Guaranty Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:GNTY) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Graham Dick: Okay. Understood. And then lastly, I just wanted to, I know you talked about capital with the buyback, but I’m just wanting to know if an M&A conversations are starting to pick up at all in you-all’s markets, maybe with some of the smaller banks, they’re looking ahead to saying maybe rate cuts aren’t really coming, are they starting to look more to the market as maybe some of these smaller bank sellers out there?

Ty Abston: So, I’m hearing a lot of conversations for sure, and that may be something that gets — becomes more active in ’25. I mean, from our standpoint, we’re certainly having conversations. We’re interested in anything that we think would make strategic sense for our company and makes financial sense for our company. I mean, but currently, like a lot of banks, where our stock price is sitting, we’d rather buy our own stock versus buy someone else at a higher multiple. We just think that makes more sense without the execution risk. So, there are conversations, but right now our primary focus is buying our own stock back when we have the opportunity to, and — but continue to have conversations because those may develop into something more meaningful down the road.

Graham Dick: Okay. Understood. Thanks, guys.

Shalene Jacobson: Thanks, Graham.

Ty Abston: Thanks, Graham.

Operator: Okay, we have another question from Matt Olney with Stephens.

Matt Olney: Hey, yeah, thanks taking the follow-up.

Ty Abston: Sure.

Matt Olney: Going back to the deposit cost commentary, I think we said before that the first quarter was a pretty big quarter for repricing of the time deposits. Just curious if you have that what the average time deposit cost was in the first quarter? And you could help us out thinking about how much more incremental pressure you could see there? I don’t know if you have kind of what your promotional CD rate is or any commentary from that perspective?

Ty Abston: I’m going to give that to, Shalene. Yeah, go ahead, Shalene.

Shalene Jacobson: Yeah, Matt, I’m not sure where we said first quarter, because we actually — they repriced pretty evenly throughout the year. We started our CD specials back in late ’22, early ’23, and those at the time were 9 and 13 months, I believe. So, a lot of those who bought CDs back in that time period have started to mature and are repricing. As far as our current rate specials, if it’s a jumbo CD, I believe the highest one we have is a 13-month at 5% for the jumbo CDs. And other specials that we have are lower than that. I think 4.7% for a 9-month non-jumbo. Does that answer your question, Matt?

Matt Olney: Yeah, that’s perfect. Thanks for that, Shalene. And then, I guess kind of related topic on the noninterest-bearing deposits, I think you mentioned in prepared remarks some more pressure in the first quarter. Anything — any more commentary on that? I think you said in the prepared remarks that we could land in the mid- to high-20% range later on this year or even next year. Just trying to appreciate kind of what your perspective is on that and kind of what you’re seeing maybe so far early in the second quarter.

Ty Abston: Matt, I’ll take that. I mean, so obviously like every bank we’ve had historic noninterest-bearing deposit balances last three years. I mean, but 20 years ago, and really for the last 20 years, we’ve averaged around 25%. So, I continue to believe that ultimately, we’ll kind of revert back to the more that average that we’ve had historically. And there’s been [indiscernible] and that makes sense that we would. So we think we’ll continue to as there’s more yield opportunities and money markets and other products in the bank, as people move more money over to see that come down, but I don’t see it going below 25%, because like I said, it’s been 25% for a long time. But it just makes sense that it’s going to continue to migrate down.

Matt Olney: Okay. That’s helpful, guys. Thank you.

Ty Abston: Thanks, Matt.

Shalene Jacobson: You’re welcome.

Operator: Thank you for your questions. I would like to remind everyone that the recording will be available by 1 p.m. today at our Investor Relations page at gnty.com. We appreciate you attending today, and this concludes our call.

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