Well, first, let me say, culturally, we pride ourselves on being entrepreneurial. Many people think it’s in on the business development side, whether we bring in deposits or loan growth. And I would say, yes, you’re correct, if you think about that.I think where we excel in our entrepreneurial behavior is to — in times of crisis and in times of working out transactions with clients. So, you want to see our entrepreneurial behavior. Go back and look at COVID and look at our hotel book, which probably back then was $3 billion. We had projections of anywhere from us losing $100 million to $1 billion in that book, right?We moved quickly. We put a program in place that I think maybe only one other bank use, which was in order to get a deferral, you had to put money up.
So, every month of deferral you wanted, you actually had to put up a month of cash.And while that did not seem to sit immediately well with our sponsors. Once they understood that what we were trying to do and get them to commit to their projects, so we could then commit to any new deals that they wanted to do. Then we had almost 100% uptake in that program. What’s the benefit of that program? Everyone was projecting large losses, not on late payment. Let me be clear, not one late payment.So, what you saw here, okay, we did have a rush for liquidity to run out of this bank on Monday. I will tell you by Tuesday, late afternoon, we already had the basis of the plan that we’re talking to you about here today in terms of moving the sell down of non-core assets.We also believe moving quickly — and by the way, this was very connected to what we told everyone in Q3 and Q4 coming out of kind of — moving out of our EFR loans, capital call and subscription lines and also getting out of some corporate finance credits, which we thought may have some potential credit weakness down the road.But we moved so quickly that, that allowed us to lock up deals for the low marks that you see that we noted here in the early part of our slide deck.
That’s the entrepreneurial behavior that we have here.And so yes, you could say we’re retrenching. Right now, we’re using all that entrepreneurial behavior to build capital to make sure we have a good deposit franchise, a better deposit franchise. You saw that, by the way, from moving our insured deposit level from 45% to 73% inside of five weeks. We move. When we put our minds to do something, it gets done very quickly.And so yes, so one of the other former questions from one of the other analysts. Yes, Q1 — I’m sorry, Q2, Q3, you’re going to see sort of this flattish type of balance sheet. But as we begin to emerge out of Q4, assuming that we’re on track with all the capital and all the liquidity that we want to do. And that’s perhaps job one, I just want to make sure everyone understands that.
Our DNA will be in full view again as we build into 2024.The only thing I’ll say is we don’t need to grow as fast, right? Again, we weren’t rewarded for growing as fast. And the other thing I’ll say, it’s all going to be informed again by where the economy stands and what’s happening in the economic environment and macro factors, okay?Ben Gerlinger Yes, that’s great color. I appreciate it. The confidence is the best capital in this environment. The only other question I had is kind of just where your share price is today. Seeing wall under tangible book is like seeing a snowman in Phoenix. I’m just kind of curious, your appetite of share repurchases. I know you’re trying to build capital, so that would fly in the face of it, but just anything on that end?Ken Vecchione Yes, that’s not in the conversation at the moment.
We’ll not be in the conversation until we cross over 11%. And then the decision then will be — it will be dependent upon the economy and other economic events will reassess capital management alternatives at that time. But that’s not something that’s is it even contemplated here or even discussed.Ben Gerlinger Got you. Appreciate the color. Thanks guys.Ken Vecchione Thank you.Operator The next question comes Brandon King with Truist. Please go ahead Brandon.Brandon King Hey. So, I wanted to touch on credit, and I appreciate the guidance, and I wanted to get a better sense of how you think this credit normalization process will play out for Western Alliance, particularly for this year?Tim Bruckner Sure. Hi it’s Tim Bruckner. First, I’d say that as we look at our portfolio right now, it’s performing and doing exactly what we wanted to do in this economy.
We’re at our foundation, a relationship bank. And at our foundation, we’re a direct lender and we don’t enter into transactions where we’re complicated with mezzanine and sub debt and so forth.So, we’ve got direct, frank, straightforward and ongoing dialogue with each of our customers in that sense. So, when we talk about how we’re doing, how we relate, that’s informed by this active dialogue.So, as you can expect right now in segments like office, we’re out in front of the customer with dialogue in the present environment discussing. So, I expect that you see stability with any economic downturn. I expect that there is also a chance for some migration to criticized or special mention, we don’t see significant migration to us based on the direct relationship and the active dialogue that we’re having.
That holds true across all segments that we lend in.Brandon King Okay. And my follow-up that was as far as the uptick in classified assets, is that kind of the general story there as well?Tim Bruckner Yes. Exactly.Brandon King Okay. All right. And just one more follow-up with the PPNR guidance. Within that, what is the outlook for AmeriHome going forward for the rest of the year?Ken Vecchione So, actually, quietly, AmeriHome is having a good several weeks here. And what I would tell you is that overall, production margins have improved to more historic normalized levels. It has happened towards the end of Q1 and it continues into the current quarter.And I would kind of say that the mortgage income that we earned in Q1 probably is about right as we move forward.
And what’s helped us here is the retreat of large money center bank. I don’t know why we just don’t say Wells, but to retreat of Wells of the correspondent lending market, combined with industry capacity rationalization has paved the path towards higher margins and higher win rates.And so we knew the market would have to right-size itself. It’s taken a little bit longer than we’d like. But it has — it seems like it’s getting there now. And so that’s the color around AmeriHome at the moment.Brandon King Got you. So, first quarter is a good base to grow for the rest of the year?Ken Vecchione Yes, more or less.Brandon King Okay. Thanks for taking my questions.Operator The next question comes from Gary Tenner with D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead Gary.Gary Tenner Thanks, good morning.
I wanted to ask another question just with regard to kind of the use of net inflows of deposits over the next few quarters. I think the question was already asked in terms of the securities portfolio, but you finished the quarter at $3.5 billion of cash and equivalents, that’s about 5% of your total balance sheet. It’s about double where you’ve been historically in most quarters at least. Is that sort of a level that you’d kind of target over time? Or do you think that it trends back towards that, call it, 2.5%, 3% level over time?Ken Vecchione I think that can hold over time. We’re holding a bit more cash than we usually do presently. I think that — I think that can probably trend lower.Dale Gibbons But the overall liquidity position — and again, as Ken indicated, I mean, as — assuming we get continued deposit recovery here, our coverage of uninsured remains robust.
