USCB Financial Holdings, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the third quarter 2022 USCB Financial Holdings Incorporated Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a 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 a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, Please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Luis de la Aguilera, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our third quarter 2022 earnings call. Today, we'll review our Q3 highlights along with our CFO, Rob Anderson, and Chief Credit Officer, Ben Passos, providing an overview of the bank's third quarter performance. To start, I will comment on selected slides detailed on page three. USDV Financial Holdings delivered another quarter of solid results with strong double-digit annualized loan and deposit growth and an expanding net interest margin. Our credit metrics remain pristine and stable, supported by strong capital and liquidity trends. Again, there are no loans classified as non-performing with our allowance for credit loss ratio at 1.16. The bank's tangible book value per share is at $8.87, down 13 cents from the prior quarter, primarily due to AOCI. We have classified 74.4 million of securities from available for sale to hold to maturity to protect tangible book value in a rising rate environment. Rob will offer additional comments shortly. Net interest income before provision for credit losses was 16.8 million for the quarter ended September 30th, 2022. An increase of 3.3 million or 24.5% compared to the third quarter of 2021. Annualized return on average assets for the quarter ended September 30th, 2022 was 1.09% compared to 1.50% for the third quarter of 2021. The bank's deficiency ratio for the quarter ended September 30th, 2022 was 54.58% compared to 50.92 for the third quarter of 2021. Net interest margin increased by 10 basis points from the past quarter to 3.47% for the quarter ended September 30th, 2022 compared to 3.19% for the third quarter ended 2021. As previously noted, both deposit and loan growth have continued to post double-digit growth. Average deposits increased by 285.7 million, or 19.3%, compared to the third quarter in 2021, validating the successful efforts of the production teams to develop fully banked relationships. To this end, 38.2% of the bank's total deposits are comprised of demand deposit accounts. Total average loans excluding Triple P loans increased 113.3 million or 35.2% annualized compared to the prior quarter and 321.1 million or 30% compared to the third quarter of 2021. Slide four graphically details the trends of nine key performance indicators showing the bank's historical trends over the past six years. I will briefly comment on three of these KPIs namely total loans, deposits, and stockholders' equity. Total loans were $1.4 billion at September 30, 2022, representing an increase of $255.1 million, or 21.7%, from September 30, 2021. Similarly, total deposits were $1.8 billion at September 30, 2022, representing an increase a 312.1 million or 21% from September 30th, 2021. Total stockholders' equity was 177.4 million at September 30th, 2022, representing a decrease of 24.5 million or 12.1% from September 30th, 2021. Total stockholders' equity includes unrealized security losses of 45.2 million at September 30th, 2022, compared to unrealized security gains of $1.2 million at September 30th, 2021. Let's move on to slide five. Prior to Hurricane Ian's September 28th landfall on the southwest coast of Florida, our credit department identified the forecasted path of the storm and tracked its progress. After the storm passed, we traced its trajectory across 27 counties throughout the state and identified 94 loans, totaling $173 million that were within the storm's path, including more yachts financed under our new yacht lending program. The three counties most impacted were Lee, Charlotte, and Collier counties, where USDB identified 11 assets financed. On October 10th, I personally visited all the properties identified and reported their condition, observing negligible or no damage to those assets financed. To date, no loan modifications have been requested. We continue to assess any potential credit risk, and most importantly, we're in direct contact with our customers. As I drove up the West Coast from Naples to Cape Coral, I identified firsthand the damage caused by the storm, which due to storm surge primarily impacted a one-half-mile strip inland from the beach all the way along the coast, an area highly concentrated with condominium buildings containing thousands of units. The rebuilding of the West Coast is critical for the state's economy, and preliminary damage report estimates costs range between $42 billion to $260 billion. Association Banking is a key business vertical at U.S. Entry Bank, and we are actively offering financing support to our partner area management companies that cover the West Coast. Rob, I'll turn things over to you now.

