Mercantile Bank Corporation (NASDAQ:MBWM) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Chuck Christmas: Yes, that one’s pretty hard to — it’s kind of like investment banking. It kind of comes and goes and it’s hard to project on a quarter-by-quarter basis. I pretty much just straight line it in my budget, and just to let you know we’ve got about $200,000 budgeted each month. But again, that’s — there’s a lot of volatility in that number, but we definitely see interest in that product. And I think that if medium- and long-term rates keep declining as they have, I think there’ll be even more interest in that product. It’s our desire of not offering fixed rates to larger commercial real estate products, and to put them into the swap product if in fact they want a fixed rate. So that’s really driven by the borrower and their decision as to what type of rate structure they want to have.

Daniel Tamayo: Got it. Okay. Thanks for all the color. Thanks.

Chuck Christmas: You’re welcome.

Bob Kaminski: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question will come from Erik Zwick with Hovde Group. Please go ahead.

Erik Zwick: Good morning, everyone.

Chuck Christmas: Hey, Erik. Good morning.

Bob Kaminski: Good morning.

Erik Zwick: First question for me. Just looking at the forecast for overhead costs in 2023, curious, one, does that include any charitable contributions?

Chuck Christmas: Nothing significant.

Erik Zwick: Okay. And then, just looking at 2022, you had contributions, I believe, in the second quarter and fourth quarter. Would you like spec something in those quarters? Or I guess, how do you guys determine the timing and magnitude of those contributions?

Chuck Christmas: Yes. Typically, Erik, what we look at is in the fourth quarter, when we see how the bank and the company has performed from an earnings perspective and, obviously, making sure that we’re comfortable for asset quality and our capital levels, we typically make the decision in the fourth quarter. But we also — if things happen during the year, if we have some maybe some non-core income come into the company, we may, at that point in time, go ahead and add additional contributions. But generally speaking, it will be a fourth quarter event, notwithstanding any one-time events during the year.

Erik Zwick: Makes sense. Thanks, Chuck, for the color there. And maybe I guess another one for you. Just looking at the forecasted range for those costs — total overhead costs in the first quarter of ’23, if I look at the run rate from the most recent quarter and back out that charitable contribution, it seems like you’re forecasting kind of flat to maybe even potentially $1 million better on that run rate. So, just curious where that leverage is, or where you could see some improvement quarter-over-quarter?

Chuck Christmas: Yes. Most of that comes in our bonus accruals with the strong year that we had and, obviously, finished up with. We asked the — executive management team asked the compensation committee to enhance our bank-wide bonus program. So, we had some — which we doubled actually for non-senior management. And so, we had some catch-up accruals we needed to do in the fourth quarter associated with that doubling of the bank-wide bonus program.

Erik Zwick: Got it. Thank you. And then, switching gears towards credit. One, if you could remind me the industry of that larger kind of commercial NPA that you referenced that the management failure? And then, I guess, what’s the remediation strategy and timing for a resolution on that credit as well?

Ray Reitsma: This is Ray. That was an automotive supplier. We’re working with the company through a number of remediation steps. We expect that we’ll have a pretty good resolution to this, I would say, within the next 90 to 120 days.