Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:BHLB) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

David Bishop: Got it. And then are you seeing that on both sides of the house too or are there fee income on the wealth management side, opportunities to cross-sell as well?

Unidentified Company Representative: Yes, Dave. As Nitin mentioned, the new hires are definitively focused on deposit generation, deposit acquisition, private banking, which blends very well with wealth management. They are green shoots right now, but we think there are future opportunities.

David Bishop: Great. Appreciate the color.

David Rosato: Yeah. I would obviously agree with everything that said — I think of this in a multiyear time frame, right? If we are successful in bringing in the right people, we are successful in a more balanced or even skewed towards deposit type of lift in activity that has huge long-term ramifications for us. And that opportunity is really looking out the window from this conference room. It’s all the people, the economic engine of growth in the state is primarily in this market right here. We’re Boston headquartered, but we need to be bigger in Boston than we are today. And that’s what we’re focused on. And that’s not a tell me how much to take out Q1 earnings because of that. That’s how do I think about Berkshire Bank over the next couple of years if they are successful.

Nitin Mhatre: And Dave, you had asked us this previously as well. How large is this opportunity? We believe it’s significant. I made that remark in my prepared remarks as well. So we have bankers that have been with us for a long period of time have deep client relationships that we continue to harvest and now we’re bringing in new folks that are coming to us through the market disruptions to the whole First Republic, Silicon Valley events have benefited us to that extent. We’re bringing new players that are bringing new relationships that we didn’t have before, and they’re looking to grow it. And I think when we mentioned it at one point, it looked like significant about over $20 billion of deposit opportunity to be captured. So if we get a fraction of that, it will help us quite a bit.

David Bishop: Perfect. Appreciate all the color, guys. Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I’d now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Mhatre for final closing comments.

Nitin Mhatre: Thank you all for joining us today and for your interest in Berkshire. Have a good day and be well.

Operator: Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.

Nitin Mhatre: Sure. Have a good day and be well.