Okay. Thank you, Lou, and good morning, everyone. In looking at our financial statements, and by many measures, U.S. Entry Bank had another great quarter. Let me highlight a few items on the next couple of pages before getting into specific details. First, total assets were $2.037 billion for the quarter. Loan balances were $1.432 billion, which is up $60 million from the prior quarter, and deposits are at $1.797 billion, and that's up $58 million from the prior quarter. At quarter end, we had 427 million in securities and we moved another 74 million of securities to HTM to protect tangible book value in a rising rate environment. In total, we have 179 million or 42% of the securities portfolio and held the maturity at quarter end. Like most banks in the industry today, these securities were put on the books during the pandemic period of very low interest rates. As interest rates have taken a fast and sharp rise, These securities now have a significant negative mark due to the mark-to-market accounting treatment. The bank has no intention of selling securities at significant losses, so we might as well move them to HTM to avoid further negative marks with anticipated rate increases later this year. The impact of all this can be seen in our total equity, which moved down to $177 million from $180 million in Q2. And although footnoted on the slide, the $177 million in equity includes $45.2 million in unrealized losses. on the securities portfolio due to AOCI, and for comparison purposes, the second quarter had $36.9 million in unrealized losses. Taking a look at the P&L, net interest income increased $1.1 million, or 28.7% annualized compared to the prior quarter, and $3.3 million, or 24.5% compared to the prior quarter. If you excluded the impact of Triple P fees, our net interest income grew 38.5% compared to the prior quarter and 34.1% compared to the prior year, which I think is an interesting data point. Non-interest income was $1.8 million up slightly from the prior quarter. And as a reminder, the prior year amount of $4.2 million contained a one-time $2.5 million loan settlement, which we flagged previously. We booked 910,000 in provision expense with loan growth for the quarter and operating expenses moved up to 10.1 million for the quarter. I'll speak more on this in a bit. Net income was 5.6 million or 28 cents a share. I'll remind you that EPS comparisons prior year would be difficult and not relevant due to the multitude of items we did to clean up our capital stack throughout 2021. So let's take a look at our key performance indicators. In terms of soundness, our credit metrics remain strong. We had one small charge off for $91,000, and our loan loss reserve coverage ratio increased slightly to 1.16%. In terms of profitability, return on average assets was 1.09%, and return on average equity was 11.9%. Our NIM expanded 10 basis points from the prior quarter to 3.47%, and our efficiency ratio improved slightly to 54.58%. Last, our tangible book value per share came down to $8.87 per share, which is reflective of the negative mark of $2.26 per share on our securities portfolio I referenced earlier. And absent this mark, our tangible book value per share would have been $11.13. With that overview, let's take a look at our loan book and loan yields. First, we separated out our core loans from our Triple P loans, so you can see how each component piece is working. While the Triple P loans are nearly done with the forgiveness process, total average loans excluding Triple P loans increased 113.3 million or 35.4% annualized compared to the prior quarter and 321.1 million or 30% compared to the third quarter of 21. Loan coupon increased 28 basis points compared to the prior quarter and 53 basis points compared to the prior year. Increases are due to the higher interest rate environment and disciplined pricing by the teams. Loan fees decreased 10 basis points from the prior quarter, primarily due to the amortization of a premium on a yacht loan that we purchased in 21 and subsequently that loan paid off in 22. Additionally, a decrease of 312,000 in Triple P loan fees should be noted as well. While the quarter's loan growth was in line with the guidance we provided you on our last call, I'll provide two comments for modeling purpose. First, our ending spot balance for the third quarter of 1.432 billion is above the quarterly average of 1.399 billion. And if you just held the 1.432 billion steady throughout the fourth quarter, we'd have average loan growth of 9.44% in the fourth quarter. Second, it's becoming more likely that loan growth will continue to slow as we enter 2023 as rates continue to rise, years of an economic downturn or a recession continue to develop and we maintain pricing discipline. For 2023, we will fall back to our previous guidance of high single-digit to low teens, given the macroeconomic conditions we find ourselves in. We could still be on the high side of that range or even higher in Q4, but believe things will gravitate back to our guidance for the full year of 23. Our goal is to book profitable business, not necessarily business for gross sake. With that, I'd like to turn it back to Lou to provide a few more details on our loan book.

The graph on page nine clearly shows the bank's loan growth has steadily been on an upward trend over the past five quarters, with $429 million in new loan fundings between Q1 and Q3 2022. Year-to-date, Q2 2022 saw a high point in loan production, with $169 million in loan fundings. Conversely, loan payoffs for the same periods have slowed and generally trended downward as refinancing has abated with rising rates. Q3 2022 posted new loan fundings of $130 million. September loan production was negatively impacted by a moratorium on the issuance of new insurance policies five days before Hurricane Ian made landfall. As a result, $15 million in scheduled September loan closings were delayed and rolled over to October 2021. The average coupon on new loans for the third quarter was 4.85. On a go-forward basis, the active pipeline presently exceeds 145 million, and we forecast low production to remain on budget in the fourth quarter. As of October 1, 2022, $70 million in new loans have been approved, committed, and are scheduled for closing, having an average coupon of 5.33. Rob?

