BYLINE BANCORP, INC. - Annual Report: 2018 (Form 10-K)

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark One)

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018

OR

Commission File Number 001-38139

Byline Bancorp, Inc.

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its Charter)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (773) 244-7000

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act: common stock, par value $0.01 per share; Common stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. YES ☐ NO ☒

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act. YES ☐ NO ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. YES ☒ NO ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to submit such files). YES ☒ NO ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§229.405) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of Registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act.  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). YES ☐ NO ☒

The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates of the Registrant, based on the closing price of the Registrant’s common stock on the New York Stock Exchange on June 30, 2018, was approximately $552,556,258.

The number of shares of Registrant’s common stock outstanding as of March 14, 2019 was 36,369,982.

Portions of the Registrant’s Definitive Proxy Statement relating to its 2019 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, scheduled to be held on June 7, 2019, are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Report.

Table of Contents

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Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and in other documents we file with or furnish to the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) that are not historical facts may constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements about Byline Bancorp, Inc.’s (“Byline”) expectations, beliefs, plans, strategies, predictions, forecasts, objectives or assumptions of future events or performance are not historical facts and may be forward-looking. These statements include, but are not limited to, the expected completion date, financial benefits and other effects of the pending merger of Byline and Oak Park River Forest Bankshares, Inc. These statements are often, but not always, made through the use of words or phrases such as “anticipates,” “believes,” “expects,” “can,” “could,” “may,” “predicts,” “potential,” “opportunity,” “should,” “will,” “estimate,” “plans,” “projects,” “continuing,” “ongoing,” “expects,” “seeks,” “intends” and similar words or phrases. Accordingly, these statements involve estimates, known and unknown risks, assumptions and uncertainties that could cause actual strategies, actions or results to differ materially from those expressed in them, and are not guarantees of timing, future results or other events or performance. Because forward-looking statements are necessarily only estimates of future strategies, actions or results, based on management’s current expectations, assumptions and estimates on the date hereof, and there can be no assurance that actual strategies, actions or results will not differ materially from expectations, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such statements. Factors that may cause such a difference include, but are not limited to, the reaction to the transaction of the companies’ customers, employees and counterparties; customer disintermediation; inflation; expected synergies, cost savings and other financial benefits of the proposed transaction might not be realized within the expected timeframes or might be less than projected; the requisite stockholder and regulatory approvals for the proposed transaction might not be obtained; credit and interest rate risks associated with Byline’s and Oak Park River Forest Bankshares, Inc.’s respective businesses, customers, borrowings, repayment, investment, and deposit practices; general economic conditions, either nationally or in the market areas in which Byline and Oak Park River Forest Bankshares, Inc. operate or anticipate doing business, are less favorable than expected; new regulatory or legal requirements or obligations; and other risks.

Our ability to predict results or the actual effects of future plans, strategies or events is inherently uncertain. Factors which could cause actual results or conditions to differ materially from those reflected in forward-looking statements include:

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These risks and uncertainties should be considered in evaluating any forward-looking statements, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Additional information concerning the Company, including additional factors and risks that could materially affect our business and financial results, are included herein. See Item 1A. “Risk Factors”. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. We assume no obligation to update any of these statements in light of new information, future events or otherwise unless required under the federal securities laws.

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PART I

Item 1. Business.

General

Byline Bancorp, Inc., headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, is a bank holding company and we conduct all our business activities through our subsidiary, Byline Bank, a full service commercial bank, and Byline Bank’s subsidiaries. The words “the Company,” “we,” “Byline,” “our” and “us” refer to Byline Bancorp, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries, unless we indicate otherwise.

Through Byline Bank, we offer a broad range of banking products and services to small and medium sized businesses, commercial real estate and financial sponsors and to consumers who generally live or work near our branches. In addition to our traditional commercial banking business, we provide small ticket equipment leasing solutions through Byline Financial Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Byline Bank, headquartered in Bannockburn, Illinois with sales offices in Illinois and New York, and sales representatives in Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York. Following our acquisition of Ridgestone Financial Services, Inc. (“Ridgestone”) in October 2016, we also participate in U.S. government guaranteed lending programs and originate U.S. government guaranteed loans. Byline Bank was the fifth most active originator of SBA loans in the country and the most active SBA lender in Illinois and Wisconsin, as reported by the SBA for the quarter ended December 31, 2018. Following our acquisition of First Evanston Bancorp, Inc. (“First Evanston”) and its subsidiary bank, First Bank & Trust, at the end of May 2018, we also provide trust and wealth management services to our customers. As of December 31, 2018, we had consolidated total assets of $4.9 billion, total gross loans and leases outstanding of $3.5 billion, total deposits of $3.7 billion, and total stockholders’ equity of $650.7 million.

Ridgestone acquisition

On October 14, 2016, we completed the acquisition of Ridgestone Financial Services, Inc., under the terms of a definitive merger agreement. As of the acquisition date, Ridgestone had $447.4 million in assets, including $347.3 million of loans, $14.7 million of loans held for sale, $27.2 million of securities, $21.5 million of servicing assets and total deposits of $358.7 million. Ridgestone’s loan portfolio was primarily comprised of the retained unguaranteed portion of U.S. government guaranteed loans as a participant in the SBA and USDA (together, “U.S. government guaranteed”) lending programs.

First Evanston acquisition

On May 31, 2018, we completed the acquisition of First Evanston, under the terms of a definitive merger agreement. As a result of the merger, First Evanston’s wholly owned bank subsidiary, First Bank & Trust, was merged with and into Byline Bank. As of the acquisition date, First Evanston had $1.1 billion in assets, including $932.4 million of loans, $128.1 million of securities, and total deposits of $1.0 billion.

At the effective time of the merger (the “Effective Time”), each share of First Evanston’s common stock (the “First Evanston Common Stock”) was converted into the right to receive: (1) 3.994 shares of Byline’s common stock, and (2) an amount in cash equal to $27.0 million divided by the number of outstanding shares of First Evanston Common Stock as of the closing date, with cash paid in lieu of any fractional shares. Options to acquire First Evanston Common Stock that were outstanding at the Effective Time were converted into options of substantially equivalent value to acquire Byline common stock. In the aggregate, Byline paid $27.0 million in cash and issued 6,682,850 shares of its common stock in respect of the outstanding shares of First Evanston Common Stock. The value of the total merger consideration at closing was approximately $179.1 million.

Oak Park River Forest acquisition

On October 17, 2018, we entered a definitive merger agreement with Oak Park River Forest Bankshares, Inc. (“Oak Park River Forest”), the parent company of Community Bank of Oak Park River Forest, pursuant to which we will acquire Oak Park River Forest through the merger of Oak Park River Forest with and into us, followed immediately by the merger of Community Bank of Oak Park River Forest with and into Byline Bank. As of December 31, 2018, Oak Park River Forest had $327.6 million in assets, including $31.2 million of securities, $269.5 million of loans, $2.5 million of loans held for sale, and $287.1 million of total deposits. Completion of the transaction is subject to the approval of Oak Park River Forest’s stockholders, and other customary closing conditions. We expect the acquisition to close during the first half of 2019.

Strategic branch consolidation

We continually perform strategic reviews of our existing banking footprint. With technology improvements and changes to customers’ banking preferences, we examine branch growth potential, customer usage, branch profitability, services provided, markets served and proximity to other locations with a goal of minimizing customer impact and deposit runoff. Since our recapitalization which occurred in June 2013, our branch network has been reduced from 88 to 58, including eight branches added through the First Evanston acquisition. During 2018, we consolidated six branches and two other facilities within our current network that had a minimal impact on our customer service levels, convenience, and business development capabilities. We will continue to strategically evaluate our locations based on our growth and profitability standards.

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We plan to continue to leverage our seasoned management team, the attractive market opportunity in the Chicago metropolitan area, our diversified lending approach and our track record of successfully integrating acquisitions to drive future growth. We believe that having a deep understanding of customers, longstanding ties to the communities in which we operate, a strong market position and exceptional employees allows us to provide the attention, responsiveness and customized service our clients seek while offering a diverse range of products to serve a variety of needs.

Segments

We have one reportable segment. Our chief operating decision maker, our Chief Executive Officer, evaluates the operations of the Company using consolidated information for purposes of allocating resources and assessing performance.

Our Products and Services

We are a full service, commercial bank offering a broad range of deposit products and lending services to small and medium sized businesses, commercial real estate and financial sponsors, and consumers around our 57 branch locations in the Chicago metropolitan area and one branch in Brookfield, Wisconsin. The products and services we offer are described below.

Retail deposits

We offer customers traditional retail deposit products through our branch network and the ability to access their accounts through online and mobile banking platforms. The wide variety of deposit products we offer include non-interest-bearing accounts, money market demand accounts, savings accounts, interest-bearing checking accounts and time deposits with maturities ranging from seven days to five years. We consider our core deposits, defined as all deposits except for time deposits exceeding $100,000, to be our primary and most valuable funding source, and as of December 31, 2018, core deposits represented 81.7% of our total deposits. We strive to retain an attractive deposit mix from both large and small customers as well as a broad market reach, which has resulted in our top 50 customers accounting for only 9.7% of all deposits, as of December 31, 2018. Our bankers are incentivized to acquire and maintain quality core deposits as we depend on these deposits to fund the majority of our loans and leases. Our incentive compensation plans are designed so that those arrangements appropriately balance risk and financial rewards, are compatible with effective risk management practices and are supported by effective governance. We believe that our long standing and high quality relationships with our depositors who provide us with long term funding are due to the convenience and dedicated service we offer. We leverage our expansive branch locations and deep network of customer relationships in the Chicago metropolitan area to provide both low cost funding sources for our lending business and deposit related fee income. We had $3.7 billion of deposits at December 31, 2018, and our average cost of deposits was 0.60% for the year ended December 31, 2018.

Commercial banking

Commercial banking is a fundamental component of our business. We define commercial banking as lending to small and medium sized businesses, real estate and financial sponsors. We offer a comprehensive range of commercial loan, deposit and cash management products. Our primary commercial lending groups are described below:

Commercial & industrial.  Our commercial and industrial (“C&I”) group focuses on small and lower middle market businesses with up to $50 million of annual revenue and seek to establish long term relationships. We believe this customer segment is underserved by larger institutions that do not focus on this space, as well as by smaller institutions that lack product sophistication and capabilities. We offer a broad range of lending products including term loans, revolving lines of credit, and cash management products and services. As of December 31, 2018, the C&I group managed a portfolio of $1.4 billion in loans outstanding.

Commercial real estate.  Our commercial real estate (“CRE”) business focuses on experienced real estate professionals with long track records of performance and access to ample equity capital sources. We believe our specialized expertise and efficient decision making process differentiate us from our competitors. We offer fixed and floating rate term loans, construction financing and revolving lines of credit with a wide range of term options. Our CRE portfolio is broadly diversified by property type including loans secured by multi family, retail, industrial and office properties. As of December 31, 2018, the CRE group had $538.2 million in loans outstanding.

Sponsor finance.  Our sponsor finance group provides senior secured financing solutions to private equity backed lower middle market companies throughout the U.S. with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization generally between $2.0 million and $10.0 million. We support the acquisition, recapitalization and growth investment efforts of private equity firms operating in the lower middle market, and we believe our expertise in this niche is unique for a bank our size. As of December 31, 2018, we had $217.7 million in sponsor finance loans outstanding.

Syndications.  From time to time, our syndications group seeks to deploy excess liquidity by opportunistically participating in syndicated loans, acquiring whole loans, or purchasing participations from lead banks that have existing relationships with well capitalized and experienced sponsors. We employed this strategy extensively following our recapitalization by leveraging our relationships with local, regional and national lenders as we developed our own lending capabilities and had excess liquidity. Now,

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with developed lending capabilities, our participation in syndications has decreased and represents a smaller piece of our portfolio. The syndications group targets transactions in the home mortgage, commercial real estate and C&I categories that provide attractive risk/reward characteristics, and we continue to maintain the ability to sell loan positions to manage credit and specific customer and industry concentrations. As of December 31, 2018, the group had $390.8 million in loan syndications outstanding.

Commercial deposits and cash management.  We also support our business clients with a variety of deposit and cash management products, along with business transaction accounts. Our comprehensive suite of products includes treasury services, information reporting, fraud management, cash collection and interest rate derivative products. We believe these tailored products allow us to provide a robust service offering to our clients and to support their day to day funding and risk management needs. These services are provided through multiple points of contact including branch, online and mobile interfaces.

Small Business Capital

We launched our U.S. government guaranteed lending business with the acquisition of Ridgestone in October 2016. This business serves small businesses in need of, and qualifying for, U.S. government guaranteed loans. We also provide SBA lending services throughout the country, with a primary focus on the Midwest, Tennessee and California. We generally sell the government guaranteed portion of SBA and USDA loans into the secondary market while retaining the non-guaranteed portion of the loan and the servicing rights. This allows us to realize one time gain on sale income along with a recurring servicing and interest revenue stream. In addition to the business development officers that we rely on to generate new business, we also have a dedicated servicing, portfolio management and workout staff with specialized expertise in U.S. government guaranteed loans. As of December 31, 2018, total loans and leases included the guaranteed amount of U.S. government guaranteed loans of $108.7 million. The total unpaid principal balances of loans serviced for others was $1.3 billion at December 31, 2018.

Small ticket equipment leasing

Through our Bank’s subsidiary, Byline Financial Group (“BFG”), we provide financing solutions for equipment vendors and their end users. The vertical markets served by our equipment vendors specialize primarily in healthcare, manufacturing, technology, specialty vehicles and energy efficiency. The end users (i.e., our lessees and borrowers) are primarily physician group practices, other healthcare related entities, manufacturers, retailers, veterinarians, wholesalers and automotive related industries. The average lease size at origination for BFG for the year ended December 31, 2018 was approximately $51,000. Our sales team originates leases throughout the country, and we have lessees in nearly every state. As of December 31, 2018, BFG had $191.3 million in leases outstanding with a weighted average life of approximately 1.8 years.

Wealth management and trust

We launched our trust and wealth management services with the acquisition of First Evanston in May 2018. This business provides investment, trust and wealth management services to our clients, including foundations and endowments and high net worth individuals. Services include fiduciary and executor services, financial planning solutions, investment advisory services, and private banking services. These services are provided through credentialed investment, legal, tax, and wealth management professionals who identify opportunities and provide services tailored to our customers’ goals and objectives. Assets under management were $571.5 million as of December 31, 2018.

Distribution channels

The primary market in which we operate is the Chicago metropolitan area, and our 57 branch network in this area is our core distribution channel. We operate the largest branch network in the city of Chicago of any Illinois-based bank, and we take advantage of our focused footprint and deep rooted relationships to target local customers with a diversified product offering.

Our expansive local branch network enables us to gather low cost deposits, promote the Byline brand and customer loyalty, originate loans, leases and other products and maintain relationships with our customers through regular community involvement. We believe our branch network is fundamental to our ability to achieve successful customer outreach in line with our culture, which promotes high touch engagement with our customers and proactive solutions.

While our branch network will continue to be our primary delivery channel, we understand the evolving banking environment requires digital interaction to keep pace with our customers’ needs. We have rationalized our branch network to increase efficiency while at the same time investing in our product development, particularly our online and mobile banking platforms that allow customers to transact via the digital channel, including bill payments, mobile deposits and peer to peer payment options.

When we deem it advisable, we launch marketing campaigns through our branches and online platform to advertise new products or promotional services. We view these two channels as key touchpoints with our customers and frequently strategize how we can best utilize these distribution networks.

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Competition

The financial services industry is highly competitive as we compete for loans, leases, deposits and customer relationships in our market. Competition involves efforts to retain current clients, make new loans and obtain new deposits, increase the scope and sophistication of services offered and offer competitive interest rates paid on deposits and charged on loans. Within our branch footprint, we face competition primarily from national, regional and other local banks that have established branch networks throughout the Chicago metropolitan area, giving them visible retail presence to customers.

In providing wealth management services, we also compete with retail and discount stockbrokers, investment advisors, mutual funds, insurance companies, and other financial institutions for wealth management customers. Competition is generally based on the variety of products and services offered to customers and the performance of funds under management. Our main competitors are financial service providers both within and outside of the geographic areas in which we maintain offices.

We believe our ability to provide a flexible, sophisticated product offering and an efficient process to our customers allows us to stay competitive in the financial services environment. Our local presence and hands-on approach enable us to provide a high level of service that our customers value.

We face competition in attracting and retaining qualified employees. Our ability to continue to compete effectively depends on our ability to attract new employees and retain and motivate existing employees.

Intellectual Property

In the highly competitive banking industry in which we operate, intellectual property is important to the success of our business. We registered the “Byline Bank” and “Byline Bancorp, Inc.” trademarks with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, along with various other trademarks, logos, and tag lines and we intend to protect the use of our trademarks and other intellectual property nationwide.

Employees

As of December 31, 2018, we had 943 full time equivalent employees. None of our employees are parties to a collective bargaining agreement. We consider our relationship with our employees to be good.

Corporate Information

Our principal executive offices are located at 180 North LaSalle Street, Suite 300, Chicago, Illinois 60601, and our telephone number at that address is (773) 244-7000. Our website address is www.bylinebancorp.com. We make available at this address, under the “Investor Relations” tab, free of charge, our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”) as soon as reasonably practicable after such material is electronically filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. There filings are also available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. The contents of our website are not incorporated by reference into this report.

Supervision and Regulation

We and our subsidiaries are subject to extensive regulation under federal and state banking laws that establish a comprehensive framework for our operations. This framework may materially affect our growth potential and financial performance and is intended primarily for the protection of depositors, customers, federal deposit insurance funds and the banking system as a whole, not for the protection of our stockholders and creditors. Significant elements of the statutes, regulations and policies applicable to us and our subsidiaries are described below.

