Peoples Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:PEBO) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Chuck Sulerzyski : Well, obviously, the stock market has put a dent in our investment businesses last year. We were pretty much neutral from a revenue standpoint. If the market turns around, those earnings will increase. Last year was one of the few years over my career where you had a double whammy of stocks being down and bonds being off. That’s pretty unusual. I don’t expect that to happen again this year and I think our investment business has potential upside.

Michael Perito : Cool. Thank you guys. I appreciate you taking my questions and hope you are well.

Chuck Sulerzyski : Hey, thank you.

Katie Bailey : Thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from Terry McEvoy with Stephens. Please go ahead.

Terry McEvoy : Thanks. Good morning, Chuck. Good morning, Katie.

Katie Bailey : Good morning, Terry.

Chuck Sulerzyski : Good morning.

Terry McEvoy : Maybe the first question, have you scheduled a conversion date for Limestone? And what I am getting at is trying to understand kind of the cost savings and what you foresee happening in 2023 and if there is any kind of follow-through into 2024?

Chuck Sulerzyski : Yes. We have a date in August. I think it’s August 5 for €“ scheduled for conversion. I will tell you that we will get the vast majority of the expense saves in 2023. We’ll get some year-over-year benefit in 2024, but it’s been our history to get the expense saves pretty quickly.

Terence McEvoy : And then as a follow-up, in the press release I think it was favorable funding source was the brokered CDs and you’ve done a really good job holding kind of the non-interest bearing deposits relative to what I have seen across the industry. What’s your thoughts on kind of the mix shift of deposits and we continue to rely on brokered CDs in your view in 2023?

Chuck Sulerzyski : It’s part of the mix. It’s not a dependency by any stretch of the imagination. I’ll just reiterate some of the points that were made. A lot of the deposit activity, the decrease was seasonality. We are going to get a great deal of those deposits back in the first quarter. We have a phenomenal deposit book. It’s the advantage of being in the communities that we serve that frankly most of the €“ many of the competitors have vacated. So it’s not by accident.

Katie Bailey : And I would just say, we evaluate broker in conjunction with our FHLB opportunity for funding and whoever price is best gets our business.

Chuck Sulerzyski : Yes.

Terence McEvoy : Okay. Understood. And then, maybe one last question. Can you remind me, have you made any changes to your overdraft fees or consumer fees? And if not, are you contemplating anything there?

Chuck Sulerzyski : We have made a few changes of €“ a few adjustments over the last few years, nothing substantial. I think we have a change going in that’s going to €“ that we’ve budgeted that’s going to hurt us about $400,000. We continue to examine it, but I don’t see anything radical at this point in time.

Terence McEvoy : Thanks for taking my questions.

Chuck Sulerzyski : Thank you.

Katie Bailey : Thank you.