Okay, thank you, Lou. Triple P fees were $145,000 for the quarter and we only had $19,000 of unrealized fees remaining. We have $1.4 million of Triple P loans remaining on our books at quarter end and that's down from $13.5 million from the prior quarter. Moving on to deposits. Deposits continue to grow despite raising our rates modestly through the quarter. Average deposits increased $46.3 million or 10.7% annualized compared to the prior quarter. and $285.7 million, or 19.3%, compared to the third quarter of 2021. While our deposit costs moved up 13 basis points, our deposit beta for the rate movement since the fourth quarter of 2021 has been 4.3%, which has outperformed our expectations. For the remainder of 2022, we are expecting a higher deposit beta depending on the actions taken by the Fed. We are seeing more requests from clients to match competitors' promotional rates on CDs, in money market savings accounts, or clients telling us they could take their money and put it in short-term U.S. Treasury bills and get 4%. Clearly, we have no intention of matching those rates. As mentioned in our last call, we believe that our deposit beta will be close to 25 to 35% throughout this rate cycle. Quarterly figures may vary some, but for modeling purposes, we should look at the beta throughout the entire rate hike cycle. While we are hopeful to outperform this number, and so far we have, This range is good for modeling purposes. Another point to make while we are on the slide is the value of our deposit base brings to the overall enterprise value of the franchise. 38.2% of deposits are in DDA accounts, demonstrating that U.S. Century Bank is the primary bank for many of our clients. With rates moving up so much, the enterprise value of our DDA accounts have gone up tremendously. Overall, our deposit base is relationship-oriented, granular in nature, and sticky, even with rising rates. So let's see how this impacted the margin. Net interest income increased 1.1 million or 28.7% annualized compared to the prior quarter and 3.3 million or 24.5% compared to the third quarter of 2021. Net interest margin of 3.47% is up 10 basis points from the prior quarter and up 28 basis points from the third quarter of 2021, demonstrating an asset-sensitive balance sheet. If you look at our margin excluding the impact of Triple P loans, our NIM would have been 345 up 18 basis points from the prior quarter and up 37 basis points from the prior year. While the spread between our loan yield and deposit cost continues to widen, we are also seeing an improvement in our earning asset mix demonstrated by the chart on the lower left-hand side of the page. Let's see how all this is impacting our balance sheet and what you can expect in the coming quarters on the next slide. While we've already experienced an improvement in our net interest income and NIM due to higher rates, we continue to believe U.S. Century Bank is positioned well for this unprecedented rate cycle. First, our balance sheet is neutral for year one and slightly asset-sensitive for year two, which means our assets will reprice faster than our liabilities. Having said this, our balance sheet is less asset-sensitive this quarter than last quarter as we have less cash, have lower short-term securities, and have more longer-term loans. Again, these models are loaded with assumptions and are done on a static balance sheet. Our actual results have outperformed our modeling assumptions as demonstrated by a lower than expected deposit beta. Over the longer run, we expect our actual net interest income to be more closely aligned with the model as deposits are beginning to reprice faster. Furthermore, 39% of the loan portfolio is fixed rate while the remaining 61% is variable rate. As you know, variable rate loans provide protection against rising interest rates. And the variable rate loans are indexed to Prime, CMT, and LIBOR. In terms of repricing, the bank will reprice 31% of the variable rate and hybrid rate loans within the following year. And in the next six months alone, we have $212 million of loans repricing with a weighted average coupon of 6.1%. And according to our modeling, these loans could reprice above 7% with future rate increases. While these coupons may seem higher than expected, it is important to note that 37% of the $212 million of loans that will reprice are tied to prime and have already experienced the benefit of higher rates. As it relates to our securities portfolio, we expect the yield of our portfolio to remain stable for the rest of 2022 and into 2023 as we continue to deploy the investment portfolio cash flows into new loan production at much higher yields. All these items are positive scenarios for NIM and net interest income. The short-term hikes combined with high uncertainty about economic conditions and lower liquidity makes forecasting our NIM and the impact to our net interest income challenging. For the remainder of 2022, I would guide you to model a modest increase in our NIM from the current levels. For 2023, as we live with an inverted to flat yield curve for an extended period of time, we would expect our NIM to be flat and potentially compressed later in the year. This will largely depend upon our ability to slow walk deposit costs and remain disciplined in our loan pricing. With that, let's move on to non-interest income. Total non-interest income was $1.8 million. That's up slightly from the prior quarter. Looking at individual line items, service fees decreased slightly in the quarter, but was up 9.1 compared to prior year. We sold some securities for a $550,000 loss. However, we offset that loss for a similar amount by selling 10 million of FHLB advances that had an embedded gain. The offsetting gain is in the other income line. Just to note, while our securities undergo mark-to-market accounting, our FHLB advances do not, and the remaining $26 million of FHLB advances sitting on our balance sheet have gains embedded in them, which we can monetize if needed. Last, we had some SBA advances. A loan sales in the quarter, which we sold for $330,000 in premiums, and our year-to-date SBA origination loan fundings is in line to last year. However, the market premium this year is much lower than last year, and we expect this trend to continue in 2023. So let's move on to expenses. Our total expense base moved up to $10.1 million and up from $9.6 million. While most line items are flat to prior quarters, we continue to make investments in key personnel and technology. As stated on our last call, we signed an agreement to implement a new loan origination system which ties into our CECL software, which we expect will provide operating efficiencies in the years to come. The personnel expense increase is predominantly due to increases in wages and salaries or sales incentives commensurate with growth. Consulting and legal expense was up due to one-time expenses for CECL, CRE-related studies, and a few placement fees for new hires. While the cost increase appears to have taken a sharp increase, I will point out that we have a 54.58% efficiency ratio, and that is down from 55.34% from the prior quarter, and this is in line with the guidance we provided you, so it's worth repeating. While we continue to make the necessary investments to run a safe, sound, technologically focused bank to support our growth, we believe the efficiency ratio will continue to grind down, lower with scale, and apply to expanding that interest margin going forward. Moving on to asset quality, the allowance for credit losses was 116. We had one charge-off for $91,000, no REOs, and no non-performing loans. CECL is on track. Looking at capital, Capital levels came down a bit with growth. They remain above well-capitalized levels. And as mentioned previously, the board has approved a share repurchase program in January of this year for 750,000 shares, where approximately 4% of our total shares outstanding. And while the current stock price makes a buyback very attractive, given our current growth rate and uncertainty in the economy, management did not repurchase any shares in the quarter. Our final slide lists six powerful takeaways, which we believe underscore a strong investment thesis for our franchise, and I believe all of these are highly relevant to us here at U.S. Century Bank, and would again point out our DDA balances as one of the strengths of our franchise, especially in this rate environment. With that, I'll turn it back to Lou for some closing comments.

