Veritex Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:VBTX) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Malcolm Holland: Yeah. Let me just address the hiring piece of it. We still have some replacements that we’re working through. There are a couple of key positions that we still are looking at. But I would say most of them are going to be focused on the deposit generation side, almost all of them would be actually. We do have an internal audit program that we’re going to put in place in 2023. Again, that’s growing over $10 billion size deal. But the hiring is not going to be as it’s been in the past two or three years, but there are a couple of replacements areas that we have. Cara was telling me yesterday, I think our total is down less than 50%, 60% from where it was in terms of the amount of people. But I don’t think that’s going to drive a huge increase in where we are from the expense base right now. Do you want to talk about expenses, Terry?

Terry Earley: Well, I mean I think – and the inflation is real, surprise-surprise. I also – in addition to – I don’t see the net adds like Malcolm saying, the net adds to FTEs are not going to be that great going through ’23. We just – we can’t do that. But we are – one thing we’re going to spend more money on this marketing dollars on the deposit side. We’re staffing up that area, and we’re going to put more – way more dollars focused that way to help build this deposit base in a more significant, more granular way. So I think expenses are probably – if you annualize Q4, and add a little – you’re probably about in the right place. But – so…

Malcolm Holland: I’ll just say this, too, Brady. One of the phenomenons where as I look back on 2022, you could arguably say we bought a $2 billion bank in 2022. I mean we grew $2 billion. And part of that was, I think, our expenses on the comp side, we’re a little on the salary side. We’re a little low in the third quarter because we had some people moving out. We had some new people coming in, in late 3Q and 4Q, just kind of all caught up to us. And so we look hard at the efficiency ratio, which has remained stable despite the spike in increases on the expense side. And so I think we’re just settling into a new expense level with adding $2 billion in assets over the last year.

Terry Earley: Yeah. Let me add to that. I mean, year-over-year, total assets, not average assets year-over-year grew you know, 1. – On the average, $1.6 billion and from Q4 to Q4, they grew over – they grew right at $2 billion. And yet for the year, NIE to average assets is only up 5 bps, 1.78 to 1.83 you know, for the year. And so Malcolm is right. We grew a $2 billion bank. And our NIE to average assets is while up 5 bps, it’s been one heck of an inflationary period.

Brady Gailey: All right. And then finally for me, a lot of volatility with the USDA fees having a great quarter, but then Thrive not having a great quarter. Anyway, it’s – I mean I know it’s hard to look at those two an ongoing basis. But any idea about the forecast for those two volatile line items?

Terry Earley: I tried to say it in my comments, which is Thrive is making pretty – not pretty very significant expense changes. And while the gain on sale margin for the fourth quarter was 1.83, I think it…

Malcolm Holland: 1.89.