Alerus Financial - Q3 2023
October 26, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Alerus Financial Corporation Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need any assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please also remember that this call is being recorded. This call may include forward-looking statements, and the company's actual results may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements are listed in the earnings release and the company's SEC filings. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Alerus Financial Corporation President and CEO, Katie Lorenson. Please go ahead.
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
Good morning. Thank you, Bruno, and thank you to everyone joining our call today. We appreciate your interest and investment in Alerus. Joining me today is Alerus's CFO, Al Villalon, who will discuss our financial performance and results for the quarter. Also on the call is Karin Taylor, our Chief Risk and Operating Officer, and Jim Collins, our Chief Banking and Revenue Officer. This morning, I will provide some commentary on the continued execution of our strategic initiatives and ongoing momentum in building a highly valued franchise. During the quarter, we continued to feel the impacts of the challenging interest rate environment and intense deposit competition.
However, the NIM improved during the quarter and overall the deposit balances held steady as our team members' constant focus on clients and our relationship banking model was evident, as commercial, consumer, and synergistic deposit categories all grew in the quarter, and new accounts open again surpassed closed accounts. Notably, non-interest-bearing balances remained steady at 25% of our overall deposit portfolio, and highly selective, disciplined, modest loan growth also continued during the quarter as we added high-quality franchise building clients to our portfolio. The loan-to-deposit ratio remained manageable at just over 90%, and I'd emphasize again that this is with no broker deposits at this time. Our uniquely diversified revenue mix of 58% fee income helped us to stabilize the revenue headwinds caused by the net interest margin compression.
As a reminder, within this fee income mix, approximately 90% is highly annuitized, recurring, and non-cyclical revenue, with minimal capital allocation and balance sheet risk. Specifically, Alerus's top 25 ranked national retirement services business delivers the majority of this fee income. The business is highly valuable, and we remain committed to extracting this value by growing our scaled and highly profitable product lines in the business. Last year, we exited the payroll offering, and this quarter we spun off our ESOP trustee business. These strategic divestitures allow us to direct resources and prioritization on the products and solutions where we continue to have the most opportunity for growth and delivering strong returns. The core business is growing with new plans and participants, which is the driver of most of the fees. As such, core revenues are trending higher despite headwinds due to market conditions on AUA.
Several initiatives appear to have early traction, and new revenue and lost revenue are tracking with expectations. Synergies from the business remain highly valuable as a key source of deposits, and we have again surpassed $100 million of annual wealth management rollovers. Moving over to our wealth management business, which is again focused on advisory services and planning for high net worth client segment in our geographies and mass affluent throughout our footprint and nationally in connection with our retirement business. Over 90% of our wealth management revenues are annuitized recurring revenues with an exceptionally high level of client retention. During the quarter, we lifted out a team of private bankers, and the formal launch and integration with wealth management has come together quickly.
Our trend of retaining dollars in the company through our holistic client service model produced key One Alerus wins again, driven by company sales and referrals by employees of large commercial banking clients. Our mortgage business produced results consistent with the second quarter, but it remains a very challenging environment. Expense management remained a key priority throughout the company, with year-over-year expenses down nearly 8%, even in the face of inflationary pressures in wages, contracts, and increasing assessments and professional fees. We've remained balanced in our investments in attracting and retaining high-performing, revenue-producing talent to support future growth while prudently building a team aligned with our One Alerus culture of excellence and accountability. Our ongoing emphasis on improving efficiencies is not an arbitrary directive to cut expenses. It is a planful and purposeful effort to improve automation and optimize processes and procedures.
We are working with urgency to leverage our operating platforms and the technology we have in place today to develop a faster, more seamless client experience and consequently increase the production capacity of our sales and service teams. This progress is evident with our ability to grow accounts and acquire clients with nearly 10% less headcount than a year ago. From a balance sheet standpoint, the theme of diversification continues throughout our granular loan and deposit portfolios. Loan concentrations and uninsured deposits remain low. Key talent adds during the year include experienced professionals in deposit-rich verticals and segments of C&I banking, government and not-for-profit, medical and professional services, and our treasury management team. Credit quality remains strong, with low levels of past dues and non-performing loans.
