Old Second Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSBC) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Nathan Race with Piper Sandler.

Nathan Race: Brad, I was hoping if you could just expand a little bit on your margin outlook for the back half of this year. I think you spoke to kind of a relatively stable outlook from the 2Q level. And in your prepared remarks, you mentioned the ongoing reliance of the short-term borrowings that are added in the quarter. So, is it fair to assume those remain on balance sheet or I guess, is it more dependent on just how deposit flows trend in the back half of the year, how you guys perhaps map [ph] securities book?

Brad Adams: So, the overnight borrowing position is more consistent with the average balance sheet than it is with the period end. I think we mentioned we paid off that senior debt issuance on June 30th, and we had a whole hack of a lot of money moving around that day. So, we borrowed a bit more than we typically would just to make sure the liquidity was there, but that was a one-day thing. We are closer to $400 million than we are to $500 million for the majority of this month so far. So, that feels fine. I think — some of it is just strategic at this point. Obviously, another rate hike would benefit us. There is no doubt about that. The question is, is the speed at which we would continue to reduce the variable portion of the portfolio.

And that obviously mitigates some of the overnight borrowing levels if we continue to do that because the loan growth — the loan demand out there is waning significantly these days. That happens, I guess, when cost of funds are above 8%. So, I think that embedded in that kind of margin outlook is that we’ll continue to bring down asset sensitivity, Nate.

Nathan Race: Understood. Makes sense. Maybe a question. When you were speaking to earlier just expecting some resolutions or having some resolutions here in the third quarter, are those specifically tied to some of the CRE loans that were moved to classified last quarter?

Jim Eccher: Yes, they are. We’re seeing sponsors for these credits step up to either inject more capital or providing payment reserves. We’re pleasantly optimistic that we’re going to be able to resolve a couple of our larger ones. This quarter there could be another property sold. So we feel we’ve got our arms around this. And to Brad’s point earlier, we continue to increase our reserve, particularly in office and feel we have an ample reserve particularly against our Chicago office portfolio.

Nathan Race: Okay, great. And Brad, I appreciate the guidance in terms of salary costs in the back half of this year, but just kind of any ballpark estimate for the overall run rate for 3Q and 4Q relative to what I thought was a really good quarter of cost controls in 2Q.

Brad Adams: I think we’ll see kind of the back office expense for computer and data processing kick back up a little bit. We’re going to add about $300,000 a quarter in terms of occupancy expense, which will come on line in September or October. And that reflects kind of stepping into some new space that takes into account the ongoing needs of the new Old Second post West Suburban acquisition, and it coincides with us basically stepping out of every piece of excess real estate that we got in that acquisition over the last six months, really pleased with both the speed that we’ve gotten out of those real estate positions and also the execution on it. It’s been really well done. And this isn’t my back-ended way of complementing myself. The team did a great job.

Jim Eccher: Just to put a little color on that, maybe we’ve disposed and closed 16 properties since the beginning of 2022. That includes three branches just in this quarter. And so, we’re well ahead of schedule on cost saves, and we expect to have some lift out of that going forward.