Bill Rogers: Thanks, Mike, and appreciate the love, but right back at you. So I think — so a couple of things. One is maybe a challenge a little bit the merger was predicated on cost saves alone. Remember the merger was predicated on opportunity as well, an opportunity in our markets, and we want to make sure that we’re well positioned to take advantage of those. So when I talk about sort of being on track, I don’t want you to think that, that satisfaction about where we are from an expense side. Building the infrastructure for a large company in this environment was more expensive than we anticipated, so there’s just no doubt about that. And, but to that point, I think we’re at a really good inflection point. And that inflection point is a pivot.
The intensity I can assure you hear around expenses, but not just expenses, but just redesigning the chassis. I mean, there are lots of easy things you can do. You can do hiring freezes and those type of things and we’re underway on all that, and you’ll start to see some of that in the next couple of quarters, but our commitment is to really underchange the fundamental structure and the business model that results of this. So there are certain businesses. We talked about student loan would be an example that we’re we’ve been supporting from an expense standpoint that just doesn’t fit into our strategy and doesn’t make sense, so we’ll evaluate other parts of our business and other parts of our support structure that are part of that. You could argue we should have been doing that faster.
I think that’s a legitimate push, and I accept that, but I don’t want to think that it’s not happening. And that focus is intense, but it is about trying to create more permanent change than structural. I mean let’s make the next quarter lower. Let’s really change the fundamental structure of the company from an expense standpoint. You’ve seen me do it before, and you know we can do it again. So my confidence comes from the fact that we’ve got a team that’s committed to this, and the plans that I see and the focus that we have. This is an inflection point from that standpoint in this quarter.
Mike Mayo: So you mentioned you’ll come back with some plan for 12 to 18 months. And I know, look, I know you wanted to have positive operating leverage in the environment worked against you partly and you acknowledge there are some other things internally. But it looks like it’s going be tough to get positive operating leverage in 2024. Is that something you’re going to shoot for? And when do we hear about these new expense plans over the next 12 to 18 months? You gave us a laundry list earlier and what sort of magnitude might that be?
Bill Rogers: Yes. We’ll start talking about that in the next couple of quarters, Mike, and how they fit into the overall structure. As I’ve said to you before, I mean we have — every business unit has a positive operating leverage plan. I mean that’s what we’ve asked them to do is to create plans that are unique to their businesses, but what we need to do in addition is that sort of the enterprise positive operating leverage focus. 2024, we’ll just have to see how it plays out. I mean there’s a lot of economic factors that will determine that. So I’d say, not throwing in the towel, so to speak, but we just have to see where some of the economics layout as it relates to that. So if we’re in a different rate environment, we’re in a different investment banking environment, we’re in a different — then I’ll have a different view on that. But as we sit here today, that’s — it’s a tough climb, but what we want to do is build that capacity for the long-term.
