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spk01: Good day and welcome to the Origin Bancorp, Inc. fourth quarter and 2020 full year earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris Riegelman, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
spk10: Good morning and thank you for joining us today. We issued our earnings press release yesterday afternoon, a copy of which is available on our website, along with a slide presentation that we will refer to during this presentation. Please refer to slide two of our slide presentation, which includes our safe harbor statements regarding forward-looking statements and use of non-GAAP financial measures. For those joining by phone, please note the slide presentation is available on our website at www.origin.bank. Please also note that our safe harbor statements are available on page six of our earnings release filed with the SEC yesterday. All comments made during today's call are subject to the safe harbor statements in our slide presentation and earnings release. I'm joined this morning by Origin Bank Corp's Chairman, President, and CEO, Drake Mills, our Chief Financial Officer, Steve Brawley, President and CEO of Origin Bank, Lance Hall, our Chief Risk Officer, Jim Crotwell, and our Chief Credit and Banking Officer, Preston Moore. After the presentation, we'll be happy to address any questions you may have. Now, I'll turn the call over to you, Drake.
spk11: Thank you, Chris, and good morning. On our call last year at this time, my closing comments spoke to business cycles changing. That our team was focused on adapting to those changes whilst always being mindful of the commitment to our culture, our people, and driving shareholder value. Those words foreshadowed what we experienced in 2020. For me, the highlight of this past year has been the performance and quality of the origin team. This was not accidental. We made purposeful, strategic decisions that put us in a position to be successful despite the challenges. The same mentality is what guides us as we move forward. Well, I'm proud of the financial results for the quarter and the full year. I'm most proud of the resiliency of our employees during the pandemic and the focus they have on serving our customers and communities. Being able to adapt and being committed to our culture is what has sustained us in 2020 and puts us in a position to take advantage of future opportunities. We ended December with $7.6 billion in total assets, $5.7 billion in total loans, and $5.8 billion in deposits. Net income for the quarter was $17.6 million. an increase of $4.5 million from the third quarter of 2020, and 75 cents diluted earnings per share, which is an all-time quarterly high for the company. Our net interest margin for the quarter was 3.07% on a tax-equivalent basis, and our efficiency ratio was just under 58%. For the full year, we had net income of $36.4 million and diluted EPS of $1.55. Our pre-tax, pre-provision revenue was $104.3 million, up 37% over 2019. Our efficiency ratio was just under 60% for the year, which was an improvement over 2019. Before I turn it over to Lance, I want to speak to something that I think gets overlooked in the origin story, and that's the success we have experienced in our Texas market. We entered Texas de novo in 2008 during an economic downturn. Our strategy was to grow in the DFW market one relationship at a time. Now we have meaningful presence in two of the largest growth markets in the country. Our strategy has always revolved around relationships, having the right people with the right leadership and earning the trust and loyalty of our customers every day. When I look at the incredible teams of seasoned bankers we have in place today, I think it's a testament to the origin culture and our way of doing business. We have executed on our strategy over the last 12 years, allowing us not only to increase our presence in DFW, but also experience tremendous growth in Houston starting in 2013. As you can see on slide seven, our franchise in Texas has experienced compound annual growth rates on both loans and deposits exceeding 20% from 2016 through 2020. I believe we are well positioned to continue to capitalize on our investment in people and infrastructure while increasing our franchise value for the company. Now I'll turn it over to Lance.
