Washington Trust Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:WASH) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Damon DelMonte: Okay. I don’t mean to belabor the discussion on the margin here. But looking back at my notes from last quarter, I think the guidance was like $285 million to $290 million for the fourth quarter, and it came — you guys came in at $265 million. I mean that’s a pretty sizable turn of events. And I’m just trying to kind of connect the dots here. So is it fair to say that the loan growth was just really strong and you just — you’re forced to tap outside sources and higher cost funding and it just had immediate impact on the margin? Is it pretty much like that simple?

Ron Ohsberg: That’s exactly what happened.

Damon DelMonte: Okay. All right. I appreciate that. And then, just lastly, on loan growth outlook. You guys seem pretty optimistic here going into 2023. Any guidance on kind of full-year expectations for the overall portfolio?

Ned Handy: Yes. Damon, it’s Ned. The pipeline is strong. It was strong at year-end, kind of in the $250 million level. It’s grown since then. So we are seeing opportunity. We think we’ll be in the sort of mid-single-digit growth range again. We have seen a tapering off somewhat on the payoff side. So that could be helpful. So yes, I think we’re going to see strong growth. And frankly, going into the year with a pipeline that’s strong I think we’ll see better growth in the early part of the year than we did last year. Last year, we ramped up towards the end of the year, but we’ve got some momentum. So I think it will be a little bit more spread out over the course of the year and continue to be strong. Mary, do you want to comment on resi?

Mary Noons: Yes. So for resi, we have, I believe a 13% increase in our volume for what will hit portfolio. What I’m hoping is that, that’s a little lower and more go to sales, and we have — we’re working on certain fronts to increase our salable avenues. But we already have a very diverse salable outlet; we’re structured to have multiple channels for outlets for our production. We’ve just hit a little kink in the yield curve on those. So I think we’ll have very strong production. We’re very oriented to the purchase market and purchase market in our region is very strong, and it’s anticipated to stay that way.

Damon DelMonte: Got it. Great. Well, thank you for the color and thank you for taking all my questions.

Ned Handy: Thanks, Damon.

Operator: Thank you, Damon. We currently have no further questions. I will now hand back to our speaker for final comments. Elizabeth, please go ahead.

Elizabeth Eckel: Ned?

Ned Handy: Well, thank you all for joining us. We appreciate your interest and your time, and we look forward to talking again to you in the coming quarters. Meanwhile, we’ll be head down and focused on serving our customers well as always. So have a great day, everybody.

Ron Ohsberg: Thank you.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.

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