Ameris Bancorp (NASDAQ:ABCB) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Brandon King: Okay. And could you also remind us for the municipal money, what sort of rates that come on the balance sheet?

Nicole Stokes: Yes. We typically is very competitive with what our current spot cost would be. So money markets in that 2.5%, 3% now that 1.50% to 1.75%, savings around 1%, so I do want to do savings. But those were kind of our spot cost at quarter end. So assuming that those stay fairly level with no change in Fed rates. We would expect those municipals to maybe a little bit less because they are collateralized.

Brandon King: Okay. And I’m assuming those will help maybe potentially pay down some broker deposits, what is kind of the duration of the local deposits? And what are you expecting to mature later this year?

Nicole Stokes: Yes. We have those structures. So they’re very structured, and we have a certain amount maturing every month so that as we’re able to grow core deposits, we can pay those off. But we haven’t structured it’s not very — it’s not like one big lumpy broker. We haven’t staggered, from now to the end of the year to be able to do our ratio kind of in that 11% is where we’re targeting.

Brandon King: Okay. That’s helpful. And then I wanted to ask about the office loan that was charged off. Could you give us a sense of how large that loan was, and kind of what were the potential unique factors regarding that situation compared to the rest of your office portfolio?

Palmer Proctor: Okay, Brandon, the loan itself is something that we’ve been kind of in one part of collection or another for a little over a year. So it really has been something we’ve dealt with for a while. The original loan amount was in excess or right around the $10 million mark. So it’s a smaller property relative to maybe what you have in mind, but it was an acquired loan. When we get down to the final foreclosure on it, we updated our appraisal as an empty building is sort of a conservative approach on that, even though there is a tenant in there. And at the time that we did that and moved it finally into OREO, we took that write down on it. But it is something that’s been, I guess the difference maker there is that the collection efforts on that started really over a year ago. So it’s not really indicative of kind of where our office is overall.

Brandon King: Okay. That’s very helpful. That’s all I had. Thanks for taking my questions.

Nicole Stokes: Thank you, Brandon.

Operator: Your next question comes from Russell Gunther with Stephens. Your line is open.

Russell Gunther: Hey, good morning guys. Just a quick follow-up on the loan growth discussion. I think you mentioned sort of a mid-single-digit core target for the back half of the year. Just any color you could share in terms of what’s going to drive that from a mix perspective?

Palmer Proctor: Yes. I think what you’ll see is, obviously, the mortgage warehouse will moderate towards the end of the year, which is a big part of the growth you saw that was in excess of the mid-single-digits. But it will be pretty even across the board. We’re still seeing and still have good opportunities in C&I and some owner-occupied CRE and then obviously, mortgage and some of the equipment finance. So I think it’s — the growth in all those areas is going to be pretty consistent. It won’t be concentrated in any one area other than as we talked about with the mortgage warehouse.