4/24/2020

speaker
Eric
Conference Operator

Good day and welcome to the Ameris Bancorp first quarter 2020 financial results 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 at any time. To withdraw your question, Please note, today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Nicole Stokes, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

Great. Thank you, Eric. And thank you to all who have joined our call today. During the call, we will be referencing the press release and the financial highlights that are available on the investor relations section of our website at amerisbank.com. I'm joined today by Palmer Proctor, our CEO, and John Edwards, our Chief Credit Officer. Palmer will begin with some opening general comments, and then I will discuss the details of our financial results before we open it up for Q&A. But before we begin, I'll remind you that our comments may include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risk and uncertainty. The actual results could vary materially. We list some of the factors that might cause results to differ in our press release and in our SEC filings, which are available on our website. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, early developments, or otherwise, except as required by law. Also during the call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures in reference to the company's performance. You can see our reconciliation of these measures and GAAP financial measures in the appendix to our presentation. And with that, I'll turn it over to Palmer for open comments.

speaker
Palmer Proctor
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Nicole, and thank you to everyone who's joined our call today. Obviously, today's discussion is going to be a little bit different than prior quarters because these are unusual times and things are changing daily. As I said in the press release in the first quarter, this has been unprecedented this quarter given that we've had COVID, we've had CECL, the Fed cuts, and the stimulus package. But I wanted to start off by talking about COVID-19 and first and foremost thanking our frontline and all our teammates for their Herculean efforts to accommodate our customers and our communities. Certainly our investment in technology that we've made over the years has served us well. We've got about 75% of our teammates working remotely and more importantly they're working effectively including our call center in this environment. All of our drive-thru locations are open and we've been able to perform business through the drive-thru and our branch lobbies are obviously closed except for appointment only. I am pleased to say that we've experienced about a 23% increase in the growth of our number of mobile banking customers since the beginning of the pandemic and we've seen a lot of strong increases in the number of remote deposits taken through the mobile banking app as you would expect. We continue to see people opening up checking accounts via our online portal and then also using our drive-through facilities. And we believe that these are some of the positive impacts, quite frankly, that the pandemic may have created for us in terms of a future outlook, primarily in migrating a lot of the late adopters and holdouts of digital banking. So we are pleased with that. I'd say I'll just emphasize that through the pandemic, we continue to serve our customers and our communities. Beginning on March 11th, we enacted our DR program, which allows borrowers impacted by the COVID-19 the opportunity to extend their payments for 90 days. And this, quite frankly, is the same program we enacted after the hurricanes, more specifically Irma and Michael. So we've treated these extensions similar to those which adhere to the public's regulatory guidance. As of April the 15th, we provided payment relief to almost 5,400 customers, totaling $2.2 billion of outstanding loans across all types and all markets. This equates to about 17% of total loans as referenced on the slide deck on page 15 of the presentation. In addition, we've been an active participant in the Paycheck Protection Program. The amount of work that all the participating banks, quite frankly, have done to serve their customers during this time has been amazing. I've heard from many of the CEOs talking about how much time and energy it took to get this program up and going, and I certainly echo those statements. But if you ever want to see a team come together, this is a perfect example of that. We were successful during the first round, having about 3,200 loans approved for a total of $685 million. and then we expect to do about the same number of units during the second round and hopefully the President will sign that around lunchtime today and we'll get started on that. But as it pertains to capital, we have suspended our stock buyback program. We did purchase approximately $7 million earlier in the quarter before we suspended the program but our focus remains on capital preservation and growing tangible book value as we look forward. As it pertains to dividends, we are obviously very comfortable with where we are today, but we'll continue to monitor that with the economy and the environment. Please say John Edwards, our Chief Credit Officer, is with us today. He's available to take any questions after our prepared remarks, but I did want to hit a few main points in terms of credit before I turn it back over to Nicole for the financial performance. Our annualized net charge-off ratio was 14 basis points of total loans. are non-performing assets as a percentage of total assets increased slightly to 61 basis points, and that compares to 56 basis points last quarter. We have no exposure to oil and gas, and we've included additional details on our hotel and restaurant exposure in the slide deck of our investor presentation, as well as kind of showing you the diversification across all the loan types within our portfolio. I'll stop there and turn it over to Nicole now to discuss our financial results.