Alerus experienced another quarter of net recoveries, and our allowance to loan losses remains robust at 1.39% of total loans, in addition to the CECL add-back of approximately $5.5 million related to the Metro Phoenix acquisition. We remain highly selective in our lending and committed to franchise-building relationships. Capital levels also remain robust, with TCE of 7.72 and CET1 of 13.1%. During the quarter, Alerus returned $5 million to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. As we look ahead, the industry will continue to battle headwinds. Alerus, too, has some remaining near-term pressures. However, we are building a stronger than ever franchise. We are prudently adding new client relationships and improving profitability through ongoing infrastructure rightsizing and optimization. We are investing in key business lines while exiting non-core or franchise-accretive products and offerings.
Each move is purposeful and strategic in positioning Alerus to bring expertise to our clients in a fast, frictionless, highly responsive manner, while delivering valued advice and experience, which we believe will directly translate into value creation for our shareholders. With that, I will turn it over to Al to talk about our quarter and the financial performance.
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Thanks, Katie. I'll start my commentary on page 14 of our investor deck that is posted on the investor relations part of our website. Let's start with our key revenue drivers. On a reported basis, net interest income declined 8.3% on a linked quarter basis. The decline was driven primarily by a continued increase in funding costs. Net interest income represented 41.8% of revenues. Switching to fee income, non-interest income increased 10.2% on a linked quarter basis, primarily driven by the impact of the divestiture of our ESOP trustee business within our retirement and benefit services division. Excluding the ESOP trustee business, non-interest income grew 1.6% on a linked quarter basis. I'll go into detail about each of our fee income segments in later slides.
Turning to page 15, net interest income was $20.4 million in the third quarter. Net interest margin was 2.27%, a decrease of 25 basis points from the prior quarter. Impacting the net interest margin was about 3 basis points of accretion from the Metro Phoenix deal. During the third quarter, we saw improvement in our net interest margin after our index liabilities repriced in July. On a monthly basis, July was the low point for net interest margin during the quarter. As the quarter progressed, we saw our net interest margin gradually improve. We ended the quarter with a net interest margin of 2.3% for the month of September, which is higher than the 2.27% that we reported for the quarter.
Based on the Fed hike last July, we do expect our net interest margin to compress another 7-10 basis points from the 2.27%, since our index deposits will reprice in October. Should the Fed be done with raising rates, we do anticipate our net interest margin to continue to improve gradually as our earnings assets continue to remix and reprice into higher yielding loans. Let's turn to page 16 to talk about our loan portfolio. Total loans grew 2.9% from the prior quarter, driven by growth in C&I, commercial real estate, and residential real estate, offset by a decline in consumer-based loans. We continue to see strong growth in relationship-based lending, where we are providing multifaceted solutions to clients via our One Alerus strategy. For the remainder of 2023, we do continue to expect modest loan growth.
Turning to page 17, on a period-ending basis, our deposits increased 0.7% from the prior quarter. Non-interest-bearing deposits still represent 25% of total deposits. Client retention remains very high, and we continue to attract new clients. For the remainder of the year, we expect deposit levels to remain stable. Turning to page 18, you can see a further breakdown of our strong deposit base. Our synergistic deposits, those funds sourced from our wealth and retirement businesses, grew 21% over the prior year and 2.7% over the prior quarter. The strong year-over-year growth in synergistic deposits was driven mainly by strong organic client growth within our retirement and wealth segments. Synergistic deposits sourced from our retirement and wealth businesses now account for 26.5% of our deposit base.
Within synergistic deposits, HSA balances grew to $175.7 million, a $1.3 million increase over the prior quarter. HSA now accounts for over 23% of our synergistic deposits. HSA is a low-cost funding source and grows gradually over time due to its sticky nature. As you can see here, continued growth in our synergistic deposits shows the strength of our unique and differentiated business model. Turning to page 19, you'll see details about our investment portfolio. Currently, almost 68% of our securities are available for sale versus 32% in held to maturity. We did see unrealized losses increase as interest rates rose during the quarter. The duration of our investment portfolio remains slightly over five years.
We continue to let the investment portfolio run down and remix the balance sheet towards commercial lending relationships that will add higher-yielding loans and treasury management relationships. On page 20, I'll start to talk about our fee income businesses. On this page, I'll provide some highlights on our retirement business, which accounted for approximately 38% of our total revenues. End-of-quarter assets under management decreased 1.4%, mainly due to lower equity and bond markets. Participants within retirement have grown over 3% year to date. Revenues increased over 17% on a linked quarter basis, mainly due to the divestiture of our ESOP trustee business. On the bottom right of this slide, excluding the impact of the ESOP trustee business in both quarters, core retirement and benefits revenues were up over 3% on a linked quarter basis.
