Billy Carroll: Yes, again, it goes back to revenue growth, as Ron had said, and there’s always opportunities to refine the expense side. We’re constantly doing that. We’ve been able to absorb some attrition on the salary side. We’re always looking to try to renegotiate contracts, whatever that may be. But I think ours is more revenue growth. I think when you look at our numbers, go back and look historically, I mean, it’s net interest income. We were a little heavier dependent on margin and the squeeze that we’ve had in the net interest income line over the last little bit, really what’s impacted those metrics that are away. As we’ve discussed, I think the biggest thing for us is just growing that line back. And that just comes with — we’ve got some great sales teams out there.
Growth has been solid, we continue to think that’s going to be in the cards for us. So, I think with resets on the asset yields plus growth, I think you’ll see that net interest income number continue to drive back up and we’ll get that ROA back to where it was just a few quarters ago.
Stephen Scouten: Got it. Makes sense. And then maybe along that growth front, I guess it’s been maybe right about two years since you guys brought on a number of teams back in 2021. And I’m just kind of wondering as you look back on those teams now, maybe some of those regions, Gulf Coast maybe in particular, how are you seeing them continue to contribute to the overall growth of the franchise?
Billy Carroll: I’ll tell you, they have been great contributors to the growth of the franchise. Really when you look at all those teams that we added to the bank just a couple of years ago, and I think, again, kind of going back to a little bit of our inefficiency today, I think that’s a piece of it too. When you — we added — that was a big bite for us. And so to add basically six new markets in the course of a six month period, we were able to get all those folks ramped up, all those markets are incrementally profitable now. But some of that growth was delayed with a little bit higher rate move. We couldn’t move as many balances, but we’ve been able to organically grow some great balances really in all of those markets. All of those teams have been just outstanding contributors to our company as well as a lot of our legacy markets.
So as I said in my comments, I love war position. We’ve got some great salespeople. We’re out grinding every day and continuing to grow this thing. So it’s been good. The rate increase has delayed a little bit of that profitability that we had expected, but it’s there. And we’ve got it in sight.
Stephen Scouten: Got it. Yes, that’s really helpful color, Billy. Thank you so much, guys. Appreciate the time.
Billy Carroll: Thanks, Stephen.
Operator: Our next question is from Will Jones at KBW. Please go ahead.
Will Jones: Hey, great. Good morning, guys.
Billy Carroll: Good morning, Will.
Will Jones: So I was a little surprised to hear that, the revenue outlook is really kind of unchanged in that $38 million to $39 million range over the next few quarters. It just feels like we’ve talked a lot about the asset repricing opportunity you have coming up, the NIM is looking to — at least maybe hold stable here and maybe steadily grind higher through 2024. I’m just curious, that would have made me react and think that revenues might gain some positive momentum going into next year. I’m just curious if you can help me connect the dots and maybe what’s driving that more muted revenue forecast.
Ron Gorczynski: Yeah I’ll take this first and Rhett could chime in. This is Ron. For the most part the mutinous is coming from our deposit betas. We’ve modeled not to be as fast to move upward, but from what we’re experiencing, like I said, we’re 3 basis — 3% higher on our beta is what we’re looking at. So I think it’s truly a function of our deposit costs escalating.