Thank you, Rob. The U.S. Century team has delivered another strong quarter, and we now look forward in wrapping up 2022 with continued momentum, targeted on exceeding our Q4 budget forecast. Our production teams are very active, diversified loan demand remains steady, and our new business pipelines are clearly identified. Throughout this year, the industry has felt the headwinds of a global economy that remains uncertain in 2023. Inflation, higher rates, supply chain delays, increasing construction costs, and a potential recession are setting the stage for the year ahead. Still, the economy in Florida is booming as the state has consistently exceeded revenue projections during the past year and the economy has recovered from the pandemic. Florida's unemployment rate has dropped to 2.5% in the month of September 2022, the second lowest rate in the state's history and the lowest rate since October 2006. Florida has had the second fastest gross domestic product growth in the nation. growing at an annual rate of 1.6% in the second quarter of 2022, while the national GDP has declined for two conservative quarters. It is with this backdrop that U.S. Century plans for the coming year. Since our recapitalization in 2015, management has worked tirelessly on repositioning the bank, a dynamic evolution that is planned, disciplined, and focused on maximizing operational leverage, deploying ever-improving products and technology, upgrading and attracting proven talent, and actively managing expenses to improve efficiency and profitability. Over this time, we have adapted a branch-like model, closing eight underperforming banking centers while renegotiating leases and remodeling existing branches while reducing square footage and greatly improving location and visibility. Nine of our 10 stores have grown in deposits, balance to over $100 million, two of which are now over $200 million. We continue to capitalize on team lifts as we will add two new experienced bankers in Q4 who manage significant deposit portfolios. On the technology front, we are well into the testing and training phase of our new abrigo loan operating system, which we expect to be in full swing by late Q1 2023. This will be a game changer as the complete loan approval process will be integrated and digitized from application and credit analysis to closing and booking. Multiple diversified product lines continue to mature and deliver consistent results which add to our loan deposit and fee growth, these being association services designed as a deposit aggregating strategy, serving Florida's significant and growing condominium market, It further provides continuous quality CNI loan opportunities. Our private banking group, offering concierge-level banking services to the deposit-rich local attorney market. SBA Lending Services, our core constituents of our owner-operated business and entrepreneurs. Global Banking, offering correspondent banking service to over 28 banks in the Central American and Caribbean Basin. This business line has been active at USCB for 15 years without losses, with a commitment to BSA and KYC execution and a consistent generator of deposits and fees. And finally, Yacht Lending, which launched in January of this year with an annual budget of $40 million. Production exceeded $45 million by September 2022 and continues on a strong pace. This high-quality, low-leverage, fast-turnover portfolio is It has an average duration of 36 months. It's focused on high net worth individuals. Its portfolio presently has a balance of 100 million. The recent announcement and acquisition of both Apollo Bank and Professional Bank has well positioned U.S. Sentry as the only true pure play public South Florida bank in the market, undoubtedly increasing scarcity value. Over the near term, we will continue to pursue new sources of value beyond product, industry, or business model boundaries. Our plan is to continue operating safely, soundly, and profitably while we execute our business plan, staying ahead of the curve, proactively identifying emerging opportunities while envisioning the possibilities beyond the current fog of uncertainties. With that, let's open things up to Q&A.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then two.

