Byline Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:BY) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Tom Bell: For next quarter, I mean, obviously, there’s — the government shutdown is a risk for one thing as a caveat. I mean we’re — borrowers are — interest rates are high. So borrowers that will qualify, right? They have to be a little bit stronger just given the rate environment and the loan yields that they’re going to have. And then just given the mix and the appetite out there right now. We just think the market is not giving us the same premiums that we were getting before. And as a result, we’ve just kind of given a little bit lower guidance here.

Roberto Herencia: Okay. So kind of a combination of both volume and pricing is in the conservative

Tom Bell: Yeah, I mean, there’s always, again, things can pick up. I mean, pipeline looks pretty decent right now, but it’s a little bit slower, just as we speak.

Alberto Paracchini: Yeah. Just keep in mind, Brian, it’s hard to do on and we actually don’t manage the business that way. It’s hard to do this on a quarter-by-quarter basis. So just try to look at it more kind of like over a 12 month period, just because, like for example, this quarter, the third quarter, we just had a different mix in the assets that we sold compared to the second quarter. So that mix of assets to give you an example, if we have on any given quarter, if we have more USDA than we had the prior quarter or less USDA, that may impact. Those loans command a significantly higher premium relative to SBA because they have certain characteristics in them that you don’t have certain protections for investors that give them the incentive to be able to pay more for those assets.

And that can impact on any given quarter, the mix changes we sell more 10-year relative to 15-year, 20-year, that also has implications. So just keep that in mind. The mix on any given quarter is going to — can potentially impact margins and dollars as well.

Roberto Herencia: I think the last thing I would say too is fully funded loans. It matters, right? So some loans are in the pipeline but haven’t fully funded so that means we can’t really go out and sell them in the marketplace. So there’s just a timing delay as Alberto mentioned. We can’t specifically hit one quarter for a number. If it doesn’t fund and sell this quarter, it’ll fund and sell next quarter.

Brian Martin: Yeah. And I apologize if I was leading, it was going lower, I just didn’t understand, I just was trying to understand rate or volume, and there was something you guys were thinking about more so than another, but I understand the annual look as you guys are suggesting, so I appreciate that. As far as the — maybe one for Mark. Just on the — maybe you mentioned this if I missed it, but just where the criticized and classified levels are with the quarter close here? I mean, were they — I thought you said that delinquencies were up. Maybe I missed that. But criticized and classifieds, were they up in the quarter with the transaction?

Mark Fucinato: They were up, I would say, slightly in the quarter. Our criticized actually came down a little bit because we had a resolution of a large criticized asset during the quarter. But, yes, The transition of some of the inland credits, which again, we knew which credits were coming in that were going to be criticized or classified, resulted in an increase, yes.

Brian Martin: Okay. So an increase in just to criticize or is it both?

Mark Fucinato: It was criticized with slightly down because of a resolution of a Byline legacy criticized asset. I would say classified was pretty well, just a slight increase. But the NPL increase overall wasn’t that much different from where we were the previous quarter. In other words, we did have some resolutions of our criticized and classified assets and NPLs from the Byline book, but obviously, we had increases come back in from the inland book.