Hancock Whitney Corporation (NASDAQ:HWC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Chris Ziluca: Yes. Hi. So, as it relates to kind of segments of the portfolio that might be more vulnerable, and your comment about office, obviously, those customers that are probably in a floating rate environment and are maybe a little bit more levered are things that we’ve been looking at. And we’ve stress tested those loans in our portfolio and feel confident that they could largely withstand the current environment and maybe the rate rises that are anticipated in early 2023. But we continue to watch that and think about the impact there as well as, obviously, those customers that are impacted by some of the rising costs that are being incurred, especially ones that are more labor-intensive with labor costs going up, just really keeping an eye on that, but no specific worries or concerns in that regard.

And then, as it relates to kind of our office portfolio, I think one of the things that we’ve been stressing for a long time now, even before I got here almost five years ago, is that we’ve been shifting our focus away from traditional office to more medical office, which I think has helped us a lot. And a lot of our office tends to be kind of mid-rise type office, not necessarily the high-rise type buildings that rely upon large tenants to take large amounts of space or the re-tenanting risk. It’s not to say that there may be some risk in office in general, but we feel fairly confident that in the markets that we operate in as well as the type of office that we’ve done and the more focus around medical office that we’re probably less worried than some would be.

Operator: The next question comes from the line of Brett Rabatin with Hovde Group.

Brett Rabatin: I wanted to ask about the expense guide, 6% to 7% and 4% to 5%, excluding the FDIC and pension. You look at the past two years, and you’ve been able to manage expenses flat, and I noticed you took out slide 28 that showed the hires. Can you maybe walk through and give us some color on what things you’re going to have higher expenses on in the coming year, maybe any initiatives that might be taking place that might also benefit the longer-term profitability of the Company.

Mike Achary: Yes. Brett, this is Mike. So yes, again, the guide — we gave the guide two ways. One was obviously including the higher pension and FDIC expense. And look, those amounts aren’t insignificant, pension, that’s a $18 million difference — I’m sorry, an $11 million difference. And on FDIC, it’s about $5.5 million difference. So, those are significant items that really kind of add to the expense base. So, if we take a step back and kind of back those out and look at expenses up 4% to 5%. And again, this is after a year where we’re actually down 1% between €˜22 and €˜21. I think the biggest driver is going to be personnel expenses and just the normal raises that we’ll be looking at for €˜23 and those will be around 4% or so.

Aside from that, I think the biggest drivers will be some technology investments that we continue to make and to continue to invest in the Company in that regard. We have some new hires planned for next year, probably not as many new bankers in €˜23, all things equal compared to €˜22. But I think overall, we’ll continue to be opportunistic in terms of how we look at those kinds of opportunities. So overall, I think when we look at expenses in €˜23, it really kind of represents a little bit of a normalization of what we think our expense base probably is on a go-forward basis, excluding kind of the extraordinary increases in pension and FDIC.

Brett Rabatin: Mike and — I’m sorry, go ahead.

John Hairston: You go ahead. It’s okay. If you have a same question, let’s take that.

Brett Rabatin: No, no, no. I didn’t mean to cut you off there. Go ahead.

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