Banc of California, Inc. (NYSE:BANC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jared Wolff: I’d say we’re running about the same place we were at the end of the quarter. The average for the quarter was 41% and the period end was 39.5%, so it’s pretty close. We look at within a 5% band up or down as kind of reasonable, though we didn’t expect to be that wide. So right now we’re running where we were at the end of the quarter. I would say that, as I mentioned earlier, I think the pressure on pricing continues to — it continues. I wouldn’t say it’s increasing, it just continues. And said it’s probably going to bump rates here a few more times and that’s going to roll down the hill the way it has. And so we’re just trying to optimize our relationships. The way that we’re looking at this is, we’re trying to be selective and not reprice our entire deposit portfolio by just promoting rates.

So we still have a strategy where we are pricing relationships individually and monitoring relationships, reminding them the service that provide and then when people ask for higher rates, we’re having direct conversations. It’s a lot more work and — but it’s I think protected our overall deposit base and that’s one of the reasons why we’ve grown out to the brokered market or even the whole — the non-core market to get funding so that when we want to buy it in bulk, so we don’t have to reprice groups of deposits here by providing that rate to everybody, because a lot of people aren’t asking for it, believe it or not. And a lot of our CDs just roll over automatically. And so we’re trying to be pretty selective about it and strategic about it.

Andrew Terrell: Okay. And then last one for me. I just wanted to ask on the — I think the non-accrual loans were up about $12 million or so this quarter. Just was hoping to get maybe a little bit of color on what drove the uptick and was this an acquired credit with the PCD mark already against it or one that that BANC originated?

Jared Wolff: Well, we consider — I don’t think it was a — the charge off that we took that was specifically reserved against, that was a PMB credit and that was — that kind of proceeded as planned and I think we were well reserved on it. The other ones, I don’t remember if the loans came from PMB or not at this point. And I just — we own the loans and we’re responsible for them. And I don’t know that they had specific reserves on them, but we think that we have reserved properly at this point and we don’t see a lot of credit noise down the road. So far, in my history here, we really haven’t had any from the way that we’ve been underwriting and I think we’ll be able to manage these just fine. It’s certainly not a trend from my point of view.

Andrew Terrell: Okay. Very good. Well, thank you for taking the questions.

Jared Wolff: Yes. Thank you very much.

Operator: And our next question today comes from Kelly Motta at KBW. Please go ahead.

Kelly Motta: Hey, good morning.

Jared Wolff: Good morning.

Kelly Motta: Thanks for the question. Most of mine have been asked and answered already, but if I could swing back to the warehouse book. I know that’s difficult to predict, but wondering if there’s any sort of minimum amount of activity you expect that to bottom out at? As well as if you remind us the deposit relationships that come with that in terms of either loans deposits ?

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