Welcome to Wintrust Financial Corporation's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings conference call. A review of the results will be made by Tim Crane, President and Chief Executive Officer, David Dykstra, Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer, and Richard Murphy, Vice Chairman and Chief Lending Officer. As part of their reviews, the presenters may make reference to both the earnings press release and the earnings release presentation. Following their presentations, there will be a formal question-and-answer session. During the course of today's call, Wintrust management may make statements that constitute projections, expectations, beliefs, or similar forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from the results anticipated or projected in any such forward-looking statements. The company's forward-looking assumptions that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the information discussed during this call are detailed in our earnings press release and in the company's most recent Form 10-K and any subsequent filings with the SEC. Also, our remarks may reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Our earnings press release and earnings release presentation include a reconciliation of each non-GAAP financial measure to the nearest comparable GAAP financial measure. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Tim Crane. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for the fourth quarter and full year call. For those we haven't spoken to recently, Happy New Year. In addition to Dave Dykstra and Rich Murphy, who the host introduced, Dave Stoehr, our Chief Financial Officer, and Kate Boege, our General Counsel, are with me. In terms of an agenda, I'll share some high-level highlights. Dave Dykstra will speak to the financial results, and Rich will add some additional information and color on credit performance. I'll wrap up with some summary thoughts on 2024, and as always, we'll do our best to answer some questions. For the year, we reported record net income of just over $622 million, up 22% over 2023. The results reflect our conservative approach to managing and growing our franchise. Specifically, we target steady growth in both loans and deposits, sound and conservative liquidity and risk management, and an unwavering commitment to taking care of our clients. In our materials, as we do at every year-end, we have also included a series of 10-year historical charts that show solid progress on key metrics, evidence that our approach not only works but differentiates us from many of our peers. While this is not new information, we think these charts are meaningful evidence of our strong and consistent performance. If you haven't already, I would encourage you to look at and review these materials. For the fourth quarter, net income was just over $123 million, a solid result given the recognition of a $34.4 million extraordinary expense related to the replenishment of the FDIC fund following the March bank failures, and an approximately $10 million expense related to the write-down of certain mortgage-related assets due to the falling interest rates during the quarter. We reported record net interest income of $470 million, up approximately $8 million from the third quarter as a result of both an increase in the net interest margin of 2 basis points to 3.64 and continued good loan growth. Deposits were also up in the quarter. Non-interest-bearing deposits increased slightly and were steady as a percentage of total deposits. While we continue to expect credit performance to normalize from the very low levels experienced over the last few years, our losses and NPLs remain low. Despite these low credit losses, we've continued to build the allowance, and as you'll hear from Rich, we continue to proactively address challenged credits in our portfolio. I would highlight that our allowance coverage for core loans, excluding primarily our low-loss insurance finance portfolio, is at a healthy 1.55%. This detail is in table 12 of our press release. The market rate decreases during the quarter that caused the adjustment to the value of the mortgage assets also led to a material improvement in AOCI, driving up our book value and capital levels. The tangible book value increased by $385 million to over $70 a share during the quarter. You'll see in one of the charts that I mentioned that our book value has increased every year during the 10-year period shown. In fact, if you were to go further back, our tangible book value has increased every year since the company went public in 1996. Our liquidity position remains strong. Overall, a solid quarter, which we believe will compare well and may differentiate us relative to many of our competitors. With that, I'll turn this over to Dave and Rich, and as I mentioned, I'll come back and wrap up with some thoughts on the 2024 outlook. Great. Thanks, Tim. First, with respect to the balance sheet growth, we were again pleased to see loans for the quarter grow by approximately $686 million or 7% on an annualized basis, consistent with our prior guidance of mid to high single-digit loan growth. The increase in loans was across many of the loan categories, but was primarily related to commercial real estate and commercial premium finance portfolio growth, and Rich Murphy will talk about that, in just a little bit. The company also recorded deposit growth of $404 million during the quarter, which is a 4% increase over the prior quarter on an annualized basis. As to deposit composition, non-interest bearing deposits at the end of the third quarter and fourth quarter both represented 23% of total deposits, evidencing the stabilization of the non-interest bearing balances during the latter half of 2023. Other balance sheet results were that total assets grew by approximately $705 million. We had slightly increased ending loan