Veritex Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:VBTX) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Malcolm Holland: And everyone’s got to do it. You have hundreds of borrowers very, very granular, and we’re financing a percentage of what they finance. So it’s a 65%, 70% advance on an already 80%, 75%, 80% advance. So collateral values are way down there. The reason that one hit there was that they had an operating loss, right, but remain heavy on cash and very strong on capital. This is a very strong company, but we think it’s – we’re quick to put stuff on special mention when they need to be. And when they showed the loss, that’s why they ended up there. We don’t have any – we’re not – there’s not much anxiety on our side that we’d ever get to the collateral. This is a very, very strong company.

Matt Olney: Okay. Great. Appreciate the color there. And then I guess, shifting back on deposits, I think the average deposit – I’m sorry, the average noninterest-bearing deposits were down quite a bit in the fourth quarter, and we’re seeing this across the industry with all your peers. And I guess the message we’re getting from others is there could be more headwinds there in the first half of the year from the NIB. So I’m curious kind of what your expectations are of the outflows there for the bank? And what do you think those could stabilize?

Terry Earley: Well, I think the outlook you just described is accurate. I think it’s going to continue to trend down. I mean customers are as aware as I’ve ever seen of rates and there’s so much incentive to aggressively manage liquidity. So I don’t think we have found – we’re at the end of that mix shift going on. But I think that’s why the whole importance of our C&I business, and we’ve been investing in that heavily over the last year. You see it in the production side. And it’s our community and our C&I that are going to help us stabilize and get the deposit growth going. And even – and they had good years. They had good quarters, but it’s just – and especially in community and commercial. It’s just a harder time.

Matt Olney: Yes. Okay. Thanks for that Terry. And then thinking about funding securities portfolio, any material cash flows coming off that in ’23 that could help kind of fund the loan growth here?

Terry Earley: Well, I mean, I think – here’s what I would say. If you look at the loan growth minus – the loan growth was $445 million roughly deposit growth was 375. The difference between those – and we only borrowed $25 million from the FHLB. So we funded $45 million of loan growth from the securities book and earnings. That $50 million a quarter type should continue. Is that helpful? I mean there’s going to be – it’s going to be $100 million to $120 million for the year in terms of cash flow projected to come off on the base case of rates. And so it’s going to continue to meaningfully help us – and earnings as well.

Matt Olney: Yes. Okay. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Terry Earley: Thank you.

Malcolm Holland: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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