Regulatory Agencies

We are a bank holding company under the Bank Holding Company (“BHC”) Act. Consequently, we and our subsidiaries are subject to supervision, regulation and examination by the Federal Reserve. The BHC Act provides generally for “umbrella” regulation of bank holding companies and functional regulation of holding company subsidiaries by applicable regulatory agencies. Byline Bank, our bank subsidiary, is a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) insured commercial bank chartered under the laws of Illinois. Our bank is not a member of the Federal Reserve System. Consequently, the FDIC and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (“IDFPR”) are the primary regulators of our bank and also regulate our bank’s subsidiaries. As the owner of an Illinois-chartered bank, we are also subject to supervision and examination by the IDFPR. We are also subject to the disclosure and regulatory requirements of the Securities Act and the Exchange Act as administered by the SEC, and the rules adopted by the New York Stock Exchange (the “NYSE”) applicable to NYSE listed companies.

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Permissible Activities for Bank Holding Companies

In general, the BHC Act limits the business of bank holding companies to banking, managing or controlling banks and other activities that the Federal Reserve has determined to be so closely related to banking as to be a proper incident thereto, which include certain activities relating to extending credit or acting as an investment or financial advisor. We currently do not conduct any non-banking activities through any non-bank subsidiaries.

Bank holding companies that qualify and elect to be treated as “financial holding companies” may engage in a broader range of additional activities than bank holding companies that are not financial holding companies. In particular, financial holding companies may engage in activities that are (i) financial in nature or incidental to such financial activities or (ii) complementary to a financial activity and do not pose a substantial risk to the safety and soundness of depository institutions or the financial system generally. These activities include securities underwriting and dealing, insurance underwriting and making merchant banking investments. We have not elected to be treated as a financial holding company and currently have no plans to make a financial holding company election.

The Federal Reserve has the power to order any bank holding company or any of its subsidiaries to terminate any activity or to terminate its ownership or control of any subsidiary when the Federal Reserve has reasonable grounds to believe that continuing such activity, ownership or control constitutes a serious risk to the financial soundness, safety or stability of any bank subsidiary of the bank holding company.

Permissible Activities for Banks

As an Illinois-chartered commercial bank, our bank’s business is subject to extensive supervision and regulation by state and federal bank regulatory agencies. Our business is generally limited to activities permitted by Illinois law and any applicable federal laws. Under the Illinois Banking Act, our bank may generally engage in all usual banking activities, including, among other things, accepting deposits; lending money on personal and real estate security; issuing letters of credit; buying, discounting, and negotiating promissory notes and other forms of indebtedness; buying and selling foreign currency and, subject to certain limitations, certain investment securities; engaging in certain insurance activities and maintaining safe deposit boxes on premises.

Illinois law also imposes restrictions on Byline Bank’s activities intended to ensure the safety and soundness of our bank. For example, Byline Bank is restricted under the Illinois Banking Act from investing in certain types of investment securities and is generally limited in the amount of money it can lend to a single borrower or invest in securities issued by a single issuer.

Acquisitions by Bank Holding Companies

The BHC Act, Section 18(c) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, popularly known as the “Bank Merger Act”, the Illinois Banking Act, the Illinois Bank Holding Company Act and other federal and state statutes regulate acquisitions of commercial banks and other FDIC-insured depository institutions. We must obtain the prior approval of the Federal Reserve under the BHC Act before (i) acquiring more than 5% of the voting stock of any FDIC-insured depository institution or other bank holding company (other than directly through our bank), (ii) acquiring all or substantially all of the assets of any bank or bank holding company or (iii) merging or consolidating with any other bank holding company. Under the Bank Merger Act, the prior approval of the FDIC is required for our bank to merge with another bank or purchase all or substantially all of the assets or assume any of the deposits of another FDIC- insured depository institution or to assume certain liabilities of non-banks. In reviewing applications seeking approval of merger and acquisition transactions, banking regulators consider, among other things, the competitive effect and public benefits of the transactions, the capital position and managerial resources of the combined organization, the risks to the stability of the U.S. banking or financial system, the applicant’s performance record under the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (“CRA”), the applicant’s compliance with fair housing and other consumer protection laws and the effectiveness of all organizations involved in combating money laundering activities. In addition, failure to implement or maintain adequate compliance programs could cause banking regulators not to approve an acquisition where regulatory approval is required or to prohibit an acquisition even if approval is not required.

Dividends; Stress Testing

We are a legal entity separate and distinct from Byline Bank and other subsidiaries. As a bank holding company, we are subject to certain restrictions on our ability to pay dividends under applicable banking laws and regulations.

Federal banking regulators are authorized to determine under certain circumstances relating to the financial condition of a bank holding company or a bank that the payment of dividends would be an unsafe or unsound practice and to prohibit payment thereof. In particular, federal banking regulators have stated that paying dividends that deplete a banking organization’s capital base to an inadequate level would be an unsafe and unsound banking practice and that banking organizations should generally pay dividends only out of current operating earnings. In addition, in the current financial and economic environment, the Federal Reserve has indicated that bank holding companies should carefully review their dividend policy and has discouraged payment ratios that are at maximum allowable levels unless both asset quality and capital are very strong. Under the capital rules defined below, institutions that seek to pay dividends must maintain 2.5% in Common Equity Tier 1 capital attributable to the capital conservation buffer, which was phased in over a three year period that began on January 1, 2016. For more information on these financial measures at the Company and Byline Bank, see Note 21 of the notes to our audited consolidated financial statements contained in Item 8 of this report.

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A significant portion of our income, on a stand-alone basis, comes from dividends from our bank, which is also the primary source of our liquidity. In addition to the restrictions discussed above, our bank is subject to limitations under Illinois law regarding the level of dividends that it may pay to us. Under the Illinois Banking Act, Byline Bank generally may not pay dividends in excess of its net profits. Under these restrictions, Byline Bank could pay aggregate dividends of approximately $134.7 million to us without obtaining affirmative regulatory approvals as of December 31, 2018.

As required by the Dodd-Frank Act, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC have implemented final rules regarding company-run stress testing. These rules require bank holding companies and banks with average total consolidated assets greater than $10 billion to conduct an annual company-run stress test of capital, consolidated earnings and losses under one base and at least two stress scenarios provided by the federal banking regulators. Neither we nor our bank is currently subject to the stress testing requirements, but we expect that if we become subject to those requirements, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC and the IDFPR will consider our results and those of our bank as an important factor in evaluating our and our bank’s capital adequacy, any proposed acquisitions by us or by our bank and whether any proposed dividends or stock repurchases by us or by our bank may be an unsafe or unsound practice.

Transactions with Affiliates and Insiders

Transactions between our bank and its subsidiaries, on the one hand, and us or any other subsidiary, on the other hand, are regulated under Sections 23A and 23B of the Federal Reserve Act. The Federal Reserve Act imposes quantitative and qualitative requirements and collateral requirements on covered transactions by Byline Bank with, or for the benefit of, its affiliates. Generally, Sections 23A and 23B of the Federal Reserve Act limits the extent to which our bank or its subsidiaries may engage in “covered transactions” with any one affiliate to an amount equal to 10% of our bank’s capital stock and surplus, limits the aggregate amount of all such transactions with all affiliates to an amount equal to 20% of such capital stock and surplus, and requires those transactions to be on terms at least as favorable to our bank as if the transaction were conducted with an unaffiliated third-party. Covered transactions are defined by statute to include a loan or extension of credit, as well as a purchase of securities issued by an affiliate, a purchase of assets (unless otherwise exempted by the Federal Reserve) from the affiliate, certain derivative transactions with an affiliate, the acceptance of securities issued by the affiliate as collateral for a loan, and the issuance of a guarantee, acceptance or letter of credit on behalf of an affiliate. In addition, any credit transactions with any affiliate must be secured by designated amounts of specified collateral.

Federal law also limits our bank’s authority to extend credit to its insiders, which is defined under applicable law to include its directors, executive officers and 10% stockholders, as well as to entities controlled by such persons. Among other things, extensions of credit to insiders are required to be made on terms that are substantially the same as, and follow credit underwriting procedures that are not less stringent than, those prevailing for comparable transactions with unaffiliated persons. Also, the terms of such extensions of credit may not involve more than the normal risk of non-repayment or present other unfavorable features and may not exceed certain limitations on the amount of credit extended to such persons individually and in the aggregate. In addition, certain of our stockholders are foreign nationals, and we and certain of these foreign national stockholders have entered into commitments with the Federal Reserve that restrict our ability to engage in certain business transactions without the consent of the Federal Reserve. Certain of our stockholders have also entered into passivity commitments with the Federal Reserve that generally restrict these stockholders from entering into banking or nonbanking transactions with us.

Source of Strength

Federal Reserve policy and federal law require bank holding companies to act as a source of financial and managerial strength to their subsidiary banks. Under this requirement, we are expected to commit resources to support Byline Bank, including at times when we may not be in a financial position to provide such resources, and it may not be in our, or our stockholders’ or creditors’, best interests to do so. In addition, any capital loans we make to our bank are subordinate in right of payment to depositors and to certain other indebtedness of our bank. In the event of our bankruptcy, any commitment by us to a federal banking regulatory agency to maintain the capital of our bank will be assumed by the bankruptcy trustee and entitled to priority of payment.

Regulatory Capital Requirements

The Federal Reserve monitors the capital adequacy of our holding company on a consolidated basis, and the FDIC and the IDFPR monitor the capital adequacy of our bank. The banking regulators use a combination of risk-based guidelines and a leverage ratio to evaluate capital adequacy. The risk-based capital guidelines applicable to us and our bank are based on the Basel Committee’s December 2010 final capital framework for strengthening international capital standards, known as Basel III, as implemented by the federal banking regulators. The risk-based guidelines are intended to make regulatory capital requirements sensitive to differences in credit and market risk profiles among banks and bank holding companies, to account for off-balance sheet exposure and to minimize disincentives for holding liquid assets.

Basel III and the Capital Rules. In July 2013, the federal banking regulators approved final rules, or the Capital Rules, implementing Basel III and various provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act. The Capital Rules substantially revise the risk-based capital requirements applicable to bank holding companies and banks, including us and our bank, compared to the previous risk-based capital rules. The Capital Rules revise the components of capital and address other issues affecting the numerator in regulatory capital ratio calculations. The Capital Rules, among other things, (i) include a new capital measure called “Common Equity Tier 1” (“CET1”), (ii)

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specify that Tier 1 capital consists of CET1 and “Additional Tier 1 capital” instruments meeting certain revised requirements, (iii) define CET1 narrowly by requiring that most deductions/adjustments to regulatory capital measures be made to CET1 and not to the other components of capital, and (iv) expand the scope of the deductions/adjustments to capital as compared to prior regulations. The Capital Rules also address risk weights and other issues affecting the denominator in regulatory capital ratio calculations, including replacing the existing risk-weighting approach derived from Basel I with a more risk-sensitive approach based, in part, on the standardized approach adopted by the Basel Committee in its 2004 capital accords, known as Basel II. The Capital Rules also implement the requirements of Section 939A of the Dodd-Frank Act to remove references to credit ratings from the federal banking regulators’ rules. Subject to a phase-in period for various provisions, the Capital Rules became effective for us and for our bank on January 1, 2015.

Under the Basel III Capital Rules, the minimum capital ratios are (i) 4.5% CET1 to risk-weighted assets, (ii) 6% Tier 1 capital (that is, CET1 plus Additional Tier 1 capital) to risk-weighted assets, (iii) 8% total capital (that is, Tier 1 capital plus Tier 2 capital) to risk-weighted assets and (iv) 4% Tier 1 capital to average consolidated assets as reported on consolidated financial statements (known as the “leverage ratio”).

The current Capital Rules also include a capital conservation buffer designed to absorb losses during periods of economic stress. The capital conservation buffer is composed entirely of CET1, on top of these minimum risk-weighted asset ratios. The implementation of the capital conservation buffer began on January 1, 2016 at the 0.625% level and was phased in over a three-year period (increasing by 0.625% on each subsequent January 1) until it reached 2.5% on January 1, 2019. In addition, the Capital Rules provide for a countercyclical capital buffer applicable only to certain covered institutions. We do not expect the countercyclical capital buffer to be applicable to us or our bank. Banking institutions with a ratio of CET1 to risk-weighted assets above the minimum but below the capital conservation buffer (or below the combined capital conservation buffer and countercyclical capital buffer, when the latter is applied) will face constraints on dividends, equity repurchases and compensation based on the amount of the shortfall.

Beginning on January 1 2019, as a result of the now fully phased-in Capital Rules, we and our bank are required to maintain an additional capital conservation buffer of 2.5% of CET1, effectively resulting in minimum ratios of (i) 7% CET1 to risk-weighted assets, (ii) 8.5% Tier 1 capital to risk-weighted assets, (iii) 10.5% total capital to risk-weighted assets and (iv) a minimum leverage ratio of 4%.

The Capital Rules provide for a number of deductions from and adjustments to CET1. These include, for example, the requirement that mortgage servicing rights, certain deferred tax assets and significant investments in non-consolidated financial entities be deducted from CET1 to the extent that any one such category exceeds 10% of CET1 or all such categories in the aggregate exceed 15% of CET1. Implementation of the deductions and other adjustments to CET1 began on January 1, 2015 and were to be phased in over a four-year period (beginning at 40% on January 1, 2015 and an additional 20% per year thereafter). On November 21, 2017, the federal banking regulators finalized rules that otherwise maintain the Capital Rules’ 2017 adjustments for the year 2018. These changes to the Capital Rules became effective beginning on January 1, 2018. On September 27, 2017, the federal banking regulators proposed a rule to simplify the current regulatory capital treatment of mortgage servicing rights, certain deferred tax assets and significant investments in non-consolidated financial entities; however, it is uncertain if this rule will be finalized since Congress passed the Economic Growth Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act (the “Consumer Protection Act”) in May 2018. As discussed below, the Consumer Protection Act included a provision intended to simplify capital rules for certain qualifying community banks. The Capital Rules also generally preclude certain hybrid securities, such as trust preferred securities, from being counted as Tier 1 capital for most bank holding companies. Bank holding companies such as us who had less than $15 billion in assets as of December 31, 2009 (and who continue to have less than $15 billion in assets) are permitted to include qualifying trust preferred securities issued prior to May 19, 2010 as Additional Tier 1 capital under the Capital Rules, however.

In addition, under the general risk-based Capital Rules, the effects of accumulated other comprehensive income items included in capital were excluded for the purposes of determining regulatory capital ratios. Under the Capital Rules, the effects of certain accumulated other comprehensive income items are not excluded; however, non-advanced approaches banking organizations, including us and Byline Bank, were able to make a one-time permanent election to continue to exclude these items.

The Capital Rules also prescribed a new standardized approach for risk weightings that expanded the risk-weighting categories from the current four Basel I derived categories (0%, 20%, 50% and 100%) to a much larger and more risk-sensitive number of categories, depending on the nature of the assets, generally ranging from 0%, for U.S. government and agency securities, to 600%, for certain equity exposures, and resulting in higher risk weights for a variety of asset categories.

With respect to our bank, the Capital Rules also revised the prompt corrective action regulations pursuant to Section 38 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (the “FDIA”).

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On November 20, 2018, pursuant to the Consumer Protection Act, the federal banking regulators issued a proposed rule meant to simplify the capital rules for community banks. Under the proposal, most depository institutions and depository institution holding companies that have less than $10 billion in total consolidated assets, that meet risk-based qualifying criteria, and that have a community bank leverage ratio of greater than 9% would be eligible to opt into a community bank leverage ratio framework. Under the proposal, should a qualified community bank or its holding company elect to use the community bank leverage ratio and maintain a community bank leverage ratio of greater than 9% then it would not be subject to other risk-based and leverage capital requirements, including the risk-based capital rules relating to high volatility commercial real estate, mortgage servicing rights, certain deferred tax assets and significant investments in non-consolidated financial entities, and would be considered to have met the well capitalized ratio requirements for purposes of Section 38 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act and the generally applicable capital requirements under the federal banking regulators’ capital rules.

Liquidity Regulations

Historically, the regulation and monitoring of bank and bank holding company liquidity has been addressed as a supervisory matter, without required formulaic measures. The Basel III final framework requires banks and bank holding companies to measure their liquidity against specific liquidity tests that, although similar in some respects to liquidity measures historically applied by banks and regulators for management and supervisory purposes, going forward would be required by regulation. One test, referred to as the liquidity coverage ratio, or LCR, is designed to ensure that the banking entity maintains an adequate level of unencumbered high-quality liquid assets equal to the entity’s expected net cash outflow for a 30 day time horizon (or, if greater, 25% of its expected total cash outflow) under an acute liquidity stress scenario. The other test, referred to as the net stable funding ratio, or NSFR, is designed to promote more medium- and long-term funding of the assets and activities of banking entities over a one-year time horizon. These requirements will incentivize banking entities to increase their holdings of U.S. Treasury securities and other sovereign debt as a component of assets and increase the use of long-term debt as a funding source.

In September 2014, the federal banking regulators approved final rules implementing the LCR for advanced approaches banking organizations (i.e., banking organizations with $250 billion or more in total consolidated assets or $10 billion or more in total on-balance sheet foreign exposure) and a modified version of the LCR for bank holding companies with at least $50 billion in total consolidated assets that are not advanced approaches banking organizations. Neither of these final versions of the LCR apply to us or our bank. In the second quarter of 2016, the federal banking regulators issued a proposed rule that would implement the NSFR for certain U.S. banking organizations. The proposed rule would require certain U.S. banking organizations to ensure they have access to stable funding over a one-year time horizon and has an effective date of January 1, 2018. The proposed rule has yet to be finalized. The proposed rule would not apply to U.S. banking organizations with less than $50 billion in total consolidated assets such as us and Byline Bank.

Prompt Corrective Action Framework

The FDIA also requires the federal banking regulators to take prompt corrective action in respect of depository institutions that fail to meet specified capital requirements. The FDIA establishes five capital categories: “well-capitalized”, “adequately capitalized”, “undercapitalized”, “significantly undercapitalized”, and “critically undercapitalized”. The federal banking regulators are required to take certain mandatory supervisory actions, and are authorized to take other discretionary actions, with respect to institutions that are undercapitalized, significantly undercapitalized or critically undercapitalized. The severity of these mandatory and discretionary supervisory actions depends upon the capital category in which the institution is placed. The relevant capital measures, which reflect changes under the Capital Rules that became effective on January 1, 2015, are the total capital ratio, the CET1 capital ratio, the Tier 1 capital ratio and the leverage ratio.

