John Allison
Analyst · Piper Jaffray & Company. Okay, please go ahead
Thanks, Dave. As you heard, it’s quite the contrary. After the February conversion, we had already accomplished much more savings by far than we had forecasted. As Dave said, very quick, very smooth, which resulted in record efficiency and quickly getting there. That is the sound of a good consolidator. I read a research report recently talking about the best consolidators in the bank space. They did not list Home BancShares, Prosperity, Ozark, Renaissance, Pinnacle, First Financial Bankshares or CenterState. I shared the names on the list with a big banks stock investor I don’t think he is ever going to stop laughing. I didn’t think it was quite that humorous, because we didn’t make the list and I think we are one of the best consolidators in the country and so were those others. I think it takes the false moves out the Stonegate rumors. Instead of doing an overpriced merger and acquisition deal paying 300, 400, $600 million that might add $0.03 or $0.04, we decided to spend $20 million to $0.035 to $0.04 to EPS. As the largest individual shareholder, it was a no-brainer for me, plus think about it, we sit in the boat capital of America, Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Miami and the Florida Keys. This deal fits home. It also provides a perfect vehicle to enter the high-end RV bus finance market. It was common sense for me, continuing forward on Home $2, this can be a nice contributor to that. Number one, loan growth is your number one problem, still say the analysts. Our lack of loan growth has not come from originations, but from payoffs totally. I also told the world that the unfunded backlog was growing indicating that the prospects, where loan growth was looking at. It didn’t happen the way I envisioned. I thought payoffs would slowdown and originations remain steady, then magic would happen and bingo, there would have loan growth magically. That’s not exactly what happened. Even though the payoffs remained high at $609 million for the quarter at a rate of 5.13, we were able to generate $957.9 million at a rate of 5.66. I think the breakdown here is important too. Of $957 million, $775 million was legacy at 5.48 or 81% of what we originated. New York was $183 million at a rate of 6.53. Additionally, the backlog is up with the legacy leading the way. We also had the largest payoff we have ever had I don’t know if we have ever had a $95 million payoff?