BankUnited, Inc. (NYSE:BKU) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Jared Shaw: Okay. And then finally for me on the office side, you talked about some of the rent concessions to get new tenants. Have you been noticing landlords having to increase either the rate or pace of concessions to attract those new tenants is one part of it. And then I guess what gives you confidence that the expected lower occupancy levels are temporary? Is that just you have some insight into the pipeline for those landlords?

Tom Cornish: Yeah, I would say two things, I don’t think in most of the markets that we’re in, the concessionary period has expanded. Now, if you’re in San Francisco or Chicago, I’m sure that’s true, but in better growth markets, generally, you’re seeing kind of a 12-month period of time and we’re not seeing any major changes in that. The confidence really comes from sort of the underlying demographics of what’s happening in the market. So if you look at markets where we have significant office exposure, like spread out through Florida, for example, if you look at the underlying demographics and inflow business migration, new business startups, and whatnot in Miami, in Fort Lauderdale, in Palm Beach, in Tampa, it’s good, I mean, there’s really…

Leslie Lunak: Lease-up activity…

Tom Cornish: And you’re seeing the lease-up activity from that. I mean, the amount of new migration of companies that come to a market, the expansions that are being done is just really strong throughout virtually every market in Florida. So that’s what gives you confidence to see that as you’re looking at very, very strong population and business growth that requires a lot of these buildings are professional services oriented, technology oriented, and you’re just seeing growth across all of those industry segments within Florida.

Leslie Lunak: And I would also point out, in Manhattan in particular, the rent rollover in the next 12 months is only 4%, so…

Tom Cornish: Yeah, I mean, even if you look, there was a recent report in the journal, I think yesterday, that said New York City led the country in creating new tech jobs, and while we don’t have a lot of buildings in New York, I think they had a [3.5] (ph) number as a growth in the tech-related return to office and new job environment that comes into those buildings. So the markets that we’re in, I think, are generally giving us reasonable confidence that we’re seeing business activity that will lead to leasing activity.

Leslie Lunak: The other thing I would say, I know we’ve said it kind of jokingly, but Tom really is sitting here with a stack of paper in front of him that has on it details of every single loan in the office portfolio. So I think the granular level at which we are monitoring and paying attention and gathering information about the loans in this portfolio is what gives us the confidence in this portfolio. We really do know what’s going on with each and every one of these.

Raj Singh: Portfolio management has been at a different level.

Tom Cornish: I mean, our teams are visiting these properties consistently. They’re talking to the asset owners. They’re talking to the leasing agents. I mean, they have a very granular level of knowledge of what is going on in each and every property.

Jared Shaw: Great. Thanks very much.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of Woody Lay with KBW. Your line is open.

Woody Lay: Hey, good morning, guys.

Raj Singh: Good morning.

Leslie Lunak: Good morning, Woody.

Woody Lay: Just one follow-up question on the non-interest bearing deposits. As you mentioned, it looks like it all sort of came on in the final month of the quarter. All those deposits should be sticky. There’s no seasonal factors there.

Raj Singh: No. I mean there are seasonal trends to certain businesses that we’re in. There are monthly trends, there are seasonal trends, but a lot of that growth was new business, some of it was certainly seasonal as well. We had a decline in DDA last quarter, as always happens in December, and we’re now seeing that buildup. That buildup, it’s not like we’re in high season. That buildup will continue to happen. So we expect the seasonal changes to keep helping us as we get into the summer. No, there isn’t any lumpiness that I’m worried about that is here one quarter and gone the next quarter, no.

Woody Lay: Got it. And then I wanted to shift over. I think in the release you mentioned you saw some shared national credit runoff. I was just wondering if you could quantify that on a dollar basis and do you think that’s a trend that continues from here?

Leslie Lunak: I don’t have those numbers in front of me right now, Woody, but I’ll let Tom speak to what his expectations are.

Tom Cornish: I would say, when it comes to that segment, we consistently try to look forward and see where we see risk in the economy and when we make those decisions to exit those credits, and there were a couple of them this quarter. There’re typically areas that we look at where we are not as optimistic about the trend lines in those industry segments. And that’s typically where we make that kind of decision. They’re a bit more episodic based upon how we’re viewing what might be happening in a given industry segment versus kind of — I mean, our long-term strategy is to build bilateral business with operating accounts and treasury management business and whatnot. We do have — we are in some shared national credits on both corporate side and the real estate side, but we generally think about it from, do we have confidence in the next 12 to 24 months in where this sector is going, and when we don’t, we try to take opportunities to exit at maturity or redials.

Woody Lay: So those credits that were exited, I mean, did they have a deposit relationship with the bank? And does the majority of your national credit portfolio have a full banking relationship?