Terry Turner: Yes. I think the — thank you for the question, give me a chance to clarify here a little bit. So, I think from a competitive standpoint, you know who the market share leaders are in our Southeastern footprint generally in almost every major urban market they’re going to be dominated by three and to some extent, maybe four banks. Truist, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and regions. And so that is — that’s the line of scrimmage for us tomorrow. A lot of people over the years ask how do you compete with this little bank or that little bank. Generally, I don’t know the answer to it because the line of scrimmage is always those market share leaders. We are finding — and I think I mentioned in my comments, a lot of those banks that dominate our market or hemorrhaging talent, some due to integration issues, some due to, I think, regulatory pressures, all those sorts of things.
But if you think about those banks, I listed there, most of them have a difficult landscape which brings pressure in their organization. A lot of them are cutting staff. A lot of them are losing staff because of the continued rollout of tightened policies and all those kinds of things. And so, my belief is that we’ve enjoyed vulnerability among those competitors really throughout our existence, but I would say that the vulnerabilities today seem hire, see more than the vulnerabilities that we’ve enjoyed through our first 23 years. And so that’s sort of the backdrop of what causes me to sit, we need to be seasoned this opportunity. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but I do honestly believe that it is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a big franchise on the shoulders of that disruption.
In terms of what does that mean in terms of hiring people, I think you’ve followed us a while, that I think over the last three years prior to ’23, we set a record for the new volume of revenue producers that we hired. We won’t do that this year maybe be down, say, 30% this year from previous records of revenue hires. My belief is we’ll take it back north to approach those previous records. So, you might be able to hire 20% more revenue producers next year than this year.
Timur Braziler: Okay. That’s great color. And then just lastly for me on I know in recent years, there’s been discussion on maybe lowering overall ownership or getting more creative in an effort to avoid some of that CECL impact. Was the CECL impact now here already and embedded in kind of the capital position in the fourth quarter, does that change your longer-term view on partnership with BHG? Does that maybe [indiscernible] to stick with the current structure for a longer period of time? Or is there still a want to maybe reduce some of the exposure?
Harold Carpenter : Yes. Thanks for the question. I don’t believe CECL impacts our view of BHG, our relationship with BHG and what our outlook is for BHG. We still have a great partnership with them. We meet with them routinely. We understand what their strategies are now going into 2024. We’re optimistic about what they can accomplish, and we think they’re building a very valuable franchise over the short and intermediate terms that could be valuable to anyone that might think that that going into that market segment would be advantageous for them. So, we’re proud of what they’ve been able to accomplish, and we’re optimistic about what can be coming to us next year.
Operator: The next question is coming from Stephen Scouten from Piper Sandler. Stephen your line is live.
Stephen Scouten : I guess, it sounds like most of the growth is going to continue to come organically from the new hires. I assume that’s a lot of D.C., Atlanta, some of the newer markets. I guess my question is, any newer markets for you guys that you might push into with these accelerated hiring plans and/or with some of the dislocation and weakness in other banks, do you think about M&A opportunities any more intensely at this point?
Terry Turner: Yes. I think the — let me take the last part first. I think as it relates to are we considering M&A more intensely than previously. I think the answer to that is no, we’re not. I think as it relates to market extensions and so forth, Stephen, you’ve heard us talk about this over a long haul. If you go to Memphis and draw a line up to D.C. and down to South Florida, we want to be in all the large urban markets in that triangle there. The obvious void is Florida. Florida is attractive to us because it’s dominated by those same players. I just mentioned in response to Timur’s question. And so anyway, those are attractive markets. We do not, and I think you know this, we don’t sit up here and say, okay, we need to find our way to Jacksonville, Florida.
We need to find our way to Tampa, Florida, and set out some initiatives to bring that about. It occurs the same way that all our other recruiting does. Generally, somebody in our organization will turn somebody up that says, hey, this group right here, these are my buddies. I’ve worked with them. They could build you a big bank. And so, we’ll pursue those and see if we can find something that’s good for them and good for us. We don’t feel like we have to go to do any market extensions to produce outsized growth. We think the current hiring methodology and the existing footprint will do that. But there’s no doubt, we do see opportunities. And if we find the right team that can build as a big bank, we’ll go next week or next month or next year, if we don’t find them, that’s okay, too.
We don’t have to get there. We believe the current recruiting model in the existing footprint is going to produce outsized growth. So, I hope I’ve hit it what you want, but if I have not asked again.