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Palmer. For the first quarter, we earned $19.3 million or $0.28 per diluted share. That includes a $41 million pre-tax provision for loan loss expense and a $22 million pre-tax write-down of our mortgage and SBA servicing assets. Both of these items are largely due to general economic conditions driven by the COVID-19 pandemic and market interest rates and are not a reflection of our underwriting standards which we've adhered to throughout the cycle. On an adjusted basis, we earn $39.2 million or $0.56 per diluted share. That's when you exclude the merger charges, the servicing asset impairment, COVID-19 charges, legal fees from the ongoing SEC investigation and the loss on sale of bank premises. It does not, however, exclude the large provision for loan loss expense related to the economic forecast and COVID-19 impact. As Palmer mentioned, we implemented CECL on January 1 of this year. So our day one adjustment increased the allowance for credit losses by $91 million and reduced our capital by a little over $56 million. Our first quarter provision expense, or the day two adjustment as it's been called, was $41 million. Approximately $37 million of that expense was related to loan credit losses and $4 million was an increase for unfunded commitments. We had approximately $4.4 million of net charge-offs during the quarter, and our ending allowance for loan loss at March 31 was $149.5 million compared to $38.2 million at the end of the year. Including the unfunded commitment reserve, our total allowance for credit losses was $167.3 million at March 31 compared to $39.3 million at the end of the year. Our adjusted return on assets in the first quarter was 87 basis points, which was a decrease from the 147 reported last quarter. And our adjusted return on tangible common equity was 1098 compared to 1845 last quarter. Those declines in these ratios are due to the increased provision for loan loss expense just described. Tangible book value declined 37 cents from $20.81 to $20.44 during the quarter. The CECL Day 1 impact was $0.81 of dilution. That was partially offset by the $0.12 of retained earnings, $0.31 of unrealized gains in the securities portfolio, and $0.01 from everything else, including the stock buyback completed during the quarter before it was suspended. Our tangible common equity ratio decreased 15 basis points to 825 from 840 at the end of the year. Our net interest margin declined by 16 basis points. from $386 to $370 during the quarter. Our yield on earning assets declined by 26 basis points, while our funding costs only decreased 9 basis points. However, our total interest-bearing deposit costs decreased 12 basis points as we continue to stay focused on deposit costs. We saw a decline in accretion income compared to last quarter because, if you recall, we had a large acquired non-performing loan that was resolved last quarter, and that non-accreditable discount came into income through margins. Going forward under CECL, those similar circumstances, those favorable outcomes would run through provision instead of margin. Our core bank production yields declined to 455 for the quarter against 470. On the deposit side, we continued the momentum on non-interest-bearing deposits and improved our mix so that non-interest-bearing deposits now represent over 30.5% of our total deposits. compared to 29.9 at the end of the year and 28% last year, the same time last year. Non-interest bearing deposit production was over 27% of our total deposit production. Excluding the write-down of mortgage and SBA servicing assets, our growth in non-interest income was exceptional during the quarter. Our mortgage rate continues to have strong production and earnings due to the interest rate environment. Excluding the MSR write-down, during the first quarter, revenue in our retail mortgage division grew over 40%, while the non-interest expense in that division grew just a little over 11%, causing significant improvement in their efficiency ratio. We also saw an increase in the gain-on-fail percentage as we expected. It went up to 288 this quarter, up from 260 last quarter. For the company, our adjusted efficiency ratio increased to 69.87 for the quarter. The reduction in net interest income from the margin compression accounted for about 45% or 190 basis points of the increase. Total non-interest expenses were $138.1 million. However, when you exclude those adjusted management items such as COVID-19, merger and conversion, our adjusted non-interest expense was $135 million. That's about $16.8 million from last quarter. Approximately $4 million of that increase was in the lines of business and are attributable to income growth, mostly in the mortgage area that I just discussed. As you can see on slide 11, the remaining $13 million of increased expense is related to the core banks and administrative functions and includes things such as close to $3 million of FDIC insurance that we didn't have in the fourth quarter because of the credit, $2 million of additional audit and legal fees, almost $2 million of cyclical payroll taxes and 401k match that are always elevated in the first quarter. A little over $1 million of problem loan and Oreo expense and $1 million related to FDIC callback. Both of those, majority of those are related to one of the lost share agreements. And then $1 million of increased fraud, forgery, and DDA charge-offs. Many of these items are not expected to reoccur in future quarters. We're pleased with where we are in the fidelity cost phase. but we're committed to cost saving strategies and approving our rate efficiency ratio to offset that margin squeeze. On the balance sheet side, we were pleased with our organic growth both on the loan and deposit side as our loan to deposit ratio ended at about 94.5%. Organic loan growth this quarter was 275, a little over 275 million or just above 8.5% annualized. Jody Spencer, William McKendry We continue to be well capitalized and feel comfortable with our capital levels and our liquidity position remains strong. As Palmer mentioned earlier, we were approved for the PPPLS program and plan to use that to fund the PPP loan. In addition, our current liquidity ratio is over 21%, which is more than double our policy minimum, and we have ample liquidity available to us. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Palmer for closing comments before the Q&A.