A bank will be (i) “well capitalized” if the institution has a total risk-based capital ratio of 10% or greater, a CET1 capital ratio of 6.5% or greater, a Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio of 8% or greater and a leverage ratio of 5% or greater, and is not subject to any order or written directive by any such regulatory authority to meet and maintain a specific capital level for any capital measure; (ii) “adequately capitalized” if the institution has a total risk-based capital ratio of 8% or greater, a CET1 capital ratio of 4.5% or greater, a Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio of 6% or greater and a leverage ratio of 4% or greater and is not “well capitalized” (iii) “undercapitalized” if the institution has a total risk-based capital ratio that is less than 8%, a CET1 capital ratio less than 4.5%, a Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio of less than 6% or a leverage ratio of less than 4%; (iv) “significantly undercapitalized” if the institution has a total risk-based capital ratio of less than 6%, a CET1 capital ratio less than 3%, a Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio of less than 4% or a leverage ratio of less than 3%; and (v) “critically undercapitalized” if the institution’s tangible equity is equal to or less than 2% of average quarterly tangible assets. A bank’s capital category is determined solely for the purpose of applying prompt corrective action regulations, and the capital category may not constitute an accurate representation of Byline Bank’s overall financial condition or prospects for other purposes.

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The FDIA generally prohibits a depository institution from making any capital distributions (including payment of a dividend) or paying any management fee to its parent holding company if the depository institution would thereafter be “undercapitalized”. An institution that is categorized as undercapitalized, significantly undercapitalized or critically undercapitalized is required to submit an acceptable capital restoration plan to its appropriate federal banking regulator. Under the FDIA, in order for the capital restoration plan to be accepted by the appropriate federal banking agency, a bank holding company must guarantee that a subsidiary depository institution will comply with its capital restoration plan, subject to certain limitations. The bank holding company must also provide appropriate assurances of performance. The obligation of a controlling bank holding company under the FDIA to fund a capital restoration plan is limited to the lesser of 5% of an undercapitalized subsidiary’s assets or the amount required to meet regulatory capital requirements. An undercapitalized institution is also generally prohibited from increasing its average total assets, making acquisitions and capital distributions, establishing any branches or engaging in any new line of business, except in accordance with an accepted capital restoration plan or with the approval of the FDIC. Institutions that are undercapitalized and either fail to submit an acceptable capital restoration plan or fail to implement an approved capital restoration plan may be subject to a number of requirements and restrictions, including orders to sell sufficient voting stock to become adequately capitalized, requirements to reduce total assets and cessation of receipt of deposits from correspondent banks.

Significantly undercapitalized depository institutions may be subject to a number of requirements and restrictions, including orders to sell sufficient voting stock to become adequately capitalized, requirements to reduce total assets, and cessation of receipt of deposits from correspondent banks. Critically undercapitalized depository institutions are subject to appointment of a receiver or conservator.

The appropriate federal banking agency may, under certain circumstances, reclassify a well-capitalized insured depository institution as adequately capitalized. The FDIA provides that an institution may be reclassified if the appropriate federal banking agency determines (after notice and opportunity for hearing) that the institution is in an unsafe or unsound condition or deems the institution to be engaging in an unsafe or unsound practice. The appropriate agency is also permitted to require an adequately capitalized or undercapitalized institution to comply with the supervisory provisions as if the institution were in the next lower category (but not treat a significantly undercapitalized institution as critically undercapitalized) based on supervisory information other than the capital levels of the institution. An institution may be downgraded to, or deemed to be in, a capital category that is lower than indicated by its capital ratios if it is determined to be in an unsafe or unsound condition or if it receives an unsatisfactory examination rating with respect to certain matters.

As of December 31, 2018, our bank was considered “well capitalized” with a Tier 1 capital ratio of 12.71%, total capital ratio of 13.40%, Tier 1 leverage ratio of 10.56%, and a CET1 capital ratio of 12.71%, as calculated under Basel III. For more information on these financial measures at the Company and Byline Bank, see Note 21 of the notes to our audited consolidated financial statements contained in Item 8 of this report.

Safety and Soundness Standards

The FDIA requires the federal banking agencies to prescribe standards, by regulations or guidelines, relating to internal controls, information systems and internal audit systems, loan documentation, credit underwriting, interest rate risk exposure, asset growth, asset quality, earnings, stock valuation and compensation, fees and benefits, and such other operational and managerial standards as the agencies deem appropriate. The federal banking agencies have adopted the Interagency Guidelines for Establishing Standards for Safety and Soundness. The guidelines establish general standards relating to internal controls and information systems, internal audit systems, loan documentation, credit underwriting, interest rate exposure, asset growth, asset quality, earnings and compensation, fees and benefits. In general, these guidelines require, among other things, appropriate systems and practices to identify and manage the risk and exposures specified in the guidelines. These guidelines also prohibit excessive compensation as an unsafe and unsound practice and describe compensation as excessive when the amounts paid are unreasonable or disproportionate to the services performed by an executive officer, employee, director or principal stockholder. In addition, the agencies adopted regulations that authorize, but do not require, an agency to order an institution that has been given notice by an agency that it is not satisfying any of such safety and soundness standards to submit a compliance plan. If, after being so notified, an institution fails to submit an acceptable compliance plan or fails in any material respect to implement an acceptable compliance plan, the banking regulator must issue an order directing action to correct the deficiency and may issue an order directing other actions of the types to which an undercapitalized institution may be subject under the FDIA. See Item 1. “Business—Supervision and Regulation—Prompt Corrective Action Framework”. If an institution fails to comply with such an order, the banking regulator may seek to enforce such order in judicial proceedings and to impose civil money penalties.

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Deposit Insurance

FDIC insurance assessments

As an FDIC-insured bank, our bank must pay deposit insurance assessments to the FDIC based on its average total assets minus its average tangible equity. Deposits are insured up to applicable limits by the FDIC and such insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government.

As an institution with less than $10 billion in assets, our bank’s assessment rates are based on the level of risk it poses to the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund (“DIF”). Pursuant to changes adopted by the FDIC that were effective July 1, 2016, the initial base rate for deposit insurance is between three and 30 basis points. Total base assessment after possible adjustments now ranges between 1.5 and 40 basis points. For established smaller institutions, like Byline Bank, supervisory ratings are used along with (i) an initial base assessment rate, (ii) an unsecured debt adjustment (which can be positive or negative), and (iii) a brokered deposit adjustment, to calculate a total base assessment rate.

Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the limit on FDIC deposit insurance was increased to $250,000. The coverage limit is per depositor, per insured depository institution for each account ownership category. The Dodd-Frank Act also set a new minimum DIF reserve ratio at 1.35% of estimated insured deposits. In October 2010, the FDIC adopted a new DIF restoration plan to ensure that the fund reserve ratio reaches 1.35% by September 30, 2020, as required by the Dodd-Frank Act. In September 2018, the FDIC announced that the DIF reserve ratio had surpassed 1.35% ahead of the September 30, 2020 deadline.

Under the FDIA, the FDIC may terminate deposit insurance upon a finding that an institution has engaged in unsafe and unsound practices, is in an unsafe or unsound condition to continue operations or has violated any applicable law, regulation, rule, order or condition imposed by the FDIC.

Other assessments

In addition, the Deposit Insurance Funds Act of 1996 authorized the Financing Corporation (“FICO”) to impose assessments on certain deposits in order to service the interest on the FICO’s bond obligations from deposit insurance fund assessments. The amount assessed on individual institutions is in addition to the amount, if any, paid for deposit insurance according to the FDIC’s risk-related assessment rate schedules. Assessment rates may be adjusted quarterly to reflect changes in the assessment base. It is currently anticipated that final assessments will be made in 2019.

All Illinois state-chartered banks are required to pay supervisory assessments to the IDFPR to fund the operations of that agency. The amount of the assessment is calculated on the basis of Byline Bank’s total assets.

The Volcker Rule

The Dodd-Frank Act, pursuant to a statutory provision commonly called the “Volcker Rule”, prohibits banks and their affiliates from engaging in proprietary trading and investing in and sponsoring hedge funds and private equity funds. The Volcker Rule became effective in July 2015, and on May 30, 2018, the federal banking regulators proposed revisions to the Volcker Rule which would, among other things, tailor compliance requirements to a covered institution based on a banking entity’s level of trading activity. The Volcker Rule does not significantly affect the operations of us and our subsidiaries, as we do not have any significant engagement in the businesses prohibited by the Volcker Rule.

Depositor Preference

The FDIA provides that, in the event of the “liquidation or other resolution” of an insured depository institution, the claims of depositors of the institution, including the claims of the FDIC as subrogee of insured depositors, and certain claims for administrative expenses of the FDIC as a receiver, will have priority over other general unsecured claims against the institution. If an insured depository institution fails, insured and uninsured depositors, along with the FDIC, will have priority in payment ahead of unsecured, non-deposit creditors, including depositors whose deposits are payable only outside of the United States and the parent bank holding company, with respect to any extensions of credit they have made to such insured depository institution.

Interstate Branching

Illinois state-chartered banks, such as Byline Bank, have the authority under Illinois law to establish branches anywhere in the State of Illinois, subject to receipt of all required regulatory approvals.

Federal law permits state and national banks to merge with banks in other states subject to: (i) regulatory approval; (ii) federal and state deposit concentration limits; and (iii) any state law limitations requiring the merging bank to have been in existence for a minimum period of time (not to exceed five years) prior to the merger. The establishment of new interstate branches or the acquisition of individual branches of a bank in another state (rather than the acquisition of an out-of-state bank in its entirety) has historically been permitted only in those states the laws of which expressly authorize such expansion. However, the Dodd-Frank Act permits well-capitalized and well-managed banks to establish new branches across state lines without these impediments.

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Consumer Financial Protection

We are subject to a number of federal and state consumer protection laws that extensively govern our relationship with our customers. These laws include the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”), the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Truth in Lending Act (“TILA”), the Truth in Savings Act, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, the Expedited Funds Availability Act, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Service Members Civil Relief Act, the Right to Financial Privacy Act, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the CAN-SPAM Act, and these laws’ respective state-law counterparts, as well as state usury laws and laws regarding unfair and deceptive acts and practices. These and other federal laws, among other things, require disclosures of the cost of credit and terms of deposit accounts, provide substantive consumer rights, prohibit discrimination in credit transactions, regulate the use of credit report information, provide financial privacy protections, restrict our ability to raise interest rates on extensions of credit and subject us to substantial regulatory oversight. Violations of applicable consumer protection laws can result in significant potential liability from litigation brought by customers, including actual damages, restitution and attorneys’ fees. Federal banking regulators, state attorneys general and state and local consumer protection agencies may also seek to enforce consumer protection requirements and obtain these and other remedies, including regulatory sanctions, customer rescission rights, action by the state and local attorneys general in each jurisdiction in which we operate and civil money penalties. Failure to comply with consumer protection requirements may also result in our failure to obtain any required bank regulatory approval for merger or acquisition transactions we may wish to pursue or our prohibition from engaging in such transactions even if approval is not required.

The Dodd-Frank Act created a new, independent federal agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”), which was granted broad rulemaking, supervisory and enforcement powers under various federal consumer financial protection laws with respect to certain consumer financial products and services, including the ability to require reimbursements and other payments to customers for alleged legal violations. The CFPB has the authority to impose significant penalties, as well as injunctive relief that prohibits lenders from engaging in allegedly unlawful practices. The CFPB is also authorized to engage in consumer financial education, track consumer complaints, request data and promote the availability of financial services to underserved consumers and communities. Although all institutions are subject to rules adopted by the CFPB and examination by the CFPB in conjunction with examinations by the institution’s primary federal regulator, the CFPB has primary examination and enforcement authority over banks with assets of $10 billion or more. The FDIC has primary responsibility for examination of our bank and enforcement with respect to various federal consumer protection laws so long as our bank has total consolidated assets of less than $10 billion, and state authorities are responsible for monitoring our compliance with all state consumer laws. The CFPB also has the authority to require reports from institutions with less than $10 billion in assets, such as our bank, to support the CFPB in implementing federal consumer protection laws, supporting examination activities, and assessing and detecting risks to consumers and financial markets.

The consumer protection provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act and the examination, supervision and enforcement of those laws and implementing regulations by the CFPB have created a more intense and complex environment for consumer finance regulation. The CFPB has significant authority to implement and enforce federal consumer finance laws, including the TILA, the ECOA and new requirements for financial services products provided for in the Dodd-Frank Act.

The CFPB has broad rulemaking authority for a wide range of consumer financial laws that apply to all banks including, among other things, the authority to prohibit “unfair, deceptive, or abusive” acts and practices. Abusive acts or practices are defined in the Dodd-Frank Act as those that (1) materially interfere with a consumer’s ability to understand a term or condition of a consumer financial product or service, or (2) take unreasonable advantage of a consumer’s (a) lack of financial savvy, (b) inability to protect herself or himself in the selection or use of consumer financial products or services, or (c) reasonable reliance on a covered entity to act in the consumer’s interests. The review of products and practices to prevent such acts and practices is a continuing focus of the CFPB, and of banking regulators more broadly. The ultimate impact of this heightened scrutiny is uncertain but it could result in changes to pricing, practices, products and procedures. It could also result in increased costs related to regulatory oversight, supervision and examination, additional remediation efforts and possible penalties. The Dodd-Frank Act does not prevent states from adopting stricter consumer protection standards. State regulation of financial products and potential enforcement actions could also adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Federal Home Loan Bank Membership

Byline Bank is a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago (“FHLB”), which serves as a central credit facility for its members. The FHLB is funded primarily from proceeds from the sale of obligations of the FHLB system. It makes loans to member banks in the form of FHLB advances. All advances from the FHLB are required to be fully collateralized as determined by the FHLB.

Ability-To-Pay Rules and Qualified Mortgages

As required by the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB issued a series of final rules in January 2013 amending Regulation Z, implementing TILA, which requires mortgage lenders to make a reasonable and good faith determination, based on verified and documented information, that a consumer applying for a residential mortgage loan has a reasonable ability to repay the loan according to its terms. These final rules prohibit creditors, such as Byline Bank, from extending residential mortgage loans without regard for the consumer’s ability to repay and add restrictions and requirements to residential mortgage origination and servicing practices. In addition, these rules restrict the imposition of prepayment penalties and restrict compensation practices relating to residential mortgage loan origination. Mortgage lenders are required to determine consumers’ ability-to-repay in one of two ways. The first

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alternative requires the mortgage lender to consider eight underwriting factors when making the credit decision. Alternatively, the mortgage lender can originate “qualified mortgages”, which are entitled to a presumption that the creditor making the loan satisfied the ability to repay requirements. In general, a qualified mortgage is a residential mortgage loan that does not have certain high risk features, such as negative amortization, interest-only payments, balloon payments, or a term exceeding 30 years. In addition, to be a qualified mortgage, the points and fees paid by a consumer cannot exceed 3% of the total loan amount and the borrower’s total debt-to-income ratio must be no higher than 43% (subject to certain limited exceptions for loans eligible for purchase, guarantee or insurance by a government sponsored enterprise or a federal agency).

Commercial Real Estate Guidance

In December 2015, the federal banking regulators released a statement entitled “Interagency Statement on Prudent Risk Management for Commercial Real Estate Lending” (the “CRE Guidance”). In the CRE Guidance, the federal banking regulators (i) expressed concerns with institutions that ease commercial real estate underwriting standards, (ii) directed financial institutions to maintain underwriting discipline and exercise risk management practices to identify, measure and monitor lending risks, and (iii) indicated that they will continue to pay special attention to commercial real estate lending activities and concentrations going forward. The federal banking regulators previously issued guidance in December 2006, entitled “Interagency Guidance on Concentrations in Commercial Real Estate Lending, Sound Risk Management Practices”, which stated that an institution is potentially exposed to significant commercial real estate concentration risk, and should employ enhanced risk management practices, where (1) total commercial real estate loans represent 300% or more of its total capital and (2) the outstanding balance of such institution’s commercial real estate loan portfolio has increased by 50% or more during the prior 36 months.

Leveraged Lending Guidance

In March 2013, the federal banking regulators jointly issued guidance on leveraged lending that updates and replaces the guidance for leveraged finance activities issued by the federal banking regulators in April 2001. The revised leveraged lending guidance describes regulatory expectations for the sound risk management of leveraged lending activities, including the importance for institutions to maintain, among other things, (i) a credit limit and concentration framework consistent with the institution’s risk appetite, (ii) underwriting standards that define acceptable leverage levels, (iii) strong pipeline management policies and procedures and (iv) guidelines for conducting periodic portfolio and pipeline stress tests.

Community Reinvestment Act of 1977

Under the CRA, our bank has an obligation, consistent with safe and sound operations, to help meet the credit needs of the market areas where it operates, which includes providing credit to low- and moderate-income individuals and communities. In connection with its examination of our bank, the FDIC is required to assess our bank’s compliance with the CRA. Our bank’s failure to comply with the CRA could, among other things, result in the denial or delay of certain corporate applications filed by us or our bank, including applications for branch openings or relocations and applications to acquire, merge or consolidate with another banking institution or holding company. Our bank received a rating of “Satisfactory” in its most recently completed CRA examination which is dated February 17, 2016.

Financial Privacy

The federal banking regulators have adopted rules limiting the ability of banks and other financial institutions to disclose non-public information about consumers to unaffiliated third parties. These limitations require disclosure of privacy policies to consumers and, in some circumstances, allow consumers to prevent disclosure of certain personal information to an unaffiliated third party. These regulations affect how consumer information is transmitted through diversified financial companies and conveyed to outside vendors.

