Ameris: The Record Quarter the Market Won't Pay Up For
Ameris just printed its best EPS in five years, yet the stock is 11% off its July peak. The call is really about whether its margin advantage can survive the next deposit-beta cycle.
ABCB · Earnings Call · 2026-10-23
A record quarter, and a skeptical tape
Ameris Bancorp's Q3 2026 call opened with the kind of numbers most regional banks would love to print. EPS of $1.73 was a five-year record; ROA was 1.61%, PPNROA 2.27%, ROTCE 15.01%, adjusted efficiency 49.15%, and NIM 3.87%, down only a basis point. “This quarter again supported all of these core fundamentals and resulted in a five-year record high EPS of $1.73 per diluted share.” — Palmer Proctor, Chief Executive Officer · 2026-10-23 Yet the stock is down 3.9% over the last 90 days and 11.3% from its July 16 peak of $93.17. That gap is the story. The market is not arguing with the quarter; it is arguing with the durability of the margin. The company's own keyword map is split between profitable growth, its top theme, and CRE payoffs at No. 2 and deposit rate at No. 5 — growth and funding pressure in the same frame.
The margin call that keeps getting deferred
Nicole Stokes was careful not to overpromise: “Our asset liability sensitivity is very close to neutral, but we do believe that some margin compression is possible over the next few quarters due to higher deposit costs and competition.” — Nicole Stokes, Chief Financial Officer · 2026-10-23 Longtime listeners have heard this before. In July she said “If we don't have those one-offs next quarter, we could see a few basis points of compression.” — Nicole Stokes, CFO · 2026-07-24 In April: “I understand that every quarter, I say that there could be some slight compression coming.” — Nicole Stokes, Chief Financial Officer · 2026-04-24 And back in October 2025: “My margin guidance has said compression for several quarters now, and we haven't seen it. But I will say that we're starting to see it.” — Nicole Stokes, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) · 2025-10-28 The pattern matters. Ameris has repeatedly guided to modest NIM erosion and repeatedly beaten it, largely because noninterest-bearing deposits and asset repricing outran funding pressure. The question now is whether the latest Fed rate hike — late in the quarter — finally closes the gap.
The key admission is not the headline guidance; it is the math underneath it.
if we had to fund all of our loan growth with just interest-bearing deposits, we would be slightly margin dilutive, about 25 basis points kind of spread difference between that interest-bearing deposit growth and the loan growth production rates.
That is the hinge. Ameris's growth is margin-accretive only because it still carries a 29.2% noninterest-bearing mix and a granular core deposit base. If that mix migrates, the same loan growth becomes a margin headwind. The company's fortress balance sheet — CET1 above 13%, TCE 11.14%, total risk-based capital back at 15% — is real, but it is not a shield against deposit beta. The market knows this; “fortress balance sheet” was a global top-75 keyword last quarter, not a proprietary Ameris advantage.
Growth is still there, but it is a grind
The loan story is better than the headline 3% annualized growth suggests. Production was $2.3B, pipelines were full, and management said the pipeline was up at quarter-end versus Q2. “the pipeline right now is, the good news is it was up at the end of the third quarter relative to where we were even in the second quarter.” — Palmer Proctor, Chief Executive Officer · 2026-10-23 CRE payoffs are the offset — a sign of a healthy market, as Palmer argues, but also a cap on net growth. Nicole's line is that if payoffs level off, CRE could grow again next quarter. The competitive backdrop is not easing: “We do not feel like we need to chase deals. We are seeing a lot of irrational pricing out there.” — Palmer Proctor, Chief Executive Officer · 2026-10-23 That is the deals today problem in a nutshell. Management would rather protect loan rate discipline than buy growth.
Expenses are the other swing factor. Nicole pushed back on consensus for 2027, guiding to roughly $165M–$169M per quarter, and said mortgage is likely to be flat to down. The mortgage business — still 90%-plus purchase — saw production fall 13.7% and fees fall 10.1% in Q3. That is a manageable drag, not a crisis, but it removes a tailwind. Nashville is the new growth vector: a small team, three or four months in, already leading with deposits. Nashville is early, but it fits the strategy of expanding inside attractive southeastern markets rather than buying growth.
Capital, credit, and what the market is missing
Credit remains a genuine strength. Net charge-offs were 19bp annualized, guidance is 20–25bp, criticized assets are 115bp — less than half the peer midpoint, per Doug Strange — and the reserve is 1.62% of loans, or 315% of NPAs. That is why the “fortress” language is not just bravado. The last filed balance sheet showed $22.6B of deposits and $4.1B of common equity. After the drawdown, shares trade at 1.5x book and 16.1x earnings — not cheap enough to be a deep-value call, but not stretched against its own history.
The buyback is the obvious release valve. The board renewed a $200M authorization, but Ameris did not repurchase in Q3. With the stock 11% off its high and capital still building, that is a lever management can pull. The priority stack — organic growth first, then opportunistic buybacks, then dividend, then M&A — has not changed. Palmer was blunt that M&A would take “something very special,” and that most targets he likes are not for sale. That is consistent with prior calls, so it is not news; the news is that the stock now gives them a better entry point on their own equity.
The quarter, then, is a high-quality print trapped in a sector debate. Ameris is still growing, still profitable, and still over-capitalized. But the market is asking whether the NIM can stay near 3.87% as deposit competition catches up. The fourth quarter will tell: watch the October deposit betas, the pace of CRE payoffs, and whether the buyback finally gets used. If the margin holds, the drawdown looks like an opportunity. If it does not, the record EPS will be remembered as the top tick of a very good cycle.