Laurie Hunsicker: It makes a lot of sense. Okay. And so just thinking about equipment finance I mean directionally in the categories that you mentioned very, very small, directionally there’s nothing there that you’re thinking hey we should pull back. We’ve seen a change. You’re still the only are working on. We have we’re feeling good about it. But the guys the guys who run Eastern funding or sort of reevaluating their strategic direction and all of this as we speak?
Carl M. Carlson: Yes, I think the difficulty of getting — when we talk about recoveries, I think they’re very comfortable how they underwrite and things of that nature. But when things don’t go bad you have to recover these vehicles. And I think it’s becoming a little bit more difficult taking a lot more time. And so they’re rethinking about some of that–.
Paul M. Perrault: Some of those loans are pretty small and they become very expensive and the trucks are bad repair. And it’s not a wonderful picture and that’s not something that they’ve done forever either.
Laurie Hunsicker: Yes. Okay.
Carl M. Carlson: The nice thing about the laundry equipment, it’s not going anywhere, right?
Laurie Hunsicker: Yes. And so with that particular revenue right good. Or I guess when you think about that? Yes that’s specialty vehicle bucket that I mean would you potentially look to sell those loans or get out of that? Or how do you think about that does not grow them further?
Paul M. Perrault: Well, the road or meetings concurrent to now that are considering all of those things.
Laurie Hunsicker: Okay. Okay. And then one other question here on the equipment finance you’ve got to you’ve got a category. Yes Kris. So equipment finance to create. What is that? That’s a 166 million barrels. If you’re done, I will follow-up with you.
Paul M. Perrault: That’s when the laundromat owner acquires the building of the laundromat is in — in a lot of cases, it might be a little strip mall, for example, that for days of the guy wants to own, but it’s always attached to a laundry. There’s always a laundromat involved.
Laurie Hunsicker: Okay, got you. Got you. Okay. And then and then one more question and Mark sort of already asked this, but I am just so curious. It would seem you guys have such a plethora of capital that buybacks here you know in the high 70s percentage of book but just be absolutely top of mind. I mean at what point do you say, Oh my gosh we have to pivot and get excited about this?
Carl M. Carlson: Yes. Right, in this environment — I would say still in this environment, we still think capital is very precious and it’s certainly as attractive to buy the stock at this level. There’s no question. But I also think it’s very important to make — keep the capital that you have and continue to use that capital to support the balance sheet and opportunities that present themselves. So that’s kind of where we are.
Laurie Hunsicker: Okay. Great. I’ll leave it there. Thanks.
Carl M. Carlson: Sure.
Paul A. Perrault: Thanks, Laurie.
Operator: Our next question comes from Chris O’Connell with KBW. Please go ahead, Chris.
Chris O’Connell: Hey, good afternoon.
Paul A. Perrault: Hi, Chris.
Chris O’Connell: Staying on the credit front, can you just remind us about the non-equipment finance portion the 4.7 million that was had had some partial reserves for it previously?
Carl M. Carlson: Sure, Chris. So those were fully reserved that specific reserves on those one had to and we talked about this in the past. One was the — it was construction firm that we took the charge-off on as well as a medical group.
Paul A. Perrault: And these are loans that have been dogging us. We pretty well wrapped them up now. But for the past couple of quarters you sort of cite those two loans that was being worked out.
Chris O’Connell: Got it. In on the CRE front I mean outside of the office as you’re looking at the rest of the maturities and throughout 2024. I mean how do you feel about kind of the core CRE or the ex-office and in the credit quality there? And as these maturities come through over the course of the year?
Carl M. Carlson: Yes. So far we feel very good about it not only the maturities but the repricings. As you can imagine we have a lot of commercial real estate particularly multifamily space and other things that reprice they may not mature, but they’ll reprice after five years. They may have a 10-year final balloon. And so they may be repricing up 200 basis — 280 basis points. We prepare to five year to five years ago. And so right now those are those debt service coverage things of that nature are just fine. Our rents have gone up significantly more than that. So we’re in good shape there. I don’t think there’s any issues on that but I think the office even the even office is doing well. I think it’s just the inside of certain properties in certain places that we have to we’ll work with our customers.
Chris O’Connell: Got it. And has the — has the recent increase in rates has that tempered demand or even just the timing of potential pipeline closings and in the CRE book.
Carl M. Carlson: Probably it certainly has tempered demand I guess I don’t know if it’s stopped closings at all. If it did there probably free reading it.
Paul A. Perrault: Yes there’s just not a lot of trades going on in our markets and real estate business does not mean a lot of buyers not a lot of sellers if.
Chris O’Connell: Got it.
Paul A. Perrault: And it’s in rapidly probably due to rates but it’s also probably due to the views on occupancy as an investor that picked rightly.
Chris O’Connell: Yes. And the demand that you’re seeing for loan growth you mentioned C&I and equipment finance kind of leading that in the C&I segment? And what’s the what’s the type of loans that you’re seeing the most attractive demand for?
Paul A. Perrault: Well industrial has been strong. Import/export stuff has been strong, law firms — little of everything that there’s not a particular expertise. Some particularly in our New York operation. Things like private schools and non-profits have been doing quite well and Brookline got involved in some of that as well. So they tend to be very well established, low leverage organizations that have great cash flow and are doing something might be building a generational thing.