speaker
Palmer Proctor
Chief Executive Officer

Great. Thank you, Nicole. Q1 was certainly an interesting quarter when you think about it January and February for everybody was showing great promise for growth and earnings and along came March with COVID and now we're all focused obviously on the safety and security of our teammates and our customers and while we're certainly operating in a new world I think it's important for everyone to think in terms of probabilities and not binary outcomes and At Ameris, we remain well-capitalized, well-focused, and well-positioned to ride out the storm, and of course, we're in this for the long haul, and I remain very confident in our ability and our strength to get through this. I'll turn it back over to Eric now so we can jump into any questions the group might have.

speaker
Eric
Conference Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer sessions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause for a moment to assemble our roster. Our first question today comes from Tyler Stafford of Stevens. Please go ahead with your questions.

speaker
Christopher Marinak
Analyst, Janney Montgomery Scott

Thanks for taking the question. Good morning Tyler.

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

I think we may have just lost Tyler. Oh there he is.

speaker
Tyler Stafford
Analyst, Stevens

Can you guys hear me?

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

Tyler we can hear you.

speaker
Tyler Stafford
Analyst, Stevens

Okay perfect. Well good morning and thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to start on credit for either Palmer or John and just I guess better understand your assessment of the risk of the portfolio today. You've got obviously you built the reserve this quarter and you've got some portfolios that historically don't have any losses and then others that do. Where do you see the biggest potential loss content driving from and then conversely can you highlight some of the areas that have historically not had any losses that you expect to withstand the storm relatively better?

speaker
Palmer Proctor
Chief Executive Officer

Sure, we'll take that. The Portfolio, we spent a number of years remaking the portfolio into what it is today. Well diversified, quality sponsors, good equities in the right places and the right deals. I have confidence that our portfolio is going to withstand this. In terms of concern or questions, I guess We've got an unprecedented time and what comes out on the back end of this is what we don't know yet. Will there be changes to codes in hotels that are going to have to be handled and things of that nature? My focus really right now relates to our retail portfolio. and that includes accommodation, that includes the individual store locations, the strip centers, the anchored stuff. On that side, we've had a lot of our customer base that has taken advantage of the payment extensions and so we really need to see Jody Spencer, William McKendry Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much.

speaker
Tyler Stafford
Analyst, Stevens

John, maybe I guess sticking with you or Nicole, I was hoping you guys could provide a little color on the underpinnings of your CECL assumptions and what went into the, especially the economic forecasted portion of the reserve bill this quarter.

