Equity Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQBK) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Krzysztof Slupkowski: Yes, I would say the big wins have already been won, and whatever there’s a little bit of it left, not much. But I would say, on the recovery side, there’s probably less opportunity going forward. I would say that our problem assets loans today, they’re well reserved and I don’t see any further losses or recoveries in that space.

Brad Elliott: We do have a large recovery that we are still chasing out there. So, substantial one that is still out there.

Jeff Rulis: Got it. And Brad, I appreciate the M&A thoughts. Pivoting to the buyback, I mean, can we view that as you can kind of do both or more specifically, I think shares are trading kind of around where kind of the average price you had last quarter. Just checking in on the appetite of buyback, is that weighing or increase with M&A opportunities? Or do you feel like that’s going to be — at least for the short term, going to be a pretty steady level or maybe even greater from your perspective?

Brad Elliott: Yeah, I think we’ll still remain active in the M&A — or in the buyback market. And we don’t have anything imminent that — like a couple of quarters ago, we knew we had Kirksville that was coming, that hadn’t been announced yet. But so we stopped the buybacks as we were building cash to be able to make sure we had enough cash to transact that. On the M&A front, we do have conversations going, but we don’t have any of those conversations that would have as big a need for cash as that one did. So, I think we will continue to be opportunistic in the buyback market.

Jeff Rulis: Okay. Thank you.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] And our next question today is from the line of Damon DelMonte from Stephens. Damon, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Damon DelMonte: Hey, good morning, everyone. Hope you guys are all doing well. My question — first question is regarding the margin. So, this quarter’s margin, Chris, was 3.75%. How much fair value accretion was included in that?

Chris Navratil: The total fair value accretion there is when you combine all of our transactions, so not just BOK specifically, there was $150,000 in loans as well as less than $0.5 million in bonds.

Damon DelMonte: Okay. And how should we think about kind of a projected fair value accretion going forward?

Chris Navratil: Yeah. So, the bond portfolio we acquired was $5 million underwater. So, we’re going to accrete $5 million on the bond portfolio over two to two-and-a-half year life, which is relatively well in line with what we disclosed as we went through the deal mechanics to begin with. The fair value mark on the loan book is just north of $3 million. That $3 million will come in over — we’re currently projecting a life of between three-and-a-half and four years. So, that’s just going to be realized over that time horizon.

Damon DelMonte: Got it. Okay. And then, does the guidance that you guys provided in the slide deck incorporate the projected fair value, or is that excluding that?

Chris Navratil: It includes it.

Damon DelMonte: It does include it. Okay. Great. And then, with regards to the C&I growth — I’m sorry?

Chris Navratil: I was just saying it’s reflective of the BOK, yeah.

Damon DelMonte: Okay. Great. Thank you. And then, with regards to the C&I growth this quarter, how much of that was increased in line utilization versus new credits coming on the books?

Chris Navratil: It was new credits.

Damon DelMonte: It was all new credits? Okay. And do you do you have a level of where the line utilization stands today and kind of how that’s fared more recently?

Chris Navratil: I don’t have that right in front of me. We can get that for you.

Brad Elliott: Yeah. We…

Damon DelMonte: Okay. Great.

Brad Elliott: Yeah, we don’t have that calculator.

Damon DelMonte: Okay. No problem. And then just lastly on the CRE, thanks for the color on kind of the expected maturities that are forthcoming. From a broader perspective, are you guys kind of having proactive conversations with the borrowers that are on tap to mature, have their rates reset, so you can kind of be in position to know whether or not you’re going to have to move them off the books or come up with a different solution just so that there’s not a — you have a handful of credits one quarter that have to exit and it kind of impacts the overall growth? Like, are you having those initial conversations with folks?