Heartland Financial USA, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLF) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Terence McEvoy: All right. Thanks for taking my questions.

Bruce Lee: Thanks, Terry.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We have a follow-up question from the line of Andrew Liesch of Piper Sandler.

Andrew Liesch: Hey. Thank you, guys. Do you have handy the balance of shared national credits that you have on the balance sheet?

Nathan Jones: Yes. First of all, shared national credits for us is not really a focus. Our strategy is really kind of when we return to participation is when we purchased them, it’s really gained the exposure with some of the companies in the markets we really want kind of a deeper relationship with and exposure in those markets. But overall, if you take all participations that we have and repurchase them where we’re not the lead bank, it’s actually – it’s only about 9% of our book. It’s mostly C&I. And really, we’ve maintained the discipline. We maintained it the rest of our portfolio there, very disciplined, both geographic diversification as well as industry diversification. I think our largest concentration has been manufacturing, so we feel good about that book and where we’re at. Bruce, anything you like to add on?

Bruce Lee: Yes. Andrew, we’ve really viewed this as not an asset play here, but it’s a relationship play in all of our transactions. Whether we’re a buyer or a seller, we have a non-credit relationships. And I think – and correct me if I’m wrong, Nathan, but I think that we have purchased about 9%, but we’ve also sold about 4.5% or 5%.

Nathan Jones: It’s about 5%.

Bruce Lee: Yes. So it’s about a net of the total book. It’s a net of about 4% to 5% of our total portfolio.

Andrew Liesch: Got it. Very helpful. Thank you so much.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Rulis of D.A. Davidson.

Jeffrey Rulis: Thanks. Good afternoon. Just a question on the – as you’ve wind down the charter consolidation, more specific to the – maybe the folks that were really assigned to that process. I just wanted to see if there’s a rotation or there’s a reassignment of those. And maybe that comes as part of 3.0 or just want to get the sense for if there was a head count that was sort of assigned to oversee that? And do they pivot? And are there any expected positive impact as they kind of re-look at other projects?

Bruce Lee: Yes. So if you think about – I guess, I’ll answer it this way. We had very few 100% dedicated folks to the project that were on our payroll. And so within those restructuring charges were very little salaries for folks. So our internal people will get reassigned to the projects and other things that we’re looking at for 3.0. And again, they were doing their day job as well as doing the consolidation. We thought we might have to do more, but the consolidations, quite frankly, went very smooth. And congratulations to all the folks at HTLF because I think they did a great job of getting the projects done and doing their day jobs and all the other things that we needed to do. So it was very good. Most of that cost that we used people for was external consultants that came in and helped us.

Jeffrey Rulis: Okay. That’s helpful. Thanks. And just to circle back, maybe for Nathan, on the non-performing loans. Some reductions there, but it looked like there was even a bounce that kind of came in that’s a new net down. But just in general credit comments, it doesn’t sound like you’re too concerned about systemic changes. But maybe if you could touch on what was added and areas that kind of you’re looking at that are softening at all?