South Plains Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPFI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Steve Crockett: Yes, so at this point and as Curtis said, we are adopting it. We’re still finishing up some validation in a few other things before we’ll have to disclose that number in the 10-K. But as of now, there’s not a material impact to where we are in our current model.

Curtis Griffith: I think a lot of that goes back. If you look how conservative we’ve been at this point. I think it’s been our numbers have been pretty high anyway.

Brady Gailey: Okay. And then finally for me, I know historically you guys have guided to mid to high single digit loan growth. I think I heard you say, but what’s the expectation for 2023 loan growth?

Steve Crockett: Well, I’d like to still think we could achieve high single, but I’m a little cautious in this environment. Of course, we can’t €“ we keep working with a bigger number there as well. So that affects it. But I think if we can hit and hit, it’s going to be doing pretty good. And we will have some payoffs. And a lot of projects are kind of on pause, but we are still seeing some customers come in, including some new customers coming that are interested. So we’re getting to look at some really great deals. So I think we can still achieve some growth during 2023. But I do think we’ll probably be more in low to mid single digit range, just my opinion.

Brady Gailey: Okay.

Curtis Griffith: Yes, I agree with. I think low single’s not unrealistic for us. I mean, look, you can’t base it all on January, but January has been a good month. But if you look at what some of the projections for the economy, we think Texas is a great place to be. We’re really glad that’s where we are, but reasonably and conservatively low single digits.

Brady Gailey: Okay. All right. Great. Thanks for the color guys.

Steve Crockett: Thanks, Brady.

Curtis Griffith: Thanks, Brady.

Operator: And we have reached the end of the answer session, and I’ll now turn the call back over to Mr. Curtis Griffith for closing remarks.

Curtis Griffith: Thank you, operator. As you heard, we’ve had a good quarter. We’ve had a good year. Very proud of what we did achieve in 2022. This economic outlook is very uncertain. We don’t expect significant credit problems in our markets, and we are dealing with many of the same funding and deposit cost issues as most other banks. We’re going to handle that just as we do our other issues, and that’s through strong relationships. We will be incentivizing our people to have good growth in deposits, and we’re going to focus on controlling expenses while achieving, we believe good, reasonable organic growth in both deposits and loans. We have an incredible team. We’re confident that they will keep delivering excellent results for our customers and for our shareholders. Thank all of you for being on the call today, and please reach out to us if you have any questions.

Operator: And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference. And you may disconnect your line at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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