First Republic Bank (NYSE:FRC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Unidentified Analyst: I just wanted to follow up on the margin, on two things. One, I think Mike you mentioned, still expect the 30% to 35% deposit beta. In the world where rates don’t actually get caught and the forward curve doesn’t play out. Just handicap the risk. I think the concern on the margin outlook generally has been the deposit costs mix shift we’ve heard from some of the other big banks today could be much worse than we’ve seen just given that we’ve not tested for this in a long, long time, what’s your comfort level on the 30 to 35 beta holding?

Mike Roffler: So that — is our best perspective at this point in time, given our outlook. And as Jim mentioned this doesn’t last forever given history of 40 plus years. And so the 10 year is also telling you something where it’s jumped to 344, as of yesterday, as to where the market feels, rates are moving. And so the beta could be a little bit higher if they hold an extra quarter or two. But the fact that the pace is slowing, there’ll be a little bit of what I call a catch up, that always is at the end of a cycle. But the pace slows, because the time just passes. And so I would say that we feel pretty confident where we are. And it’ll be depending upon macro-outlook, which is the one thing that you all know, we don’t control and nor does anyone know anyone else.

Unidentified Analyst: Understood. And just — so if I missed it, did you talk about like in terms of the margin? I’m assuming there’s some benefit in the back half, as you assume rate cuts in your NIM guidance of down 25 to 30 bps? How should we think about the NIM trajectory? Like does it fall closer to 2%, by the middle of the year by the second or third quarter before rebounding in the back half.

Mike Roffler: No, I wouldn’t go to 2%. It’s sort of stabilizes that the middle part of the year. And importantly, after you have a little bit of a dip in net interest income here in the first half, then you start to see it increase towards the back half of the year and starts to have a real positive trajectory into 24.

Unidentified Analyst: Understood. And just one last question around growth. I know. Jim, you’ve talked about market share environments like this, just give us a sense of, is this environment any different in terms of gaining market share and how your customers — it’s been a ton of wealth destruction? How was that factoring in, in terms of just the appetite to buy homes and in terms of mortgage loan growth today versus the last 10 or 15 years?

Mike Selfridge: Well, this disruptive moment, and we all know that mortgage market is being disrupted a little bit is an extraordinary opportunity for us to take share. The moments like this are very special. The volume of demand is lower. We all know that. Although my guess is, it will pick up in the spring quite a lot. But the disruptive nature, the disruption that’s going on in the mortgage market, people pulling back, et cetera is just hanging us up. It’s on a silver platter.

Unidentified Analyst: And does that create some pricing power like as the yield curve, Mike, you mentioned earlier dropped — did the spreads widen on this product?

Mike Selfridge: It’s not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue and availability issue.

Unidentified Analyst: But I’m just wondering, are you able to see better spreads when the yield curve? Or is the pricing on these like the 5.80 Mike mentioned? Will that send more or less with whatever happened with the yield curve?

Mike Selfridge: Let me turn this to Mike. But the pricing on the acquisition of a new well-off household on a short-term asset like a four- or five-year mortgage, is irrelevant. You take it into a household like this. They stay with you for life.

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