Company: WTFCN
Filing Date: 2025-11-06
Form Type: 10-Q
Source: 0001015328-25-000207
Chunk: 66

Company: WINTRUST FINANCIAL CORP
Filing Date: 2025-11-06
Form: 10-Q
Item: Item 1
Chunk 66
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. The unobservable inputs are determined through internal assumptions that may vary from period to period due to external factors, such as market movement and credit rating adjustments.At September 30, 2025, the Company classified $129.8 million of municipal securities as Level 3. These municipal securities are bond issuances for various municipal government entities primarily located in the Chicago metropolitan area, southern Wisconsin and west Michigan and are privately placed, non-rated bonds without CUSIP numbers. The Company’s methodology for pricing these securities focuses on three distinct inputs: equivalent rating, yield and other pricing terms. To determine the rating for a given non-rated investment debt security, the Investment Operations Department references a rated, publicly issued bond by the same issuer if available. A reduction is then applied to the rating obtained from the comparable bond, as the Company believes if liquidated, a non-rated bond would be valued less than a similar bond with a verifiable rating. The reduction applied by the Company is one complete rating grade (i.e., a “AA” rating for a comparable bond would be reduced to “A” for the Company’s valuation). For bond issuances without comparable bond proxies, a rating of “BBB” was assigned. In the third quarter of 2025, all of the ratings derived by the Investment Operations Department using the above process were “BBB” or better. The fair value measurement noted above is sensitive to the rating input, as a higher rating typically results in an increased valuation. The remaining pricing inputs used in the bond valuation are observable. Based on the rating determined in the above process, Investment Operations obtains a corresponding current market yield curve available to market participants. Other terms including coupon, maturity date, redemption price, number of coupon payments per year, and accrual method are obtained from the individual bond term sheets. Certain municipal bonds held by the Company at September 30, 2025 are continuously callable. When valuing these bonds, the fair value is capped at par value as the Company assumes a market participant would not pay more than par for a continuously callable bond. Mortgage loans held-for-sale—The fair value of mortgage loans held-for-sale is typically determined by reference to investor price sheets for loan products with similar characteristics. Loans measured with this valuation technique are classified as Level 2 in the fair value hierarchy. At September 30, 2025, the Company classified $54.7 million of certain delinquent mortgage loans held-for-sale as Level 3. For such delinquent loans in which investor interest may be