Enterprise Financial Services Corp (NASDAQ:EFSC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Brian Martin: Got you. No, that makes sense. And maybe just last one for me was on the — just the funding of the loan growth this year, given — I mean, the liquidity levels has obviously come to way down. So is it fair to just think about the balance sheet or just the funding loan growth is coming from the deposit growth this year? Is that how you’re looking at a little bit more liquidity to come down but that’s how…

Jim Lally: Yes, Brian, we’re thinking about — we’ll fund it through everything can just mentioned all the various units and teams and specialties that we have. We feel confident that we can do that.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Michael from Piper Sandler.

Unidentified Analyst: Just wanted to follow up on the last question. Can you give us some color surrounding kind of the leftover runoff of potential rate-sensitive deposits on the balance sheet right now?

Jim Lally: Scott, do you want to talk about that?

Scott Goodman: Yes. It’s kind of what I’ve said in the comments, James. A majority of the decline is really a handful of larger commercial clients that are redeploying excess funds and into nonbank alternatives, T-bills, maybe what I’ll call competitive specials. We see that in certain markets. But I feel really good about how we are having conversations with our clients. We know that handful of clients. We’ve also developed some products that we can use and we’re proactively approaching with clients that we know have those excess funds and we’ve been able to really moderate that. We’re also having really good conversations with other deposit prospects in the market as well. And I feel good about our pipeline of being able to bring in new deposits. And I think the results that I talked about in the quarter show that we’ve been successful there as well. So hopefully, that helps.

Unidentified Analyst: Yes, that’s super helpful. And then my follow-up question, you kind of just touched on with the outlook growth but do you think it’s reasonable to repeat specialty deposit growth this year compared to last year at that same pace?

Jim Lally: Yes. We think this. We think that those businesses for us are consistent providers. We’ve added some new sales people there. So we feel good about its ability to contribute appropriately for the total funding growth for our company.

Operator: Next question comes from Jeff Rulis from D.A. Davidson.

Jeff Rulis: Just a follow-up. The nonaccrual decline. Any color on the loans that were either back on nonaccrual or paid off, just looking for some detail there.

Scott Goodman: Jeff, it’s Scott. I can take that one. It’s really — the majority was in 2 credits, not new. They’ve kind of been in our workout process most of the year or maybe even in the prior year but really successful conclusions to both. One was an ag credit that we completed a charge-off and work out on and then a C&I credit that we actually had a recovery on as well. So that’s probably the bulk of the reduction in nonaccruals for the quarter.

Jeff Rulis: Got you. And then Keene, did that reduce the margin at all in that recovery? I mean is that meaningful at all?

Scott Goodman: It was a relatively modest recovery, sorry…

Keene Turner: Yes. No, the recovery, Jeff went through the allowance. So I think that’s what Scott is referring to. So that was part of the net but it didn’t meaningfully impact margin. I think margin and net interest income were fairly clean in the quarter. So nothing too consequential either way that you need to think about for 1Q or anything like that.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Jim for closing remarks.

Jim Lally: Colby, thank you and thank you all for joining us today and for your interest in our company. We look forward to speaking to all of you again at the end of our first quarter. Take care and have a great day.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.

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