Cathay General Bancorp (NASDAQ:CATY) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Heng Chen : Yes, it should. We don’t see any big nonaccruals paying off. So you just subtract maybe $1.5 million from it, yes, for the onetime nonaccruals.

Andrew Terrell : Understood. Okay. I appreciate it. And then on credit quality, I just ran asked around the construction nonaccruals went up from zero to, I think, right around $17 million or so. Can you just talk about the underlying credit or credits that drove that increase this quarter? And then similar question for the OREO addition this quarter. It looks like about $10 million addition to the OREO asset?

Chang Liu : Sure. On the construction portfolio side, I can talk about that a little bit. One of them was a Southern California Inland Empire hospitality. It was an existing asset with a reflag reposition with some significant renovation to the property. We’re at plus 90% to completion. There’s some — as a result of some significant delays, there’s a partner dispute between the partnership. We’re pretty comfortable with the asset. It’s got a pretty low LTV. It’s well located. It’s got a good operating history. Unfortunately, that partnership dispute has led us to where we are.

Heng Chen : Yes, that’s because that loan between 90 days past maturity. That’s why we had to put on nonaccrual.

Chang Liu : The other is a NorCal office building. We’ve got a buyer that’s been identified and that we’ve got some reserves that’s set against it, and that 1 was also sort of a reposition play there as well.

Heng Chen : And then the OREO, it’s a single-family house in Pacific Palisades. It came out amount of nonaccrual.

Andrew Terrell : Okay. Understood. I appreciate the color there. And then if I could sneak one more in. The wealth management fee income this quarter was really strong. Can you just talk about what drove the list this quarter? And then is that low $5 million a quarter number kind of a good run rate to think about the wealth management fees moving forward?

Chang Liu : They’re still — I’ll take a stab at it. There’s still kind of on budget for this year. I think the first half of the year, Andrew, they were kind of behind budget. So effectively, it was kind of the third quarter catch-up on some of their business and volume and their backlog of the pipeline. And so I think that’s really where we saw that pick up.

Heng Chen : Yes. I think see volume there’s a lot of deals that close in the third and fourth quarter.

Andrew Terrell : Okay. So maybe a fair way to think about it. Is this more on an annual basis around like an $18 million number?

Heng Chen : Yes, yes. Yes.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Today’s next question comes from Chris McGratty at KBW.

Nicholas Moutafakis : This is Nick Moutafakis on for Chris. Maybe just a higher level just given where capital levels are at and your stock price, any appetite at all for a buyback in the near term in the next 12 months or so?

Heng Chen : Absolutely. We talked about it briefly in our second quarter conference call, the approval process takes a little bit longer than compared to the past. But in the next few months, we’ll get going on that. And once it’s approved by the Fed, won’t put out a press release. But it’s — the way I get it, it’s capital builds up over there. So we can catch on with buybacks when things are more certain.

Nicholas Moutafakis : Okay. And then maybe just on the tax rate as well. If you look out longer term into 2024, do you think the 12.5% to 13% tax rate for next year is a good run rate as well?