to deposit ratio, and our capital ratios were relatively stable, with most of those ratios increasing slightly. Overall, a very successful quarter for the growth of the franchise. Our differentiated business model, exceptional team and service, and the unique position in Chicago and Milwaukee markets continues to serve us very well in that regard. Turning to the income statement categories, starting with net interest income. For the fourth quarter of 2023, net interest income totaled $470 million, an increase of $7.6 million as compared to the prior quarter, and an increase of $13.2 million as compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. I should note that the fourth quarter net interest income represents the highest quarterly amount ever recorded by the company. The increase in net interest income as compared to the prior quarter, was primarily due to an increase in average earning assets of approximately $509 million. An increase in the company's net interest margin also contributed to the increase in net interest income. The net interest margin was 3.64% in the fourth quarter, which was two basis points higher than the prior quarter level. Accordingly, as we discussed on prior calls, our balance sheet composition, structure, and repricing characteristics provided for a relatively stable net interest margin during the quarter. Based on the current interest rate environment, we believe we can maintain our net interest margin within a narrow range around the current levels during the first quarter of 2024 and beyond in 2024, assuming the rates stay roughly the same. I'd also like to note that total loans as of December 31 were $770 million higher than the average total loans in the fourth quarter, which obviously provides us with some momentum into the first quarter of 2024. The combination of the expected balance sheet growth and relatively stable net interest margin should allow for further growth of our net interest income in the first quarter of this year. Turning to the provision for credit losses. Wintrust recorded a provision for credit losses of $42.9 million in the fourth quarter. This is up from a provision of $19.9 million in the prior quarter, but actually down from the $47.6 million of provision recorded in the year ago quarter. The higher provision expense in the fourth quarter relative to the third quarter was primarily a result of higher net loan growth during the quarter, a slightly higher level of net charge-offs, and some deterioration in the forecasted macroeconomic conditions, primarily wider forecasted Baa credit spreads and forecasted depreciation in the commercial real estate price index. Rich will talk about the credit and loan characteristics in just a bit. Regarding the other non-interest income and non-interest expense, total non-interest income totaled $100.8 million in the fourth quarter, which was down approximately $11.6 million when compared to the prior quarter. The primary reason for the decline was related to $20 million less of mortgage banking revenue. Relative to the third quarter, mortgage revenue had a $9.7 million dollar unfavorable change in net valuation adjustments from our mortgage servicing rights assets and certain other mortgage-related assets that we hold at fair value. Those declines are really due to a decline late in the fourth quarter in the mortgage rates and accelerated prepayment speeds. We also experienced $7 million dollars decline in production revenue due to seasonally lower volume and compressed gain on sale margins. But I think it's interesting to note that although our production revenue was lower than the prior quarter, it's actually higher than the fourth quarter of the prior year, which is encouraging for us. We are also encouraged that with the lower rate environment, that our application volume is ticking up early in 2024 thus far. Albeit still at low levels, we are seeing increases over application volumes that we were receiving in January of last year, and in application volumes that are slightly up from December of 2023. There was a variety of relatively smaller changes to the other non-interest income categories, as shown in the tables in the earnings release, but those changes were not unusual, and in the aggregate, resulted in an increase in the non-mortgage related categories of approximately $8.3 million from the prior quarter. Turning to non-interest expenses. Non-interest expenses totaled $362.7 million in the fourth quarter, and were up approximately $32.6 million from the prior quarter. The primary reason for the increase was the negative impact of the $34.4 million special assessment by the FDIC to pay for the two of the bank failures that occurred earlier in 2023. The remaining variances in non-interest expense, both positive and negative, offset to a relatively small reduction in non-interest expenses from the prior quarter of just under $2 million. In summary, it was a very solid quarter in our view, with good loan and deposit growth, a stable net interest margin with a steady outlook, a record level of net interest income, and a continued low level of non-performing assets. We feel like we've managed well through a somewhat turbulent period in 2023, delivering net income that was a record for any full fiscal year in the company's history. We have a positive outlook for continued growth in assets, revenue, and earnings. Although it's easy to get caught up in looking at the quarterly results, I think it's also instructive to occasionally look back over time. As Tim referred to, we included some 10-year charts in the earnings release that I think provide some impressive evidence that our approach to running the business has provided for consistent growth in loans, deposits, earnings, and Tangible Book Value per share over an extended period of time, all while managing credit risk very well. We'll work hard to continue those