Bank7 Corp. (NASDAQ:BSVN) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Tom Travis: Well, I guess we could be kind of a smart could answer and say, gosh, we’re sorry that we’re making so much money that capital is piling up so quickly. But with all seriousness, that’s the fact. And we clearly are very interested in acquisitions. We’ve always been consistent. We look at the right side of the balance sheet. And so we’re constantly talking and pursuing opportunities that make sense. And in the meantime, it’s just going to continue to pile up. And there’s really not much we can do about it with the exception of, I guess, we could do a special dividend or we could do something. But these are slippery slopes that we’re living in right now. So we’re plenty comfortable with letting the capital build up for a little while. We have flexibility. I think our dividend payout ratio, I think, Nate, you helped us with some of that and so did KBW. And I think we’re at somewhere in the 18%, 19%, Kelly, in payout ratio. And I think the industry is 35%.

Kelly Harris: I think we’re a little bit below that with the —

Tom Travis: So I guess what I’m trying to say, Nate, is that this earnings machine is a beast, and we have optionality if we chose to reduce capital by other ways. But for now, we’re going to steady as she goes and maybe we’ll find something to buy.

Nathan Race: No, understood. Definitely a good problem to have. Are you seeing any more opportunities on the acquisition side of things these days. Obviously, a lot of your smaller competitors, I imagine some of you are experiencing margin pressures is well and above you guys. So I’m just curious if that’s maybe leading to an increased number of discussions to those?

Tom Travis: Well, you would think it would. But I think this phenomenon that we have where you have these — I think some people call them zombie banks, but there are so many people that went out and unfortunately for them, made the decisions to extend way out in their durations and now they’re just stuck and they’re stuck and not able to sell their institutions because of that big MTM issue, AOCI. And I don’t see that changing unless the higher the rates go, the worse it is for them and the more stuff they are. So that’s taken a lot of opportunities off the table. And it’s just going to be that way for a while.

Operator: Our next question comes from Brady Gailey from KBW.

Brady Gailey : I just wanted to circle back to the energy credit that was recently in the media. I think this was an energy company that you guys were 102 that went bankrupt. I was just wondering if you could talk about the size of that credit, and it doesn’t appear that, that credit moved into NPAs. So do we think that will be more of a third quarter NPA increase?

Jason Estes: Yes. So the loan is approximately $33 million on our books. It’s a club deal, multiple banks involved, 4 total. And the loan is current. And there’s litigation going on here, and so I don’t want to get too far into it other than to say we’re a senior secured lender. We believe in the asset value. We believe in the cash flow the assets produce and we do not expect at this time that there would be a loss on that credit. And so the good news on the credit is with it being in this bankruptcy process, this isn’t going to linger. I could see it being an issue into the fourth quarter, but I don’t think it’s going to be an issue past the fourth quarter. And so we’re going to have resolution pretty quickly here.

Brady Gailey : Okay. And then I think that energy company was into natural gas. I know the price of natural gas has been pretty depressed here. Are you all seeing any other weaknesses in any of your other nat gas borrowers?