Third Coast Bancshares (TCBX) Risk Analysis

The preparation of financial statements and related disclosures in conformity with GAAP requires us to make judgments, assumptions and estimates that affect the amounts reported in our consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. Our critical accounting policies, which are included in the section captioned “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Critical Accounting Policies” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, describe those significant accounting policies and methods used in the preparation of our consolidated financial statements that we consider “critical” because they require judgments, assumptions and estimates that materially affect our consolidated financial statements and related disclosures. As a result, if future events or regulatory views concerning such analysis differ significantly from the judgments, assumptions and estimates in our critical accounting policies, those events or assumptions could have a material impact on our consolidated financial statements and related disclosures, in each case resulting in our needing to revise or restate prior period financial statements, cause damage to our reputation and the price of our common stock, and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. There could be material changes to our financial statements and disclosures if there are changes in accounting standards or regulatory interpretations of existing standards. From time to time the FASB or the SEC change the financial accounting and reporting standards that govern the preparation of our financial statements. Such changes may result in us being subject to new accounting and reporting standards or change existing accounting and reporting standards. In addition, the bodies that interpret the accounting standards (such as banking regulators or outside auditors) may change their interpretations or positions on how new or existing standards should be applied. These changes may be beyond our control, can be hard to predict and can materially impact how we record and report our financial condition and results of operations. In some cases, we could be required to apply a new standard, revise an existing standard or change the application of an existing standard in such a way that financial statements for periods previously reported are revised. Such changes could materially change our financial statements and related disclosures and, depending on the nature of the revision, could cause damage to our reputation and the price of our common stock and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The business of lending is inherently risky, including risks that the principal of or interest on any loan will not be repaid timely or at all or that the value of any collateral supporting the loan will be insufficient to cover our outstanding exposure. These risks may be affected by the strength of the borrower’s business sector and local, regional and national market and economic conditions. Many of our loans are made to small- to medium-sized businesses that may be less able to withstand competitive, economic and financial pressures than larger borrowers. Our risk management practices, such as monitoring the concentration of our loans within specific industries and our credit approval practices, may not adequately reduce credit risk, and our credit administration personnel, policies and procedures may not adequately adapt to changes in economic or any other conditions affecting customers and the quality of our loan portfolio. A failure to effectively measure and limit the credit risk associated with our loan portfolio could lead to unexpected losses and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

As of December 31, 2025, our ten largest loan relationships (including related entities) totaled approximately $421.7 million in loans, or 9.6% of the total loan portfolio. The concentration risk associated with having a small number of large loan relationships is that, if one or more of these relationships were to become delinquent or suffer default, we could be at serious risk of material losses. The allowance for loan losses may not be adequate to cover losses associated with any of these relationships, and any loss or increase in the allowance would negatively affect our earnings and capital. Even if the loans are collateralized, the large increase in classified assets could harm our reputation with our regulators and inhibit our ability to execute our business plan. Appraisals and other valuation techniques we use in evaluating and monitoring loans secured by real property, other real estate owned and repossessed personal property may not accurately describe the net value of the asset. In considering whether to make a loan secured by real property, we generally require an appraisal of the property. However, an appraisal is only an estimate of the value of the property at the time the appraisal is made, and, as real estate values may change significantly in relatively short periods of time (especially in periods of heightened economic uncertainty), this estimate may not accurately describe the net value of the real property collateral after the loan is made. As a result, we may not be able to realize the full amount of any remaining indebtedness when we foreclose on and sell the relevant property. In addition, we rely on appraisals and other valuation techniques to establish the value of our OREO, and personal property that we acquire through foreclosure proceedings and to determine certain loan impairments. If any of these valuations are inaccurate, our combined and consolidated financial statements may not reflect the correct value of our OREO, and our allowance for loan losses may not reflect accurate loan impairments. This could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. As of December 31, 2025, we held $8.4 million of OREO or repossessed property and equipment. We engage in lending secured by real estate and may be forced to foreclose on the collateral and own the underlying real estate, subjecting us to the costs and potential risks associated with the ownership of the real property, and consumer protection initiatives or changes in state or federal law may substantially raise the cost of foreclosure or prevent us from foreclosing at all. Since we originate loans secured by real estate, we may have to foreclose on the collateral property to protect our investment and may thereafter own and operate such property, in which case we would be exposed to the risks inherent in the ownership of real estate. As of December 31, 2025, we held $8.4 million of OREO. The amount that we, as a mortgagee, may realize after a default is dependent upon factors outside of our control, including, but not limited to general or local economic condition, environmental cleanup liability, assessments, interest rates, real estate tax rates, operating expenses of the mortgaged properties, ability to obtain and maintain adequate occupancy of the properties, zoning laws, governmental and regulatory rules, and natural disasters. Our inability to manage the amount of costs or size of the risks associated with the ownership of real estate, or write-downs in the value of other real estate owned, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, consumer protection initiatives or changes in state or federal law may substantially increase the time and expense associated with the foreclosure process or prevent us from foreclosing at all. While Texas foreclosure laws have historically been favorable to lenders, a number of states in recent years have either considered or adopted foreclosure reform laws that make it substantially more difficult and expensive for lenders to foreclose on properties in default, and we cannot be certain that Texas will not adopt similar legislation in the future. Additionally, federal regulators have prosecuted a number of mortgage servicing companies for alleged consumer law violations. If new state or federal laws or regulations are ultimately enacted that significantly raise the cost of foreclosure or raise outright barriers, such cost barriers could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operation.