speaker
Palmer Proctor
Chief Executive Officer

Certainly. So we used the Moody's forecast that was the March 27th date, I believe. I know y'all have I've heard that over and over. That was the date that we utilized for the forecast model. We looked at several scenarios, of course, that we believed had... We used some judgment after sort of taking that model at its face to determine whether we thought things would be a little better or a little worse and many more. We needed to consider the impact of that and when that bite would impact the loan portfolio. So we exercised a little judgment on the scenarios that we reviewed and determined the one that we felt like was most representative of the forecast period that we were looking at. So that's the one we went with. We looked at, and Nicole and I have been talking about it, from the most severe one that we reviewed, where the upper band of the Cecil range that we reviewed was about 180 in terms of the low loss reserve and another 29 in unfunded, so 210-ish. And so we were within $43 million on the upper end. But we were kind of right in the middle of the ranges that we reviewed based on that model.

speaker
Tyler Stafford
Analyst, Stevens

Okay, that's helpful, John. And then lastly, Nicole, I wanted to shift gears over to the expenses. Obviously, lots of moving pieces here this quarter, but they were kind of well ahead of expectations. And I appreciate the details in the slide deck of what potentially may fall out in the run right here. I get that expenses from the mortgage comp inflated, but it does look like those other expenses were higher as well. Can you just help us better triangulate what should stick around, what's going to be in the run rate, what's going to fall out, and how you see the expense and efficiency migration moving forward throughout the year?

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

Sure. I appreciate that, Tyler. Hopefully, on slide 10 in the presentation, I'm I tried to break that down. I did go over it fairly quickly in the script. So about $4 million of the increase was related to mortgage. And when you look at the income statement for mortgage, that number, the $34 million, that includes the MSR write-down. So if you added that back into the segment mortgage and then look at their expenses went up about $4 million, but their income increased significantly more than that. and that's really where we were able to finish the cost phase in the mortgage area and then really get their efficiency going. Exclusive of that $4 million there was about another $13 million. About $3 million of it was the FDIC insurance that we didn't have in the fourth quarter because we had the credit. The $2 million is increased in audit and legal fees that we don't anticipate recurring. Some of that had to do with the end of year audits and some additional testing and some additional work that went in because of the material weakness. The payroll taxes and the 401K match, that's always very cyclical and has always increased in the first quarter. The problem one, OREO and the FDIC Law Share Clawback, those as well, those were related to one of the law share agreements that expired and there were some lingering expenses that were deemed that were not going to be reimbursed by the FDIC and then also some additional callbacks. And then the fraud, forgery, DDA loss, that was about almost close to a million dollar increase that we are diligently working on working through. I mean there were some things, sometimes you can't, I hate to say it like this, but you can't control some of the fraud and the forgery or DDA loss. And so we are certainly very cognizant of that and we've put additional resources toward that. As a management team, we're committed to continually looking for cost base and to become more efficient and to use technology, especially knowing that we have that margin squeeze that we need to... We either have to grow revenue or reduce expenses to get our efficiency ratio back in line. We're very cognizant of that, and we are reacting to that actively.

speaker
Tyler Stafford
Analyst, Stevens

Okay, so if I just... I guess add up some of those items that you highlighted here on slide 10. Is it around 4 to 5 million that should not persist in the run rate going forward? Is that a rough ballpark?

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

I would say it's closer to 7 to 8. You've got the increased audit, the payroll taxes, the problem loan, the FDIC, and the fraud. So obviously the FDIC insurance is recurring.

speaker
Tyler Stafford
Analyst, Stevens

Got it. Okay. So one Q is inflated by 7 to 8 and should fall out. Okay.