spk10: Thanks, Drake. I'll start on slide eight. As we've talked about through the pandemic, our bankers were extremely proactive working with our clients to support their needs. From a high of over 21% at June 30th, down to less than 2% at December 31st, our loans under forbearance have declined more than 90% over the last six months of 2020. As we look at PPP loans and the progress on forgiveness efforts in the fourth quarter, we have processed over $200 million and forgiveness requests as of January 20th, 2021, which is over 35% of balances funded under the program. We're actively working with our customers to process applications for the second round of PPP funding. As was the case during the first round of PPP, our bankers are extremely focused and are being proactive in delivering for our clients. On slide nine, I'll highlight some of the things that we're currently working on to support our customers. The vision statement we have clearly laid out is to combine the power of trusted advisors with innovative technology to build unwavering loyalty by connecting people to their dreams. With the rapid changes in consumer behavior and the effects of the COVID pandemic, we believe it's imperative to execute on our value proposition of combining high touch personalized service and to partner with the appropriate technology partners to deliver innovative mobile and online solutions. Oregon's mission around our tech strategy is to continue to evolve and execute our technology plan to enable us to deliver our customer experience value proposition and create significant efficiency in capacity and cost. As you can see on the slide, our investment in technology has allowed our customers deeper utilization of our digital channels, particularly in our mobile delivery, which has grown significantly across the platform during 2020. You can also see that our mobile feature adoption rates are better than industry benchmarks. We have also built strategies around consumer behavior trends, opportunities to better use data and analytics, opportunities to begin using robotics to eliminate manual processes and identify key mobile, digital, and technology partners such as MX, Encino, Precision Lender, Workday, and others to improve the customer and employee experience. This will continue to be a focus of ours in 2021. On slide 10, you can see an overview of deposit trends for the year. Our average deposits for the quarter were $5.9 billion, an increase of $1.7 billion over the fourth quarter of 2019. Of that increase, more than $500 million was non-interest-bearing deposits. A strategic focus of ours has been to lower deposit costs, and our bankers have done an outstanding job as our total cost of deposits was 31 basis points in Q4 2020, an 11 basis point decrease from Q3 2020, and a 73 basis point decrease from Q4 of last year. On slide 11, you can see our loan composition. In the bottom left of the slide, we show the trend of our loan portfolio over the past four quarters. You can see our loans held for investment have grown by approximately $1.6 billion during the year, due primarily to $800 million of growth in our mortgage warehouse portfolio and $547 million of growth in PPP loans. Our mortgage warehouse team has done a tremendous job of capitalizing on market conditions and expanding our client base during the year. I want to point out that while growth in these two categories was significant, our bankers did a great job of growing relationships. which has led to a 5.8% increase in loan growth outside of these categories and 7.5% increase in new loan production. Relationship banking has and will remain at the center of who we are and what we do. It has proven effective again this past year as our bankers have met the needs of our clients through impressive growth while staying focused on a sound and stable credit culture. Now, I'll turn it over to Jim to take you through our credit trends and selected sector updates. Thanks, Lance. As we have previously reported over the past several quarters, we continue to closely monitor those industry sectors that could experience a more protracted recovery as a result of the COVID pandemic, specifically the sectors of hotels, energy, non-essential retail, restaurants, and assisted living. As you can see on slide 12, these sectors total $539 million down from $551 million in the third quarter, and represented approximately 10.4% of total loans held for investment. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have conducted focused reviews of these particular sectors to monitor the impact of economic downturn and to ensure the appropriateness of assigned risk ratings. We are pleased with the stability demonstrated by our portfolio and these sectors, and as Lance mentioned, we are pleased with the trends we are seeing in the reduction in COVID-related modifications across our portfolio. On slides 13 through 17, we provide information on these specific sectors, including sector balances and levels of past dues, classified loans, and non-performing loans. Over the past year, we saw balance reductions in all the sectors, with the exception of non-essential retail, which actually increased $25 million during the quarter. This increase was driven by the expansion of two existing relationships, one of which is supported by guarantor strength of over $150 million, and the other supported by a strong credit tenant. These sectors continue to hold up well from a credit perspective, as evidenced by past dues of 1.03%, classified loans of 1.93%, and non-performing loans of 1.1% for these sectors combined. While we are pleased with the performance of these sectors, we will continue to monitor them closely. Slide 18 provides a recap of our asset quality trends, which again demonstrate portfolio stability. Past due loans held for investment, net of PPP, were at 0.50% at year end, while total levels of classified loans remained stable at 2.1%. I would like to point out that we've experienced a nice decrease in our ratio of non-performing loans to total loans, net of PPP, decreasing from 0.75% as of 12-31-2019 to to the current level of 0.50%. Net charge-offs to average loan center PPP for the quarter remain stable at an annualized rate of 0.14% for the quarter and 0.24% for the year. Again, we are pleased in the resiliency and stability of our loan portfolio. Lastly, we increased our allowance of credit losses to 1.51% from 1.45% of loans held for investment in the prior quarter and to 2.1% percent of loans held for investment, meta PPP, and mortgage warehouse loans. While we have experienced stability in our portfolio, as noted above, and have seen some improvement in economic forecast data, we felt that increasing our reserve, while to a lesser extent than in previous quarters, was prudent given the recent rise in COVID cases across the country and the continued uncertainty surrounding the deployment of the vaccine over the next several months. We will continue to closely monitor the impact of the pandemic, but feel that our reserve bill is behind us. I'll turn it over to Steve now. Thanks, Jim. On slide 19, you can see our yields, costs and loans held for investment portfolio. As Lance covered previously, our cost of deposits continued to decline, partially offsetting declines in loan yields during the quarter. Our fixed to floating profile continues to remain at approximately 40%, 60% split as in prior periods. On slide 20, I'll walk through our net interest income and NIM trends. Net interest income for the fourth quarter was $51.8 million, which was up $1.2 million from the prior quarter. Our NIM declined 11 basis points to 3.07%, of which five basis points was directly related to our $80 million sub-debt issuance in the fourth quarter. Slide 21 shows our net revenue distribution. Historically, our revenue would typically be about 80% net interest income and 20% non-interest income. In the fourth quarter, approximately 23% of our net revenue was generated from non-interest income. Although a lower percentage than Q2 and Q3 of 2020, our percentage of non-interest income was higher than our historical levels. We finished our strong year in mortgage with revenue increasing $17.3 million to $29.6 million for the year. Mortgage revenue for the fourth quarter was $6.6 million, which was $3.2 million higher than Q4 2019. On slide 22, you see our trend of non-interest expense composition. Our total non-interest expense was $38.9 million, just slightly higher than Q3 2020. You can see on this slide that our operating leverage continues to improve as revenue growth outpaces expense growth. As Lance mentioned previously, We will be focusing on technology enhancements in 2021 that will allow us to efficiently serve our customers and support their future growth to further enhance this operating leverage. Now I'll turn it back to Drake.
spk11: Thanks, Steve. On slide 23, you see our capital trends for both the bank and the Holden Company. In the bottom right, we show the changes in our total capital ratio at the Holden Company. We completed a sub-debt offering in October, which increased our total capital ratio by 130 basis points. The last sub-debt offering was in addition to the bank-level sub-debt raised in February 2020, which brought our total subordinated debt raised in 2020 to $150 million. As this team has pointed out, we had an incredible year and successfully navigated through an unprecedented time. As I think back on 2020 for this company, instead of thinking about the pandemic, I will think about how our bankers showed unwavering loyalty to our customers and our communities when we were needed most. We accomplished a lot from record mortgage production and revenue, significant increases in fee income year over year, record mortgage warehouse volumes and balances, raising $150 million in capital to further strengthen our balance sheet, and so much more. Now it's time to focus on efficiency, managing capital to enhance shareholder value while continuing strong organic growth. I am thankful to our employees, our customers, our communities, and our shareholders. I look forward to what we'll accomplish in 2021. Thank you, and we'll now open up the call for questions.
spk01: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster.
spk00: Our first question comes from Matt Olney with Stevens. Please go ahead.
spk05: Great. Thanks. Good morning, guys. Good morning, Matt. I want to start on credit. The 4Q trends look strong. Charge-offs were contained, and non-accruals went down, and allowance levels are still well above 2% once we back out the PPP, which I guess would give you room for any surprises you guys see this year. I'm curious about how you guys are thinking about 2021 with respect to provision expense and charge-offs. I think the consensus forecasts are assuming around $25 million for both provision and charge-offs. I'm curious with what you see today, how that lines up with your expectations.
spk11: At this point, I'm going to go back to 2020 for a second. I'm proud of where we ended up, but I will remind you that we decided to get very aggressive and clean up some things that traditionally we would have worked through had it not been for the pandemic and the unknown. As we look for 2021, I feel very... I think about how I felt in March of 2020 and how I feel today. I just think we're in an unbelievable position, but there's still some unknown for us. I mean, we've got a new administration. We have a number of factors that, um, make you pause and want to be conservative in the process. So as I see 2021 from a net charge off perspective, I think it's, um, you know, it, it's difficult to say, I mean, if I sat here and said, okay, this is where I believe we are, it would be somewhere of a, um, an increase from maybe 2020 based on what we're seeing today. But I'm pausing. I'm not trying to be vague here. It's just very difficult because of the lack of clarity around 2021. Our portfolio quality today is, I feel better about it than I have in a long time. I mean, we've done so much work around the portfolio. When you look at our energy migration, when you look at the sectors that were pandemic-impacted, We just don't see losses. But, again, I'm going to be extremely conservative through 2021, and I'm going to make sure that we're in a position to be able to manage whatever comes down the pipe from this pandemic. So it's difficult to say. I think you're in line with expectations at this point, and we'll see how things go.
