MidWestOne Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:MOFG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Barry Ray: Good morning, Terry.

Terence McEvoy: Maybe start off with how far along are you through the portfolio review of the loan portfolio? And I guess, said another way, should we expect additional kind of credit actions to resolve some of those legacy loan issues?

Chip Reeves: Yes. Let me go — I’ll go ahead and hit this first, and then we also have Gary Sims, our Chief Credit Officer, with us, Terry. So when I first joined, obviously, November 1, one of the first pieces that I — we began to look at was, let’s finish the credit job of the legacy credit issues. So we put in place, obviously, the review and then went with the actions that we did. Ultimately, anything that we did not believe we would be able to resolve in 2023, we remedied through either a sale or some other resolution. So with that impact, we were able to reduce that nonperforming asset ratio down to 24 basis points. Gary, if you want to speak to any more of those particulars or even the portfolio as a whole.

Gary Sims: Yes. Thanks, Chip. And what I see from the portfolio and specifically, the nonperforming portfolio that we have left on the books at December 31. There is still potential resolutions, as Chip identified, in 2023. So I think that existing book will continue to resolve and decline throughout 2023. We — as we’ve talked about before, we do a very thorough review of the portfolio at the end of the year and touch virtually every credit of material size by the end of the year. And we don’t see a migration continued into the nonperforming book in 2023. So generally, I think you’re going to continue to see that book go down as we continue to resolve credits. Does that help?

Terence McEvoy: It does, yes. Thank you both for the response. And then as a follow-up, when I look at your shareholder value strategy slide or the third or fourth bullets says strengthening the commercial banking franchise. And should I interpret that as adding commercial bankers? If so, is that in your expense outlook? And what about incremental products? Do you have the product set to compete within the commercial banking space to the degree that you can be successful?

Chip Reeves: This is Chip, Terry. I€˜m going to give couple of comments and then turn it to Len Devaisher, who really led this effort over the last 24 months. I believe what you’ll see as we begin to unveil more of our strategic plans for internally within the bank as well as for the external market. We’ll have more of a lean into our commercial banking space than even we do today, and we’ve made significant progress in the last two years. In terms of talent and where it goes, absolutely in terms of adding commercial bankers, and I think we’ll be adding those in our select metro markets of Minneapolis, Denver and Metro Iowa. In terms of our product set, I think some of the things that we’ll begin to continue to accelerate is our treasury management initiatives as well. Len, any further comments there?

Len Devaisher: I think, Chip, that hits it well. I think the only thing I might add is, we do feel like the — to the extent there’s any clouds of uncertainty on a macro level over this environment that there will be opportunities for companies like ours that can take advantage and take care when the risk profile is there, the pricing makes sense, where other folks might be on the sidelines a little bit. And we enjoy that loan-to-deposit ratio that positions us to do that. So I think that helps our recruiting story.

Chip Reeves: And then, Terry, I think the second part of your question is, is that in the expense base today? So in terms of the guidance, that Barry mentioned. We have a significant number of new hires built into that new base, but it will also take a reallocation of some of our current expense base to ensure that we hit that guidance.