On a go-forward basis, $15.3 million is the right launch point for our retirement and benefits services division. For the fourth quarter, excluding any impact, we do expect fee income from our retirement businesses to go up slightly from the $15.3 million. Turning to page 21, you can see highlights from our wealth management business. On a linked-quarter basis, revenues decreased 3.3%, while end-of-quarter assets under management decreased 3.5% due to challenged equity and bond markets. Like retirement, wealth provides a strong source of funding for the bank, as it accounts for over 29% of our synergistic deposits. For the third quarter, excluding any market impact, we do expect the income for our wealth business to be up slightly as well. Turning to page 22, I'll talk about our mortgage business.
Mortgage revenues decreased 13.6% from the prior quarter, as originations were stable, but fair value hedges impacted results. Mortgage originations were stable from prior quarter, which is slightly better than MBA Purchase Index, which saw a 4% decrease. For the fourth quarter, we do expect mortgage originations to decrease over 30% as we enter a seasonally weaker quarter for our mortgage business. Page 23 provides an overview of our non-interest expense. During the quarter, non-interest expense increased 2.4%. Compensation remained stable, while professional fees increased due to high legal fees related to the divestiture of our ESOP Trustee Business. Despite inflationary pressures, we continue to expect expenses to be down low- to mid-single digits for 2023 on a year-over-year basis.
We continue to be focused on improving our profitability by reducing expenses and increasing capacity throughout our organization. We're looking to make continued progress on right-sizing our expense infrastructure through numerous initiatives. Some of these expense saves will be reinvested in efficiency improvements and revenue production initiatives. Turning to page 24, credit continues to remain very strong. We had net recoveries of 9 basis points in the quarter. Our non-performing assets percentage was 23 basis points compared to 7 basis points in the prior quarter, and our allowance for credit losses on loans to total loans remained stable at 1.39%. I'll discuss our capital and liquidity on page 25. During the quarter, we repurchased $1.2 million of outstanding stock at an average price of $17.98.
Our capital remains well above the regulatory minimums, even after share repurchases done during the quarter. Our common equity tier one capital to risk weighted assets is over 13%, which is over 300 basis points above the 9.9% stress minimum required by the largest U.S. financial institutions subjected to the Dodd-Frank Stress Test. On the bottom right, you'll see the breakdown of the sources of $2 billion in potential liquidity. Overall, we continue to remain well positioned from both a liquidity and capital standpoint to weather any economic uncertainty. To summarize on page 26, we are focused on making fundamental improvement and improving returns for our stakeholders. Our capital remains strong, and we remain committed to returning capital prudently.
Our diversified business continues to be to provide stability in a challenging macro environment, as almost over 50% of our revenues comes from fee income. Should the Fed remain on pause, we do expect our net interest margin to slowly improve as asset repricing and remixing should improve as earning asset yields improve. With that, I'll open up for Q&A.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. That's star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star followed by two, and please do also remember to unmute your microphone when it's your turn to speak. We do have our first question. It comes from Jeff Rulis from D.A. Davidson. Jeff, your line is now open. Please proceed.
Jeff Rulis (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Thank you. Good morning. Just a quick question.
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Good morning, Jeff.
Jeff Rulis (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Al, on the margins, I just want to make sure I got this right. You talked about kind of another leg down, 7-10 basis points, given kind of the index deposit. I'm trying to meet that with kind of the commentary about if the Fed pauses, is that kind of more of an idea well into 2024? If you could just guide me through Q4 and 2024 expectations on the margin.
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Yes. Thanks, Jeff. So for Q4, we do expect about 7-10 basis points of margin compression, but we do expect our exit rate to improve from basically October to December. So as we go into 2024, we do expect net interest margin improvement throughout 2024, even if there's another Fed hike in there.
Jeff Rulis (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay, and a pause with...
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
The Fed hike we're anticipating right now... Go ahead.
Jeff Rulis (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay.
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
All right.
Jeff Rulis (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Sorry. If we do not have a hike, that's net better for the margin?
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Correct. Correct.
Jeff Rulis (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay.
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
What I was going to clarify is that we are anticipating, based on the Fed dot plot, another 25 basis points of Fed hike.
Jeff Rulis (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. On the credit side, I just wanted to kind of get where the type of loans, the non-accrual, non-accruals, where those came from, you know, kind of how the legacy relationship is, just a little more detail on what was added.