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

I actually on this slide I had it broken down even more all the way down to some items that were like $200,000 that I decided that was way too granular and it really clogged up the slide but there are some other things that were smaller and we still had some consulting fees related to CECL that will go away we had some We actually had about $200,000 of an FHLB prepayment penalty because we were able to recoup that when the rates fell so quickly and we had already recouped that. So there was some other noise in there that were smaller pieces that would add up to get you closer to the 9 to 10.

speaker
Tyler Stafford
Analyst, Stevens

Okay. Very helpful. Thanks, Nicole.

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

Great. Thank you, Tyler.

speaker
Eric
Conference Operator

Our next question will come from David Feaster of Raymond James. Please go ahead with your questions. Hey, good morning, guys. Good morning.

speaker
David Feaster
Analyst, Raymond James

I just wanted to follow up on the Cecil discussion and the factors that drove it. I mean, I guess given your commentary, Palmer, and just some of the continued weakness in economic data that we've gotten in the second quarter, I guess how do you think about future reserve bills near term? Do you think you maybe get towards the higher end of that range that you were just talking about?

speaker
Palmer Proctor
Chief Executive Officer

Well, we will obviously continue to watch the economic forecast that we adhere to for CECL. I will say, and we will make the adjustments as needed, of course, based on our portfolio. I will say, and I did mention when Tyler is that there is a, we still have $50 million worth of credible discounts that are in the portfolio that are there to help support and the reserve if necessary on those particular loans. So there is an additional piece of that. But I think it's a little early to see as we are maybe on the cusp of reopening certain and many more. Thank you very much.

speaker
David Feaster
Analyst, Raymond James

and then I guess just generally are you looking at this as a way to gain share or are you only focused on your existing clients and are you using this as a way to potentially drive deposits as well?

speaker
Palmer Proctor
Chief Executive Officer

Well, I will tell you the second round will be what I quoted there was more on the units not the dollars. The second round what we found is the dollar limit is actually lower than the first round but We have done a very good job, the team has, of focusing in on taking care of our clients first and foremost and offering this program. And we do have some external non-customers, too, that have participated in the program. But the majority of the loans that we've extended so far are existing customers with deposit relationships. If they don't have a deposit relationship, certainly this is a and the relationship for all banks.

speaker
David Feaster
Analyst, Raymond James

Okay. That makes sense. And just lastly for me, I mean, there's a lot of moving parts, but just, you know, with FHLB balances being up, you know, lower rates, just any commentary that you could provide us on the core NIM to help us, you know, think through how that might progress going forward just in light of all the moving parts would be helpful.

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

Sure. This is Nicole. That's a great question, David. I'm going to be cautious on guidance, but I will tell you that some mid-single-digit compression is possible going forward, and I'll split it up into kind of three components. First, on the loan side, about half of our variable rate loans have floors, and about 75% of those have hit the floors. Production held in at $4.55 compared to $4.70 last quarter, and early payoffs have slowed because of the economy. So those three things all affect the margin going forward. On the funding side, you think about the Fed cuts, the drastic Fed cut coming in very, very late in the quarter. We made wholesale deposit reductions in March when the Fed cut, and we really continue to grind down any remaining above-market deposits down. As the Fed is at zero rate environment, it becomes more acceptable in the competitive landscape. In addition, we have a CD book that's repricing around 70 basis points average than where we are right now. and we're able to retain, historically we've been retaining about 75% of that as it reprices down. And then you mentioned SHLB, that's a great point. The first quarter it was about 162 and that's dropping to about 50 basis points and I already mentioned about a $200,000 prepayment penalty that was a non-interest expense in order to get that to reprice down. And then the third component that I wanted to talk about was the PPP and the program and the impact that that would have on our margins. We put in the slide deck kind of a breakdown of the fee categories. About 50% of ours are the 3% loans. About roughly 15% or so is the 1%, and then about 35% to 37% is the 5%. So that gives us an average fee of about $344,000. I know that the government has said these can be longer terms, but we've done all of ours basically two years. and that would be the technical duration. We believe that they're going to pay off as the program anticipates that they will pay off less than that. So if we assume a weighted average duration of a year on these, that would be a 344 feet fee plus a 1% rate and we're going to fund that with the PPP LS program at 35 basis points. So that nets about a 4 to a 409 yield on $685 million this of loan growth. So that will also affect the margin. So those are kind of the three key components looking at the margin going forward. Does that help clarify? It may be more color than what you wanted.

speaker
David Feaster
Analyst, Raymond James

No, that's very helpful. So you're thinking the PPP won't stay on closer to a year?