At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Michael Rose with Graham and James.

Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. How are you? Good morning. Good morning, Michael. Just wanted to start on expenses. You guys have gotten the ratio of expenses to average assets now, two quarters in a row below 2%. Understanding that there was some kind of one-time consulting fees, and if you can quantify that amount, that'd be great. But just as we think about investments in the franchise as we move forward, future hiring efforts, with a slower rate of projected loan growth, should we expect that

uh expense to earning our average asset ratio to remain below two percent and just you know how should we think about uh the plans for investment as we move forward thanks sure um you know a couple comments here one i think you know getting below two percent is getting a little thin you know we've tried to state in my comments um maintaining an efficiency ratio below 55 and grinding that down in the low 50s i think we think that will continue we will continue to make investments in strong team lifts and from time to time you could see some elevation and expenses due to that but over the long term you know we want to run a safe sound technologically focused Bank and we're going to hire the people to keep us and to support the growth so you know I would anticipate us to grind down the efficiency ratio The non-interest expense to average assets could hover right around the 2% mark to slightly lower. We did have some, I'd call them one-time fees, loaded up in the third quarter here in the consulting and legal. We had CECL expenses that are related to the project. We had a couple placement fees that could be ongoing. But then we also did a lot of testing on our CRE portfolio. So that was probably maybe $150,000, $175,000 in total, Michael.

Perfect. And then just wanted to go to deposits. The growth this quarter was pretty good. I assume some of that was from some of the specialty verticals that you just talked about. What's the capacity there to flex some of those verticals and those deposits, like the lawyers and things like that? And is there a higher beta for those types of deposits? Just trying to kind of contextualize the impact from that and the deposit growth going forward. Thanks.

Yeah, probably what I would say is I think our capacity to add deposits is very strong from those verticals. So if you think about the HOA space, if you think about the pub funds space a little bit, if you think about the juris advantage or the attorneys, It really comes at what costs on the margin that we want to pay, and as with rates right where they are today, that could be a little challenging. We are seeing a lot more increases in requests to match competitors' rates, and we will do that for strong relationships, but we will not do that if someone has a $100,000 CD and they bring in a flyer from another bank and they have no other business with us. Again, it's relationship oriented. I would tell you that I think we can grow our deposits to match our loan growth. We did this quarter, our loans were up 60 million, our deposits were up 58 million. So I think we can stay disciplined there. I do expect the beta to continue to increase throughout the rate cycle. I made some comments on that as well. So hopefully that answers your question.

