First Internet Bancorp (NASDAQ:INBK) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

David Becker: We won’t even be close to the 100%, because I remember, that’s done at the bank level, Brett. So I mean, we got well over half a billion in capital at the bank. But we do, obviously, we expect, we do have our construction team had a great year this year with originations and those will fund. We actually pulled forward some of that funding this quarter is some deals started a fund earlier than we expected. But we expect next year, I guess the good part about from the construction piece is that, historically we’ve had a maintain balances in the 50 million-ish range revolving around residential land development here around in our home market here. But as we build out construction, I mean, we’re really starting from a low base. So, even if we hit our targets for next year, that construction portfolio is still under 10% of the total loan portfolio and well under capital limits.

Operator: The next question is from the line of George Sutton with Craig-Hallum.

George Sutton : I just wondered if you could walk through the decision to exit the mortgage business versus just pulling it back to a smaller level being able to reenter the market when that seemed to be the right thing to do?

David Becker: George, we probably spent the last 60 days doing all kinds of configurations of cutting back on sales, marketing efforts, staffing, trying to hold a shell together. There was just no way to get there, we couldn’t even get it close to breakeven basis. So staring at a solid 6 million potentially plus in losses over the next three years and no idea. I mean, that’s as far forecasting out as Annie and Jenny and everybody’s doing, they don’t even know come 2026, whether mortgage is going to rebound or not. Consumers are getting used to a 6% interest rate, assuming that’s all they can get. But it fell off so dramatically that we couldn’t make sense out of it to have that kind of a loss for that long a period of time. And is that part about out on the other side when mortgages going great.

The market doesn’t give us credit for it and mortgage is bad everybody else at it. So it’s kind of one of those products where you’re damned if you do damned if you don’t. So it was a, believe me from my perspective, probably the toughest business decision I’ve made in my 40-year career. It’s been a tremendous group of individuals still loved working with them for some of them now almost 16 years. And it’s tough, it is really, really tough. And as you know, the market nationally is just blowing up. So there’s not a lot of great opportunities, staring them in the face in the industry they’ve been a part of for years and mortgage has been cyclical. I’ve been around it now for close to 25 years. And I’ve seen that three or four cycles but this is by far the worst that I’ve seen in my lifetime, and probably the worst we’ve seen in the country and 40 to 50 years.

George Sutton: I appreciate that perspective, one of the things I can mention, you’re doing this act of buyback, which we love to see, but you mentioned you’re doing it in part because you’re well below what you find to be your franchise value, I just wanted to see if we get a picture and into what you believe your franchise value to be?