The Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Limited (NYSE:NTB) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

And we’ll continue to look at that. And we’re really happy that we just finished our Board meetings yesterday, the Board approve that and we’re very supportive of going back into the market for share repurchases, obviously subject to market conditions. So, we are seeing some nice activity on the shares this morning, which is good to see. But yes, we are kind of having internal discussions and looking at recommencing share buybacks. And we do have the current program available to us as well as come March for us we have the new program.

Michael Schrum: Yes. And I think Tim — sorry, it’s Michael Schrum, can add to that. I think the pace will probably be slower in the first half of the year is what we would expect. We just want to see conditions kind of stabilize, both deposit levels and OCI. But I think that’s how we think about it internally.

Timur Braziler: Got it. I appreciate that. And then you had mentioned that you extended a large line of credit to the Cayman government. Can you quantify the size of that? And as you are looking at the loan book through €˜23, is there any kind of visibility to other chunky activities taking place, or does that come up a little bit more, I don’t want to say unexpected, but is that situation a little bit more fluid and seeing that pipeline there?

Craig Bridgewater: Yes. So, the size of the one that was extended during 2022 was kind of mid-teens to the Cayman Islands government. And obviously, that’s kind of been also amortizing and paying down over the last couple of months as well. So, it’s kind of somewhere around 12 to 13 at this point. That is — obviously, we continue to kind of focus on those relationships, those significant relationships. Nothing significant in the pipeline at the moment, but as those opportunities come up, we are always kind of willing to put our hats in the ring. As long as the terms and conditions are appropriate, the pricing is appropriate, we’ll extend those types facilities.

Timur Braziler: Great. And then just last for me, looking at your expectation on the deposit side, the fact that we still have some lagging rates to be put into the Bermuda mortgages. Just looking at net interest margin and kind of putting all that together, is the expectation here kind of steady as she goes, as these two dynamics work out at least in the first quarter or do you see slowing or maybe even reversal as you start getting more pressure on the funding base and asset yields slow down a little bit?

Michael Collins: Yes. Great question. Obviously, the first thing is, it depends on where market rates are. I would say, our exit run rates for the fourth quarter were — continued to have that NIM expansion at a slower pace than what we’ve seen in Q3 and Q4. So obviously, you saw the big uptick in Q3, and then a slightly more moderate uptick in NIM in Q4. And it’s worth just mentioning, we still have two announced base rate increases in the Bermuda residential book, which are coming through in Q1. So, when you put it all together, the cash and short-term securities will continue to trend up, loans will trend up a little bit, but there is about 40% fixed in that. And then obviously, securities when we start to re-ladder should reinvest at much higher rate as we start to see TCE coming back.

So, we kind of see a path of a longer expansion as long as the rates market remains constructive for us, which is somewhere where we are sitting at the moment, a little bit higher, a little bit lower, but there’s still additional expansion to come.

Timur Braziler: Got it. And what’s the magnitude of the two announced base increases on the Bermuda book?

Michael Schrum: Both 25 basis points.

Timur Braziler: 25 each, so 50?