David Bishop, Drexel Hamilton
And, Leslie, circling back, I think you gave some guidance in terms of expense growth. And just maybe circling back to the fourth quarter, saw a little bit of a downtick in compensation expenses. Obviously we will have a first-quarter build for and such, but is that a relatively good run rate to build the expense base off of?
Leslie Lunak, Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. I think so. It’s just the first quarter will be a little higher, but we’ll have — my best guidance, again we had about a 9% increase which was in line with the 10% that we had guided to last year. I would say it will be in the single digits again this year overall and clearly comp and not get into the two main components of that. I think we’ll be in the single digits again probably a little bit moderated from what we saw in 2014 in terms of rate of overall growth.
David Bishop, Drexel Hamilton
Great. Thank you.
Operator
Your last question will come from the line of Joe Fenech from Hovde Group. Please proceed.
Joe Fenech, Hovde Group
Good morning guys. John, you were one of the first, I think, to allude to the possibility of this pickup in midsize bank M&A, it was a few quarters ago now. From when you made those comments, is your sense that regulators attitude have softened even further and that situations like M&T are now more company specific as opposed to being more of a harbinger for regulators’ attitudes towards M&A generally? Has it gotten even better from when you first made those comments three quarters ago?
John Kanas, Chairman, President and CEO
The second answered first, I think that situations like M&T are very much bank specific. Everybody freaked out when that first happened and thought Oh my God, Oh my God and me too by the way. Does this mean the regulators aren’t going to approve anything anymore? And as this story of M&T has unfolded publicly, it’s become quite clear that this was a very specific situation. With regard to whether regulators are softening their — I mean I would characterize them right now as being extremely neutral. They are in favor of deals that make sense. And we’ve had many, many conversations with them and other banks have as well and gotten the green light on things that made sense. I think one thing is sure: regulators are far more involved in the M&A world than they ever were before. They want to be in earlier. They want to know what you are thinking. They want to see your models and they have a lot to say. But frankly in terms of where they stand today, I view them as very neutral and certainly not impeding the process.
Joe Fenech, Hovde Group
Okay, and then either Raj or Leslie I guess, credit looked fine. You guys have talked in the past, or Raj specifically, about the reserve being dictated by sort of the loan losses for the peer group because you all didn’t have the sufficient loss history. That doesn’t seem to have changed. My impression was that the reserve could have even drifted lower. So just wondering if there has been a shift in rationale there at all.
John Kanas, Chairman, President and CEO
Let me — she is going to give you the technical answer, but let me just tell you that we are growing the way we’re growing. It’s important to me that this company maintains a conservative attitude towards this — for regulators and for investors and for me. So when you’re growing at this rate, you could expect to — in my view I don’t mind overshooting a little bit there rather than undershooting.
