United Community Banks, Inc. (NASDAQ:UCBI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

We’re putting on new loans at high rates, but we’re still getting customers seeking and finding higher rates within a bank, which we’re actually — we’re happy about. In some cases, we’re calling them and making sure they know about the rates that we have out there. But I do think what you’re seeing is the loan yield should continue at a similar pace moving higher and the cost of funds is going to be moving higher at a slower pace. So, I think what you’ll see is, again, slight compression in Q4 and stabilization to hire next year.

Michael Rose: Very helpful. And then maybe just one final one for me. The revenue outlook for you and other banks, obviously, remains challenged and a higher for longer type environment. I know you’ve talked previously about kind of a 4-ish percent kind of expense target as we move forward. But just wanted to see, if there’s any plans to maybe look to either formally or informally plan to reduce expenses? And is there a possibility under that scenario where you could experience positive operating leverage next year?

Jefferson Harralson: So yes, I think so. We’re in our budget process right now. We have — we closed five branches. Rich can apply on that to some in July. We sold the two branches that we had mentioned before that has a cost savings and a revenue impact to it off, obviously. There are certain segments of our business where we are actively cutting expenses, namely mortgage, like a lot of banks are. So yes, we have many things that we’re thinking about on the expense front and executing. And to give you a number, it’s kind of hard to give a number right now because we are in the middle of our budget piece of it, but that 3% sounds like an okay target, but it’s also an inflationary time period and we’re kind of going through the individual budgets now. So my model higher than 3%, but I think we’re going to shoot for that.

Operator: Our next question will come from Catherine Mealor with KBW. Please go ahead.

Catherine Mealor: I want just to ask about your loan growth outlook. You maintained a pretty steady growth pace, I feel like over the past few quarters. Just curious how you’re thinking about that into next year? And then also within that conversation, I noticed that Navitas growth slowed a little bit this quarter. Is that something that you plan to continue through next year as well?

Rich Bradshaw: Catherine, this is Rich Bradshaw. We’re still looking at the mid-single-digit loan growth, but probably a little bit less than the pace in Q3, recognizing the higher interest rates and some of the stress out there. And we expect that to kind of continue into Q1. However, we are optimistic about the opportunity that some of the downsizing of banks are doing, that’s going to create real opportunities on the customer side. So we remain very optimistic about that.

Jefferson Harralson: And this is Jefferson. I’ll take the Navitas question. Navitas trends were pretty similar on the growth front, but you’ll notice that we sold more loans this quarter. We kind of leaned into selling a little bit more. We have our Navitas loans are 8% of total loans. We like that ratio. We’ve talked about keeping it below 10%, but our target is the 8% range. So, I think you’ll see us selling continue — as long as that market is accommodative and amenable, we’ll continue selling a higher number of loans each quarter.

Catherine Mealor: What’s your outlook for Navitas charge-off? How long do you feel — or do you feel like we’ll see this kind of elevated level just given the trucking part of it for the next couple of quarters? Or do you expect that to kind of normalize back a little bit?

Rob Edwards: No, we’re thinking the same way you’re thinking in the next couple of quarters. We think definitely next quarter will be similar to this quarter, but then thinking it will begin to subside early next year.