Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Paul Reilly: Hey, Kyle. No, we really, again, the ESP program is a product that we created to serve clients and to help advisors bring in assets from their clients. And so, really, what’s driving our growth strategy with ESP is, first and foremost, client demand and advisors are asking us to us to keep this product available for their clients. And of course, there’s some capacity constraints given we offer up to $50 million of FDIC insurance. So there’s a network of banks and there’s capacity constraints associated with that. But we’re not looking to sort of manage those balances down based on our near-term needs. Long-term, we know we’ll, we’re confident we’ll need the funding and so this gives us ample opportunity to grow the balance sheet when client demand for loans resurfaces.

Paul Shoukry: And it’s an easy adjustment for us. It’s an easy adjustment for us too because you can adjust rate, which gives you some attrition. And you can stop the program if you had to or slow it down. So, but as of right now cash sorting has slowed, but it hasn’t stopped if you look at everyone’s reports. We will continue to leave the program open to our advisors as long as we have capacity.

Kyle Voigt: Understood. And then for my followup, I was hoping we could dig into SBL demand a little bit. During the Investor Day, it seemed like you were hopeful that we were nearing a point where SBL demand was starting to come back and looks like balances remained flat quarter-on-quarter after a few quarters of declining. So first, just wondering if you believe those balances have finally troughed? And then given the recent equity market resurgence here is that having any incremental impact on kind of client’s willingness to borrow against securities? So just, if you can talk about SBL demand overall, and then any leading indicators, I guess you might be seeing on the SBL demand side, thank you.

Paul Reilly: Yes, I think we have certainly seen a deceleration of pay downs which is what really picked up as rates increased and borrowing costs increased. We saw the expected pay downs over the last, six to 12 months, but kind of, particularly in June, and even in July, those pay downs have really slowed down. And so we think this is a good baseline. We’re not smart enough to call a trot or a floor. But we do we are optimistic that over the next six to 12 months, if the markets stay relatively resilient, that we’ll see kind of a pickup of demand off this level of these sites sort of levels going forward.

Kyle Voigt: Great, thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from the line of Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Alexander Blostein: Hey, good afternoon, thanks. Hey, Paul, I want to go back to your guidance on cash revenue it is down 5% from this quarter, at the same time, cash balances seem to be stabilized. And as you pointed out, this sorting has been slowing down. We got another rate hike here today. So I’m just trying to understand the assumptions behind this guidance. And as part of that, can you give us an update on RJBDP balances at the bank as well as at third party banks?