It’s I think it’s one of the things we were concerned about. And frankly, it’s something that this unpredictability or this variability that we saw in Q4 is what we were expecting the full year. It’s just that the first nine months, it didn’t show.
Matthew Howlett: Right. No, look, it definitely has — it certainly looked like it was over the punitive year in the fourth quarter. But we look forward to more of a normalization of that. I mean, it’d be interesting if you could run — sort of how ex-CECL, how you used to do it, how the earnings sort of look this year versus the new CECL adoption. But we’ll take a look at that. And I guess in the last question just on you’ve done a great job pricing. I think you said your rates now are over 16% on the rec and close to 12% on the home improvement. I mean it’s been terrific. Are you bumping in I mean can you just increase — I mean where are you pricing? It seems like it’s going to level off or you’re running in anybody’s competition, as you said, Andrew, the banks tend to back out at these parts of the cycle. I mean, just give us a little sense on competition and who you’re bumping into?
Anthony Cutrone: Yes, I think obviously, as we raise pricing, that’s going to have an effect on our originations. So there’s definitely — there’s a fair way we want to operate in. We’re not looking to price ourselves out of the market. But we definitely want to stay — we’re not as concerned with being competitive as we are with generating the type of returns that we typically see. So I wouldn’t expect to see any meaningful decrease from these levels. That said, we — if the Fed comes in with some rate cuts down the line, we’re going to factor that into our pricing. Again, we don’t want to price ourselves out of the market, but we’re also not going to drop rates just to chase volume.
Matthew Howlett: Is that correct me certainly could be certainly a big boom for you guys. Really appreciate it.
Anthony Cutrone: Thanks, Matt.
Operator: We have a follow-up question from Mike Grondahl from Northland Securities. Please go ahead.
Mike Grondahl: Yes. Anthony, operating expenses were like $75.5 million in 2023. Really only up a couple of million on 2022. Is that $75.5 million like the right base level for ’24. Do you see like a couple of million growth throughout the year? How should we think about operating expenses in ’24?
Anthony Cutrone: Yes, it’s about there. Inflation isn’t just a factor in terms of what it does to our borrowers. We’ve got over 100 employees. And so we give them standard of living increases so that you can keep up. So salaries will go up some because of our earnings, compensation was higher this year than it was maybe in past years. So that might come down a little bit. But I think I don’t know that there’s any extraordinary items in operating expenses that would cause it to fluctuate when we look at 2023. Obviously, professional fees could vary down the line, but I think in terms of a normalized run rate, I think this looks about where we should be. That said, if you look two years ago, we’re significantly higher. But over the course of three years, we’ve more than doubled our loan book. So as we scale, there’s going to be additional costs that we incur, and that’s just part of the business we’re in.
Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Andrew Murstein for any closing remarks.
Andrew Murstein: Thank you again for joining us this morning. We had a great year, and we’re proud of everything that we accomplished not only in 2023, but over the last several years. For 2024 and beyond, we’re positioned well with a strong balance sheet, prudent reserve levels, and most importantly, an incredible team. We believe this will continue to deliver significant shareholder value. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to call our Investor Relations team. The contact info is on the last page of our earnings supplement as well as the IR section of our website. Thank you again, everyone, and have a great rest of your day.
Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
