Southside Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:SBSI) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Matt Olney: Okay. That’s all helpful. And then earlier in your comments around the margin, you mentioned that you’re feeling better about the deposit cost pressure. Just wanted to kind of focus on that comment. Any more color you can provide as far as what you’re seeing more recently and kind of how much conviction you have that deposit costs are flying out and will peak here shortly?

Lee Gibson: I don’t expect — well, until the Fed starts cutting, I don’t expect them to flatten out. I expect them to continue to increase, but I don’t think they’re going to increase at the pace they’ve been increasing. And then with loan growth and with the restructuring of securities portfolio, we feel like that the benefit associated with that is going to help offset any further deposit pressure at this point in time. But we do expect deposit pressure to continue. But most of the heavy lifting is behind us. But there’s still going to be some going forward. Even after the first rate cut, 25 basis points isn’t likely to take pressure off of some of the non-maturity interest-bearing deposits.

Matt Olney: Okay. Perfect. All right. Thanks for all the color.

Lee Gibson: All right. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Lee Gibson for closing remarks. Sir?

Lee Gibson: All right. Thank you everyone for joining us today. We appreciate the opportunity to answer your questions along with your interest in Southside Bancshares. In closing, we’re looking forward to our prospects during 2024 and to reporting first quarter results to you during our next earnings call in April. Thank you, again.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.