Kevin Fitzsimmons: And one follow-up I wanted to ask about M&A. Chris, in the past, you’ve kind of described it as you guys have certain targets in mind over a long-term time horizon, and it’s a matter of when the right time for them to be willing to sell. But yet you sound much more confident there will be opportunities coming. And so, is that a matter of you guys are getting a sense some of these attractive properties are getting ready or having — starting to have conversations or — and/or that just given the environment and the position you’re in, you’re kind of expanding that spectrum of potential opportunities?
Chris Holmes: It’s the former — it’s not that we’re really — we still have the same things that we look for. And when we’re — so that means that there’s going to be a limited number of institutions that have the parameters that we’re looking for. So that list really hasn’t changed. It’s just that with — when we look out into ‘24 and we talk to everybody in the industry and conclude for ourselves what we think is going to happen, we just think that some of those are likely to decide, hey, it’s time to seek out my options. And so, it’s really the latter. It’s not that we’re expanding and going, okay, we’re not expanding our parameters either from a geographic perspective or from what we’re looking for.
Kevin Fitzsimmons: And one last thing, you mentioned a couple of times that you made these deliberate moves to strengthen the balance sheet for difficult times, but you feel now that things won’t likely get that difficult. Has that been more of an ongoing thought, or is that something based on recent observations that you’re feeling like, all right, we’re glad we prepared, but it’s probably not going to be as bad as what we might have thought a couple of quarters ago?
Chris Holmes: Yes. And I’m going to alter that just a little bit to say we’re prepared for things to get difficult. We don’t think they’ll get as difficult as we’re prepared for. And so because we’re prepared if things get — if we find ourselves stuck back in 2008 and 2009, that kind of environment, knock on wood, we think we’d be prepared for that at this point. Going back to what happened in March of this year, again, we feel like we’re well prepared for whatever comes at us. And our point is, we don’t think those things are going to happen. We actually do think things would get slower from here, okay? So we do think that things will get slower. We don’t think — we’re saying if it gets really slow or really difficult, we’re prepared for that, okay? But we don’t really anticipate it getting as bad as we’re prepared for. So that doesn’t mean — we don’t think it’s going to get slower. Okay.
Operator: The next question comes from Matt Olney from Stephens. Please go ahead.
Matt Olney: I just want to follow up on the capital discussion. We’ve talked about potential for additional securities transactions and M&A conversations heating up. So can we assume that as far as any kind of share repurchase program that in the near term, that’s going to be less likely, or how would you characterize the appetite of the buybacks?
Chris Holmes: That’s a less likely — and that’s really related again to just not being able to predict the future. And we don’t want to I think if somebody goes out, if anybody, if we went out and did start buying back now and credit got really difficult for the whole world, we wouldn’t look too smart if we had to raise capital after that. And so, we want to make sure that — so we’re going to be conservative there on how we use this capital until we think that the industry is — feels brighter from a credit perspective. And again, interest rates, we feel like interest rates are — have hit their peak.
Matt Olney: Okay. That’s helpful, Chris. And then, I guess, also circling back on the deposit discussion. I think, you gave us lots of good details around the public funds, and that’s kind of where the focus is now. What about on the customer time deposits? I think there’s a $1.4 billion balance. That average cost in the third quarter still feels quite a bit below most of your peers. Can you just kind of walk through the repricing dynamics there, what’s maturing more near term? And then what are the current rates that you’re seeing for your customers?
Michael Mettee: If you remember, we did a fairly decent sized deposit campaign last year, and we had some CDs, some CD specials that in September, October last year, it was kind of 13, 18-month, 24-month paper. So the weighted average term now is about 18 months. And the cost was — and the time market. We haven’t moved off those rates a whole lot. And we’re still seeing renewals in historic kind of renewal rates. And so I kind of mentioned this earlier, we’ve certainly raised some CD rates, but it’s just been shorter in term. So, we — if customers come in and want a shorter-term CD at a slightly higher rate, you actually see it looks like the yield curve is a little bit inverted. And so, if you stay in those terms that you were in last year, you’re getting that very similar rate.
And of course, our model is customer focus, so they feel can take care of customers as they need to in competitive situations and we stick by that. So that we’re doing right by the customer, right by the company. And so there’s some flexibility there.
Matt Olney: And then, Michael, just to follow up on that. As you look at some of the renewal time lines, is there — is it spread evenly in the next few quarters, or is there any quarter or two where you see more volumes set rate price?
Michael Mettee: It’s spread pretty evenly fourth and first. There’s a little bit of a lump in the second quarter of next year. Yes. But it’s already higher-priced stuff than what’s renewing in the fourth and first quarter.
Matt Olney: Okay. That’s helpful. And then, I guess, sticking on the deposit pricing pressure theme, your footprint is a good kind of mix of more metro markets and also some rural communities. Just any general commentary for us as we think about deposit repricing pressure in some of your general markets, where the pressure is greater today and where it’s maybe not as great as it once was?