spk05: Okay, perfect. Thanks for that. And then switching over to the operating expenses and the prepared remarks, I think you and Lance talked about carefully managing expenses this year, but also investing in technology. Any more color you can provide? And I guess ultimately, what type of growth do you think we'll see from the fourth quarter of 2020 throughout the year? Thanks.
spk11: You know, we have, I think, tremendous strategies right now. Lance and the team around, and Lance will talk a little bit about this, around technology. We are committed to doing things and reinvesting the dollars that we're saving. And I think that's the key term in everything from robotics to a number of things. We're focusing on the long haul perspective, technology from the long haul perspective. But every technology dollar that we're utilizing today is going to create cost savings. So at this point, for instance, yesterday we opened up a new office that we talked about, Medical City and Downs. Our president called and said, we're not going to believe this. We have so many councils open today, 7,400 employees in that park, and that is an expense for us, as well as moving an office in Houston. But at this point, even investing heavily in technology and doing the things we're doing, based on the fourth quarter, we see a flat expense profile for 2021. Got it.
spk05: Okay. All back in the queue. Thank you, guys.
spk11: Thank you, Matt.
spk01: Our next question comes from Brady Gailey with KBW. Please go ahead.
spk03: Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. Good morning, Brady. So, you know, I know the period in warehouse balances were pretty flat, but the average balances continued to go up pretty nicely. I think that, you know, looking at average balances, the warehouse is now 16% of total loans. Some of you guys have had a lot of great success there. Maybe just talk about the outlook for that, you know, as we head into 21. I know that, you know, naturally the mortgage market is going to slow down a little bit, but it feels like y'all are still taking market share. And then, you know, 16% of average loans is a big number. How, you know, what's the limit on how big this thing could get?
spk11: Well, it's as big as it's going to get, I believe, today. We're shooting to run this. We want to make sure that it runs about 8% to 10% of our outstanding. In a normalized environment, we believe that we might see that by the end of 2021. We still are taking on clients, but if you look and project out based on mortgage projections and what we think mortgage warehouses will fall, it's coming in exactly where we're planning to be around that 8%, 10% number. Now, I don't mind running it slightly over 10%, but this is our strategy, and we've been very fortunate to be able to take advantage of the market dislocation to be able to attract and build some relationships. And I think that's the key to what we're working on, is to read some of the thoughts around that being a cyclical business and everything else. But what we're being able to do is take these significant steps client acquisitions and turning into relationships, both on the personal and investment side. So we're being able to get some money for bearing deposits out of these relationships that are really driving this. So it's a business for us at this stage. And again, we're not going to run it much more than 2%. Okay.
spk03: All right. And then I was a little surprised to not see any share repurchases in the fourth quarter. I mean, your stock is still pretty cheap at around one times tangible. I mean, that makes the bank M&A game hard, but it makes the buyback game pretty easy. Why did we not see buybacks in the fourth quarter? Maybe talk about your appetite for buybacks in 2021.
spk11: Yeah, no, I suspect you'll see some activity in the first quarter and some technical reasons that we didn't get off in the fourth quarter, but I think you're exactly right. If you look at our capital build through 2021 and what our TCE looks like at the end of the year, especially our total capital levels, you'll see some activity.
spk03: All right, and then finally for me, I know in the past you guys have talked about kind of low to mid single digits. loan growth. I think if you X out the warehouse and PPP, you all read about 5% this quarter, 6% last quarter. So it seems like you're kind of right there. Is that still the right way to think about loan growth in 2021?
spk11: Yeah, our strategy for 2021 is to really focus on loan yields and to the relationships that we bring up. I think an important fact here is that When we bring on relationships, it's not just about loan yields. We're able to expand the wall and have significant returns on these relationships. But if you look at our underwriting criteria and the strategies that we have there, our pricing criteria, we see about mid-single-digit growth in 2021 at this point. And, again, that's pulling back on mortgage work in that process during the year.
spk04: Great. Thanks, guys. Thank you.
