Pinnacle Financial Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ:PNFP) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Terry Turner: Yes. I just — I guess, maybe start with the second part of it, comment on the expansion markets that we’re in. I think we’ve already given indications for the Atlanta market that I think their commitments are about $1.6 billion, north of $1 billion in loan outstandings. The more recent large market DC, I believe that they have generally been a net provider of funding, if you can believe that. And generally, in pretty short order, approaching $700 million in funding, I think maybe about $650 million in loan outstanding. Commitments are well above that. And the momentum is really strong in both those markets. I think if you were to talk to Rob Garcia or Caroline Pelton that lead our efforts in those markets, they would say they’re enjoying great success both recruiting people and recruiting clients in a large measure based on the strength of our treasury management and so forth.

So at any rate, we’re — we continue to be excited about those expansions. I think in terms of hiring people, we’re — we continue to recruit. I think we continue to do well. My guess is we might not hire quite as many people this year as we did last year, but we’ll hire a lot. There’s still a lot of hiring momentum. And I always try to hold out as a possibility that it’s conceivable to me. We might find our way to a market extension; or two, in the event, we feel like we’ve got that could build as a big bank. You’ve heard us talk about that in the past. We’re not just hiring anybody, and we’re not trying to build an LPO. But if we had the opportunity to build a big bank, we’d proceed with that. And so I hope I responded to your question there.

Jared Shaw: Yes, that’s great. That’s great. And then just finally for me, maybe for Harold, how should we be thinking about or where cash balances go in the near term? And then, I guess, from what you said, we should just assume that any reduction in cash either goes directly to loan growth or GSF HLB reduction? Any target there?

Harold Carpenter: Yes, that’s right. It’s probably going to be around broker deposits. We’ve got about, call it, upwards of $2 billion that we think that we can use to kind of — to help fund loan growth here in the — over the year and also help reduce the size of our wholesale book. And it won’t all happen at once, it’ll happen consistently through the next six months and probably into the first part of next year.

Operator: The next question is coming from Stephen Scouten from Piper Sandler.

Stephen Scouten: I guess one of the things I’m curious about is just the strength of the deposit base. And you’ve spoken a lot about how you incent your people and noted that you feel like this has really been a shift. But I’m guessing — I guess I’m asking how has this shift really occurred? Have you had to change your incentives to drive that kind of a culture shift towards deposits? Or is it really continuing to focus on revenue growth and telling these people, if you want to book your loans, you got to book the deposits first. How can we think about that cultural migration, I guess, that’s occurred?

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