trends in 2024 and beyond, and increase shareholder returns. So with that, I'll conclude my comments and turn it over to Rich Murphy to discuss credit. Thanks, Dave. As Tim and Dave noted earlier, credit performance continued to be very solid in the fourth quarter from a number of perspectives. As detailed on slide 7 of the deck, loan growth for the quarter was $686 million, and similar to the third quarter, this growth was driven by a number of factors. We continue to see a harder market for insurance premiums, particularly for commercial properties, resulting in higher average loan sizes in our commercial premium finance portfolio. And consolidation within the premium finance industry has provided us with a number of new opportunities. We saw good growth in the commercial real estate portfolio, resulting largely from draws on existing construction loans. And finally, our leasing group had another very solid quarter. Total loan growth for all of 2023 was $2.9 billion or 7%. We believe that loan growth for 2024 will continue to be within our guidance for the following reasons: The commercial premium finance team should continue to show solid growth as premiums continue to be elevated. Our various pipelines have stayed very solid, and our leasing team continues to see significant demand in the market. And as we have noted in prior calls, we continue to benefit from disruptions in the banking landscape, and we've seen numerous quality opportunities in our core C&I and CRE business. In addition, we continue to look at a number of lending teams and niche lending opportunities that come from dislocation of the regional banks. Offsetting this growth will be continued pressure on C&I line utilization, which dropped from 37% to 34% year-over-year, as higher borrowing costs have negatively affected usage. We anticipate that higher borrowing costs will continue to cause borrowers to reconsider the economics of new projects, business expansion, and equipment purchases. In summary, we continue to be optimistic about our ability to grow loans in 2024, and we believe our diversified portfolio and position within the competitive landscape will allow us to grow within our guidance of mid- to high-single digits and maintain our credit discipline. From a credit quality perspective, as detailed on slide 14, we continue to see strong credit performance across the portfolio. This can be seen in a number of metrics. Non-performing loans increased by $6 million during the quarter from 32 basis points to 33 basis points. While NPLs have increased from 26 basis points to 33 basis points during 2023, they continue to be at historically low levels, and we are confident about the solid credit performance of the portfolio. Charge-offs for the quarter were $14.9 million, or 14 basis points, up from $8.1 million, or 8 basis points in Q3. Finally, as detailed on slide 14, we saw stable levels in our special mention and substandard loans, with no meaningful signs of additional economic stress at the customer level. As noted in our last few earnings calls, we continue to be highly focused on our exposure to commercial real estate loans, which comprises roughly one quarter of our total portfolio. Higher borrowing costs and pressure on occupancy and lease rates are cause for concern, particularly in the office category, as we've noted before. On our second quarter call earlier this year, we noted that we were very focused on a subset of office loans, which are secured by co-working properties. At that time, we had sold a portfolio of approximately $17 million, which reduced our total co-working exposure in half. During the fourth quarter, we saw an increase in CRE NPLs of $17.4 million, which was largely due to a downgrade of a single co-working loan to non-performing. It is important to note that the underlying loan is current and has been previously identified as a potential non-accrual due to cash flow issues. We continue to work with the borrower to determine the most cost-effective strategy going forward. On slide 18, we have updated a number of important characteristics of our office portfolio. Currently, this portfolio remains steady at $1.4 billion or 12.8% of our total CRE portfolio, and only 3.4% of our total loan portfolio. Of the $1.4 billion of office exposure, 42% is medical office or owner occupied. The average size of the portfolio in, loan in the office portfolio is only $1.4 million, and, we continue to have only five loans above $20 million in this category. We continue to perform reviews regularly on this portfolio, and we stay very engaged with our borrowers. As mentioned on prior calls, our CRE credit team regularly updates their deep dive analysis of every loan over $2.5 million, which we'll be renewing between now and the end of the third quarter of 2024. This analysis, which covered 82% of all CRE loans maturing during this period, resulted in the following: Approximately one-half of these loans will clearly qualify for a renewal at prevailing rates. Roughly 35% of these loans are anticipated to be paid off or will require a short-term extension at prevailing rates. The remaining 14% of these loans will require some additional attention, which could include a paydown or a pledge of additional collateral. It's important to note that the previously mentioned loans secured by co-working space had been identified during our prior deep dive analysis. We have backchecked the results of these tests conducted during prior quarters and have found that the projected outcomes versus actual outcomes were very tightly correlated, and generally speaking, borrowers of loans deemed to require additional attention continue to support their loans by providing enhancements, including principal reductions. Again, our portfolio is not immune from the effects of rising rates or the market forces behind lease rates, but we continue to proactively