spk00: Our next question comes from Brad Millsaps with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
spk09: Hey, good morning. Good morning, Brad. Just wanted to follow up on Brady's question regarding the warehouse. I think you said last quarter that you thought it might settle out between $500 million and $600 million, but just curious if you'd picked up even more clients. I think you alluded to it a little bit. You're still adding folks maybe in the fourth quarter of that. in your mind, might make it run a little bit higher than kind of what you talked about last quarter?
spk11: We have picked up. I think we went from 21 beginning of the year to now 44, a couple more in the queue. Our folks at Mortgage Warehouse and their projections are showing that close to 600 and 500 outstanding at the end of the year. And we've been surprised at January pipelines on our end. And so that's market-wide. And so that could run slightly higher, but I still think that 600 number is a pretty good number. Great. That's helpful.
spk09: And then in terms of the new loans that you're putting on away from warehouse and PPP, just kind of curious where those rates are coming on the books. and kind of what that means for sort of your NIM outlook as you move through the year.
spk11: Yeah, I'm going to turn it over to Lance. He and Steve have been doing a lot of work with Chase around NIM and outlook and pricing, and that's, as I said, a strategy of our going into 2021. Lance?
spk10: Yeah, great. Hey, good morning. Thanks, Dre. You know, we're very confident and fortunate. We think that rates are stabilizing. I mean, I think Steve would tell you that we're going to have, you know, a few basis points, NIM compression throughout the year. as we continue to see some refinances that will lower some rates, but we're actively working on the deposit side to offset that. From a loan yield perspective, clearly for us it depends on market. In Louisiana, where we actually have a really nice pipeline for 21, we're still able to get rates in the fours. Texas is more mid to high threes. But for the mix for us, we'll see a little bit of compression. But the coupon rate, even that we've seen in Q3 and Q4, has been very, very stable. So very optimistic about it.
spk09: Great, thanks. And just a final follow-up from me. My numbers are correct. It looks like your PPP loans were fairly flat, link quarter. Many of your peers have maybe seen more of a decline just with forgiveness. Is that by design from you guys or just having gotten as many through that forgiveness process yet, just trying to get a sense of kind of how you're thinking about those running off and recognizing those remaining fees.
spk10: Yeah, I just think it's sort of the automation through our NCNO platform. That's coming. So I would say that we see a lot of that here in the next 60 days on the forgiveness side, and so just part of the process.
spk04: Understood. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you.
spk01: Our next question comes from Kevin Fitzsimmons with DA Davidson. Please go ahead.
spk08: Hey, good morning, everyone. Hey, good morning. Drake, in the past you've talked about wanting to or on the lookout for the right acquisition candidate, merger candidate, and obviously over the past year or so there's been less activity on that front. We're starting to see in the industry a little more activity, a little more in terms of conversation going on. What are your observations on that front? Obviously, it'd be easier if you had more currency in the stock, but just curious what you're sensing from would-be sellers and what you're viewing as opportunities. Thanks.
spk11: Certainly, there seems to be more opportunity popping up, and I'm really ignoring our valuation at this point to continue to build relationships because The opportunities that we have to talk about are really about building partnerships as they continue to determine what they're going to do. We're a strong organic growth story. We're going to continue to focus on organic growth. One of the strategies that drives my office is to build these partner relationships. We are going to be able to put capital work from an organic growth standpoint, but I do think that you will see us active in discussions, and hopefully we've talked to our bankers and a number of different folks to be on the lookout, but we do have a handful of ongoing discussions and relationships that we think hopefully will be productive at some point.
spk08: Great, thank you. And just on PPP, I would, you know, I know it's tough to project this, but is it fair, you guys did give in the slide deck the remaining fees that are out there to be recognized. Is it reasonable to assume this forgiveness process takes place over the course of the next two quarters for the most part about evenly or do you think see it being more back-ended, loaded into second quarter. And then separately, how you guys are feeling about PPP round two. A number of banks are saying they think the demand for round two will be only something in the neighborhood of maybe 30% or 40% of what you did in round one. I'm curious what you guys are thinking.
spk10: Yes, some of the forgiveness can depend on $150,000 in less loans. So I think we would think we were probably going to get about 65% of that forgiveness in Q1. We're seeing a little better demand than that on PPP round two. I would say that our number of notes, I'm not going to say the balances, obviously the balances are different because you're capped at $2 million versus $10 million, but the number of notes for the clients that we're supporting will probably be about 55% of what we did the first round. Surprisingly seeing clients that didn't take it the first time that we're doing this for the second round, which was a little interesting. But our bankers are on it. The first time around was a huge success for us. Our bankers worked themselves to death through a manual process. We've got it automated now with Encino. That process is going well. And, again, I think for a bank our size that's so community-focused, this will be a nice win again.