Anti-Money Laundering and the USA PATRIOT Act

A major focus of governmental policy on financial institutions in recent years has been combating money laundering and terrorist financing. The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001, or the USA PATRIOT Act, substantially broadened the scope of United States anti money laundering laws and regulations by imposing significant new compliance and due diligence obligations, creating new crimes and penalties and expanding the extra-territorial jurisdiction of the United States in these areas: customer identification programs, money laundering, terrorist financing, identifying and reporting suspicious activities and currency transactions, currency crimes, and cooperation between financial institutions and law enforcement authorities. The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, among other federal agencies, also promulgates rules and regulations regarding the USA PATRIOT Act with which financial institutions are required to comply. Financial institutions are prohibited from entering into specified financial transactions and account relationships and must use enhanced due diligence procedures in their dealings with certain types of high-risk customers and implement a written customer identification program. Financial institutions must take certain steps to assist government agencies in detecting and preventing money laundering and report certain types of suspicious transactions. Regulatory authorities routinely examine financial institutions for compliance with these obligations, and failure of a financial institution to maintain and implement adequate programs to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, or to comply with all of the relevant laws or regulations, could have serious legal and reputational consequences for the institution, including causing applicable bank regulatory authorities not to

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approve merger or acquisition transactions when regulatory approval is required or to prohibit such transactions even if approval is not required. Regulatory authorities have imposed cease and desist orders and significant civil money penalties against institutions found to be violating these obligations and have in some cases brought criminal actions against some institutions for these types of violations.

Office of Foreign Assets Control Regulation

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, under authority of various laws, administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions against targeted foreign countries and regimes, including designated foreign countries, nationals and others. OFAC publishes lists of specially designated targets and countries. We and our bank are responsible for, among other things, blocking accounts of, and transactions with, such targets and countries, prohibiting unlicensed trade and financial transactions with them and reporting blocked transactions after their occurrence. Failure to comply with these sanctions could have serious legal and reputational consequences and could result in civil money penalties imposed on the institution by OFAC. Failure to comply with these sanctions could also cause applicable bank regulatory authorities not to approve merger or acquisition transactions when regulatory approval is required or to prohibit such transactions even if approval is not required.

Incentive Compensation

The Federal Reserve will review, as part of the regular, risk-focused examination process, the incentive compensation arrangements of banking organizations, such as us, that are not “large, complex banking organizations.” These reviews will be tailored to each organization based on the scope and complexity of the organization’s activities and the prevalence of incentive compensation arrangements. The findings of the supervisory initiatives will be included in reports of examination. Deficiencies will be incorporated into the organization’s supervisory ratings, which can affect the organization’s ability to make acquisitions and take other actions. Enforcement actions may be taken against a banking organization if its incentive compensation arrangements, or related risk management control or governance processes, pose a risk to the organization’s safety and soundness and the organization is not taking prompt and effective measures to correct the deficiencies.

In June 2010, the federal banking regulators issued comprehensive final guidance on incentive compensation policies intended to ensure that the incentive compensation policies of banking organizations do not undermine the safety and soundness of such organizations by encouraging excessive risk-taking. The guidance, which covers all employees that have the ability to materially affect the risk profile of an organization, either individually or as part of a group, is based upon the key principles that a banking organization’s incentive compensation arrangements should (1) provide incentives that appropriately balance risk and financial results in a manner that does not encourage employees to expose their organizations to imprudent risk, (2) be compatible with effective internal controls and risk management and (3) be supported by strong corporate governance, including active and effective oversight by the organization’s board of directors.

During the second quarter of 2016, certain U.S. regulators, including the Federal Reserve, the FDIC and the SEC, proposed revised rules on incentive-based payment arrangements at specified regulated entities having at least $1 billion in total assets (including us and Byline Bank). The proposed revised rules would establish general qualitative requirements applicable to all covered entities, which would include: (i) prohibiting incentive arrangements that encourage inappropriate risks by providing excessive compensation; (ii) prohibiting incentive arrangements that encourage inappropriate risks that could lead to a material financial loss; (iii) establishing requirements for performance measures to appropriately balance risk and reward; (iv) requiring board of director oversight of incentive arrangements; and (v) mandating appropriate record-keeping.

Pursuant to rules adopted by the stock exchanges and approved by the SEC in January 2013 under the Dodd-Frank Act, public company compensation committee members must meet heightened independence requirements and consider the independence of compensation consultants, legal counsel and other advisors to the compensation committee. A compensation committee must have the authority to hire advisors and to have the public company fund reasonable compensation of such advisors.

Public companies will be required, once stock exchanges impose additional listing requirements under the Dodd-Frank Act, to implement “clawback” procedures for incentive compensation payments and to disclose the details of the procedures which allow recovery of incentive compensation that was paid on the basis of erroneous financial information necessitating a restatement due to material noncompliance with financial reporting requirements. This clawback policy is intended to apply to compensation paid within a three-year look-back window of the restatement and would cover all executives who received incentive awards.

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Cybersecurity

In March 2015, federal regulators issued two related statements regarding cybersecurity. One statement indicates that financial institutions should design multiple layers of security controls to establish lines of defense and to ensure that their risk management processes also address the risk posed by compromised customer credentials, including security measures to reliably authenticate customers accessing internet-based services of the financial institution. The other statement indicates that a financial institution’s management is expected to maintain sufficient business continuity planning processes to ensure the rapid recovery, resumption and maintenance of the institution’s operations after a cyber-attack involving destructive malware. A financial institution is also expected to develop appropriate processes to enable recovery of data and business operations and address rebuilding network capabilities and restoring data if the institution or its critical service providers fall victim to this type of cyber-attack. If we fail to observe the regulatory guidance, we could be subject to various regulatory sanctions, including financial penalties.

In the ordinary course of business, we rely on electronic communications and information systems to conduct our operations and to store sensitive data. We employ an in-depth, layered, defensive approach that leverages people, processes and technology to manage and maintain cybersecurity controls. We employ a variety of preventative and detective tools to monitor, block, and provide alerts regarding suspicious activity, as well as to report on any suspected advanced persistent threats. Notwithstanding the strength of our defensive measures, the threat from cyberattacks is severe, attacks are sophisticated and increasing in volume, and attackers respond rapidly to changes in defensive measures. While to-date we have not experienced a significant compromise, significant data loss or any material financial losses related to cybersecurity attacks, our systems and those of our customers and third party service providers are under constant threat and it is possible that we could experience a significant event in the future. Risks and exposures related to cybersecurity attacks are expected to remain high for the foreseeable future due to the rapidly evolving nature and sophistication of these threats, as well as due to the expanding use of internet banking, mobile banking and other technology-based products and services by us and our customers.

Future Legislation and Regulation

Congress may enact legislation from time to time that affects the regulation of the financial services industry, and state legislatures may enact legislation from time to time affecting the regulation of financial institutions chartered by or operating in those states. Federal and state regulatory agencies also periodically propose and adopt changes to their regulations or change the manner in which existing regulations are applied. The substance or impact of pending or future legislation or regulation, or the application thereof, cannot be predicted, although enactment of the proposed legislation could affect the regulatory structure under which we operate and may significantly increase our costs, impede the efficiency of our internal business processes, require us to increase our regulatory capital or modify our business strategy, or limit our ability to pursue business opportunities in an efficient manner. Our business, financial condition, results of operations or prospects may be adversely affected, perhaps materially, as a result.

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Item 1A. Risk Factors.

The material risks and uncertainties that management believes affect us are described below. You should carefully consider these risks, together with all of the information included herein. Any of the following risks, as well as risks that we do not know or currently deem immaterial, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Risks Related to Our Business

Credit and Interest Rate Risks

Our business depends on our ability to successfully manage credit risk.

The operation of our business requires us to manage credit risk. As a lender, we are exposed to the risk that our borrowers will be unable to repay their loans and leases according to their terms, and that the collateral securing repayment of their loans or leases, if any, may not be sufficient to ensure repayment. In addition, there are risks inherent in making any loan or lease, including risks with respect to the period of time over which the loan or lease may be repaid, risks relating to proper loan or lease underwriting, risks resulting from changes in economic and industry conditions and risks inherent in dealing with individual borrowers, including the risk that a borrower may not provide information to us about its business in a timely manner, and/or may present inaccurate or incomplete information to us, and risks relating to the value of collateral. In order to manage credit risk successfully, we must, among other things, maintain disciplined and prudent underwriting standards and ensure that our bankers follow those standards. The weakening of these standards for any reason, such as an attempt to attract higher yielding loans or leases, a lack of discipline or diligence in underwriting and monitoring loans and leases, the inability to adequately adapt policies and procedures to changes in economic or any other conditions affecting borrowers and the quality of our loan and lease portfolio, may result in loan or lease defaults, foreclosures and additional charge-offs and may necessitate that we significantly increase our allowance for loan and lease losses, each of which could adversely affect our net income. As a result, our inability to successfully manage credit risk could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

We may underestimate the credit losses inherent in our loan and lease portfolio and have credit losses in excess of the amount we provide for loan and lease losses.

The credit quality of our loan and lease portfolio can have a significant impact on our earnings. We maintain an allowance for loan and lease losses, which is a reserve established through a provision for loan and lease losses charged to expense representing management’s estimate of probable losses that may be incurred within our existing portfolio of loans and leases. The allowance, in the judgment of management, is necessary to reserve for probable incurred loan and lease losses and risks inherent in our loan and lease portfolio. The level of the allowance reflects management’s continuing evaluation of specific credit risks; the quality of the loan and lease portfolio; the value of the underlying collateral; the level of non-accruing loans and leases; incurred losses inherent in the current loan and lease portfolio; and economic, political and regulatory conditions. Given our limited history in making loans since our recapitalization, we do not have adequate historical data on loans made by Byline Bank to calculate loan allowances solely based on the Banks’s historical loan experience and, as a result, we calculate loan allowances and provisions for loan and lease losses, in part, based on industry and peer data, which could increase the subjectivity of the calculation. In accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States (“GAAP”) for business combination accounting, the loans acquired through our recapitalization and our acquisitions of Ridgestone and First Evanston were recorded at their estimated fair value. Therefore, there was no allowance for loan losses associated with those loans at acquisition. Management continues to evaluate the allowance needed on the acquired loans, which includes considering the remaining net acquisition accounting adjustment ($34.0 million at December 31, 2018).

For our loans and leases, we perform loan reviews and grade loans on an ongoing basis, and we estimate and establish reserves for credit risks and credit losses inherent in our credit exposure (including unfunded lending commitments). The objective of our loan review and grading procedures is to identify existing or emerging credit quality problems so that appropriate steps can be initiated to avoid or minimize future losses. This process, which is critical to our financial results and condition, requires difficult, subjective and complex judgments of loan collectability. As is the case with any such assessments, there is always the chance that we will fail to identify the proper factors or that we will fail to estimate accurately the impact of factors that we do identify.

Although we believe our allowance for loan and lease losses is adequate to absorb probable and reasonably estimable losses in our loan and lease portfolio, this allowance may not be sufficient. We could sustain credit losses that are significantly higher than the amount of our allowance for loan and lease losses. Higher credit losses could arise for a variety of reasons, such as changes in economic conditions affecting borrowers, new information regarding our loans and leases and other factors within and outside our control. If real estate values were to decline or if economic conditions in our markets were to deteriorate unexpectedly, additional loan and lease losses not incorporated in the existing allowance for loan and lease losses might occur. Losses in excess of the existing allowance for loan and lease losses will reduce our net income and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. A severe downturn in the economy generally, in our markets specifically or affecting the business and assets of individual customers, would generate increased charge-offs and a need for higher provision for loan and lease losses.

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As of December 31, 2018, our allowance for loan and lease losses as a percentage of total loans and leases was 0.72% and as a percentage of total non-performing loans and leases was 91.15%. Additional credit losses will likely occur in the future and may occur at a rate greater than we have previously experienced. We may be required to take additional provisions for loan and lease losses in the future to further supplement the allowance for credit losses, either due to management’s assessment that the allowance is inadequate or requirements by our banking regulators. In addition, bank regulatory agencies periodically review our allowance for loan and lease losses, the policies and procedures we use to determine the level of the allowance and the value attributed to non-performing loans or to real estate acquired through foreclosure. Such regulatory agencies may require us to make further provisions or recognize future charge-offs. Further, if charge-offs in future periods exceed the allowance for loan and lease losses, we may need additional adjustments to increase the allowance for loan and lease losses.

Any increases in our provision for loan and lease losses will result in a decrease in net income and may reduce retained earnings and capital and, therefore, have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In addition, in June 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (the “FASB”) issued a new accounting standard that will replace the current approach under GAAP for establishing allowances for loan and lease losses, which generally considers only past events and current conditions, with a forward-looking methodology that reflects the expected credit losses over the lives of financial assets, starting when such assets are first originated or acquired. Under the revised methodology, credit losses will be measured based on past events, current conditions and reasonable and supportable forecasts of future conditions that affect the collectability of financial assets. The new standard is generally expected to result in increases to allowance levels and will require the application of the revised methodology to existing financial assets through a one-time adjustment to retained earnings upon initial effectiveness. The standard will be effective for us in 2020 or, if we remain an emerging growth company and continue to elect not to opt out of the extended transition period for new accounting standards, 2021. See Note 2 of the notes to our audited consolidated financial statements contained in Item 8 of this report for additional information about the standard.

Greater seasoning of our loan portfolio could increase risk of credit defaults in the future.

A significant portion of our loan portfolio is of relatively recent origin. Normally, loans do not begin to show signs of credit deterioration or default until they have been outstanding for some period of time (which varies by loan duration and loan type), a process referred to as “seasoning”. As a result, a portfolio of more seasoned loans may more predictably follow a bank’s historical default or credit deterioration patterns than a newer portfolio. Because 63.9% of our portfolio has been originated since our recapitalization, the current level of delinquencies and defaults may not represent the level that may prevail as the portfolio becomes more seasoned. If delinquencies and defaults increase, we may be required to increase our provision for loan and lease losses, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our business, profitability and liquidity may be adversely affected by deterioration in the credit quality of, or defaults by, third parties who owe us money, securities or other assets or whose securities or obligations we hold.

In addition to relying on borrowers to repay their loans and leases, we are exposed to the risk that third parties that owe us money, securities or other assets will not perform their obligations. These parties may default on their obligations to us due to bankruptcy, lack of liquidity, operational failure or other reasons. A default by a significant market participant, or concerns that such a party may default, could lead to significant liquidity problems, losses or defaults by other parties, which in turn could adversely affect us.

We are also subject to the risk that our rights against third parties may not be enforceable in all circumstances. Deterioration in the credit quality of third parties whose securities or obligations we hold, including the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, Government National Mortgage Association and municipalities, could result in significant losses.

Our business is subject to interest rate risk and fluctuations in interest rates may adversely affect our earnings.

Fluctuations in interest rates may negatively affect our banking business and may weaken demand for some of our products. Our earnings and cash flows are largely dependent on net interest income, which is the difference between the interest income that we earn on interest-earning assets, such as investment securities, loans, and leases, the interest expense that we pay on interest-bearing liabilities, such as deposits and borrowings. Additionally, changes in interest rates also affect the premiums we may receive in connection with the sale of U.S. government guaranteed loans in the secondary market, pre-payment speeds of loans for which we own servicing rights, our ability to fund our operations with customer deposits and the fair value of securities in our investment portfolio. Therefore, any change in general market interest rates, including changes in federal fiscal and monetary policies can have a significant effect on our net interest income and results of operations.

We seek to mitigate our interest rate risk by entering into interest rate swaps and other interest rate derivative contracts from time to time with counterparties. Our hedging strategies rely on assumptions and projections regarding interest rates, asset levels and general market factors and subject us to counterparty risk. There is no assurance that our interest rate mitigation strategies will be successful and if our assumptions and projections prove to be incorrect or our hedging strategies do not adequately mitigate the impact of changes in interest rates, we may incur losses that could adversely affect our earnings.

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Our interest-earning assets and interest-bearing liabilities may react in different degrees to changes in market interest rates. Interest rates on some types of assets and liabilities may fluctuate prior to changes in broader market interest rates, while rates on other types of assets and liabilities may lag behind. The result of these changes to rates may cause differing spreads on interest-earning assets and interest-bearing liabilities. Although we take measures intended to manage the risks from changes in market interest rates, we cannot control or accurately predict changes in market rates of interest or be sure our protective measures are adequate.

Interest rates are volatile and highly sensitive to many factors that are beyond our control, such as economic conditions and policies of various governmental and regulatory agencies, and, in particular U.S. monetary policy. For example, we face uncertainty regarding the interest rate risk, and resulting effect on our portfolio, that could result if the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System reduces the amount of securities it holds on its balance sheet. In recent years, it has been the policy of the Federal Reserve to maintain interest rates at historically low levels through a targeted federal funds rate and the purchase of U.S. Treasury and mortgage-backed securities. As a result, yields on securities we have purchased, and market rates on the loans we have originated, have been at levels lower than were available prior to the severe economic recession occurring during 2007 through 2009. Consequently, the average yield on banks’ interest-earning assets has generally decreased during the current low interest rate environment. If a low interest rate environment persists, we may be unable to increase our net interest income.

As of December 31, 2018, we had $1.2 billion of non-interest-bearing demand deposits and $296.3 million of interest-bearing checking accounts. Current interest rates for interest-bearing accounts are low due to current market conditions. However, we do not know what market rates will eventually be, especially if the Federal Reserve increases interest rates. To the extent we offer higher interest rates on checking accounts to maintain current clients or attract new clients, our interest expense will increase, perhaps materially. Furthermore, if we fail to offer interest in a sufficient amount to keep these demand deposits, our core deposits may be reduced, which would require us to obtain funding in other ways or risk slowing our future asset growth.

We may be adversely impacted by the transition from the London Interbank Offered Rate ("LIBOR") as a reference rate.

