CapStar Financial Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSTR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Feddie Strickland: Got it. And then just one last one from me just more broadly speaking, when you’re talking about internal investment, is that going to be focused more on augmenting your existing markets or are you considering further expansion in new markets either with an IPO or team left out or what have you?

Tim Schools: Well, I would say before this rate environment, like if we go back to whenever fourth quarter of ’21 or last December, my view to the management team and our Board is we have enough right now. And we’ve done – this was a fabulous company that had a lot of positive aspects to it and perhaps we’ve changed the strategic direction a little bit. We’ve maybe changed the culture a little more towards performance and it was a great company to start with, but profitability was a little lower, growth was a little slower. So wanted to do these investments and I think they’ve worked. I don’t think we covered it specifically but Chattanooga and Knoxville today are almost $500 million banks. They are bigger than Athens and FCB.

I think Athens we may have bought for $100 million and FCB, we may have bought for $80 million handed out shares, so that’s almost $500 million bank that we didn’t handout shares on. So I think we have enough. I would have said that before the rate environment. And my goal really would be to continue to maximize those markets and maybe look for bankers in those markets, but we already have a great team. We don’t need a lot more bankers and so we’ve got a wonderful team in those markets and they we need to keep getting customers like they’ve done with that $500 million. And really fund it and get the deposit side, that’s the emphasis even before the rate environment. SBA I don’t know if somebody came with a new line-of-business today, we have enough going on with our core markets and our current fee businesses.

I don’t think we would step into a new fee business. This was really that we were already in SBA. I think we’ve had some wins, but it was sort of here and there and we thought this would really solidify what we are attempting to do.

Feddie Strickland: Got it. Thanks Tim. Appreciate the color.

Tim Schools: Okay, thank you, Feddie.

Operator: And thank you. And we have a follow-up question. One moment please. And a follow-up question comes from Brett Rabatin from Hovde Group. Your line is now open.

Brett Rabatin: Hi guys. Just one quick follow-up. You talked about the competition in the markets and clearly you had two players. I think, trying to get ahead of the curve for this year in terms of growing our deposit base by being aggressive. And so you can make an argument that those two suppliers in particular did some of the heavy lifting in 4Q as opposed to doing it in 1Q and 2Q. And so you could say, well, maybe, maybe the linked-quarter changes and pressures on the funding slowed from the pace in the fourth quarter particularly in Middle Tennessee or you could make an argument for that anyway. I’m just wanted to get your perspective on that thesis and what you’re seeing maybe today versus in December on competition. Thanks.