Bank7 Corp. (NASDAQ:BSVN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jason Estes: I think it’s worth mentioning as well that the concept of loan floors, that’s not new, our portfolio because it’s so heavy on variable interest rates, the floors have been long established. And some of those, as you get into a higher rate environment, well, yes, the floors, they get lifted. And as we’ve seen in the past, you may have to renegotiate some of those on the way down if we end up back in the same, kind of rate environment we’ve operated in the last few years, but for now, the floors are moving up with rates.

Nathan Race: Okay. Great. That’s helpful. And if I could just ask one more, just in terms of, kind of the reserve outlook from here. You guys are adopting , I believe, in the first quarter, which kind of complicates I think the reserving methodology to some degree, charge-offs were zero last year. You guys still adjusted the reserve at a pretty healthy clip to support loan growth. So, I guess I’m just curious if you guys are seeing anything on the foreseeable horizon that would cause a meaningful increase in charge-offs and just, kind of how you’re thinking about the reserve trajectory on either an absolute dollar basis or just relative to loans within that, kind of high single-digit loan growth outlook that was described earlier?

Tom Travis: Let me start with the macro and then Jason can get into specifics. Listen, we’d be foolish not to understand the headwinds that are out there. And so, yes, it’s a loan growth story, which made us motivated as to make sure that we increased our reserve, and we’re really in that low 1.2 to 1.25 area, which we’re comfortable operating in. And so, I think from a macro perspective, we’re going to keep our eye on the ball relative to those overall conditions, and of course, CECL. And then I think Jason may have some color on a few credits on what we might see.

Jason Estes: Yes. I think the important thing, you know if you go back and you look over the last five seven years, we’ve really had the one credit that stung us twice and that deal is looking better. There’s a new team in there. They’ve got some green shoots. And for the last two quarters, it’s been positive results and encouraging results, but we’re still not 100% sure that that is totally behind us. Anything that would be left has been well reserved for. We don’t have a specific reserve on the remaining loan balance, but that’s the one that’s out there that would cause me some level of concern in the future. For the rest of the portfolio, as I stated earlier in my comments, the portfolio is performing very, very well. And we continue to see a healthy deal pipeline, and we just €“ we feel really good about the book, overall.

Tom Travis: And I would just follow up on that . It’s really that further out tail risk in-spite of the green shoot. So, we feel they’re greener and longer than they were two quarters ago. So, we’re encouraged, but we’re still keeping one on nonaccrual, and we’re doing that as a matter of prudence relative to that unknown tail risk, which we’ve always said for the COVID cycle-in to cycle-out, it was at close to 1%, and we haven’t hit that 1%, but if that tail-end risk didn’t materialize and things went the other way on that credit, it’s a small number, but that’s really it.

Nathan Race: Understood. And if I could just ask one last one on that specific credit that we were just discussing. Can you remind us kind of what the specific reserves that exist on that credit today relative to ?

Jason Estes: There is no specific reserve on that credit today.

Nathan Race: Got you. But I believe you charged-off already a good chunk of it?

Jason Estes: Yes.

Nathan Race: Can you remind us what that amount is relative to originally?

Jason Estes: It’s approximately $7 million in total that has been charged-off related to that credit.

Nathan Race: And that credit was how large, Jason?

Jason Estes: .

Operator: Our next question comes from Thomas Wendler with Stephens Inc. Please go ahead.

Thomas Wendler: Hey, good morning everyone.

Jason Estes: Good morning.

Thomas Wendler: Most of my questions have already been asked, but one final one for me is, we saw a pretty large step-up in salary expense last quarter, can you give us some commentary there? And then maybe how you’re thinking about expense growth for 2023?

Tom Travis: We did a €“ we’ll call it a one-off. When you look at our year, at the end of the year, we were very close to a 30% increase in net income, and we evaluated that relative to, I think, our best estimate was the industry was going somewhere around 5% to 6%. When I say industry or competitive set, and we were so pleased with the banking team and the employee base. And as we said, it was a function of organic loan and deposit growth and everyone hitting on all cylinders. And so, we made a decision towards the end of the year to expense money and pay people for sharing the fruit of that labor. And so, we would expect to €“ we’re already reverting, €“ I don’t know what our number is, but we really don’t have disjointed increases or decreases in our salary expenses. We’ve managed the company. This was purely a payout based on that phenomenon.

Thomas Wendler: Alright. I appreciate the color. That was my only question. Thanks guys.

Operator: Our next question comes from Woody Lee with KBW. Please go ahead.

Woody Lee: Hey good morning guys.

Jason Estes: Good morning.