Graham Dick: Okay. Understood. And I guess just lastly, is more on M&A. I mean, you guys obviously have been very active over the years. How do you feel about M&A conversations in 2024, and the likelihood of maybe looking to bolster some of your markets, maybe like Florida, like you mentioned in terms of adding scale there even further?
Lynn Harton: Yeah. So, our strategy has — it remains consistent. We like smaller deals in markets where we are, where we can be more additive. And at the end of last year and as we come into the first quarter, M&A I think is generally less likely because of the marks. And with high marks, you have to allocate more capital to an M&A transaction with questions about the economy, then you have to add a question whether or not you want to do that or not. Now, so my view has been that an actual transaction in ’24 is not as likely as it has been in the past for those reasons. Now obviously, as rates come down, and those marks get less, as you get clarity about the economy, your comfort in using your capital becomes greater. So, look, could you do a small — could a small deal in one of our markets happen? Yes. I don’t think it’s overly likely. I think ’25 is kind of when you’ll see more M&A activity come online.
Graham Dick: Okay. That makes sense. Thanks guys.
Lynn Harton: Thank you, Graham.
Operator: Our next question comes from Catherine Mealor from KBW. Please go ahead with your question.
Catherine Mealor: Thanks. Good morning.
Lynn Harton: Good morning, Catherine.
Catherine Mealor: Let me just start with just your growth outlook. I think this quarter was just a little bit slower and you talked about that in your prepared remarks. But just sort of thinking about how you think about loan growth, maybe just in the first part of the year. And then as we see rate cuts, what you think that will do net loan growth maybe in the back half of the year?
Rich Bradshaw: Good morning, Catherine. This is Rich.
Catherine Mealor: Good morning, Rich.
Rich Bradshaw: For Q4, production actually came in pretty much on plan. It was — the reality for us was that pay-offs were greater than the forecast. And I really got into the weeds a little bit on that. And throughout our markets, we just had a fair amount of customers sold their business or they sold their owner-occupied real estate and did a sale leaseback. So, that was not in our projections. That was a little higher. The other thing, as we think about this quarter and next year or this year is, the thing that creates a lot of opportunity for us are the continued merger disruptions and the fact that some of our competition has fairly high loan-to-deposit ratios and just really aren’t in the game right now. So, I think we are going to see, it’s going to be a low-to-mid single-digit, but I think we’re going to be just fine on loan growth and I think we’re actually in — that merger disruptions will also provide talent opportunities for us as well.
So, we continue to want to be opportunistic on that. But having said all that, that’s why I’m feeling good about where we are in Q1 and 2024.
Jefferson Harralson: On the rates down translating into demand question, I think a normal-shaped curve would really help. When you have a variable-rate loan, we’re trying to price it in the mid-8%s right now. It’s just a lot of people don’t want to do that or even if they think the rates are coming down. So, I think, if you get lower rates and a more normal curve, I think you’d see some better demand. But at the same time, lower rates is implying a slower economy at the same time. But I think a normal curve would be very helpful. And I’ll throw one more thing on deposits. Now, we do have deposit growth in our budget for next year. We have the seasonality outflows in Q1, I believe. So, I wouldn’t be surprised to see deposits down a little bit in Q1. But we’re pretty optimistic. We’ve been growing deposits pretty well and we think we’ll have net growth in 2024.
Catherine Mealor: Okay. And then on your comment that you’re now liability-sensitive, Jefferson, I guess two questions within that. I’m assuming a lot of that is coming from your just ability to lower deposit costs when we start to see rate cuts, just given that that kind of was surprisingly more higher than expected as we moved through the year. Just kind of curious on that just big picture. And then secondly, within that, what — give the amount of loans that you — fixed rate loans that you expect to mature and reprice in 2024?
Jefferson Harralson: Okay. So, let me get — remind me the first question. How do we…
Catherine Mealor: How the liability — because it’s interesting like you’ve been asset-sensitive for so long and now you’re liability-sensitive, and this quarter has been really interesting as different banks have answered that question differently than I would have expected over the past few weeks. So, just kind of curious what’s driving that.