Our principal sources of liquidity include earnings, deposits, repayment by clients of loans we have made to them, and the proceeds from sales by us of our equity and debt securities or from borrowings that we may obtain. In addition, from time to time, we borrow from the FHLB of Dallas. Our future growth will largely depend on our ability to grow and maintain our deposit base, which we may not be able to achieve. As of December 31, 2025, we had a loan to deposit ratio of 95.0%. The account and deposit balances can decrease when clients perceive alternative investments, such as the stock market or real estate, as providing a better risk/return tradeoff. If clients move money out of bank deposits and into investments (or similar deposit products at other institutions that may provide a higher rate of return), we could lose a relatively low cost source of funds, increasing our funding costs and reducing our net interest income and net income. Additionally, any loss of funds could result in lower loan originations, which could materially negatively impact our growth strategy and results of operations.

Our largest deposit relationships currently make up a material percentage of our deposits. Further, our brokered deposit account balance was $660.4 million, or approximately 14.3% of our total deposits, as of December 31, 2025, and $159.0 million, or 3.4% of our total deposits, was through one brokered deposit relationship as of December 31, 2025. Withdrawals of deposits by any one of our largest depositors or by one of our related customer groups could force us to rely more heavily on borrowings and other sources of funding for our business and withdrawal demands, adversely affecting our net interest margin and results of operations. We may also be forced, as a result of any withdrawal of deposits, to rely more heavily on other, potentially more expensive and less stable funding sources. Consequently, the occurrence of any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are subject to interest rate risk and fluctuations in interest rates may adversely affect our earnings. Changes in interest rates could have an adverse effect on our net interest income and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Many factors outside our control impact interest rates, including governmental monetary policies, inflation, recession, changes in unemployment, the money supply and international economic conditions and volatility and instability in domestic and foreign financial markets. The majority of our banking assets and liabilities are monetary in nature and subject to risk from changes in interest rates. Like most financial institutions, our earnings are significantly dependent on our net interest income. Different types of assets and liabilities may react differently and at different times to market rate changes. We may periodically experience “gaps” in the interest rate 20sensitivities of our assets and liabilities, meaning that either our interest-bearing liabilities will be more sensitive to changes in market interest rates than our interest-earning assets, or vice versa. In either event, if market interest rates should move contrary to our position, this “gap” will negatively impact our earnings. The impact on earnings is more adverse when short-term interest rates increase more than long-term interest rates or when long-term interest rates decrease more than short-term interest rates. Interest rate increases often result in larger payment requirements for our borrowers, which increase the potential for default. At the same time, the marketability of the property securing a loan may be adversely affected by any reduced demand resulting from higher interest rates. An increase in interest rates can adversely impact the ability of borrowers to pay the principal or interest on loans and may lead to an increase in loans on nonaccrual status and a reduction of interest income recognized. Further, when we place a loan on nonaccrual status, we reverse any accrued but unpaid interest receivable, which decreases interest income. At the same time, we continue to have a cost to fund the loan, which is reflected as interest expense, without any interest income to offset the associated funding expense. In a low interest rate environment, loan customers often pursue long-term fixed rate credits, which could adversely affect our earnings and net interest margin if rates increase. If short-term interest rates remain at low levels for a prolonged period and longer-term interest rates fall, we could experience net interest margin compression as our interest-earning assets would continue to reprice downward while our interest-bearing liability rates could fail to decline in tandem.

A commitment to extend credit is a formal agreement to lend funds to a client as long as there is no violation of any condition established under the agreement. The actual borrowing needs of our clients under these credit commitments have historically been lower than the contractual amount of the commitments. A significant portion of these commitments expire without being drawn upon. Because of the credit profile of our clients, we typically have a substantial amount of total unfunded credit commitments, which is not reflected on our balance sheet. As of December 31, 2025, we had $1.79 billion in unfunded credit commitments and standby letters of credit to our clients. Actual borrowing needs of our clients may exceed our expectations, especially in a challenging economic environment when our clients’ companies may be more dependent on our credit commitments due to the lack of available credit elsewhere, the increasing costs of credit, or the limited availability of financings from venture firms. This could adversely affect our liquidity, which could impair our ability to fund operations and meet obligations as they become due and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. See “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business and Operations—A lack of liquidity could impair our ability to fund operations and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.”

