Amerant Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:AMTB) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jerry Plush: Yes, look – I think with the emphasis we’re placing on private banking, there is a natural evolution as these customers come on to also be able to cross-sell on the wealth side, so I think that’s one driver. I think the other is we’ve added some key personnel, very experienced people to help develop–using the capabilities that we’ve already got in-house to really develop more on the domestic side. Historically, we’ve had a fair bit, virtually all of it being connected with the international side, and we think there’s just huge upside for us, so in terms of expectations, I think it’s really a volume play for us to continue to be a slow, steady build. But it’s a very, very important part of our plans, is to really drive incremental AUM into the organization.

Carlos Iafigliola: Yes, I believe the last quarter was a good example – $127 million of increases in net new assets. We really want to keep up with that behavior of keep growing, and of course the interest rate cycle is not helping that much the mortgage company but we still–you know, we’re having production and we expect to keep going up with the mortgages and selling to the secondary market.

Feddie Strickland: Got it, that’s helpful. Just one last one from me, you guys said that it sounds like the balance between the different loan categories growing throughout the year should be kind of similar to what we had this past quarter, so should we expect consumer stays around 8%-ish of loans over time? Is that the number you’re comfortable with?

Jerry Plush: No, I think you’ll see that diminish because we’ve done the transition into a white label solution and that we’ll have direct influence over, so in terms of if you think about us historically–you know, Carlos can comment, but we had a pretty steady appetite of the indirect from the relationships we had, and I think we clearly should see some trail-off from that as the other begins to ramp up.

Carlos Iafigliola: Yes, I guess the best way to describe it is that the indirect purchases were done in bulk and would probably be bigger in amount every month. We just stopped buying from the indirect sources and now we’re coming in, as Jerry mentioned, on the white label, but the white label are focused on footprints where we operate, so you have just Houston and Florida, so the growth would be slower than the payments coming out from the indirect purchases, so it will be a net decrease, so to say. But the composition–

Jerry Plush: And it won’t be as chunky.

Carlos Iafigliola: Correct.

Feddie Strickland: Got it, thanks for taking my questions. Have a good one.

Jerry Plush: Sure. Have a great day.

Operator: Thank you, and one moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Scouten with Piper Sandler. Your line is open, please go ahead.

Stephen Scouten: Hey, good morning everyone. Maybe first, just following up on that SOFI conversation, those loans, it looks like were down $63 million. How much of that, if any, update on the net charge-offs was related to those loans versus your core self-originating consumer?

Carlos Iafigliola: There was about $3 million coming from that indirect purchases, and then we had another surge due to the change in policy, but related to the performance was about $3 million.

Stephen Scouten: Okay, that’s helpful. Then if you can give me an idea of what you guys are booking new CDs at and domestic deposits – it looks like that’s probably going to be the biggest driver of deposit growth from here, at least in the near term, so what are you having to pay to get that new CD growth?

Jerry Plush: Yes, I think market rates have run around 4%, and that’s where we are. Customers seem to prefer the, call it sort of the nine to 12-month bucket, and that’s where we’re pricing our 12-month product right now.