Li Yu: Texas is going to be converted into a branch within about from LPO to a branch in about two months. Right now, we’re all busy in working on these things, okay? Pipeline does not change that much from last year to this year, a long outstanding. In fact, we currently are in a situation, the entire bank is looking at things very carefully, okay. Another branch, we have signed a lease. I think we’ve really signed. We’re committed, okay? We think it will be in the Southern California in a very good location. We’re working very closely on that, but we have budgeted it already. That’s what I mean. So going forward, in the remainder of the year, as new opportunities come up, we just grab it. And if there’s a new personnel that to be hired, we’re not going to be worried about its budget, we’re just going to hire them.
David Feaster: That’s music to Ed’s ears. And so the other thing is I wanted to touch on is you guys have been very good stewards of capital and you have a very strong capital position ahead of a potential credit cycle. But if we step back and think about a potentially slower pace of loan growth in your incredibly high levels of profitability, you’re going to be accreting capital at a really rapid pace. We talked about a couple of growth initiatives. Just curious about your capital priorities here. We’ve seen some dividend growth. And again, carrying significant levels of excess capital into a credit cycle is not a bad thing. But just was curious whether there’s any appetite to increase capital return or other capital priorities?
Li Yu: Thank you for asking the question, recognizing all that, okay? We — because we are a state chartered bank reporting — I mean, without a holding company, any capital raising is requiring a capital buyback, capital transaction was required. Shareholder approval, which is required by the state regulator. So every time we want to buy back from stock, if we want to go through the whole process, that’s 9 months process. So this year, what we’re going to do is we just got the Board approval to submit for shareholder approval during our proxy season. For pre-approving a total amount of stock buyback. And then we will go to the state wherever ready to act on that. And generally speaking is that the majority of opinion of the Board, is that at the beginning of the year, we need to be a little bit more careful in watching the economy and have the capital ready if the economy for some strange reason turns out, okay?
So once it is clear, then we expect to return things to our shareholders.
Operator: Our next question comes from Tim Coffey with Janney. Please go ahead with your question.
Tim Coffey: Yes, I had a question about the cash on balance sheet. It still remains at elevated levels. And I’m wondering does the uncertainty about customer liquidity behavior outweigh the opportunity to reinvest that in securities.
Edward Czajka: Well, that’s a very good question. As you know, Tim, we have kept inordinately large amount of cash on the balance sheet actually since the financial crisis. So we’ve always had a fairly large cash position. One thing we actually did do during the fourth quarter is we did invest some of that excess cash in the treasury market at where what I consider to be extremely attractive yields. And I think we may do some here in the near future in order to lock in some of those — some of that additional yield rather than have cash float along with the Fed’s interest rate decisions.
Tim Coffey: Okay. Okay. That’s helpful. And then curious about what you’re seeing from competitors. Clearly, your customers have started to express some cautiousness in terms of the lending behavior. I’m wondering, are your competitors, are you seeing them pull back from the market or otherwise tightened their credit boxes?
Li Yu: Well, first of all, strangely enough, they’re all like us they’re looking for opportunities, but they were very prudent, okay? But there are competitors doing things at this point of time, which requires to research onto it, okay? There’s one of the largest bank in California is offering — still offering customers a seven years fixed rate, okay, CRE loans at low 6%, very low 6% and without pre-payment penalty. So they are willing to grab business by forgiving the interest income. So we’re looking at that. We lost a number of accounts to them, but we’re still looking at that and to see how we can compete with this kind of situation. I guess there’s always going to be low, I should say, people that you cannot compete with. We lost another loan to credit union, 5.25% in five years, which — fixed rate. We just can’t compete. We don’t — happen things every day.
Tim Coffey: Okay. So you’re still seeing irrational activity. Okay. All right. Those were my questions. Thank you very much.
Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference over to Li Yu for any closing remarks.
Li Yu: Well, actually, the question-and-answer is all pointing out the things we want to further clarified. So thank you very much for your time. And as I said, we are optimistic but we would be careful. Thank you.
Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
