Peapack-Gladstone Financial (45V) Q3 2026 Earnings Report

The call was clearly constructive, with strong earnings growth, positive operating leverage, robust loan and deposit growth, improving credit metrics, a strong pipeline and continued progress toward higher returns. The main challenges were funding-cost and deposit-pricing pressure, lower noninterest income, some softness and required modifications in parts of the multifamily portfolio, narrower capital buffers and the fact that long-term return targets have not yet been reached. The highlights significantly outweighed the lowlights.

Management’s quarterly operating objectives remain $200 million of loan growth, $200 million of deposit growth and $2 million of core earnings growth, with “absolute visibility” in the fourth quarter and “enough strength” to see the first quarter of next year, although overall growth is expected to “step back a little” and be “probably closer to the 2-2-2 plan”; NIM is expected to improve 2 to 3 basis points in each quarter going into ’27, with 6 to 9 basis points for the year, while deposit beta is expected to be 50% to 60%. Next year’s operating expense growth is expected to be “mid- to upper single digit” and “mid- to single-digit growth”; about $500 million of rent-regulated multifamily will reprice over the next 5 quarters, and over the next 2 years about 20% of the book, or about $1.4 billion in fixed-rate assets, will reprice with a pickup of somewhere between 150 to 200 bps. The company is targeting 90 bps ROA, “maybe getting to 1% early next year,” closer to 1.25% in the fourth quarter of ’27, annualized core earnings of about $180 million versus about $130 million, and long-term objectives of a 1.25%-plus return on assets and a 14% plus return on equity or better.