Atlantic Union Bankshares Corporation (NASDAQ:AUB) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

John Asbury: And if you think about the drivers of the CECL modeling, what drives it underpinning it, the unemployment rate, what’s happening with the gross domestic product, and it’s just hard to see the economy falling off a cliff anytime soon, at least in the markets in which we operate. Having said that, I would caution, there’s always the infamous one-off. Now, you can’t have a four-off and a five-off, and a 10-off, but things do happen from time to time that could be idiosyncratic. We’re always subjected to that. We saw one of those this year. But overall, Russell, we still feel pretty good. But I acknowledge Black Swan events happen all the time, but we feel pretty good about where we are right now.

Russell Gunther: Understood. Okay guys. Thank you very much for taking my question.

John Asbury: Thanks, Russel.

Doug Woolley: Thanks, Russel.

Bill Cimino: And Josh, we’re ready for our next caller, please.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question our next question. Our next question comes from Steve Moss, Raymond James. You may proceed.

Bill Cimino: Hi, Steve.

Steve Moss: Good morning, guys.

John Asbury: Good morning.

Steve Moss: Good morning, John. Based on – going back to loan pricing here, Rob mentioned loans coming in at 7% for the quarter. Just curious, should we expect a step up in loans being added – in loan rates for loans being added this quarter?

John Asbury: Sorry, do you mean production, Steve? Is your question, what is – what do we expect for production in Q4, or do you expect the rate?

Steve Moss: The new expected rate. So what do you expect for the rate in the quarter?

RobGorman: Yes, I think you’ll see probably kind of staying where we saw in the third quarter, averaging about 7%, maybe a little over 7%. I think with term rates being up, you might see the fixed-rate loans get priced a bit higher on the production. But I think if the Fed does stay steady, I don’t think we’ll see much movement in the – in the short-term rates. So variable new loans coming out will probably be in closer to 8%, which was what we saw in the third quarter. So not looking for a lot of shift there, but if it’s going to happen, it’s going to be in the fixed rate term loans, just because term rates have gone up since the end of the quarter.

Steve Moss: Okay. And then on the deposit front curious with your margin guide here of – to the 3.25% range? What you guys are thinking for – what that implies for deposit beta? And just – maybe just a little talk around the competition for deposits your understanding on your markets?

RobGorman: Yes, so in terms of the deposit betas, we’re now saying that total deposit beta through the cycle is going to be around the mid-40s. That’s up from, I think, last quarter we were guiding to about 40%. Interest-bearing deposits guide now is 55% betas through the cycle offsetting. That would be our loan yield beta, which is about 50% through the cycle. So we will continue to project that unless there’s movement in the short-term rates from the Fed’s perspective. But in terms of the total deposit rates, if you look at it, on average this quarter, we were at 1.97% cost of deposits. If you look at it from September levels, just the month of September, it’s at 2.07%. So we’re seeing that continue to move up. Now the [indiscernible] has also moved up, but we’ll continue to see that through the first quarter, maybe into the second quarter, that we’ll continue to see deposit rates ratchet up somewhat offset by loan yields ratcheting up, but we’ll see how it plays out.