spk08: Okay, great. And one last one on the subject of PPP and the margin is good news, you're getting the accelerated PPP fee accretion. Bad news, you get another slug of excess liquidity coming in theoretically from the SBA. Do you all expect you'll have the opportunity or willingness to to build the securities portfolio with that, or will you just be taking a little temporary hit on the core margin from that excess liquidity?
spk11: Thanks. You know, I think our strategy has been through this is to, from a balance sheet management standpoint, is to use low-cost funding temporarily. As you've been able to tell, we had almost a 27% growth in interest-bearing deposits, I mean, excuse me, core deposits in the year, you know, over and above what we have done from a wholesale standpoint. So if we see that type of influx of liquidity, then we would certainly start to reduce our borrowings with that, because I think where we are at a billion dollars with our investment portfolio, you'll see that pretty much remain there a little bit flat.
spk04: Great. Thanks very much. Are we still connected to the call? Sarah, are you still with us for the next question? Hey, Wally, are you available? Pardon me.
spk07: This is a conference operator. Looks like we're experiencing some technical difficulties. I can announce the next questioner. Next one is William Wallace from Raymond James. Please go ahead.
spk06: Thanks. Morning, guys. That was weird. Good morning, Wally. Good morning. Hey, Drake, one point of clarification to make sure I heard it right. Did you say... you said your loan growth thoughts, uh, with the focus on yield would be mid single digits. You said something about warehouse. That's X warehouse, right? You don't think you can grow the whole portfolio mid single with warehouse coming down so much to you.
spk11: That's the X warehouse.
spk06: Okay. All right. That's what I figured. Um, all of my, my kind of modeling questions have been answered. I wanted to ask maybe a bigger picture strategic type question. Um, In your prepared remarks, you mentioned that you feel one part of the story that might be missed is the expansion in Texas and the attractiveness of those markets. In the past, you've talked about the profitability of those markets. I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit about how profitable those markets are today. If you continue to grow at an annualized rate around 20% plus or so over the medium term, does that profitability expand? In other words, can you continue to leverage whatever you have there to a point where that's even additive to the franchise profitability? And then how do you think about the the cost transfer of, you know, having lower cost operations in your Louisiana markets. Just want to kind of think bigger picture about what the Texas expansion means for profitability at origin over the kind of medium term.
spk11: Yeah, you know, for us, we have to look at where our core profitability is in the core markets. And, you know, you're running at 240, 250, pre-free ROAs. And in Houston, we're sitting here at a one of three pre-pre at this point with what I think is a significant build opportunity. That did back up a little bit from 2019, but I would say it was because of our energy migration. We went from basically $128 million in energy to $40 million in energy. which was a big move for us. And it was strategic that we went through that process. We feel very good about where we are, but that backed up a significant piece of profitability for Houston. So at 103, we see significant opportunity there to ramp it up. And strategy-wise, we're looking at Texas as a whole right now with a 152 pre-pre. We have plans to continue to push that up just to look similar to what we do in Louisiana, but I really want to talk about Texas for a second because in 2020, 13% loan growth, $980 million in new loan production. But the real story for us in Texas was deposit growth, 38% deposit growth. We had $8.7 million in loan fees. So we're starting to see some really buildup of opportunity from a profitability standpoint. And to be able to push us where we are today from the $152 million that upper, I mean, mid-level two, that's where we have to get. And fortunately for us, we have the right infrastructure in place. We certainly now have the right teams, but we will continue to look at teams, especially from a granularity standpoint. So I'm bullish on Texas, and this is really starting to be a Texas story overall.
spk06: So if we look at the – profitability of the overall organization and maybe looking at it from a return on tangible common perspective. Do you feel you're, you're at a point let's, let's assume that we, we have an economic recovery and we're not having, um, elevated charge offs that can't be covered by reserve. Do you think you're at a point now where we could transition and really see that, uh, return on equity start to expand and, and, um, expand up to and perhaps surpass what you might see at a group of peer banks? Or do we still have investment needed to drive that kind of final leg of the equation?