Karin Taylor (Chief Risk and Operating Officer)
Sure, Jeff, this is Karin. Yeah, that's a commercial credit. And it's in our Arizona market. It's, you know, I would say it's part of what we expect in terms of just credit normalization. The issues this credit is experiencing are unique to the credit. It's not indicative of a broader issue.
Jeff Rulis (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
And so it was, it was really centered on, in one credit then, was the increase?
Karin Taylor (Chief Risk and Operating Officer)
Yes, the entire increase is in one credit.
Jeff Rulis (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay, got it. I guess just one last one. Just the buyback appetite, that seems like a little pick up this quarter, but as we look out and balancing sort of capital and the environment, where do you stand on that as we head into Q4?
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Yep. So Jeff, we have the buyback is in place, but you know, we are watching prices because we want to make sure that the payback is within our, you know, within three years is what we typically look at.
Jeff Rulis (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. I'll step back. Thank you.
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Thank you, Jeff.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from David Feaster from Raymond James. David, your line's now open. Please go ahead.
David Feaster (Managing Director)
Hey, good morning, everybody.
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
Good morning.
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Hey, David.
David Feaster (Managing Director)
Hey, maybe just starting out on the funding dynamics from your perspective and just some of the trends you're seeing. Obviously, it's incredibly competitive. I'm just curious, some of the deposit initiatives that you're putting in place to drive core deposit growth, and then how, you know, how are core deposits and deposit costs trending across your footprint? I appreciate the balances are expected to be stable, but I'm just curious how, you know, the core deposit side is trending. And you know, whether you're able to see that mix improve or are CDs gonna kind of be the stopgap near term, and just how you think about costs?
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
Sure, I'll start. This is Katie. From an initiative standpoint, it is all about the talent that we're attracting into the organization. As I mentioned earlier, mid-market C&I bankers, bankers focused in the deposit-rich verticals, as well as continuing to invest and build out our treasury management team. That has been key to the wins as well as the retention. From a mix standpoint, we certainly are seeing an increase in the CD book. I will say the majority of that business is multiple relationships, and so continue to be core, core client business. We also are able to retain dollars.
We're seeing increases in our wealth management money market fund, but the dollars are staying with the company, which we believe is a key positive.
David Feaster (Managing Director)
Okay, terrific.
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
Does that answer your question or how else you want it?
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Yeah. So, yeah. David?
David Feaster (Managing Director)
Yep.
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Just in terms of pricing, you know, the way I, I would like to think about it is that, you know, our index deposits typically reprice in the first month of a new quarter if there's any hikes in the prior quarter. So you'll see a little bit of repricing in October from those, and those, those will hit on money market specifically, but we only have about 14% of our deposits are indexed. Okay? We're not seeing much more pressure in terms of, you know, broad-based, you know, lift. You know, that was kind of all front-end loaded at the beginning of the year. So, you know, we've seen our deposit beta stabilize at this point. So I think at this point, it'll just be a little bit on the margin here and there outside of just the index liabilities.
You know, but again, too, something we were focused on, too, from a strategy standpoint is, you know, constantly looking at where we can get, you know, new relationships slash low-cost funding for us. And that's why we highlighted in the prepared comments HSAs, because those are really a great source for us, especially when they carry a cost of only about 10-20 basis points.
David Feaster (Managing Director)
Yep, that makes a ton of sense. And then maybe kind of just following up on maybe touching on the other side of the coin, right? I mean, you know, you guys have done a great job growing loans. Obviously, new loan yields are much improved. I'm just curious, how do you think about, you know, the pace of remix in the earning asset and the repricing schedule there? And ultimately, kind of how does that play into the pace of margin expansion? You know, appreciate the guidance on you know, the next quarter, but I know we're going to be expanding throughout 2024. I'm just curious, how do you think about the pace of expansion? You know, because you guys are doing a great job defending deposit costs and, you know, repricing higher.
Just curious how you think about that.
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Yeah. David, this is Al. I can take that one on. In terms of, you know, our expansion, I mean, the way I kind of think about it, there's kind of two parts of the managing this margin. The first part of it is that, you know, we do have a securities book with about a five-year duration, okay? So if you think about, you think about that. Now, granted, there was some investments that came in late- those came in later in 2021 and early 2022, but that, that should roll off and provide us a source of liquidity. And that investment portfolio right now is yielding somewhere in the, you know, like the 2.5%, mid-2s range. So that's going to mature. We're reinvesting that into, you know, funding loans on a go-forward basis.