identify weaknesses in the portfolio and work with our borrowers to identify the best possible outcomes. We believe that our portfolio is in reasonably good shape and situated to weather the challenges ahead. That concludes my comments on credit, and I'll turn it back to Tim. Great. Thanks, Rich. To wrap up our prepared remarks, we continue to believe that we are well-positioned, perhaps uniquely well-positioned, to take advantage of the current environment with our diverse businesses. Over the last several quarters, we've taken steps to achieve an interest sensitivity position much closer to neutral. You can see some specific data on table 8 in our press release. While we don't believe that rapid rate cuts are warranted at this point, we are assuming that there'll be three 25-basis-point rate cuts in 2024. With that assumption, as Dave mentioned, our net interest margin will be reasonably stable in a narrow range around the current level for the near term. More interest rate cuts above and beyond the three we've assumed would slightly pressure the margin, but would also likely result in more favorable economic activity as an offset. For example, improvements in our mortgage business and growth in commercial line utilization, which Rich mentioned is at currently very low levels. So to reiterate our prior comments, our target is to continue to grow loans in the mid- to high-single-digit range in terms of a percentage, and to fund the loan growth through deposit increases at like levels. Our pipelines remain solid, and as Dave mentioned, we experienced strong growth at the end of the fourth quarter, which represents good momentum going into the first quarter of 2024. Overall, we're pleased with the 2023 results, and we're encouraged about where we start 2024. I know there'll be some questions, so at this point, I'll pause, and we can turn it back to the host. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. Again, that's star one one on your telephone to ask a question. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of John Arfstrom of RBC Capital Markets. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Morning, John. Hi, maybe Tim or Dave, just wanted to ask about the—some of the last comments you made, Tim. On your expectations for the margin to remain in the current range, can you talk about what you guys are doing to protect the margin around these levels? You know, think about your loan growth guidance and the net interest income growth potential. It seems a little better than peers, particularly your loan growth. But just talk about how you're protecting the margin and your confidence that we can, you know, maintain the current range, you know, absent greater than three cuts. Yeah, and thanks, John, and Dave can add to this. You know, we've talked about the fact that we've got an asset-sensitive loan book that continues to reprice. And at this point, the repricing in our loan book is closely correlated to what we're seeing in terms of the increase in deposit costs. We expect that, you know, for at least a short period going forward here, that that will continue to be the case, and that, you know, the spread between our loan and deposits will be roughly stable. You know, I would characterize stable as, you know, ± some number of basis points around 3.6. So we feel pretty good about that, and, you know, we've baked in the three cuts, you know, starting in June. If those cuts are either deeper or more, then, you know, I think we've got probably some pressure on the margin, but an offset in other parts of our business. Yeah, and another thing to focus, I mean, I think that's true. The structure of the balance sheet also helps, too. You know, the premium finance book, which is a third of our portfolio, sort of lagged on the way up, but if rates go down, it also lags on the way down. So there's benefit to us there. As you know, and as we've disclosed in the materials, we've got, you know, over $6 billion worth of interest rate derivatives that will also assist us if rates fall down. So we've, you know, we were patient on when rates went up to allow the margin to expand, and as we hit the upper 3s, we felt like we should reduce that asset sensitivity and lock in the rates through, you know, balance sheet management and derivatives. And we've tried to become relatively neutral on that rate now just by using both the structure and the derivatives to be somewhat neutral here. So, you know, competition's out there, so it'll depend on what the competition does with loan and deposit pricing if rates move. But right now, the way we look at the world, we think we can hold it pretty tight. Yep. Okay, that's helpful. Just one more revenue question, just on mortgage. You touched on it, but obviously a tougher revenue quarter for mortgage, and I get it. But I think what you're saying is, you know, originations look good, spreads were depressed, and if we, you know, don't have the same headwinds on the MSR, maybe we can repeat the kind of quarter that we saw in the first quarter of 2023. Is that fair, Dave? Maybe even potentially a little better. Yeah, you know, I think that's pretty accurate, John. I mean, our production revenue was, you know, down about $7 million. To about $7 million of production revenue. Yeah. But that was higher than, you know, about $3 million of production revenue in 2022, and we had $8 million-$9 million of production revenue in 2023. So what we're seeing is right now, at least for the first part of January, applications are ticking up. Again, not wildly, but they are up from December and November, and clearly, they're up from where we were in January of 2023. So I would expect that revenue would sort of get back to those levels, based on what we know right now. Again, it's not gonna be a spike up, but I do think we're gonna sort of return to where we've been in the previous few quarters. And then, hopefully, that, you know, if the spring buying season hits, that, you know, mortgage rates are down a little bit, and hence one of the reasons some of the MSR values declined a little bit. But, you know, hopefully that decline in rate spurs a little bit of additional home buying activity, come March and April. ... Yep. Yeah, it'll be interesting to watch. Just a little rebound would be good, though. I, I- Yep. Agree on that, so. Yep. Okay. Thanks a lot, guys. I appreciate it. Thank you, Todd. Thank you. Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Chris McGratty of KBW. Hey, good morning. Hi, Chris. Hi, Chris. Maybe, maybe a question for Rich. I mean, you guys have, in the past four quarters, I would say proactively built the reserve when, when things are still good. Given where your reserve sits today, I guess, can you just speak to the potential need or desire to, to build reserves additionally in, in early 2024? Or is this just kind of a get ahead of it and, and build it while you can? You know, CECL doesn't necessarily work that way. I mean, yeah, so I mean, if you were asking me how the provisioning should work, it would not necessarily result in the same things that we're getting out of the CECL models. Because, you know, as Dave pointed out, I mean, we, the BAA spreads, you know, that the way they reacted, definitely affected what we had to do in the fourth quarter. You know, there's just, the loan growth affected it. You know, it's not necessarily what Rich Murphy thinks about the quality of the portfolio. I do think that, you know, what we've done, as you point out, you know, at the end of last year, this year, you know, was pretty material. I think we have put ourselves in a very good position going forward. If CECL works like it's supposed to work, we're actually pre-funding the losses that, you know, should accumulate down the road. I actually, I feel really good as to where the allowance is given the shape of our portfolio right now. Okay. And Chris, I can maybe chime in a little bit. I think if you look at it sort of globally, without getting too far into the weeds, you know, if you look in the presentation, you know, our criticized assets that we have a special mention in substandard and good, you know, those percentages held very stable. You know, charge-offs were still low at 14 basis points, a little higher than second quarter, but still pretty low. And we had a little bit more growth in the quarter. But, you know, all those things weren't too different quarter -to -quarter. So as you look at that increase, I think most of that is the macroeconomic factors and the biggest one that impacted us in our models. And everybody uses different factors for, you know, their modeling. But the BAA credit spread has a high correlation in to many of our loan lines that we model for. And that spread over the eight, you know, eight-quarter period that we look at going out expanded quite a bit, which had a big impact on our provisioning. So, if, you know, if the soft landing thoughts gain traction and the consensus view amongst the economists out there are that those spreads should tighten in, then we should see some benefit going forward. But in the fourth quarter, it was worse than the third quarter, and it really generated the extra reserves. Thanks for the, Okay, that's great. Great, great color. Thanks. Just, I know, some banks have disclosed which of the Moody's scenarios and the S4, S2, what they weigh. Have you - can you remind us if you've communicated, like, what scenario is currently factored or the weightings of the scenarios? Yeah, I mean well, we've looked at all the Moody's factors. We also look at some, you know, Blue Chip, other sort of, consensus forecasts that are out there. But, we are using the baseline scenario of Moody's, but, you know, and various factors out of that baseline scenario. Okay. Maybe just one more, and I'll hop back. The capital outlook, mid- to high-singles is your balance sheet growth. You know, your ROE can certainly support more growth. How do we think about perhaps other uses of capital in 2024? Any thawing in M&A conversations, is that something you would consider? Any color on capital use would be great. Thanks. Yeah, well, you know, the straightforward part is that, as you said, the earnings of the company should support the loan growth. That's been the case for several quarters now, but, you know, it isn't a long-term trend for Wintrust, where, you know, typically we've needed to add capital. To the extent, you know, one, we continue to build capital, that's good. And on the M&A front, I would say that the conversations are, you know, still active, but, you know, there's also not a lot of activity. And I don't know that, you know, others who might be in a position that's better to talk about that would think that there's going to be a short-term change there. You know, clearly, the rates coming down have helped the AOCI situation for a number of people who, you know, had impaired either loan books or securities portfolio. But, we, you know, we've been acquisitive in the past. I think we may be in the future, but we're disciplined about it. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Casey Haire of Jefferies. Yeah, thanks. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Wanted to touch a little bit on the NIM stability guide. Just along those three cuts, what kind of deposit beta you guys are assuming throughout the year, if we get those kind of cuts? Yeah, well, I think generally, we're believing that at this point, that if the Fed cuts, you know, 25 basis point, the for the non-CD, you know, term CDs that are fixed, that we should be able to reduce the rates fairly quickly by 25 basis points. So we're expecting to as we increased rates rapidly, as rates went up, we're expecting to be able to follow fairly closely with cuts in our money markets and savings and the like. Casey, the other thing we're seeing, we don't have a, you know, huge book of municipal deposits, but, you know, some of those have reference rates, if you will. And we're starting to see, as a result of what's happening with rates, those index or reference rates come down, and so we, we've seen some minor benefit on a portion of the book already. Okay, great. Just a question on the fixed rate asset repricing benefit. In the release, you guys call out about $8 billion that matures within or reprices within the next year. Just wondering, do you have what the yield is on that and what it could reprice to? Yeah, no, we haven't disclosed that, Casey. We—I don't have it handy here right now, but we'll think about putting that in future releases. Okay, great. And just lastly, the loan-to-deposit ratio ticked up a little bit, you know, to 93%. I think you guys talked about 85%-90%. I know you're talking about, you know, funding loan growth with deposits, but just wondering if there is a hard cap on that loan-to-deposit ratio. No, I—we think we like it as sort of in this range is fine with us. It ticked up a little bit. I would expect it to come down again next quarter. A lot of our loan growth just happened near the end of the quarter, and so we were just trying to match deposit and loan growth, and there's a lot that flowed in towards the latter part of December. So, just a little probably mismatch on the timing of the deposit raising, but I probably expect that to drift back down to 92 again next quarter or so. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Again, to ask a question, please press star one one on your touchtone telephone. Again, that's star one one on your touchtone telephone to queue up for a question. Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Rulis of D.A. Davidson. Hi, thanks. Good morning. Rich, I wanted to circle back on the cowork. You singled out the one credit of, I think, $17.4 million. What is the total remaining cowork exposure? Negligible. You know, I think there might be a, you know, certainly under $5 million, you know, I think pretty well below that. There might be a couple of small pieces, but generally, that we're largely with this issue being largely addressed, I think that largely is behind us. Okay. So that was the bulk of it. I guess, and then just sort of tracking some of those tables towards the back, was that credit identified and sliding from kind of past due? No, the loan was current. there. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. Okay. And maybe on the... Just hopping to expenses, safe to assume that quarterly FDIC insurance reverts back to the mid-$9 million range? In other words, you know, absent the special assessment, that could be a good run rate for 2024. And then kind of the follow-on question to that is just overall expense run rate, expectations there would be helpful. Thanks. Yeah, well, clearly, we've a special assessment's a one-time item. I think towards the end of the, you know, a couple of years out, it depending on how those things settle out, they may true it up a little bit. For now, yes, that number goes away, and you'd be in that mid-$9 million range, but it that assessment grows as the company grows. So, yeah, as much as we don't like to pay the assessment, probably that expense number goes up because we're going to grow the franchise over the course of the year. But you can see that it, you know, it's trended up over time, so we would only expect it to go up with the growth of the balance sheet, though. And then overall expenses, sort of similar to what we've talked about in the past. If you sort of look at the non-FDIC-impacted run rates of, you know, the third and the fourth quarter, you know, those will probably increase slightly in 2024 as we have, you know, merit and raises for the employees and the impact of inflation, the impact of the FDIC insurance coverage increasing as we grow, and we continue to invest in our, you know, our infrastructure, digital and technology-wise. But so probably, you know, that 5% mid-single-digit range is what we would expect, using the third and the fourth quarter as a base. And if we can grow loans in the franchise, in the mid- to high-single-digit range, we can get that operating leverage out of the system. Sounds good. Thank you. And then, the last one, just, and you kind of touched on it a little bit, but in that mid to high single-digit loan growth outlook for 2024, do you have anything kind of layered in there? Is it sort of a soft landing type assumption? Or, that's a crystal ball type question, but for the bulk of 2024, do you have a recessionary or slowdown macro-wise embedded? Well, my answer to that would be, we've fortunately got, you know, a diversified and pretty granular loan book. So, you know, as we've talked about in the past, you know, the transportation business and some of our customers are already experiencing challenging conditions, and others are doing terrific. So, you know, I don't know that a technical recession is much going to change the environment. And, you know, we think across our loan book, you know, we'll get a pretty balanced level of growth over the year. Yeah, it's, it's a great point, Tim, because the We have all these different engines that just fire at different times. You know, if you kind of look at the, where the growth is coming from over this last year, our life premium finance group, you know, essentially had zero or actually negative growth, you know, largely because in a, in a higher rate environment, it doesn't work. If you got into a recessionary type situation and they bring rates down, that product suddenly looks much more attractive. And, and a lot of the loan growth that we had two years ago was out of that product. So, you know, as, as different as the rate, rate cycles move through, they definitely affect different things. