Question: Ken Usdin - Bernstein Autonomous LLP - Analyst : Perfect. And then the next line, there's securities restructuring that happens day two. Is that included in the EPS accretion, and how can we think about the magnitude of that and how you think about the earn-back on that piece of it?