Now, also, too, when you look at our, you know, our commercial book, you know, ex-residential, and I'm quoting ex-residential loans, our commercial book has about a five-year also life in there as well. So as those loans, kind of some of those loans that were done pre-pandemic, that were done at lower yields, kind of come off, they'll be remixing as well into higher, higher yielding products, loans for us as well. So those, those are two components. But then the third component also be aware of is that about 40% of our loans are floating as well, or adjustable.
David Feaster (Managing Director)
Okay. Okay, perfect. And then just last one from me. You guys have done a great job managing expenses. You talked about that in the prepared remarks. I guess, first, I was hoping you could maybe elaborate on the decision to sell the ESOP business and maybe the plans to redirect that capital and those resources, just how you think about additional investments going forward. Is now the right time to be maybe a bit more opportunistic with hiring and, you know, maybe segment or geographic expansion while others are starting to pull back? Just curious how you think about that.
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
Yes, this is Katie. Absolutely, now is the time. In regards specifically to the ESOP business, a very small piece of the overall business, and again, it was the ESOP trustee business. So we retained the record keeping and administration of that ESOP business. But the trustee business, a very small portion, and so, better suited served for the leaders that took that over, and then their ability to grow it so that we are, you know, redirecting our resources all to those core product lines, where the opportunity to scale and continue to grow in the business is very significant, especially in with Secure Act 2.0, that we've talked about on previous calls. And our investments in that business line, we, you know, we invested in a consultant to come in.
We are continuing to invest in talent. We are investing our internal resources in terms of project prioritization into that business line, again, to streamline, to improve processes, and at the end of the day, of course, make for a better client experience. In addition, we are investing in an executive 100% focused on the business. The last time that Alerus had an executive whose primary and total responsibility was on the retirement business was when we experienced tremendous growth from $2 million to $60 million in revenue. So that would be the other facet of the investments in this business line.
David Feaster (Managing Director)
Terrific. That's great. Thank you.
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Thanks, David.
Operator (participant)
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. That's star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question is from Nathan Race, from Piper Sandler. Nathan, your line is now open. Please proceed.
Nathan Race (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Great. Thank you. Hope everyone's doing well. Question maybe for Al. Sounds like, you know, with the margin guidance, NII is gonna come down a little further here in the fourth quarter. And just curious to kind of get your thoughts on how you think about, you know, NII growth next year, in a higher-for-longer interest rate environment. Looks like, you know, NII is tracking down, you know, 12%-13% for this year, but just curious how you think about the growth potential of NII under that environment.
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Yeah. Thanks, Nate. I mean, so for NII growth, I mean, we are looking at for it to be stable up some next year, but, you know, a lot of it, we're just looking right now, you know, what is the loan outlook to drive that? But from a NIM basis, you know, we do think that we are closer to a trough on our managed margin, too. So, you know, those are kind of things we're kind of thinking about as we head into 2024.
Nathan Race (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Gotcha. And in terms of funding future loan growth, it sounds like you have some cash flow coming off the securities book that can help that. And, you know, hopefully there'll be some deposit growth, starting the year after some stability this year. So do you see an opportunity to kind of reduce some wholesale funding levels to hopefully support, you know, greater NII growth next year? Or how are you kind of just thinking about, you know, the, the level of wholesale funding that you could potentially unwind as hopefully deposit growth increases in 2024?
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Yeah, we definitely would love to see more deposits coming in the door. Deposits is king, you know, and we'd love to... You know, deposits is what, you know, just, it's music to my ears these days. So as we look into our 2024 planning, you know, we are very focused on bringing in deposits and deposit relationships. You know, the question right now is given, you know, how much liquidity is coming onto the system, you know, what is out of our control, is trying to figure that out as well. But, you know, we've brought in a tremendous amount of talent, especially on the treasury management side, to help us with those deposit gathering activities.
Nathan Race (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Mm-hmm. Gotcha. Makes sense. And then just kind of a bigger picture question on some of the fee income lines. You know, obviously, challenging equity markets was a headwind to, you know, wealth management and retirement revenue in the third quarter. But if we get kind of more stable market valuations going forward, and with all the initiatives that you guys have put in place to, you know, increase the capture rate from the retirement platform into wealth, how are you guys kind of thinking about, you know, the opportunity to grow those two lines into next year, particularly as you allocate more resources to the retirement unit, you know, related to the ESOP trustee sale?
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
Sure. I'll start, and then, Al-
Nathan Race (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Nate, I can-
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
Oh.