spk11: We do not need investment. We have everything in place. 2021 strategically for us is a focus on driving efficiency. For us, it's around loan yields and a number of different things, but absolutely. Where I thought we were in 2020 is where we are right today, and unfortunately this pandemic got in the way. But our teams have tremendous capacity. We have the infrastructure. We have the support. With the exception of maybe a few credit support folks, we're in an unbelievable position to be able to continue to grow. And if we can add the rate of growth that we have since 2016, then we're going to get there pretty quickly.
spk06: And can you tell us what that looks like from an ROE perspective or an ROA, an efficiency perspective?
spk04: Well, I could.
spk11: You know, I would say this. From an overall efficiency, we have where we are today If you look at some of the factors that are impacting efficiency, especially from a PPP fee and a number of those things are going to go away, we have some work to do to get us into the mid-50s where we think we can get by the end of 2022 and certainly think that we can be similar to where we are at the end of 2021 today. But from a Texas perspective, we think that from an ROA perspective, which would drive significant ROE, we, we should see some, and I got to try to say this to not back us in a hole, but we can, we can see some pretty, you know, 20%, uh, growth there in 2021 and, uh, put us in a position to really start piling onto that. But that's, that's a little difficult to say when we're going into a period of time that we still have some unknowns that are facing us from the pandemic and impact of, of, um, you know, potential losses. I don't, we don't see it today, but certainly we're being uber conservative, but Lance and his teams are, I mean, they are focused on what we're talking about right here. We have to be successful here going through the end of 2021 with good ramp up through 2022. And I know I didn't answer your question, but.
spk06: No, that helped. That's helpful. That's helpful. Um, I appreciate that kind of bigger picture commentary, Drake. Thank you. And, uh, we'll look forward to hopefully seeing, um, seeing losses come in lower than we've all expected.
spk11: Yeah, and, you know, I hope so.
spk04: That's what we're – that's what we feel today. I'll step – Again, if you'd like to ask – Thank you.
spk01: Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star, then 1. Our next question is a follow-up. from Matt Olme with Stevens. Please go ahead.
spk05: Thanks for taking the follow-up. I want to dig more into fees, specifically on the mortgage front. I think the mortgage fees were $6.6 million. I know a lot goes into that number from originations to the MSR to the hedge. Any details you can provide that we would see in the queue? And I'm looking, I guess, specifically for the originations gain on sale in the fourth quarter? I think the comparable number last quarter was around 7.4 million.
spk02: Yes, Matt. The comparable number gain on sale is 6.3 for Q4.
spk05: Perfect. Okay. Thanks for that, Steve. And then I guess circling back to the discussion around the margin and kind of the puts and takes there, I think you mentioned that On the deposit side, there's still room to bring that down. I think we're at around 44 basis points right now on interest bearing. I'm curious kind of where you think that could ultimately land down the road once you kind of finish repricing the deposits over the next few quarters. Thanks.
spk10: So we think next few quarters it will be definitely in the mid-30s.
spk02: And with the CDs coming off after the fourth quarter, it could be in the low 30s.
spk05: OK, perfect. And I guess just to clarify the commentary on the margin, Steve, there's some room there to bring that down on the deposit side. But even with that, it still feels like there's some pressure on the margin. because of the pressure on the core loan yields. Did I get that right?
spk10: That's correct. We have definitely have more pressure on the loan yields than deposits. Deposits are, if you're at 40, you could only go down to 30. Loan yields, you could possibly go down a little bit more based on competition. But, you know, our goal is to only have, if we can, one or two basis points compression each quarter, and that's the low part. Hopefully, we could sustain it, but to be conservative, we're going to say one to two basis points per quarter, and hopefully, we can keep it flat.
spk05: Okay, perfect. Thank you, guys.
spk02: Thank you, Matt.
spk01: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Drake Mills for any closing remarks.
spk11: Well, thank you very much for the time and opportunity. I'll tell you that this is a franchise that has significant upside. We have put ourselves in a position where I think our balance sheet has been significantly strengthened. Liquidity is in a very strong place. Capital, we really will see some capital buildup as the balance sheet normalizes through 2021. What I think we have is real upside from an earnings perspective. We will continue to drive significant shareholder value. I appreciate your interest, your investment, your partnership, and overall your support. So thank you for the call, and thank you for your time.
spk01: The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
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