Bridgewater Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:BWB) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Jeff Rulis: Got it. If I could talk to capital. Interested in if you guys have in-house kind of TCE and CET1 targets. And I guess I asked that in the sense that as you consider the buyback a lot of moving pieces, but relative to capital levels and the leg to that, and maybe for Jerry, just on the M&A side, I mean, as you consider transactions back to those capital levels? And how do you balance those options?

Jerry Baack: Yes. I mean, we continue to think of M&A strategically and would continue to be in front of potential acquisitions that would happen down the road, certainly not something in the pipeline for this year. I guess, more than anything I just said, it depends on the current environment and how that transaction will be structured, but we certainly have access to capital if we fund the right deal.

Jeff Rulis: Okay. And targets on the capital levels, is that anything in-house? Or is that just a sort of a concerted effort to grow those, given the environment.

Jerry Baack: I think we’re just still comfortable growing it throughout the year. But we don’t have like a specific – I’m not going to tell you a specific number that we’re trying to achieve on a percentage basis.

Jeff Rulis: Okay. Fair enough. I’ll step back.

Operator: The next question will come from Ben Gerlinger with the Hovde Group. Please go ahead.

Ben Gerlinger: Hi. Good morning, everyone. I was curious, you kind of dig in a little deeper on deposits, is a pretty solid quarter. I think Lisa deserves a gift basket at some point this quarter. It was a good uptick. When you think about just relationship management and adding core deposits. Was this one kind of a starting of a new trend? Maybe you call in a secret niche? Or is this something that you just deepening relationship and that all kind of came in at once? Just kind of curious on why this quarter was so good relative to the past 12 months when rates are up so much?

Nick Place: Ben, it’s Nick. Yes, similar to what our story has been since our founding, I don’t think that there’s a silver bullet here. I think it’s a great mix of everything. I think in the quarter, we had a lot of traction on staying in front of our existing client relationships and in some cases, repatriating some deposits that maybe had moved to treasuries at some point through 2022. So bringing some of those balances back in continue to help. Jerry mentioned in the prepared remarks, and I echo those comments. I mean I feel like we have the best team of bankers in our market, and they continue to get in front of phenomenal new client opportunities on the loan and deposit side, and we have great deposit wins on the quarter with some new client relationships.

So I really feel like it’s just a culmination of a lot of things coming together. And I feel like the momentum that we have today, we can continue to carry forward with us into the future. So there isn’t a single answer there. It’s a heavy lift from a big group of folks working on it.