National Bank Holdings Corporation (NYSE:NBHC) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Aldis Birkans: Yes. Actually, very similar comments on that, where the biggest repricing of the book did take place in late March and month of April. I’ll say that we are entering here, month of July or third quarter with a margin right around 4%. So still holding into the 4%. No monthly margin for last quarter was below 4%. So again, while on a linked quarter basis, it may appear significant decrease, we forecasted that and signaled that and feel pretty good about where margin is stabilizing.

Operator: We’ll now take our next question from Andrew Terrell with Stephens.

Robert Terrell: Appreciate the color there on the margin. Maybe just on the deposit cost specifically, do you have — similarly, the monthly or the spot interest-bearing deposit costs at the end of the second quarter? And then just overall on kind of beta commentary. I think in the past, we had talked about a maybe 30%, 35%-type range for deposit beta. Does that still feel like it’s an achievable kind of beta target through the cycle? Or are you seeing more pressure than you would have anticipated?

Aldis Birkans: Well, certainly, I think we all in the industry are seeing more pressure than we anticipated or historically would have thought. Now like I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we are setting a 22% beta through cycle, which I would consider being extremely good. Still, where it ends up is at this point, I don’t think I’m going to try to project that. But in terms of the deposit costs and where we are entering the third quarter, deposit cost is roughly around 1.45 versus 1.27 that were for second quarter total. So it is certainly higher. But as I mentioned, again, the margin, the other side of the earning assets are more than offsetting — or not more benefiting, but offsetting that, and we are entering with a 4% margin here in the third quarter.

Tim Laney: I would just add that certainly, the intensity of the focus on rate when compared to where it was at the end of the first quarter to today is not as intense. Again, we’ve seen more stabilization. Now, could a number of Fed moves like that back up or other issues in the marketplace like that back up? Possibly. But we have felt — and quite frankly, in hindsight, we may have been too slow to move to raise rates at the beginning of the second quarter. We fancy ourselves as having a lot of discipline there. We really believe in the strength of our core deposits. But quite frankly, as we move through the second quarter, we just saw bank and nonbank competitive pricing force us to move at a rate that we wouldn’t have expected. So do I expect that to occur again? Not really. But again, as Aldis pointed out, we don’t really have that crystal ball.

Robert Terrell: Yes, totally understood. I appreciate the color. And it does feel like, I guess, if deposit costs are around that 1.45 territory coming into the third quarter, that it does feel like the pricing pressure has slowed a little bit. Maybe, Tim, I know you mentioned maybe a little bit last quarter, but with Cambr now kind of completely in the fold and integration done, you guys have hit the ground running. Can you just talk about how you see this fitting within the overall 2UniFi build-out? And then maybe an overall status update on progress you’ve made in the second quarter to start the year on 2UniFi, just the overall build-out and how that plays in the bank?