We may need to raise additional capital, in the form of additional debt or equity, in the future to have sufficient capital resources and liquidity to meet our commitments and fund our business needs and future growth, particularly if the quality of our assets or earnings were to deteriorate significantly. Our ability to raise additional capital, if needed, will depend on, among other things, conditions in the capital markets at that time, which are outside of our control, and our financial condition. Economic conditions and a loss of confidence in financial institutions may increase our cost of funding and limit access to certain customary sources of capital or make such capital only available on unfavorable terms, including interbank borrowings, repurchase agreements and borrowings from the discount window of the Federal Reserve. We may not be able to obtain capital on acceptable terms or at all. Any occurrence that may limit our access to the capital markets, such as a decline in the confidence of debt purchasers, depositors of our Bank or counterparties participating in the capital markets or other disruption in capital markets, may adversely affect our capital costs and our ability to raise capital and, in turn, our liquidity. Further, if we need to raise capital in the future, we may have to do so when many other financial institutions are also seeking to raise capital and would then have to compete with those institutions for investors. An inability to raise additional capital on acceptable terms when needed could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Liquidity is essential to our business. Liquidity risk is the potential that we will be unable to meet our obligations as they become due because of an inability to liquidate assets or obtain adequate funding. We require sufficient liquidity to meet customer loan requests, customer deposit maturities and withdrawals, payments on our debt obligations as they come due and other cash commitments under both normal operating conditions and other unpredictable circumstances, including events causing industry or general financial market stress. We rely on our ability to generate deposits and effectively manage the repayment and maturity schedules of our loans and investment securities, respectively, to ensure that we have adequate liquidity to fund our operations. An inability to raise funds through deposits, borrowings, the sale of our investment securities, the sale of loans, and other sources could have a substantial negative effect on our liquidity. Our most important source of funds is deposits. As of December 31, 2025, approximately $3.88 billion, or 83.8%, of our total deposits were noninterest-bearing deposits, negotiable order of withdrawal, or NOW, savings and money market accounts. Historically our savings, money market deposit accounts, NOW and demand accounts have been stable sources of funds. However, these deposits are subject to potentially dramatic fluctuations in availability or price due to factors that may be outside of our control, such as a loss of confidence by customers in us or the banking sector generally, customer perceptions of our financial health and general reputation, increasing competitive pressures from other financial services firms for consumer or corporate customer deposits, changes in interest rates and returns on other investment classes. As a result, there could be significant outflows of deposits within short periods of time or significant changes in pricing necessary to maintain current customer deposits or attract additional deposits, increasing our funding costs and reducing our net interest income and net income. As of December 31, 2025, the $747.7 million remaining balance of deposits consisted of certificates of deposit, of which $717.1 million, or 15.5% of our total deposits, were due to mature within one year. Historically, a majority of our certificates of deposit are renewed upon maturity as long as we pay competitive interest rates. These customers are, however, interest-rate conscious and may move funds into higher-yielding investment alternatives. If customers transfer money out of the Bank’s deposits and into other investments such as money market funds, we would lose a relatively low-cost source of funds, increasing our funding costs and reducing our net interest income and net income. Other primary sources of funds consist of cash flows from operations and our ability to borrow from the FHLB. We also may borrow funds from third-party lenders, such as other financial institutions. Our access to funding sources in amounts adequate to finance or capitalize our activities, or on terms that are acceptable to us, could be impaired by factors that affect us directly or the financial services industry or economy in general, such as disruptions in the financial markets or negative views and expectations about the prospects for the financial services industry. Our access to funding sources could also be affected by a decrease in the level of our business activity as a result of a downturn in the Texas economy or by one or more adverse regulatory actions against us. A failure to maintain adequate liquidity could adversely impact our ability to originate loans, invest in securities, meet our expenses, or fulfill obligations such as repaying our borrowings or meeting deposit withdrawal demands, any of which could, in turn, have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may incur additional debt or issue new debt securities, which would be senior to our common stock. At December 31, 2025, we had $81.0 million of subordinated debentures and $37.9 million outstanding on the line of credit senior debt. In addition, at December 31, 2025, we had 69,400 shares of Series A Preferred Stock outstanding. In the future, we may increase our capital resources by incurring additional borrowings or making offerings of debt or equity securities, which may include senior or additional subordinated notes, classes of preferred shares or common shares. Holders of our common stock are not entitled to preemptive rights or other protections against dilution.

Our business strategy includes evaluating strategic opportunities to grow through de novo branching, and we believe that banking location expansion has been meaningful to our growth since inception. De novo branching carries with it certain potential risks, including significant startup costs and anticipated initial operating losses; an inability to gain regulatory approval; an inability to secure the services of qualified senior management to operate the de novo banking locations and successfully integrate and promote our corporate culture; poor market reception for de novo banking locations established in markets where we do not have a preexisting reputation; challenges posed by local economic conditions; challenges associated with securing attractive locations at a reasonable cost; and the additional strain on management resources and internal systems and controls. Failure to adequately manage the risks associated with our anticipated growth through de novo branching could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.