We have derivative contracts, borrowings, including $46.5 million in junior subordinated debentures underlying our trust preferred securities, and other financial instruments with attributes that are either directly or indirectly dependent on the U.S. dollar LIBOR. Further, 53.3% of our aggregate loan and lease portfolio bears interest at floating rates, a majority of which is tied to LIBOR, as of December 31, 2018. In 2017, the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority (the authority that regulates LIBOR) announced that it will stop compelling banks to submit rates for the calculation of LIBOR after the end of 2021. United States regulatory authorities have voiced similar support for phasing out LIBOR. As a result, the continuation of LIBOR cannot be guaranteed after 2021. At this time, no real consensus exists as to what rate or rates may become acceptable alternatives to LIBOR and it is impossible to predict the effect of any such alternatives on the value of LIBOR-based securities and variable rate loans, subordinated debentures, or other securities or financial arrangements, given LIBOR's role in determining market interest rates globally. Uncertainty as to the nature of alternative reference rates and as to potential changes or other reforms to LIBOR may adversely affect LIBOR rates and the value of LIBOR-based loans and securities in our portfolio, and may impact the availability and cost of hedging instruments and borrowings. If LIBOR rates are no longer available and we are required to implement substitute indices for the calculation of interest rates in our agreements that use LIBOR rates, we may incur expenses in effecting the transition, and may be subject to disputes or litigation with customers and security holders over the appropriateness or comparability to LIBOR of the substitute indices, which could have an adverse effect on our results of operations. The impact of alternatives to LIBOR on the valuations, pricing and operation of our financial instruments is not yet known.

The appraisals and other valuation techniques we use in evaluating and monitoring loans secured by real property, other real estate owned (“OREO”) and other repossessed assets may not accurately describe the fair 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 fair 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 if 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 consolidated financial statements may not reflect the correct value of our OREO, and our allowance for loan and lease losses may not reflect accurate loan impairments. This could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

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We depend on the accuracy and completeness of information about customers and counterparties.

In deciding whether to extend credit or enter into other transactions, and in evaluating and monitoring our loan and lease portfolio on an ongoing basis, we may rely on information furnished by or on behalf of customers and counterparties, including financial statements, credit reports and other financial information. We may also rely on representations of those customers or counterparties or of other third parties, such as independent auditors, as to the accuracy and completeness of that information. Reliance on inaccurate, incomplete, fraudulent or misleading financial statements, credit reports or other financial or business information, or the failure to receive such information on a timely basis, could result in loan or lease losses, reputational damage or other effects that could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

The value of the financial instruments we own may decline in the future.

As of December 31, 2018, we owned $916.9 million of investment securities, which consisted primarily of our positions in U.S. government and government-sponsored enterprises and federal agency obligations, mortgage and asset-backed securities and municipal securities. We evaluate our investment securities on at least a quarterly basis, and more frequently when economic and market conditions warrant such an evaluation, to determine whether any decline in fair value below amortized cost is the result of an other-than-temporary impairment. The process for determining whether impairment is other-than-temporary usually requires complex, subjective judgments about the future financial performance of the issuer in order to assess the probability of receiving all contractual principal and interest payments on the security. Because of changing economic and market conditions affecting issuers, we may be required to recognize other-than-temporary impairment in future periods, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations or financial condition.

In addition, an increase in market interest rates may affect the market value of our securities portfolio, potentially reducing accumulated other comprehensive income and/or earnings.

Concentrated exposures to individual obligors may unfavorably impact our operations.

We have cultivated relationships with certain individuals, businesses and institutions that could result in relatively large exposures to select single obligors. The failure to properly anticipate and address risks associated with any concentrated exposures could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Funding Risks

Liquidity risks could affect operations and jeopardize our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Liquidity risk is the risk that we will not be able to meet our obligations, including financial commitments, as they come due and is inherent in our operations. An inability to raise funds through deposits, borrowings, the sale of loans and/or investment securities and from other sources could have a substantial negative effect on our liquidity. Our most important source of funds consists of our customer deposits. Deposit balances can decrease for a variety of reasons, including when customers perceive alternative investments, such as the stock market, as providing a better risk/return tradeoff. If customers move money out of bank deposits and into other investments, we could lose a relatively low cost source of funds. This loss would require us to seek other funding alternatives, including wholesale funding, in order to continue to grow, thereby increasing our funding costs and reducing our net interest income and net income.

Other primary sources of funds consist of cash from operations and investment maturities, redemptions and sales. To a lesser extent, proceeds from the issuance and sale of securities to investors are also a source of funds and we may issue additional equity or debt securities in the future. Additional liquidity may be provided by brokered time deposits and repurchase agreements and we have the ability to borrow from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the FHLB. We also may borrow from third-party lenders from time to time. 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. 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, including inter-bank borrowings, repurchase agreements and borrowings from the discount window of the Federal Reserve System. There is also the potential risk that collateral calls with respect to our repurchase agreements could reduce our available liquidity.

Any decline in available funding could adversely impact our ability to continue to implement our business plan, including originating loans, investing in securities, meeting our expenses or fulfilling obligations such as repaying our borrowings and meeting deposit withdrawal demands, any of which could have a material adverse impact on our liquidity, business, financial condition and results of operations.  

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Our liquidity is dependent on dividends from Byline Bank.

We are a legal entity separate and distinct from Byline Bank, our wholly-owned banking subsidiary. A substantial portion of our cash flow from operating activities, including cash flow to pay dividends on our preferred stock, interest on our junior subordinated debentures, and principal and interest on any debt we may incur, comes primarily from dividends we receive from Byline Bank. Various federal and state laws and regulations limit the amount of dividends that our bank may pay to us. As of December 31, 2018, Byline Bank had the capacity to pay us a dividend of up to $134.7 million without the need to obtain prior regulatory approval. Also, our right to participate in a distribution of assets upon a subsidiary’s liquidation or reorganization is subject to the prior claims of the subsidiary’s creditors. In the event Byline Bank is unable to pay dividends to us, we may not be able to service our existing debt or any debt we may incur, pay obligations or pay dividends on our preferred stock, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Loss of deposits could increase our funding costs.

As do many banking companies, we rely on customer deposits to meet a considerable portion of our funding needs, and we continue to seek customer deposits to maintain this funding base. We accept deposits directly from consumer and commercial customers and, as of December 31, 2018, we had $3.7 billion in deposits. These deposits are subject to potentially dramatic fluctuations in availability or the price we must pay (in the form of interest) to obtain them due to certain factors outside 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; and changes in interest rates and returns on other investment classes, which could result in significant outflows of deposits within short periods of time or significant changes in pricing necessary to maintain current customer deposits or attract additional deposits. The loss of customer deposits for any reason could increase our funding costs.

We may be adversely affected by changes in the actual or perceived soundness or condition of other financial institutions.

Financial services institutions that deal with each other are interconnected as a result of trading, investment, liquidity management, clearing, counterparty and other relationships. Concerns about, or a default by, one institution could lead to significant liquidity problems and losses or defaults by other institutions, as the commercial and financial soundness of many financial institutions is closely related as a result of these credit, trading, clearing and other relationships. Even the perceived lack of creditworthiness of, or questions about, a counterparty may lead to market-wide liquidity problems and losses or defaults by various institutions. This systemic risk may adversely affect financial intermediaries with which we interact on a daily basis or key funding providers such as the FHLB, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our access to liquidity or otherwise have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

We may need to raise additional capital in the future, and such capital may not be available when needed or at all.

We may need to raise additional capital, in the form of debt or equity securities, in the future to have sufficient capital resources 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. We may not be able to obtain capital on acceptable terms or at all. Any occurrence that may limit our access to capital, including a 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, or at all, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Operational Risks

We may not be able to implement our growth strategy or manage costs effectively, resulting in lower earnings or profitability.

There can be no assurance that we will be able to continue to grow and to be profitable in future periods, or, if profitable, that our overall earnings will remain consistent or increase in the future. Our strategy focuses on organic growth, supplemented by opportunistic acquisitions.

Our growth requires that we increase our loan and deposit growth while managing risks by following prudent loan underwriting standards without increasing interest rate risk or compressing our net interest margin, maintaining more than adequate capital at all times, hiring and retaining qualified employees and successfully implementing strategic projects and initiatives. Even if we are able to increase our interest income, our earnings may nonetheless be reduced by increased expenses, such as additional employee compensation or other general and administrative expenses and increased interest expense on any liabilities incurred or deposits solicited to fund increases in assets. Additionally, if our competitors extend credit on terms we find to pose excessive risks, or at interest rates which we believe do not warrant the credit exposure, we may not be able to maintain our lending volume and could experience deteriorating financial performance.

Our inability to manage our growth successfully or to continue to expand into new markets could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

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The occurrence of fraudulent activity, breaches or failures of our information security controls or cybersecurity-related incidents could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

As a financial institution, we are susceptible to fraudulent activity, information security breaches and cybersecurity-related incidents that may be committed against us or our clients, which may result in financial losses or increased costs to us or our clients, disclosure or misuse of our information or our client information, misappropriation of assets, privacy breaches against our clients, litigation or damage to our reputation. Such fraudulent activity may take many forms, including check fraud, electronic fraud, wire fraud, phishing, social engineering and other dishonest acts. Information security breaches and cybersecurity-related incidents may include fraudulent or unauthorized access to systems used by us or our clients, denial or degradation of service attacks, and malware or other cyber-attacks. In recent periods, there continues to be a rise in electronic fraudulent activity, security breaches and cyber-attacks within the financial services industry, especially in the commercial banking sector due to cyber criminals targeting commercial bank accounts. Consistent with industry trends, we have also experienced an increase in attempted electronic fraudulent activity, security breaches and cybersecurity-related incidents in recent periods. Moreover, in recent periods, several large corporations, including financial institutions and retail companies, have suffered major data breaches, in some cases exposing not only confidential and proprietary corporate information, but also sensitive financial and other personal information of their customers and employees and subjecting them to potential fraudulent activity. Some of our clients may have been affected by these breaches, which could increase their risks of identity theft and other fraudulent activity that could involve their accounts with us.

We also face risks related to cyber-attacks and other security breaches in connection with debit card transactions that typically involve the transmission of sensitive information regarding our customers through various third parties, including retailers and payment processors. Some of these parties have in the past been the target of security breaches and cyber-attacks, and because the transactions involve third parties and environments such as the point of sale that we do not control or secure, future security breaches or cyber-attacks affecting any of these third parties could affect us through no fault of our own, and in some cases we may have exposure and suffer losses for breaches or attacks relating to them, including costs to replace compromised debit cards and address fraudulent transactions.

Information pertaining to us and our customers is maintained, and transactions are executed, on networks and systems maintained by us and certain third-party partners, such as our online banking or reporting systems. The secure maintenance and transmission of confidential information, as well as execution of transactions over these systems, are essential to protect us and our customers against fraud and security breaches and to maintain our customers’ confidence. Breaches of information security also may occur, through intentional or unintentional acts by those having access to our systems or our customers’ or counterparties’ confidential information, including employees. In addition, increases in criminal activity levels and sophistication, advances in computer capabilities, new discoveries, vulnerabilities in third-party technologies (including browsers and operating systems) or other developments could result in a compromise or breach of the technology, processes and controls that we use to prevent fraudulent transactions and to protect data about us, our customers and underlying transactions, as well as the technology used by our customers to access our systems. Although we have developed, and continue to invest in, systems and processes that are designed to detect and prevent security breaches and cyber-attacks and periodically test our security, our or our third-party partners’ inability to anticipate, or failure to adequately mitigate, breaches of security could result in: losses to us or our customers; our loss of business and/or customers; damage to our reputation; the incurrence of additional expenses; disruption to our business; our inability to grow our online services or other businesses; additional regulatory scrutiny or penalties; or our exposure to civil litigation and possible financial liability—any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

More generally, publicized information concerning security and cyber-related problems could inhibit the use or growth of electronic or web-based applications or solutions as a means of conducting commercial transactions. Such publicity may also cause damage to our reputation as a financial institution. As a result, our business, financial condition or results of operations could be adversely affected.

We depend on information technology and telecommunications systems of third parties, and any systems failures, interruptions or data breaches involving these systems could adversely affect our operations and financial condition.

Our business is highly dependent on the successful and uninterrupted functioning of our information technology and telecommunications systems, third-party servicers, accounting systems, mobile and online banking platforms and financial intermediaries. We outsource to third parties many of our major systems, such as data processing, loan servicing, deposit processing and internal audit systems. The failure of these systems, or the termination of a third-party software license or service agreement on which any of these systems is based, could interrupt our operations. Because our information technology and telecommunications systems interface with and depend on third-party systems, we could experience service denials if demand for such services exceeds capacity or such third-party systems fail or experience interruptions. If sustained or repeated, a system failure or service denial could result in a deterioration of our ability to process loans or gather deposits and provide customer service, compromise our ability to operate effectively, result in potential noncompliance with applicable laws or regulations, damage our reputation, result in a loss of customer business and/or subject us to additional regulatory scrutiny and possible financial liability, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations. In addition, failure of third parties to comply with applicable laws and regulations, or fraud or misconduct on the part of employees of any of these third parties, could disrupt our operations or adversely affect our reputation.

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It may be difficult for us to replace some of our third-party vendors, particularly vendors providing our core banking, debit card services and information services, in a timely manner if they are unwilling or unable to provide us with these services in the future for any reason and even if we are able to replace them, it may be at higher cost or result in the loss of customers. Any such events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Our operations rely heavily on the secure processing, storage and transmission of information and the monitoring of a large number of transactions on a minute-by-minute basis, and even a short interruption in service could have significant consequences. We also interact with and rely on retailers, for whom we process transactions, as well as financial counterparties and regulators. Each of these third parties may be targets of the same types of fraudulent activity, computer break-ins and other cybersecurity breaches described above or herein, and the cybersecurity measures that they maintain to mitigate the risk of such activity may be different than our own and may be inadequate.

As a result of financial entities and technology systems becoming more interdependent and complex, a cyber incident, information breach or loss, or technology failure that compromises the systems or data of one or more financial entities could have a material impact on counterparties or other market participants, including ourselves. Although we review business continuity and backup plans for our vendors and take other safeguards to support our operations, such plans or safeguards may be inadequate. As a result of the foregoing, our ability to conduct business may be adversely affected by any significant disruptions to us or to third parties with whom we interact.

Our use of third-party vendors and our other ongoing third-party business relationships is subject to increasing regulatory requirements and attention.

Our use of third-party vendors for certain information systems is subject to increasingly demanding regulatory requirements and attention by our federal bank regulators. Recent regulation requires us to enhance our due diligence, ongoing monitoring and control over our third-party vendors and other ongoing third-party business relationships. In certain cases we may be required to renegotiate our agreements with these vendors to meet these enhanced requirements, which could increase our costs. We expect that our regulators will hold us responsible for deficiencies in our oversight and control of our third-party relationships and in the performance of the parties with which we have these relationships. As a result, if our regulators conclude that we have not exercised adequate oversight and control over our third-party vendors or other ongoing third-party business relationships or that such third parties have not performed appropriately, we could be subject to enforcement actions, including civil money penalties or other administrative or judicial penalties or fines as well as requirements for customer remediation, any of which could have a material adverse effect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

We continually encounter technological change.

The financial services industry is continually undergoing rapid technological change with frequent introductions of new, technology-driven products and services. The effective use of technology increases efficiency and enables financial institutions to serve customers better and to reduce costs. Our future success depends, in part, upon our ability to address the needs of our customers by using technology to provide products and services that will satisfy customer demands, as well as to create additional efficiencies in our operations. Many of our competitors have substantially greater resources to invest in technological improvements than we do. We may not be able to effectively implement new, technology-driven products and services or be successful in marketing these products and services to our customers. In addition, the implementation of technological changes and upgrades to maintain current systems and integrate new ones may also cause service interruptions, transaction processing errors and system conversion delays and may cause us to fail to comply with applicable laws. Failure to successfully keep pace with technological change affecting the financial services industry and failure to avoid interruptions, errors and delays could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.  

We expect that new technologies and business processes applicable to the banking industry will continue to emerge, and these new technologies and business processes may be better than those we currently use. Because the pace of technological change is high and our industry is intensely competitive, we may not be able to sustain our investment in new technology as critical systems and applications become obsolete or as better ones become available. A failure to maintain current technology and business processes could cause disruptions in our operations or cause our products and services to be less competitive, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

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Our limited operating history following our recapitalization may make it difficult for investors to evaluate our financial trends, and also may impair our ability to accurately forecast our future performance.

We have a limited operating history following our recapitalization transaction in 2013. In connection with our recapitalization, we replaced all senior management of our predecessor and a significant majority of its lending staff. As a result, our limited operating history may not provide an adequate basis for investors to evaluate our business, financial condition and results of operations, and makes accurate financial forecasting more difficult for us. It may also be more difficult for us to evaluate trends that may affect our business. In addition, due to the application of the acquisition method of accounting to record, at fair value, all of the assets acquired and liabilities assumed at the time of our recapitalization, financial information prior to our recapitalization is not comparable to such information post-recapitalization. Thus, any predictions about our future revenue and expenses may not be as accurate as they would be if we had a longer operating history or operated in a more predictable business environment.

Current or former employee or predecessor misconduct could expose us to significant legal liability and reputational harm.

We are vulnerable to reputational harm because we operate in an industry in which integrity and the confidence of our customers are of critical importance. Our employees could engage, or our former directors, employees, or controlling stockholders could have engaged, in misconduct that adversely affects our business. For example, if such a person were to engage, or previously engaged, in fraudulent, illegal or suspicious activities, we could be subject to regulatory sanctions and suffer serious harm to our reputation (as a consequence of the negative perception resulting from such activities), financial position, customer relationships and ability to attract new customers. Our business often requires that we deal with confidential information. If our employees were to improperly use or disclose this information, or if former directors, employees, or controlling stockholders previously improperly used or disclosed this information, even if inadvertently, we could suffer serious harm to our reputation, financial position and current and future business relationships. It is not always possible to deter employee misconduct, and the precautions we take to detect and prevent this activity may not always be effective. Misconduct by our employees or former directors, employees, or controlling stockholders, or even unsubstantiated allegations of misconduct, could result in a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

We may not be able to attract and retain key personnel and other skilled employees.