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

I don't. I'm being very – I think – I went in the middle of the road. I mean, I think that the expectation for most is that these are, you know, six to nine months. The technical duration is two years for us. Or the coupon duration is two years. So I kind of went middle of the road on that and said if we average the duration of a year, assume that that fee comes in over a year, that would be around $344.

speaker
Palmer Proctor
Chief Executive Officer

And David, it would be interesting too to see how the secondary market opens up for the potentially for the sale of some of these and if it's a whose bank to sell the loans or to retain them. But that's yet to be seen.

speaker
David Feaster
Analyst, Raymond James

Absolutely. That's great color. Thank you very much.

speaker
Eric
Conference Operator

Thanks, David. Our next question will come from Woody Lay of KBW. Please go ahead with your questions.

speaker
Woody Lay
Analyst, KBW

Hey, good morning, guys.

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, Woody.

speaker
Woody Lay
Analyst, KBW

Hey, just a follow-up on the margin. You mentioned CDs were repricing about 75 basis points lower. I was just curious what percent of the CD portfolio was set to reprice in 2Q and what percent would reprice in 2020?

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

I do not know that I have that exact number in front of me, Woody, but I – oh, actually, I do. I'm sorry. So you need to know – you want to know how much is in Q2? about 20%. And then the remaining for 2020?

speaker
Woody Lay
Analyst, KBW

Yep.

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

Oh, greater than 50%.

speaker
Woody Lay
Analyst, KBW

Okay. That's great. Thanks for that. And then looking at the loan deferral program, I was just curious for any color surrounding the pace that these deferral requests came in. I would assume it was front loaded around the mid-March period when the program was first initiated, but are you starting to see a slowdown in these requests over the past couple weeks?

speaker
Palmer Proctor
Chief Executive Officer

That's a great question. The answer is absolutely. In the first two weeks, we probably have had 75% of what we did, and it has every day seems to be less and less. But the pace of that is well below what it was in that first two weeks.

speaker
Woody Lay
Analyst, KBW

Okay, that makes sense. And then last for me, it was interesting to see the 23% increase in the mobile banking users since the self-quarantine period. I was wondering if you have a sense if consumer behavior might be changing long term, and if so, would you reconsider Ameris' branch strategy, especially in the Atlanta MSA where Fidelity had significant scale in that market? So I was just curious around that.

speaker
Palmer Proctor
Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, absolutely, Dan, through that. And I think, you know, what's encouraging for us is, as I mentioned in my comments earlier, there were a lot of late customers. and a lot of them have been forced to utilize that in today's environment and quite frankly have become accustomed to it and like it and I think it kind of changes behaviors across the board in many of our markets and I think all banks right now are realizing they can do a lot more with less in terms of their full scope branches so you may find branches that you may keep open but it may be drive-thru only. and then you can utilize the lobby for other initiatives, for instance the mortgage office or investment group rather than having the full overhead and staffing in the branches. Branch optimization is something that all banks are looking at now and this is a good opportunity for us to take a look at it.

speaker
Woody Lay
Analyst, KBW

That's really interesting. Thanks guys, that's all I had.