It does. And then just maybe finally for me, you know, no non-performers for three quarters in a row now. At some point that will change. Are you guys seeing anything, you know, any signs of caution? You know, I think you're seeing, you know, higher spreads on loans, cap rates moving higher. Just, you know, anything that gives you any sort of, you know, concern or pause, you know, any areas that you're maybe a little bit more cautious lending into and just Just generally any sort of concern on credit as we move forward. Thanks.

This is Ben Paso. Good morning. We are carefully monitoring our portfolio, especially those homes that are scheduled for repricing or maturity next year. We prepared a study for the board earlier in the year. We're going to do it again. once the year is over. And we are limiting our growth in certain pockets such as retail. But frankly, the economy here has been extremely strong and we don't see anything extremely concerning right now. But we are on top of the on top of the portfolio every day. We had an FDIC audit this year, a loan review. Loan review is here again. And we are watching carefully everything. Thank you.

Appreciate all the callers. Thanks, guys. Thank you, Michael.

As a reminder, if you have a question, please press star then one to be joined into the question queue. The next question comes from Steven Scouten with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone. I guess maybe just following up on Michael's question there, maybe more specifically around the yacht lending program. Any concerns around that or any change to your, I guess, outlook or desire to invest into that business in this sort of economic environment? And maybe piggybacking off of that, any new ideas type of segments or niches or verticals that you guys are thinking about expansion into moving forward?

Well, the Fort Lauderdale boat show is this weekend and I plan to go there. We underwrite, you have to keep in mind that the typical client in these yacht loans are extremely wealthy individuals and we underwrite to their personal cash flows loan to cost or loan to value on The overall yachts are probably under 65%. So we look at each yield very, very carefully. And up till now, all the underwriting that has been done for the year and on the applications that are in are all extremely strong. You're talking about debt service coverages in many cases over three times. So we like this opportunity. this vertical. We're new to it, and we are moving forward cautiously, but all the indicators are very strong. Clearly, during the COVID years, a lot of people have looked kind of inwardly in the country, and you've seen a lot of activity on motor coaches and on traveling within the country. And here's how Florida, Florida in general, being probably the second largest state from a point of view of having licensed motorboats, there is a tremendous demand and our plan is to cautiously grow this and develop relationships with these clients as I think probably many of what we see in applications are boats that are moored here in South Florida. So we're very pleased with that activity. We've developed I think it's about six different verticals in the last six years. All of them are non-CRE. Two of them are focused on deposit aggregation. Our plan is to continue developing these verticals. All of them add to the overall. They give us greater diversity. They introduce us to new clients, and our focus is to continue doing that. I mentioned that there's, I believe, a lot of opportunity this year on the HOA side for two reasons. One, on the West Coast, because the damage that was caused by Hurricane Ian, and a lot of those associations have to rebuild and are going to have financing needs, but also because from a legislative point of view, the state of Florida has passed legislation requiring associations to have certain reserve limits. We recently spoke to the board about a new product within the HOA vertical that would be to finance reserve requirements with an independent reserve study. That was just approved this past week, and we are looking forward to kind of announce that in the market. So no new plan verticals, but more focus and execution on the ones we have.

Okay, great. That's very helpful, Lou. And then maybe just thinking about the buyback moving forward. I know you said no plans today, you know, and I think that's true across much of the industry given the environment and maybe some uncertainty. But I'm kind of wondering what, you know, what would need to change for you guys to think about that more constructively or what, you know, is it a certain price? Is it just certainty around the economy? Or how do you think about that potential buyback moving forward and what might cause you to step in a little bit?

Yeah, it's a good question. I think, you know, when we put the buyback in place, we really want to have that as a tool for us to act quickly if there's volatility in the market. You know, right now, I would say our growth opportunities are the best use of capital. And of course, you know, you've got a inverted yield curve with the economy, you know, A lot of unknowns happening right now. So it's there for extreme volatility and for our investors to know that we're going to support the stock. But we'd rather put our capital to use in growth in our market right now.

Okay, great.

I think all my other questions have been covered. So thanks, guys. I appreciate it. All right. Thanks, Stephen. This concludes our question and answer session.

I would like to turn the conference back over to Lou for any closing remarks.

Well, very, very, very simply, we're looking forward to another solid quarter and again to deliver in 2023.

Be assured our team is ready. Thank you. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.