Bank of Marin Bancorp (NASDAQ:BMRC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Tim Myers: Yes, it’s all the above. We are continuing to benefit from what happened with some of the banks that were taken over, but we’re also getting accounts from just other large banks. I think the pros and the market drove people that direction, but fundamentally there’s still a strong desire and love of the community banking model, or appreciation of that. And so, we continue to benefit from that. The bulk of it that we brought in, meaning not current account fluctuations, it was about $80 million or $81 million of that was interest bearing, but again that weighted average cost was 3.63% just for interest-bearing. So, we continue to get DDA. None of that was broker deposit activity and very little CD activity. So, it’s just blocking and tackling deposit gathering. But it is across the board in terms of sources.

Tani Girton: And I’d say you can see in the deck on Page 16, what the cost of deposits was in September versus June, but in general, the deceleration in the increase in cost of deposits is significant. It was about half this quarter versus what it was last quarter.

Jeff Rulis: That’s great. Thank you.

Tim Myers: Thank you, Jeff.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of David Feaster from Raymond James. David, your line is open. Please go ahead.

David Feaster: All right. Good morning, everybody.

Tim Myers: Good morning, David.

Tani Girton: Good morning, David.

David Feaster: Maybe just following up on the margin discussion, you guys, that’s assuming a static balance sheet, if I heard you correctly. And you guys have been, you’ve done a great job managing the balance sheet. I’m just curious, how you think about it going forward? We built cash balances this quarter. Are there any expectations to continue pruning the security book, pay down borrowing? You know, that would only be additive to the discussion, I would think, but I’m just curious, kind of how you think about managing the balance sheet going forward?

Tim Myers: I’ll talk high level, but Tani jump in, but we continue to look at that all the time. If we can sell securities, particularly fund into loan growth, obviously have a more definable earn back period that way. There’s more clarity into that. We’ve been successful in paying down those borrowings. In fact, for a number of days during the quarter, we were, if you net from the cash, the $83 million from the prior security sales. If you net that from borrowings, we were negative $10 million for a while. We were sitting at zero. So, we’ve seen the ability to work that down. But your question is a great one we will continue to look at that. We’re being sensitive to managing all the stakeholders here, shareholders, regulators, and want to maintain liquidity on the balance sheet. But we definitely want to look at what we can do, to fund loan growth and continue to reposition that NIM.

Tani Girton: Yes, I would just add, – I think it’s an exciting time if you see what the originations were at the beginning of Q4. You know, that’s a time where we can really take some more action and do some redeployment on the balance sheet. So, I think there’s possibly some opportunities coming up for us here.

David Feaster: That’s terrific. And maybe just following up on that point, could you talk about some of the dynamics that you’re seeing on the loans side of the equation? Maybe just, first of all, I guess a pulse of your markets and how demand is trending, but just given some of the hires that you talked about and the commentary on, originations already exceeding the third quarter level. I’m just curious, where you’re having success, where you’re seeing opportunity to gain clients and new lending opportunities and how good risk, where are good risk adjusted returns at this point?