Ameris Bancorp (NASDAQ:ABCB) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

But what it does allow you to do is the growth you have is, in my opinion, it’s better priced, it’s stronger credits even in an environment like today and that’s kind of a mode that we will continue with as we go forward. Mortgage volume will obviously pull back, we pulled back intentionally on CRE, and you’ve seen that, that loan deposit ratio pulling back. So I think you’ll continue to see that discipline for the remainder of the year.

Casey Whitman: Okay. Are there particular markets that you’re in where you’re seeing more opportunities or less opportunities than others or is it pretty broad-based across your footprint?

Palmer Proctor: Well, for us, Atlanta has always been a consistent performer. And then we’re seeing a lot of opportunities in our Florida markets too and the Carolinas. And so if you looked at the opportunity, I’d tell you that probably Tampa and Jacksonville are some real bright spots for us in addition to certain pockets of the Carolinas. And then Atlanta has always been kind of our stable provider of a lot of activity. So I think those are probably the primary opportunities as we look out and look forward.

Casey Whitman: Okay. Just a quick — one credit question, can you just talk about what you’re seeing in that watchlist bucket? It looks like there are some assisted living in there. Is there any office in there, just sort of, can you give us any color on the watch list which I appreciate didn’t move much this quarter, but maybe you can give us would be helpful. Thanks.

Jon Edwards: Yeah. Casey, we did add that just to see if that would help to kind of give you a little bit, I mean 85% of the watch list is in those six categories there. So as far as office is concerned, specifically, there’s really just one non-owner occupied credit. It’s on the watch list. And, in the non-accrual bucket, right now it’s $3.6 million. So it’s not really anything to speak up, and those being the top five or six that we noted there, we didn’t see an office category because it’s not on there. So the ALF has been and I think I mentioned it, may be starting in the first of the year is we had some downgrades in that category. And so we’ve got really kind of two larger deals on there that’re on the watch list. At least one of which I have pretty good confidence, it might correct itself, or be paid off actually this quarter.

But, yeah, we’ve had a little bit of stress on the ALF side in that but that watchlist for ALF has kind of been there now for about nine months or so.

Casey Whitman: Okay. Thank you. Great quarter.

Palmer Proctor: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Chris Marinac from Janney Montgomery Scott. Please go ahead with your question.

Chris Marinac: Thanks, good morning. Wanted to go a little deeper on the C&I net charge-offs. And first, I just wanted to clarify. Can we adjust those charge-offs for the one equipment finance loan that was called out and then what would be, I guess, a good run rate for general C&I losses going forward?

Jon Edwards: Well, the C&I losses, that is where the equipment finance loans roll up. So pretty much everything that you see in there is related to the equipment finance group and to say one loan if you took that away from the slide deck, Chris, that is probably my fault, because it was a group of pre-acquisition loans that the extraordinary items were a group of pre-acquisition NPAs that we had acquired at the merger. So we had determined that, we’ve kind of reached a bit of our end on the near-term collections on some of those. And so we went ahead and took the losses on that this quarter, it was about $3.2 million. So the run rate for the rest of equipment finance, and really the C&I was about mid-eights and that is consistent, pretty much with what the year has been like.