Customers Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE:CUBI) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Sam Sidhu: Yes, absolutely, Peter. These are – this is not a credit sale. This is an exit of non-bilateral, meaning syndicated, there was – this is essentially partnered with one of the failed institutions about half a dozen credits. On the small side, we’re talking $5 billion to $10 billion fund size. On the high end we’re talking $100 billion-plus manager. These are not relationships we could have or plan to take over from a much larger institution as those lines mature. Again, this was 100% money good. It would have been nice to be on the other side of this transaction, but it was important for us given the strategic importance of the FDIC transaction and the onboarding to make sure that we had both the capital and liquidity headroom, and we were not deviating from our commitments that we made to you earlier this year.

Peter Winter: Got it. Great. Thanks. Congrats on a very nice quarter.

Sam Sidhu: Thanks Peter.

Operator: And your next question comes from the line of Matthew Breese from Stephens. Your line is open.

Matthew Breese: Hey good morning.

Sam Sidhu: Good morning, Matt.

Matthew Breese: I wanted to go back to the increase in FDIC expense up meaningfully quarter-over-quarter. As measured over deposits it’s now at 22 basis points annualized versus 6 last quarter. And I’ve seen a lot of the banks with a quarter-to-quarter increase, but this one stands out in terms of degree. So I’m curious why the more robust change? Was there something from a regulatory standpoint or matters requiring attention? Or is it broker deposit related? Can you address these items and what the drivers were behind the increase?

Sam Sidhu: Yes, Matt. So we are – we reaffirmed the run rate guidance of this jumping off point. To be clear, the increase of the 6 plus or minus million in FDIC insurance also included a catch-up of $1.5 million to $2 million for the first quarter. That will be replaced more or less by a full run rate of the venture banking team, which is why we sort of referenced sort of this as a jumping off point. So it’s not fully apples-to-apples the way you described it. And again, this is consistent. Those levels are absolutely consistent with large commercial banks that we have evaluated and looked at. And again, this is, as I think Carla mentioned; we expect this to be a short to medium term, meaning this is not a multiyear increase and we expect that there’ll be some sort of stabilization, especially after the assessments are revised and there’s opportunity to have more ongoing two-way dialogue.

Matthew Breese: So the increase in FDIC insurance is tied to the VC loans and team you brought in?

Sam Sidhu: It’s not tied to any one thing. If you go back to the overall industry at the levels that we are talking about for large commercial banks as well as those, to your point, that have transacted with the FDIC, this is a consistent increase in the quarter.

Matthew Breese: Okay. Maybe shifting to the mix shift we’ve seen year-to-date on the deposit side, particularly in noninterest-bearing. How much of the change was done from existing customers or existing depositors versus new?

Sam Sidhu: It’s a good question. I’m going to speak directionally because I don’t have exact numbers, but I would say, call it $400 million plus or minus is from existing – maybe a little less actually, maybe $200 million, $250 million plus or minuses from existing customers with higher balances and the rest is coming from the verticals I earlier described.

Matthew Breese: Okay. The two ones I would appreciate more color on is, one, where do you see CBIT deposits balance wise stand today? And are those in noninterest-bearing at this point? And where were they at year-end?

Sam Sidhu: That’s right. That’s right. The CBIT balances at year-end I believe we’re around to two. They were a similar balance, two, three, maybe last quarter. Average balances were $2.35 billion for the quarter and we were at our, or below our target of 15% as we will continue to be.