First Financial Bancorp. (NASDAQ:FFBC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Of course as we say, the depreciation costs will go up as well on the expense side. So it will be more normalized with seasonal lifts in the back half of the year. And again, we had just a little bit of extra fees because of winding down one customer in Q4.

James Anderson: And Danny, this is Jamie. So in that, in the outlook that we presented with the fee income of $45 million to $47 million for the first quarter, those — that takes into account the normalization of both Summit and Bannockburn in there. So that would have those coming back down to kind of what a more normalized trend level.

Daniel Tamayo: Understood, yes. No, I appreciate it. So obviously a big normalization in FX and then somewhat more modest on the leasing side, is probably what we’re looking for.

James Anderson: Yes. And correspondingly for the Bannockburn piece, that also normalizes the expenses as well, because we have a lot of variable expenses related to Bannockburn. So, and that, and we included that as well obviously in the 109 to 1011 of expenses.

Daniel Tamayo: Yes. Perfect. You got my last question there. Maybe just a little more detail, but just curious on the timing of the expenses in those two businesses, if there’s any kind of lag. I appreciate you gave us the range expected in the first quarter, but is — I guess the biggest question is, is there anything that’s like an annual kind of comp that just because it was a fourth quarter played out for those businesses or do those really get recognized on a quarterly basis mostly?

James Anderson: Yes, so we had, so it’s a good question. For the foreign exchange piece of the business, we did have an annual expense that hit because of them reaching a certain revenue threshold, which kicked in a some additional incentive compensation, almost like a, like an earnout that you would have in an acquisition, so them hitting a certain bogey triggered an annual expense. And then so both the normalization of the ongoing revenue in the first quarter and the elimination of that annual piece is that’s part of the reason you see the expenses coming back down in the first quarter in that call it 110 range.

Daniel Tamayo: I got it. I appreciate it. Thanks for all the color. That’s very helpful.

James Anderson: Yes. Thanks Daniel.

Operator: Thank you, Danny. Well, our next question comes from Terry McEvoy from Stephens. Terry, your line is now open.

Terry McEvoy: Hi, thanks. Good morning everyone. Maybe just to followup on that, hey, that last questions between the connection between revenue and expenses, when the leasing business income goes from 7 to 11, does that, how does that impact quarterly expenses or is all the volatility really related to FX?

Archie Brown: All of the volatility was really related to FX. Yes, those were the fees that we received on the leasing business from — on in Summit was more end of term type leasing fees and really didn’t have any variable cost related to it. There was a small amount, maybe $0.5 million, it was small, but it was not 400,000 or 500,000, but not really a lot in that number. So it was all, all of the variability really in the, on the expense side was related to, well, two things, Terry, it was related to, it was related to FX and the revenue that we received there. And then we also had some additional incentive compensation kind of at the corporate level related to just overall corporate bonuses and the strong performance that we had in the fourth quarter, but primarily Bannockburn. Yes.

Terry McEvoy: Okay, thanks. And then maybe any comments on office CRE, retail CRE and some of the portfolios that some feel are at risk given macro conditions and higher interest rates, et cetera?