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Woody.

speaker
Eric
Conference Operator

As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then 1. Our next question will come from Christopher Marinak of Janine Montgomery Scott. Please go ahead with your question.

speaker
Christopher Marinak
Analyst, Janney Montgomery Scott

Hey, good morning. Just wanted to drill down on the large amount of deferrals. How do you think about that as it pertains to risk ratings in the portfolio? Are these loans that kind of come and go from risk ratings or will they ultimately become kind of future classified? Just kind of curious how you think about that in the big picture.

speaker
Palmer Proctor
Chief Executive Officer

Well, that's a great question. And, you know, my take on the grading, and you see it in the press release and not so much in the spot deck, but is that and many more. Thank you. and how we deal with the customers and what their issue is. And so we will evaluate those as we go. And several, you know, the deferrals, Palmer's made this comment in the past, several, you know, what you would say very strong customers took advantage of the payment deferral because of, The fact that when it was available and it was prudent to conserve cash during this period of time. So I don't think it necessarily just was an automatic negative across the board is what I'm trying to say. We didn't want to just say everybody is treated the same. But because of just looking at them as they came available, we did make some movement on the internal grades but within the past category. I don't know. I'm going to tell you that 20% of those will migrate onto the watch list or whatever, but when the 90 days is up and we have to consider whether to extend that further, we'll know more about the, hopefully by that time, we'll know more about the economics, the reopening of the economy and so on and so forth to be able to make a little bit better judgment. Chris, I think during the last downturn, You know, deferment was kind of a bad word, and I think the difference is, in this go-round, is I view it more as a positive, especially when you start seeing a lot of these being front-end loaded, because these are generally companies that are being proactive rather than reactive, and in anticipation of preserving liquidity and cash flow, and that's really what we saw a lot of our commercial customers doing on the front end, centered a lot of the drawdowns you're seeing on some of the lines of credit. but to me that's good cash management for them and I view that as a positive as opposed to the last go around where you were getting a call at the 11th hour and all of a sudden they couldn't pay. So if we start seeing this continue to escalate in terms of the percentage of deferments, I think that takes us into a different category but for right now I think a lot of this was good business planning on the part of a lot of our companies.

speaker
Christopher Marinak
Analyst, Janney Montgomery Scott

Got it. Okay, that's very helpful. I appreciate both your comments there. I know it's early, but can you talk about kind of new opportunities you're seeing with customers, either your existing ones where you can deepen your wallet or just even new customers coming in the door that are getting overlooked by your competitors?

speaker
Palmer Proctor
Chief Executive Officer

Well, the biggest opportunity we've got right now is probably the PPP plan and not so much in terms of participating in the plan as it is. There are a lot of non-customers that are upset with their Their primary banks that were not able to allow them to participate in the program. They did not receive funding. So we have received and have accepted numerous, as I touched on earlier, the non-customers that we had allowed to participate in the program. And the way that worked was you'd receive a call and several of these are meaningful companies with meaningful deposits and they had not gotten any response or communication from their primary bank and it's one of these situations that, listen, if you can get us in this plan, we will move our entire relationship over and we have certainly taken advantage of that. And I think that's one of the benefits that a lot of the smaller banks will have and regional banks will have from some of the other competitions. So we've capitalized on that. We certainly will capitalize on the growth from the PPP plan. Mortgage continues to be a busy, bright spot for us and and quite frankly, you know, when I look at the even commercial opportunities, companies right now are open to having discussions with other banks and we certainly keep that in mind from a defensive posture as well. But I think you'll find that while the growth component may not be there as much as we'd all like for banks as we look over the next couple of quarters, the retention component is going to be far more favorable. So you won't have the runoff that we had all been experiencing earlier. Thank you very much.

speaker
Christopher Marinak
Analyst, Janney Montgomery Scott

Great. That's very helpful. And then just one quick one for Nicole. You mentioned the liquidity, I think, being double your policy. Does that sort of stay in effect, Nicole, this quarter, or do you think that will kind of add back down as this quarter plays out?

speaker
Nicole Stokes
Chief Financial Officer

Josh, you know, I hate to give any guidance because if you had asked me last quarter if we would have had a pandemic, I would have never said yes. So we anticipate keeping our liquidity, keeping it fluid as we can for a little while until we get through this. Got it. That makes sense. Thanks very much. Great. Thank you, Chris.

speaker
Eric
Conference Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. The conference has now concluded. Thank you very much, everybody, for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

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