Our success depends, in large part, on the skills of our management team and our ability to retain, recruit and motivate key officers and employees. There are a limited number of qualified persons with requisite knowledge of, and experience in, certain of our specialized business lines, including our equipment leasing and U.S. government guaranteed lending businesses. A number of our employees have considerable tenure with Byline Bank and some will be nearing retirement in the next few years, which makes succession planning important to the continued operation of our business. We need to continue to attract and retain key personnel and to recruit qualified individuals who fit our culture to succeed existing key personnel to ensure the continued growth and successful operation of our business. Leadership changes may occur from time to time, and we cannot predict whether significant retirements or resignations will occur or whether we will be able to recruit additional qualified personnel. Competition for senior executives and skilled personnel in the financial services and banking industry is intense, which means the cost of hiring, incentivizing and retaining skilled personnel may continue to increase. This could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. In addition, our ability to effectively compete for senior executives and other qualified personnel by offering competitive compensation and benefit arrangements may be restricted by applicable banking laws and regulations, including restrictions recently proposed for adoption by U.S. regulatory agencies, including the Federal Reserve and the FDIC. The loss of the services of any senior executive or other key personnel, the inability to recruit and retain qualified personnel in the future or the failure to develop and implement a viable succession plan, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

New lines of business, products, product enhancements or services may subject us to additional risks.

From time to time, we may implement new lines of business or offer new products and product enhancements as well as new services within our existing lines of business. There are substantial risks and uncertainties associated with these efforts, particularly in instances in which the markets are not fully developed. In implementing, developing or marketing new lines of business, products, product enhancements or services, we may invest significant time and resources, although we may not assign the appropriate level of resources or expertise necessary to make these new lines of business, products, product enhancements or services successful or to realize their expected benefits. Further, initial timetables for the introduction and development of new lines of business, products, product enhancements or services may not be achieved, and price and profitability targets may not prove feasible. External factors, such as compliance with regulations, competitive alternatives and shifting market preferences, may also affect the ultimate implementation of a new line of business or offerings of new products, product enhancements or services. Furthermore, any new line of business, product, product enhancement or service or system conversion could have a significant impact on the effectiveness of our system of internal controls. Failure to successfully manage these risks in the development and implementation of new lines of business or offerings of new products, product enhancements or services could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

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External Risks

Our business may be adversely affected by conditions in the financial markets and economic conditions generally.

Our financial performance generally, and in particular the ability of our borrowers to pay interest on and repay principal of outstanding loans and leases and the value of collateral securing those loans and leases, as well as demand for loans and leases and other products and services we offer, is highly dependent upon the business environment in the markets in which we operate and in the United States as a whole. Unlike larger banks that are more geographically diversified, we provide banking and financial services to customers primarily in the Chicago metropolitan area. The economic conditions in this local market may be different from, or worse than, the economic conditions in the United States as a whole. Some elements of the business environment that affect our financial performance include short-term and long-term interest rates, the prevailing yield curve, inflation and price levels, tax policy, monetary policy, unemployment and the strength of the domestic economy and the local economy in the markets in which we operate. Unfavorable market conditions can result in a deterioration in the credit quality of our borrowers and the demand for our products and services, an increase in the number of loan and lease delinquencies, defaults and charge-offs, additional provisions for loan and lease losses, adverse asset values and an overall material adverse effect on the quality of our loan and lease portfolio. Unfavorable or uncertain economic and market conditions can be caused by, among other factors, declines in economic growth, business activity or investor or business confidence; limitations on the availability or increases in the cost of credit and capital; changes in inflation or interest rates; increases in real estate and other state and local taxes; high unemployment; natural disasters; or a combination of these or other factors.

The City of Chicago and State of Illinois currently face significant financial difficulties, which could adversely affect our business.

We have significant loan exposure in the Chicago metropolitan area and both the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois currently face significant fiscal challenges, including large budget deficits, substantial unfunded pension obligations and low credit ratings compared to other local entities, which could negatively impact us to the extent this leads to declines in business activity and overall economic conditions in Illinois and the Chicago metropolitan area. These fiscal challenges may also lead to significant increases in real estate taxes on properties in the Chicago metropolitan area, which could negatively affect certain of our borrowers’ ability to make payments on our loans.

Some of our commercial loan borrowers are not-for-profit entities that may be dependent on the receipt of contractual payments and reimbursements from the State of Illinois for services rendered. To the extent the City of Chicago or State of Illinois, as applicable, delays or suspends these payments and reimbursements, this could adversely affect the ability of borrowers to meet their loan repayment obligations to us. Any resulting delinquencies and defaults on these loans would in turn adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Our business is significantly dependent on the real estate markets in which we operate, as a significant percentage of our loan portfolio is secured by real estate.

Many of the loans in our portfolio are secured by real estate. As of December 31, 2018, our real estate loans held for investment include $185.4 million of construction and development loans, $287.1 million of multifamily loans, $502.1 million of non-owner occupied commercial real estate (“CRE”) loans and $414.8 million of residential mortgage loans, with the majority of these real estate loans concentrated in the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois. Real property values in our market may be different from, and in some instances worse than, real property values in other markets or in the United States as a whole, and may be affected by a variety of factors outside of our control and the control of our borrowers, including national and local economic conditions, generally. The Chicago metropolitan area has experienced volatility in real estate values over the past decade. Declines in real estate values, including prices for homes and commercial properties in the Chicago metropolitan area, could result in a deterioration of the credit quality of our borrowers, an increase in the number of loan delinquencies, defaults and charge-offs, and reduced demand for our products and services, generally. Our CRE loans may have a greater risk of loss than residential mortgage loans, in part because these loans are generally larger or more complex to underwrite. In particular, real estate construction and acquisition and development loans have certain risks not present in other types of loans, including risks associated with construction cost overruns, project completion risk, general contractor credit risk and risks associated with the ultimate sale or use of the completed construction. In addition, declines in real property values in the states in which we operate could reduce the value of any collateral we realize following a default on these loans and could adversely affect our ability to continue to grow our loan and lease portfolio consistent with our underwriting standards. We may have to foreclose on real estate assets if borrowers default on their loans, in which case we are required to record the related asset to the then fair market value of the collateral, which may ultimately result in a loss. An increase in the level of non-performing assets increases our risk profile and may affect the capital levels regulators believe are appropriate in light of the ensuing risk profile. Our failure to effectively mitigate these risks could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

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Our small business customers may lack the resources to weather a downturn in the economy.

One of our primary strategies is serving the banking and financial services needs of small and medium sized businesses. These businesses generally have fewer financial resources than larger entities and less access to capital sources and loan facilities. If economic conditions are generally unfavorable in our market areas, our small business borrowers may be disproportionately affected and their ability to repay outstanding loans may be negatively affected, resulting in an adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.

We operate in a highly competitive and changing industry and market area and compete with both banks and non-banks.

We operate in the highly competitive financial services industry and face significant competition for customers from financial institutions located both within and beyond our principal markets. We compete with national commercial banks, regional banks, private banks, savings banks, credit unions, non-bank financial services companies and other financial institutions operating within or near the areas we serve, many of whom target the same customers we do in the Chicago metropolitan area. As customer preferences and expectations continue to evolve, technology has lowered barriers to entry and made it possible for banks to expand their geographic reach by providing services over the internet and for non-banks to offer products and services traditionally provided by banks, such as automatic transfer and automatic payment systems. The banking industry is experiencing rapid changes in technology, and, as a result, our future success will depend in part on our ability to address our customers’ needs by using technology. Customer loyalty can be influenced by a competitor’s new products, especially offerings that could provide cost savings or a higher return to the customer. Increased lending activity of competing banks following the severe economic recession occurring during 2007 through 2009 has also led to increased competitive pressures on loan rates and terms for high-quality credits. We may not be able to compete successfully with other financial institutions in our markets, particularly with larger financial institutions operating in our markets that have significantly greater resources than us, and we may have to pay higher interest rates to attract deposits, accept lower yields to attract loans and pay higher wages for new employees, resulting in lower net interest margins and reduced profitability. Many of our non-bank competitors are not subject to the same extensive regulations that govern our activities and may have greater flexibility in competing for business. The financial services industry could become even more competitive as a result of legislative, regulatory and technological changes and continued consolidation. In addition, some of our current commercial banking customers may seek alternative banking sources as they develop needs for credit facilities larger than we may be able to accommodate or more expansive product mixes offered by larger institutions. We also face increased competition in our U.S. government guaranteed lending business which can adversely affect our volume and the premium, if any, recognized on sales of the guaranteed portions of such U.S. government guaranteed loans. Our inability to compete successfully in the markets in which we operate could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Our ability to maintain, attract and retain customer relationships is highly dependent on our reputation.

We rely, in part, on the reputation of our bank to attract customers and retain our customer relationships. Damage to our reputation could undermine the confidence of our current and potential customers in our ability to provide high-quality financial services. Such damage could also impair the confidence of our counterparties and vendors and ultimately affect our ability to effect transactions. Maintenance of our reputation depends not only on our success in maintaining our service-focused culture and controlling and mitigating the various risks described in this prospectus, but also on our success in identifying and appropriately addressing issues that may arise in areas such as potential conflicts of interest, anti-money laundering, customer personal information and privacy issues, customer and other third-party fraud, record-keeping, regulatory investigations and any litigation that may arise from the failure or perceived failure of us to comply with legal and regulatory requirements. Maintaining our reputation also depends on our ability to successfully prevent third parties from infringing on the “Byline Bank” brand and associated trademarks and our other intellectual property. Defense of our reputation, trademarks and other intellectual property, including through litigation, could result in costs that could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Downgrades to the credit rating of the U.S. government or of its securities or any of its agencies by one or more of the credit ratings agencies could have a material adverse effect on general economic conditions, as well as our business.

On August 5, 2011, Standard & Poor’s cut the credit rating of the U.S. federal government’s long-term sovereign debt from AAA to AA+, while also keeping its outlook negative. Moody’s had lowered its own outlook for the same debt to “Negative” on August 2, 2011, and Fitch also lowered its outlook for the same debt to “Negative”, on November 28, 2011. In 2013, both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s revised their outlooks from “Negative” to “Stable”, and on March 21, 2014, Fitch revised its outlook from “Negative” to “Stable”. Further downgrades of the U.S. federal government’s sovereign credit rating, and the perceived creditworthiness of U.S. government-backed obligations, could affect our ability to obtain funding that is collateralized by affected instruments and our ability to access capital markets on favorable terms. Such downgrades could also affect the pricing of funding, when funding is available. A downgrade of the credit rating of the U.S. government, or of its agencies, government-sponsored enterprises or related institutions or instrumentalities, may also adversely affect the market value of such instruments and, further, exacerbate the other risks to which we are subject and any related adverse effects on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

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Severe weather, natural disasters, pandemics, acts of war or terrorism or other external events could significantly impact our business.

Severe weather, natural disasters, widespread disease or pandemics, acts of war or terrorism or other adverse external events could have a significant impact on our ability to conduct business. In addition, such events could affect the stability of our deposit base, impair the ability of borrowers to repay outstanding loans and leases, impair the value of collateral securing loans, cause significant property damage, result in loss of revenue or cause us to incur additional expenses. The occurrence of any of these events in the future could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Guaranteed Loans Risks

Small Business Administration lending is an important part of our business. Our SBA lending program is dependent upon the U.S. federal government, and we face specific risks associated with originating SBA loans.

Our SBA lending program is dependent upon the U.S. federal government. As an approved participant in the SBA Preferred Lender’s Program (an “SBA Preferred Lender”), we enable our clients to obtain SBA loans without being subject to the potentially lengthy SBA approval process necessary for lenders that are not SBA Preferred Lenders. The SBA periodically reviews the lending operations of participating lenders to assess, among other things, whether the lender exhibits prudent risk management. When weaknesses are identified, the SBA may request corrective actions or impose enforcement actions, including revocation of the lender’s SBA Preferred Lender status. If we lose our status as an SBA Preferred Lender, we may lose some or all of our customers to lenders who are SBA Preferred Lenders, and as a result we could experience a material adverse effect to our financial results. Any changes to the SBA program, including but not limited to changes to the level of guarantee provided by the federal government on SBA loans, changes to program-specific rules impacting volume eligibility under the guaranty program, as well as changes to the program amounts authorized by Congress, may also have a material adverse effect on our business. In addition, any default by the U.S. government on its obligations or any prolonged government shutdown could, among other things, impede our ability to originate SBA loans or sell such loans in the secondary market, which could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

The SBA’s 7(a) Loan Program is the SBA’s primary program for helping start-up and existing small businesses, with financing guaranteed for a variety of general business purposes. Generally, we sell the guaranteed portion of our SBA 7(a) loans in the secondary market. These sales result in premium income for us at the time of sale and create a stream of future servicing income, as we retain the servicing rights to these loans. For the reasons described above, we may not be able to continue originating these loans or sell them in the secondary market. Furthermore, even if we are able to continue originate and sell SBA 7(a) loans in the secondary market, we might not continue to realize premiums upon the sale of the guaranteed portion of these loans or the premiums may decline due to economic and competitive factors. When we originate SBA loans, we incur credit risk on the non-guaranteed portion of the loans, and if a customer defaults on a loan, we share any loss and recovery related to the loan pro-rata with the SBA. If the SBA establishes that a loss on an SBA guaranteed loan is attributable to significant technical deficiencies in the manner in which the loan was originated, funded or serviced by us, the SBA may seek recovery of the principal loss related to the deficiency from us. Generally, we do not maintain reserves or loss allowances for such potential claims and any such claims could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

The laws, regulations and standard operating procedures that are applicable to SBA loan products may change in the future. We cannot predict the effects of these changes on our business and profitability. Because government regulation greatly affects the business and financial results of all commercial banks and bank holding companies and especially our organization, changes in the laws, regulations and procedures applicable to SBA loans could adversely affect our ability to operate profitably.

The recognition of gains on the sale of loans and servicing asset valuations reflect certain assumptions.

We continue to expect that gains on the sale of U.S. government guaranteed loans will continue to comprise a significant component of our revenue. The gains on such sales recognized for the twelve months ended December 31, 2018 was $31.6 million. The determination of these gains is based on assumptions regarding the value of unguaranteed loans retained, servicing rights retained and deferred fees and costs, and net premiums paid by purchasers of the guaranteed portions of U.S. government guaranteed loans. The value of retained unguaranteed loans and servicing rights are determined based on market-derived factors such as prepayment rates, current market conditions and recent loan sales. Deferred fees and costs are determined using internal analysis of the cost to originate loans. Significant errors in assumptions used to compute gains on sale of loans or servicing asset valuations could result in material revenue misstatements, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and profitability. In addition, while we believe these valuations reflect fair value and such valuations are subject to validation by an independent third-party, if such valuations are not reflective of fair market value then our business, results of operations and financial condition may be materially and adversely affected.

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A prolonged U.S. government shutdown or default by the U.S. on government obligations would harm our results of operations.

Our results of operations, including revenue, non-interest income, expenses and net interest income, would be adversely affected in the event of widespread financial and business disruption on account of a default by the United States on U.S. government obligations or a prolonged failure to maintain significant U.S. government operations, particularly those pertaining to the SBA and USDA. Any such failure to maintain such U.S. government operations would impede our ability to originate SBA and USDA loans and our ability to sell such loans in the secondary market.

Legal, Accounting and Compliance Risks

Our accounting estimates and risk management processes and controls rely on analytical and forecasting techniques and models and assumptions, which may not accurately predict future events.

Our accounting policies and methods are fundamental to the manner in which we record and report our financial condition and results of operations. Our management must exercise judgment in selecting and applying many of these accounting policies and methods so they comply with GAAP and reflect management’s judgment of the most appropriate manner to report our financial condition and results of operations. In some cases, management must select the accounting policy or method to apply from two or more alternatives, any of which may be reasonable under the circumstances, yet which may result in our reporting materially different results than would have been reported under a different alternative.

Certain accounting policies and estimates are critical to presenting our financial condition and results of operations. They require management to make difficult, subjective or complex judgments about matters that are uncertain. Materially different amounts could be reported under different conditions or using different assumptions or estimates. These critical accounting policies and estimates include (i) acquisition-related fair value computations, (ii) the carrying value of loans and leases, (iii) determining the provision and allowance for loan and lease losses, (iv) the valuation of intangible assets such as goodwill, servicing assets, core deposit intangibles, and customer relationship intangible (v) the determination of fair value for financial instruments, including other-than-temporary impairment losses, (vi) the valuation of real estate held for sale, and (vii) the valuation of or recognition of deferred tax assets and liabilities. See Note 1 of the notes to our audited consolidated financial statements contained in Item 8 of this report for further information. Because of the uncertainty of estimates involved in these matters, we may be required to do one or more of the following: significantly increase the allowance for loan and lease losses or sustain loan and lease losses that are significantly higher than the reserve provided; reduce the carrying value of an asset measured at fair value; or significantly increase our accrued tax liability. Any of these could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. See Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations”.

Our internal controls, disclosure controls, processes and procedures, and corporate governance policies and procedures are based in part on certain assumptions and can provide only reasonable (not absolute) assurances that the objectives of the system are met. Furthermore, we currently outsource our internal audit function. Any failure or circumvention of our controls, processes and procedures or failure to comply with regulations related to controls, processes and procedures could necessitate changes in those controls, processes and procedures, which may increase our compliance costs, divert management attention from our business or subject us to regulatory actions and increased regulatory scrutiny. Any of these could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Our goodwill may become impaired, which may adversely impact our results of operations and financial condition and may limit Byline Bank’s ability to pay dividends to us, thereby causing liquidity issues.

As of December 31, 2018, we had goodwill of $128.2 million, or 19.7% of our total stockholders’ equity. The excess purchase consideration over the fair value of net assets from acquisitions, or goodwill, is evaluated for impairment at least annually and on an interim basis if an event or circumstance indicates that it is more likely than not that an impairment has occurred. In testing for impairment, we conduct a qualitative assessment and we also estimate the fair value of net assets based on analyses of our market value, discounted cash flows and peer values. Consequently, the determination of the fair value of goodwill is sensitive to market-based economics and other key assumptions. Variability in market conditions or in key assumptions could result in impairment of goodwill, which is recorded as a non-cash adjustment to income. An impairment of goodwill could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The accounting for loans acquired in connection with our recapitalization and acquisitions is based on numerous subjective determinations that may prove to be inaccurate and have a negative impact on our results of operations.