Nathan Race (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Go ahead, Katie.
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
Okay. Sorry. So in regards to just, you know, top-line revenue growth, certainly stable improving markets will help both of those divisions. From a momentum standpoint, in both business lines, we continue to add new clients, core client business really within our sweet spot and within our target markets. We are. The initiatives I speak to are really about improving efficiencies and margins in the business, as well as opening up additional capacity to continue to bring on that new business. So we have some initiatives where we're seeing early success. I think it's still a little bit too early to call, but definitely putting the right processes in place to really grow this and are seeing some early indications of success.
With that, I think I'll turn it over to you, Al, in terms of guidance.
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Yep. So just as we think about next year, I mean, you know, the $15.3 million for Alerus retirement is the launch point, which we talked about. We'll see probably gradual improvement in there because only about 35% of our revenues there are market sensitive, so the rest of it's really dependent on growth and plans of participants, which we would continue to see growth in that area. So, you know, we're pretty optimistic on that side.
Nathan Race (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay.
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
And then, Jim, is there anything you want to add on there?
Jim Collins (Executive VP and Chief Banking and Revenue Officer)
Nate, I was just gonna-
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Okay.
Jim Collins (Executive VP and Chief Banking and Revenue Officer)
This is Jim Collins. I was just gonna add and reiterate, really what Katie said, is our, our expectation of core new client growth from our existing staff, due to the, due to the on, the oncoming of the private banking team and the synergies that those teams are building, I think is really important, that we will see that growth. In addition, we've, instituted a, a much more aggressive recruiting plan for those lower, entry-level, advisors that can help harvest out of the 401(k) rollovers. So I think that's where we'll see additional growth next year.
Nathan Race (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. Very helpful. And just maybe one last one for Katie. Curious if you're kind of more or less optimistic today, on, you know, potential acquisitions on the retirement side of things, in light of, you know, what you're seeing from a pricing perspective in your discussions with potential partners, and what you're seeing from a competitive perspective, relative to other entities that are also maybe looking to expand in that space.
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
I think we sit very well positioned from a competitive standpoint in all of our business lines. I think our company's got a really unique story to tell and a very strong reputation. And that, in and of itself, is having more volume of calls coming our direction in terms of interest in looking to potentially partner with us. So we'll continue to be very prudent and disciplined as we look at those opportunities, but I would say the momentum is trending in the right direction for future talent lift-out, strategic, opportunistic acquisitions.
Nathan Race (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. That's great to hear. I appreciate it, the color, and you guys taking the questions.
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
Thanks, Nate.
Al Villalon (EVP and CFO)
Thanks, Nate.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from Damon DelMonte, from KBW. Damon, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Matt Renck (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Hi, this is Matt Renck from KBW, filling in for Damon DelMonte. Hope everybody's doing well. Most of my questions have been asked and answered-
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
Yeah.
Matt Renck (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Just as a follow-up, hi, just as a follow-up, the IRA rollovers $100 million, just to put some context around that number, where do you think you could grow that to in 2024 with the new initiatives?
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
Sure. You know, just to, for context, that's about an 8% capture rate today, and has been mostly on the reactive side. And the initiatives are really around proactive reach out to these individuals at a very timely, in a very timely way, and high touch way. And then as Jim referenced, continuing to build our talent pool with the opportunities. And we are, we know we are a very, we have, we have a differentiator in attracting that talent to our company because of this opportunity. So, we anticipate continuing to see that capture rate of 8% increasing.
Matt Renck (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. So do you think it could potentially reach, like, 10%-15%, or is it more gradual than that?
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
I would say, it takes time, so it'll be a little more gradual than that.
Matt Renck (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, got it. That's all for me. I'll step back. Thank you.
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
Thanks, Matt.
Operator (participant)
We currently have no further questions, so I would like to hand back to Katie Lorenson for closing remarks. Over to you.
Katie Lorenson (President and CEO)
Perfect. Thank you, and thank you, everyone, for the questions. I will end with just a comment about the company and our unique strength of our diversified business model, which, again, continues to differentiate our ability to attract and retain clients, as well as talented professionals. We remain laser focused on our strong and diversified balance sheet, talent investments, fee income, and investments in our key business lines, while again, optimizing our infrastructure to return our company to our long history of delivering strong profitability, tangible book value growth, and top-tier returns to our shareholders. Thank you to our investors, our analysts, and to everyone joining the call today. Have a great day.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.