Western Alliance Bancorporation (NYSE:WAL) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

I will say — the water is a calmer, okay? So, I think what’s important is — we return to a lot more calm as it relates to depositors starting a Wednesday, that would 50. Cash inflows and outflows are about the same. And as you saw, starting on the 20th or thereabouts, we started to grow, and we’ve grown in.So, there’s a calm with these depositors. For us, there is still a heightened level of sensitivity to make sure that everything we just said on this call gets executed upon, right? And that, to me, is incredibly important. One, of course, we like to be known as a company that’s transparent, but also when we tell you we’re going to do something, we do it. We also like to be known as trying to be a little bit more innovative to looking at problems and solving them and then solving them right away.So, if you’re asking me about anxiety and what keeps me up at night, is making sure that we work hard to execute on everything that we’ve said here.

If you’re asking me for what the other one or two events that could be out there that maybe could impact the industry a little bit, I think First Republic hasn’t been solved yet, but I think we’ve now shown that we are completely different and separated from that company. There was a point where whatever happened to them affected us. But I think we’ve now separated ourselves from there.And the other thing that we’re just waiting for is you saw that Fitch gave us — kept this investment grade but lower a notch or two. We still have one of the rating agency that is probably going to do something or other since they’ve had us on watch. And we’re waiting for that. But we saw no outflow with any impact to Fitch, zero, no incoming calls, zero. And we just want that one last item to be passed and then it’s all about execution or it’s still right now, execution on the plan that we presented here and also working on growth.So, what I think you saw here during the course of this crisis is management’s dexterity.

I’ve said that to our Board several times. We can balance a few things, keep a few in the air and do them well. I’d like to think we did okay through this whole crisis here and that’s what’s front and center in our minds these days, Jon. I appreciate the big question at the end.Jon Arfstrom Yes, okay. Thanks for everything.Ken Vecchione Thank you.Operator That’s all the questions we have. I’ll turn the call back to Ken Vecchione for closing remarks.Ken Vecchione Yes. Listen, this is probably our longest call ever. Not surprising. I would hope we answered all your questions. And we look forward to the next earnings call. We’ll talk some more. Thank you all for your time today.Operator Thank you everyone for joining us today. This concludes our call and you may now disconnect your lines.