All loans acquired as part of our recapitalization in 2013 as well as loans acquired in connection with our subsequent acquisitions, including the Ridgestone acquisition in October 2016 and First Evanston acquisition in May 2018, have been recorded at their estimated fair value on their acquisition date without a carryover of the related allowance for loan losses. The determination of estimated fair value of acquired loans requires management to make subjective determinations regarding discount rate, estimates of losses on defaults, market conditions and other factors that are highly subjective in nature. A risk exists that our estimate of the fair value of acquired loans will prove to be inaccurate and that we ultimately will not recover the amount at which we recorded such loans on our balance sheet, which would require us to recognize losses.

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Loans acquired that have evidence of credit deterioration since origination and for which it is probable at the date of acquisition that we will not collect all contractually required principal and interest payments are accounted for under Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) Topic 310-30, Accounting for Purchased Loans with Deteriorated Credit Quality. These credit-impaired loans, like non-credit-impaired loans acquired, have been recorded at estimated fair value on their acquisition date, based on subjective determinations regarding risk ratings, expected future cash flows and fair value of the underlying collateral, without a carryover of the related allowance for loan and lease losses. We evaluate these loans quarterly to assess expected cash flows. Subsequent decreases to the expected cash flows will generally result in a provision for loan losses. Subsequent increases in cash flows result in a reversal of the provision for loan losses to the extent of prior charges or a reclassification of the difference from non-accretable to accretable yield with a positive impact on interest income prospectively. Because the accounting for these loans is based on subjective measures that can change frequently, we may experience fluctuations in our net interest income and provisions for loan losses attributable to these loans. These fluctuations could negatively affect our results of operations.

Our ability to recognize the benefits of deferred tax assets is dependent on future cash flows and taxable income.

We recognize the expected future tax benefit from deferred tax assets when it is more likely than not that the tax benefit will be realized. Otherwise, a valuation allowance is applied against deferred tax assets, reducing the value of such assets. Assessing the recoverability of deferred tax assets requires management to make significant estimates related to expectations of future taxable income from all sources, including reversal of taxable temporary differences, forecasted operating earnings and available tax planning strategies. Estimates of future taxable income are based on forecasted income from operations and the application of existing tax laws in each jurisdiction. The acquisition of Ridgestone in 2016, First Evanston in 2018 and the improved risk profile of the Company are key components used in the determination of our ability to realize the expected future benefit of our deferred tax assets. To the extent that future taxable income differs significantly from estimates as a result of the interest rate environment and loan and lease growth capabilities or other factors, our ability to realize the net deferred tax assets could be affected.

Additionally, significant future issuances of common stock or common stock equivalents, or changes in the direct or indirect ownership of our common stock or common stock equivalents, could cause an ownership change and could limit our ability to utilize our net operating loss carryforwards and other tax attributes pursuant to Section 382 and Section 383 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”). Future changes in tax law or changes in ownership structure could limit our ability to utilize our recorded net deferred tax assets. As of December 31, 2018, we did not have a valuation allowance against our net deferred tax assets for certain amounts related to U.S. net operating loss carryforwards, and our net deferred tax assets as of December 31, 2018 were $35.6 million. See Note 11 of the notes to our audited consolidated financial statements contained in Item 8 of this report for further discussion of our deferred tax assets.

In December 2017, the U.S. Congress passed legislation that decreased the U.S. federal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% effective January 1, 2018. As a result of the rate change, our net deferred tax assets were required to be revalued during the period in which the new legislation was enacted, and, as a result, we recorded income tax expense of $7.2 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, during the fourth quarter of 2017 as a result of this change. We expect our effective tax rate for 2019 to be approximately 27% to 29%.

Changes in our accounting policies or in accounting standards could materially affect how we report our financial results and condition.

From time to time, the FASB and the SEC change the financial accounting and reporting standards that govern the preparation of our financial statements. As a result of changes to financial accounting or reporting standards, whether promulgated or required by the FASB or other regulators, we could be required to change certain of the assumptions or estimates we have previously used in preparing our financial statements, which could negatively affect how we record and report our results of operations and financial condition generally. For example, in 2016, the FASB approved a new accounting standard that would require companies to include lease obligations on their balance sheets, which will be effective for us in 2020. This new standard will result in changes to our accounting presentation and could adversely affect our balance sheet.  

We are an emerging growth company within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 (the “Securities Act”), and have decided to take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting and other requirements applicable to emerging growth companies.

For as long as we remain an “emerging growth company”, as defined in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (“JOBS”) Act, we will have the option to take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting and other requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies, including not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“Sarbanes-Oxley”), being permitted to have an extended transition period for adopting any new or revised accounting standards that may be issued by the FASB or the SEC reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our registration statements, periodic reports and proxy statements and exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. We have elected to, and expect to continue to, take advantage of certain of these and other exemptions until we are no longer an emerging growth company.

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We will remain an emerging growth company until the earliest of (i) the end of the fiscal year during which we have total annual gross revenues of $1,070,000,000 or more, (ii) the end of the fiscal year following the fifth anniversary of the completion of our initial public offering, (iii) the date on which we have, during the previous three year period, issued more than $1.0 billion in non-convertible debt, and (iv) the end of the first fiscal year in which (A) the market value of our equity securities that are held by non-affiliates exceeds $700 million as of June 30 of that year, (B) we have been a public reporting company under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”) for at least twelve calendar months and (C) we have filed at least one annual report on Form 10-K.

Because we have elected to use the extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards for an “emerging growth company”, our financial statements may not be comparable to companies that comply with these accounting standards as of the public company effective dates.

We have elected to use the extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards under Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act. This election allows us to delay the adoption of new or revised accounting standards that have different effective dates for public and private companies until those standards apply to private companies. As a result of this election, our financial statements may not be comparable to companies that comply with these accounting standards as of the public company effective dates. Because our financial statements may not be comparable to those of companies that comply with public company effective dates, investors may have difficulty evaluating or comparing our business, performance or prospects in comparison to other public companies, which may have a negative impact on the value and liquidity of our common stock.

We recently completed our initial public offering. Fulfilling our public company financial reporting and other regulatory obligations and our ongoing transition to a standalone public company will be expensive and time consuming and may strain our resources.

As a public company, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act and are required to implement specific corporate governance practices and adhere to a variety of reporting requirements under Sarbanes-Oxley and the related rules and regulations of the SEC, as well as the rules of the NYSE. The Exchange Act requires us to file annual, quarterly and current reports with respect to our business and financial condition. Sarbanes-Oxley requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting.

In accordance with Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley, our management is required to conduct an annual assessment of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting and include a report on these internal controls in the annual reports we file with the SEC on Form 10-K. Our independent registered public accounting firm is not required to attest formally to the effectiveness of our internal controls until the later of the year following the first annual report required to be filed with the SEC and the date on which we are no longer an “emerging growth company”. When required, this process will require additional documentation of policies, procedures and systems, further review of that documentation by our third-party internal auditing staff and internal accounting staff and our outside independent registered public accounting firm, and additional testing of our internal control over financial reporting by our third-party internal auditing staff and internal accounting staff and our outside independent registered public accounting firm. This process will involve considerable time and attention, may strain our internal resources, and will increase our operating costs. We may experience higher than anticipated operating expenses and outside auditor fees during the implementation of these changes and thereafter. If our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an opinion as to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports and the market price of our common stock could be negatively affected, and we could become subject to investigations by the NYSE, the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which could require additional financial and management resources.

If we are not able to implement the requirements of Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley in a timely and capable manner, we may be subject to adverse regulatory consequences and there could be a negative reaction in the financial markets due to a loss of investor confidence in us and the reliability of our financial statements. This could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

The financial reporting resources we have put in place may not be sufficient to ensure the accuracy of the additional information we are required to disclose as a publicly listed company.

As a result of being a publicly listed company, we are subject to the heightened financial reporting standards under GAAP and SEC rules, including more extensive levels of disclosure. Complying with these standards required enhancements to the design and operation of our internal control over financial reporting as well as additional financial reporting and accounting staff with appropriate training and experience in GAAP and SEC rules and regulations.

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If we are unable to meet the demands that are placed upon us as a public company, including the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley, we may be unable to report our financial results accurately, or report them within the timeframes required by law or stock exchange regulations. Failure to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley, when and as applicable, could also potentially subject us to sanctions or investigations by the SEC or other regulatory authorities. If material weaknesses or other deficiencies occur, our ability to report our financial results accurately and timely could be impaired, which could result in late filings of our annual and quarterly reports under the Exchange Act, restatements of our consolidated financial statements, a decline in our stock price, suspension or delisting of our common stock from the NYSE, and could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations or financial condition. Even if we are able to report our financial statements accurately and in a timely manner, any failure in our efforts to implement the improvements or disclosure of material weaknesses in our future filings with the SEC could cause our reputation to be harmed and our stock price to decline significantly.

We did not engage our independent registered public accounting firm to perform an audit of our internal control over financial reporting as of any balance sheet date reported in our financial statements as of December 31, 2018. The JOBS Act provides that, so long as we qualify as an “emerging growth company”, we will be exempt from the provisions of Section 404(b) of Sarbanes-Oxley, which would require that our independent registered public accounting firm provide an attestation report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. We may take advantage of this exemption so long as we qualify as an “emerging growth company”.

Certain banking laws and certain provisions of our certificate of incorporation may have an anti-takeover effect.

Provisions of federal banking laws, including regulatory approval requirements, could make it difficult for a third-party to acquire us, even if doing so would be perceived to be beneficial to our stockholders. Acquisition of 10% or more of any class of voting stock of a bank holding company or depository institution, including shares of our common stock, generally creates a rebuttable presumption that the acquirer “controls” the bank holding company or depository institution. Also, a bank holding company must obtain the prior approval of the Federal Reserve before, among other things, acquiring direct or indirect ownership or control of more than 5% of the voting shares of any bank, including our bank.

There also are provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, which we refer to as our certificate of incorporation, and amended and restated bylaws, which we refer to as our bylaws, such as limitations on the ability to call a special meeting of our stockholders, that may be used to delay or block a takeover attempt. In addition, our board of directors is authorized under our certificate of incorporation to issue shares of our preferred stock, and determine the rights, terms, conditions and privileges of such preferred stock, without stockholder approval. These provisions may effectively inhibit a non-negotiated merger or other business combination, which, in turn, could have a material adverse effect on the market price of our common stock.

The banking industry is highly regulated, and the regulatory framework, together with any future legislative or regulatory changes, may have a significant adverse effect on our operations.

The banking industry is extensively regulated and supervised under both federal and state laws and regulations that are intended primarily for the protection of depositors, customers, federal deposit insurance funds and the banking system as a whole, not for the protection of our stockholders and creditors. We are subject to regulation and supervision by the Federal Reserve, and our bank is subject to regulation and supervision by the FDIC and the IDFPR. The laws and regulations applicable to us govern a variety of matters, including permissible types, amounts and terms of loans and investments we may make, the maximum interest rate that may be charged, the amount of reserves we must hold against deposits we take, the types of deposits we may accept, maintenance of adequate capital and liquidity, changes in the control of us and our bank, restrictions on dividends and establishment of new offices. We must obtain approval from our regulators before engaging in certain activities, and there is the risk that such approvals may not be obtained, either in a timely manner or at all. Our regulators also have the ability to compel us to take certain actions, or restrict us from taking certain actions entirely, such as actions that our regulators deem to constitute an unsafe or unsound banking practice. Our failure to comply with any applicable laws or regulations, or regulatory policies and interpretations of such laws and regulations, could result in sanctions by regulatory agencies, civil money penalties or damage to our reputation, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Since the severe economic recession occurring during 2007 through 2009, federal and state banking laws and regulations, as well as interpretations and implementations of these laws and regulations, have undergone substantial review and change. In particular, the Dodd-Frank Act drastically revised the laws and regulations under which we operate. As an institution with less than $10 billion in assets, certain elements of the Dodd-Frank Act have not been applied to us. While we endeavor to maintain safe banking practices and controls beyond the regulatory requirements applicable to us, our internal controls may not match those of larger banking institutions that are subject to increased regulatory oversight.

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Financial institutions generally have also been subjected to increased scrutiny from regulatory authorities. These changes and increased scrutiny have resulted and may continue to result in increased costs of doing business and may in the future result in decreased revenues and net income, reduce our ability to compete effectively to attract and retain customers, or make it less attractive for us to continue providing certain products and services. Any future changes in federal and state laws and regulations, as well as the interpretation and implementation of such laws and regulations, could affect us in substantial and unpredictable ways, including those listed above or other ways that could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. Recent political developments have led to additional uncertainty as to the implementation, scope and timing of regulatory reforms.

There is uncertainty surrounding the potential legal, regulatory and policy changes by the presidential administration in the United States that may directly affect financial institutions and the global economy.

The presidential administration has indicated that it would like to see changes made to certain financial reform regulations, including the Dodd-Frank Act, which has resulted in increased regulatory uncertainty, and we are assessing the potential impact on financial and economic markets and on our business. Changes in federal policy and at regulatory agencies are expected to occur over time through policy and personnel changes, which could lead to changes involving the level of oversight and focus on the financial services industry. The nature, timing and economic and political effects of potential changes to the current legal and regulatory framework affecting financial institutions remain highly uncertain. At this time, it is unclear what additional laws, regulations and policies may change and whether future changes or uncertainty surrounding future changes will adversely affect our operating environment and therefore our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Certain of our activities are restricted due to commitments entered into with the Federal Reserve by us and certain of our foreign national stockholders.

Certain of our stockholders who invested in our recapitalization are foreign nationals, and we and certain of these foreign national stockholders have entered into commitments with the Federal Reserve that restrict some of our activities. In particular, without approval of the Federal Reserve, we are restricted from engaging in certain transactions with these foreign national stockholders, their immediate families, and any company controlled by such foreign national stockholders or by their immediate families. Such transactions include (i) extensions of credit described in the Federal Reserve’s Regulation O, (ii) covered transactions described in sections 23A and 23B of the Federal Reserve Act and the Federal Reserve’s Regulation W, and (iii) subject to certain limited exceptions, business transactions or relationships with companies controlled by such foreign national stockholders or by their immediate families. These restrictions could prevent us from pursuing activities that would otherwise be in our and our other stockholders’ best interests. Moreover, if we were to fail to comply with any of these restrictions, we could be subject to enforcement and other legal actions by the Federal Reserve, including civil and criminal penalties, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are required to act as a source of financial and managerial strength for our bank in times of stress.

As a bank holding company, we are required under federal law to act as a source of financial and managerial strength to our bank, and to commit resources to support our bank if necessary. We may be required to commit additional resources to our bank at times when we may not be in a financial position to provide such resources or when it may not be in our, or our stockholders’ or our creditors’ best interests to do so. Providing such support is more likely to be necessary during times of financial stress for us and our bank, which may make any capital we are required to raise to provide such support more expensive than it might otherwise be. In addition, any capital loans we make to our bank are subordinate in right of payment to depositors and to certain other indebtedness of our bank. In the event of our bankruptcy, any commitment by us to a federal banking regulator to maintain the capital of our bank will be assumed by the bankruptcy trustee and entitled to priority of payment.

We are subject to capital adequacy requirements and may be subject to more stringent capital requirements.

We are subject to capital adequacy guidelines and other regulatory requirements specifying minimum amounts and types of capital that we must maintain. From time to time, the regulators change these regulatory capital adequacy and liquidity guidelines. If we fail to meet these minimum capital adequacy and liquidity guidelines and other regulatory requirements, we or our subsidiaries may be restricted in the types of activities we may conduct and we may be prohibited from taking certain capital actions, such as paying dividends and repurchasing or redeeming capital securities. See Item 1. “Business—Supervision and Regulation—Regulatory Capital Requirements” for more information on the capital adequacy standards that we must meet and maintain.

In particular, the capital adequacy and liquidity requirements applicable to Byline Bancorp, Inc. and Byline Bank under the capital rules implementing the Basel III capital framework in the United States (the “Capital Rules”) began to be phased-in starting in 2015. Basel III not only increases most of the required minimum regulatory capital ratios, it introduces a new Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio and the concept of a capital conservation buffer. Basel III also expands the current definition of capital by establishing additional criteria that capital instruments must meet to be considered Additional Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital. In order to be a “well-capitalized” depository institution under the new regime, an institution must maintain a Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio of 6.5% or more; a Tier 1 capital ratio of 8% or more; a total capital ratio of 10% or more; and a leverage ratio of 5% or more. Institutions must also maintain a capital conservation buffer consisting of common equity Tier 1 capital. The Basel III rules also generally preclude certain hybrid securities, such as trust preferred securities, from being counted as Tier 1 capital. However, we are permitted to include

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qualifying trust preferred securities issued prior to May 19, 2010 as Additional Tier 1 capital. The Basel III Capital Rules became effective as applied to us and Byline Bank on January 1, 2015 with a phase-in period that generally extended through January 1, 2019 for many of the changes.

While we currently meet the requirements of the Basel III-based Capital Rules, we may fail to do so in the future. The failure to meet applicable regulatory capital requirements could result in one or more of our regulators placing limitations or conditions on our activities, including our growth initiatives, or restricting the commencement of new activities, and could affect customer and investor confidence, our costs of funds and level of required deposit insurance assessments to the FDIC, our ability to pay dividends on our capital stock, our ability to make acquisitions, and our business, results of operations and financial conditions, generally.

Monetary policies and regulations of the Federal Reserve could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In addition to being affected by general economic conditions, our earnings and growth are affected by the policies of the Federal Reserve. An important function of the Federal Reserve is to regulate the money supply and credit conditions. Among the instruments used by the Federal Reserve to implement these objectives are open market purchases and sales of U.S. government securities, adjustments of the discount rate and changes in banks’ reserve requirements against bank deposits. These instruments are used in varying combinations to influence overall economic growth and the distribution of credit, bank loans, investments and deposits. Their use also affects interest rates charged on loans or paid on deposits.

The monetary policies and regulations of the Federal Reserve have had a significant effect on the operating results of commercial banks in the past and are expected to continue to do so in the future. The effects of such policies upon our business, financial condition and results of operations cannot be predicted.

Federal and state regulators periodically examine our business, and we may be required to remediate adverse examination findings.

The Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and the IDFPR periodically examine our business, including our compliance with laws and regulations. If, as a result of an examination, a banking agency were to determine that our financial condition, capital resources, asset quality, earnings prospects, management, liquidity or other aspects of any of our operations had become unsatisfactory, or that we or our predecessor were in violation of any law or regulation, they may take a number of different remedial actions as they deem appropriate. These actions include the power to enjoin “unsafe or unsound” practices, to require affirmative action to correct any conditions resulting from any violation or practice, to issue an administrative order that can be judicially enforced, to direct an increase in our capital, to restrict our growth, to assess civil money penalties, to fine or remove officers and directors and, if it is concluded that such conditions cannot be corrected or there is an imminent risk of loss to depositors, to terminate our deposit insurance and place our bank into receivership or conservatorship. Any regulatory action against us could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our ability to pay dividends may be limited and we do not intend to pay cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future; consequently, our stockholders’ ability to achieve a return on their investment will depend on appreciation in the price of our common stock.

Holders of our common stock are entitled to receive only such dividends as our board of directors may declare out of funds legally available for such payments. We expect that we will retain all earnings, if any, for operating capital, and we do not expect our board of directors to declare any dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future. Even if we have earnings in an amount sufficient to pay cash dividends, our board of directors may decide to retain earnings for the purpose of financing growth. We cannot assure you that cash dividends on our common stock will ever be paid.

In addition, we are a bank holding company, and our ability to declare and pay dividends is dependent on certain federal regulatory considerations, including the guidelines of the Federal Reserve regarding capital adequacy and dividends. It is the policy of the Federal Reserve that bank holding companies should generally pay dividends on capital stock only out of earnings, and only if prospective earnings retention is consistent with the organization’s expected future needs, asset quality and financial condition.

Further, if we are unable to satisfy the capital requirements applicable to us for any reason, we may not be able to make, or may have to reduce or eliminate, the payment of dividends on our common stock in the event we decide to declare dividends. Any change in the level of our dividends or the suspension of the payment thereof could have a material adverse effect on the market price of our common stock.

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We are subject to numerous laws designed to protect consumers, including the Community Reinvestment Act (the “CRA”) and fair lending laws, and failure to comply with these laws could lead to a wide variety of sanctions.

The CRA requires our bank, consistent with safe and sound operations, to ascertain and meet the credit needs of its entire community, including low and moderate income areas. Our bank’s failure to comply with the CRA could, among other things, result in the denial or delay of certain corporate applications filed by us or our bank, including applications for branch openings or relocations and applications to acquire, merge or consolidate with another banking institution or holding company. In addition, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Fair Housing Act and other fair lending laws and regulations prohibit discriminatory lending practices by financial institutions. The U.S. Department of Justice, federal banking agencies, and other federal agencies are responsible for enforcing these laws and regulations. A challenge to an institution’s compliance with fair lending laws and regulations could result in a wide variety of sanctions, including damages and civil money penalties, injunctive relief, restrictions on mergers and acquisitions activity, restrictions on expansion, and restrictions on entering new business lines. Private parties may also challenge an institution’s performance under fair lending laws in private class action litigation. Such actions could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects.

Rulemaking changes implemented by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) may result in higher regulatory and compliance costs that could adversely affect our results of operations.

The Dodd-Frank Act created a new, independent federal agency, the CFPB, which was granted broad rulemaking, supervisory and enforcement powers under various federal consumer financial protection laws. The consumer protection provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act and the examination, supervision and enforcement of those laws and implementing regulations by the CFPB have created a more intense and complex environment for consumer finance regulation. See Item 1. “Business—Supervision and Regulation—Consumer Financial Protection”. Notwithstanding that insured depository institutions with assets of $10 billion or less (such as Byline Bank) will continue to be supervised and examined by their primary federal regulators, the ultimate impact of this heightened scrutiny is uncertain and could result in changes to pricing, practices, products and procedures. It could also result in increased costs related to regulatory oversight, supervision and examination, remediation efforts and possible penalties.  

Litigation and regulatory actions, including possible enforcement actions, could subject us to significant fines, penalties, judgments or other requirements resulting in increased expenses or restrictions on our business activities.

Our business is subject to increased litigation and regulatory risks as a result of a number of factors, including the highly regulated nature of the financial services industry and the focus of state and federal prosecutors on banks and the financial services industry generally. This focus has only intensified since the severe economic recession occurring during 2007 through 2009, with regulators and prosecutors focusing on a variety of financial institution practices and requirements, including foreclosure practices, compliance with applicable consumer protection laws, classification of “held for sale” assets and compliance with anti-money laundering statutes, the Bank Secrecy Act and sanctions administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

In the normal course of business, from time to time, we have in the past and may in the future be named as a defendant in various legal actions, including arbitrations, class actions and other litigation, arising in connection with our current and/or prior business activities. Legal actions could include claims for substantial compensatory or punitive damages or claims for indeterminate amounts of damages. In addition, while the arbitration provisions in certain of our customer agreements historically have limited our exposure to consumer class action litigation, there can be no assurance that we will be successful in enforcing our arbitration clause in the future. Further, we have in the past and may in the future be subject to consent orders with our regulators. We may also, from time to time, be the subject of subpoenas, requests for information, reviews, investigations and proceedings (both formal and informal) by governmental agencies regarding our current and/or prior business activities. Any such legal or regulatory actions may subject us to substantial compensatory or punitive damages, significant fines, penalties, obligations to change our business practices or other requirements resulting in increased expenses, diminished income and damage to our reputation. Our involvement in any such matters, whether tangential or otherwise and even if the matters are ultimately determined in our favor, could also cause significant harm to our reputation and divert management attention from the operation of our business. Further, any settlement, consent order or adverse judgment in connection with any formal or informal proceeding or investigation by government agencies may result in litigation, investigations or proceedings as other litigants and government agencies begin independent reviews of the same activities. As a result, the outcome of legal and regulatory actions could be material to our business, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows depending on, among other factors, the level of our earnings for that period, and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

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Non-compliance with the USA PATRIOT Act, the Bank Secrecy Act or other laws and regulations could result in fines or sanctions against us.

The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 and the Bank Secrecy Act require financial institutions to design and implement programs to prevent financial institutions from being used for money laundering and terrorist activities. If such activities are detected, financial institutions are obligated to file suspicious activity reports with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. These rules require financial institutions to establish procedures for identifying and verifying the identity of customers seeking to open new financial accounts. Federal and state bank regulators also have focused on compliance with Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering regulations. Failure to comply with these regulations could result in fines or sanctions, including restrictions on conducting acquisitions or establishing new branches. In recent years, several banking institutions have received large fines for non-compliance with these laws and regulations. While we have developed policies and procedures designed to assist in compliance with these laws and regulations, these policies and procedures may not be effective in preventing violations of these laws and regulations. Failure to maintain and implement adequate programs to combat money laundering and terrorist financing could also have serious reputational consequences for us, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Regulations relating to privacy, information security and data protection could increase our costs, affect or limit how we collect and use personal information and adversely affect our business opportunities.

We are subject to various privacy, information security and data protection laws, including requirements concerning security breach notification, and we could be negatively affected by these laws. For example, our business is subject to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which, among other things: (i) imposes certain limitations on our ability to share nonpublic personal information about our customers with nonaffiliated third parties; (ii) requires that we provide certain disclosures to customers about our information collection, sharing and security practices and afford customers the right to “opt out” of any information sharing by us with nonaffiliated third parties (with certain exceptions), and (iii) requires that we develop, implement and maintain a written comprehensive information security program containing appropriate safeguards based on our size and complexity, the nature and scope of our activities, and the sensitivity of customer information we process, as well as plans for responding to data security breaches. Various state and federal banking regulators and states have also enacted data security breach notification requirements with varying levels of individual, consumer, regulatory or law enforcement notification in certain circumstances in the event of a security breach. Moreover, legislators and regulators in the United States are increasingly adopting or revising privacy, information security and data protection laws that potentially could have a significant impact on our current and planned privacy, data protection and information security-related practices, our collection, use, sharing, retention and safeguarding of consumer or employee information, and some of our current or planned business activities. This could also increase our costs of compliance and business operations and could reduce income from certain business initiatives. This includes increased privacy-related enforcement activity at the federal level, by the Federal Trade Commission and CFPB, as well as at the state level, such as with regard to mobile applications.

Compliance with current or future privacy, data protection and information security laws (including those regarding security breach notification) affecting customer or employee data to which we are subject could result in higher compliance and technology costs and could restrict our ability to provide certain products and services, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. Our failure to comply with privacy, data protection and information security laws could result in potentially significant regulatory or governmental investigations or actions, litigation, fines, sanctions and damage to our reputation, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

We are subject to environmental liability risk associated with our lending activities and with the properties we own.

A significant portion of our loan portfolio is secured by real property. During the ordinary course of business, we may foreclose on and take title to properties securing certain loans and there is a risk that hazardous or toxic substances could be found on these properties, notwithstanding our prior due diligence. We also own many of our branches and it is possible that hazardous or toxic substances could be found on these properties. If hazardous or toxic substances are found, we may be liable for remediation costs, as well as for personal injury and property damage. Environmental laws may require us to incur substantial expenses and may materially reduce the affected property’s value or limit our ability to use or sell the affected property. In addition, future laws or more stringent interpretations or enforcement policies with respect to existing laws may increase our exposure to environmental liability. The remediation costs and any other financial liabilities associated with an environmental hazard could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

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Risks Related to Acquisition Activity

We may be adversely affected by risks associated with completed and potential acquisitions, including execution risks, failure to realize anticipated transaction benefits, and failure to overcome integration risks, which could adversely affect our growth and profitability.

We have continued to grow our business both organically and through the acquisition of smaller banks that management believes strategically fit within our franchise and that we believe support our businesses and make financial and strategic sense, such as our acquisition of Ridgestone in 2016, First Evanston in 2018, and our recently announced pending acquisition of Oak Park River Forest Bankshares, Inc. In the event that we continue to pursue further acquisitions, we may have difficulty executing on and may not realize the anticipated benefits of any transaction we complete. Any of the foregoing matters could materially and adversely affect us.

Generally, any acquisition of target financial institutions, branches or other banking assets by us will require approval by, and cooperation from, a number of governmental regulatory agencies, possibly including the Federal Reserve and the FDIC as well as the IDFPR. In evaluating applications seeking approval of acquisitions, such regulators consider factors such as, among other things, the competitive effect and public benefits of the transaction, the capital position and managerial resources of the combined organization, the risks to the stability of the U.S. banking or financial system, the applicant’s performance record under the CRA, the applicant’s compliance with fair housing and other consumer protection laws and the effectiveness of all organizations involved in combating money laundering activities. Such regulators could deny our application, which would restrict our growth, or the regulatory approvals may not be granted on terms that are acceptable to us. For example, we could be required to sell branches as a condition to receiving regulatory approvals, and such a condition may not be acceptable to us or may reduce the benefit of an acquisition.

As to any acquisition that we complete, including the Ridgestone and First Evanston acquisitions, which took place in October 2016 and May 2018, respectively, as well as the anticipated acquisition of Oak Park River Forest, we may fail to realize some or all of the anticipated transaction benefits if the integration process takes longer or is more costly than expected or otherwise fails to meet our expectations.

In addition, acquisition activities could be material to our business and involve a number of risks, including the following:

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Depending on the condition of any institution or assets or liabilities that we may acquire, that acquisition may, at least in the near term, adversely affect our capital and earnings and, if not successfully integrated with our organization, may continue to have such effects over a longer period. We may not be successful in overcoming these risks or any other problems encountered in connection with potential acquisitions, and any acquisition we may consider will be subject to prior regulatory approval.

Also, acquisitions may involve the payment of a premium over book and market values and, therefore, some dilution of our tangible book value and net income per common share may occur in connection with any future transaction. Our inability to overcome these risks could have a material adverse effect on our profitability, return on equity, return on assets, and our ability to implement our business strategy and enhance stockholder value, which, in turn, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Other Risks

Our principal stockholder, MBG Investors I, L.P. has significant influence over us, and its interests could conflict with those of our other stockholders.

Currently, our principal stockholder, MBG Investors I, L.P., owns approximately 31.6% of the outstanding shares of our common stock and its general partner is one of our directors. As a result, MBG Investors I, L.P. is able to influence matters requiring approval by our stockholders, including the election of directors and the approval of mergers or other extraordinary transactions. MBG Investors I, L.P. may also have interests that differ from yours and may vote in a way with which you disagree and which may be adverse to your interests. The concentration of ownership may also have the effect of delaying, preventing or deterring a change of control of the Company, could deprive our stockholders of an opportunity to receive a premium for their common stock as part of a sale of our company and might ultimately affect the market price of our common stock.

MBG Investors I, L.P. could sell its interest in us to a third-party in a private transaction, which may not lead to your realization of any change of control premium on shares of our common stock and would subject us to the influence of a presently unknown third-party.

The ability of MBG Investors I, L.P. to sell its shares of our common stock privately, with no requirement for a concurrent offer to be made to acquire all of the shares of our outstanding common stock, could prevent our stockholders from realizing any change of control premium on shares of our common stock that they own that may accrue to MBG Investors I, L.P. on its private sale of our common stock.

Future sales of our common stock in the public market, including by our pre-IPO stockholders, could lower our stock price.

The market price of our common stock could decline as a result of sales of a large number of shares of our common stock or from the perception that such sales could occur. These sales, or the possibility that these sales may occur, also may make it more difficult for us to raise additional capital by selling equity securities in the future, at a time and price that we deem appropriate.

Certain of our pre-IPO stockholders, including affiliates such as MBG Investors, I, L.P., hold restricted shares that could be sold in accordance with the volume, manner of sale and other limitations under Rule 144 or through registration under the Securities Act. We cannot predict the size of future issuances or sales of our common stock by our pre-IPO stockholders or the effect, if any, that future issuances or sales of shares of our common stock may have on the market price of our common stock. Sales or distributions of substantial amounts of our common stock (including shares issued in connection with an acquisition), or the perception that such sales could occur, may cause the market price of our common stock to decline.

We may be adversely affected by risks associated with our successful banking system conversion, including failure to realize anticipated benefits and to overcome integration risks, which could adversely affect our growth, profitability, and customer experience.

In order to support our continued growth and to continue to provide first-rate banking products and services to our customers, we have converted our core bank processing platform to FIS’s Integrated Banking Services. We successfully finalized the conversion in February of 2019. However, there can be no assurance that we will be able to realize the full anticipated benefits of the conversion and overcome associated integration risks.

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Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments.

None

Item 2. Properties.

Our corporate headquarters is located at 180 North LaSalle Street, Suite 300, Chicago, IL 60601. In addition to our corporate headquarters, we operate 57 branch offices located in the Chicago metropolitan area and one branch office in Brookfield, Wisconsin. We lease 24 of our retail branch offices and our headquarters and own the remainder of our retail branch offices. We are continually evaluating opportunities to improve our existing branches, and we have closed and may close branches in certain circumstances to improve our efficiency.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings.

We operate in a highly regulated environment. From time to time we are a party to various litigation matters incidental to the conduct of our business. We are not presently party to any legal proceedings the resolution of which we believe would have a material adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, liquidity, results of operation, cash flows or capital levels.

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures.

Not applicable.

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PART II

Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.

Our common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange (the “NYSE”) under the symbol “BY.”  There were approximately 762 holders of record of our common stock as of March 14, 2019.  

The timing and amount of cash dividends paid depends on our earnings, financial condition, capital requirements and other relevant factors. The primary sources for payment of dividends to our stockholders are dividends paid to us by Byline Bank and cash on hand. The Company is subject to state law limitations on the payment of dividends. Delaware law generally limits dividends if: (a) the corporation does not have a surplus; or (b) the corporation does not have net profits for the fiscal year in which the dividend is declared and/or the preceding fiscal year. We have an internal policy that prohibits the Board of Byline Bank from declaring, and Byline Bank from paying, dividends that would cause the minimum capital amounts required for Byline Bank to be considered less than “well capitalized” for regulatory purposes. See Item 1. “Business – Supervision and Regulations – Dividends; Stress Testing” above and Note 21 of notes to consolidated financial statements contained in Item 8 of this report.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.

The Company did not repurchase any of its common stock during the quarter ended December 31, 2018.

Equity Compensation Plan Information.

The equity compensation plan information is presented under Part III, Item 12 of the report and is incorporated herein by reference.

Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities; Use of Proceeds From Registered Securities.

None.

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Stock Performance Graph.

The following graph compares the cumulative total stockholder return on the Company’s common stock from June 30, 2017 (the date of our initial public offering and listing on the NYSE) through December 31, 2018, with the cumulative total return of: (1) the Russell 2000 (U.S. Stock) Index, (2) a peer group of the SNL $1 Billion to $5 Billion Asset U.S. Bank Index, and (3) a peer group of the SNL $5 Billion to $10 Billion Asset U.S. Bank Index. Total return assumes the reinvestment of all dividends.

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Item 6. Selected Financial Data.

The following table summarizes certain selected historical consolidated financial data of Byline as of or for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014, and is derived from our audited financial statements. You should read this information in conjunction with Item 7. “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” of this report and our consolidated financial statements and related notes included in Item 8 of this report. Management uses the non-GAAP financial measures set forth herein in its analysis of our performance, and believes that these non-GAAP financial measures provide useful information to management and investors; however, you should not view these disclosures as a substitute for results determined in accordance with GAAP financial measures. See “GAAP Reconciliation and Management Explanation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures” included in Item 6 of this report, for more information.

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GAAP Reconciliation and Management Explanation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Some of the financial measures included in Item 6. “Selected Financial Data” are not measures of financial performance in accordance with GAAP. Our management uses the non‑GAAP financial measures set forth below in its analysis of our performance.

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We believe that these non‑GAAP financial measures provide useful information to its management and investors that is supplementary to our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows computed in accordance with GAAP; however, we acknowledge that our non‑GAAP financial measures have a number of limitations. As such, you should not view these disclosures as a substitute for results determined in accordance with GAAP financial measures that we and other companies use. Management also uses these measures for peer comparison.

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The following reconciliation tables provide a more detailed analysis of the non‑GAAP financial measures discussed herein:

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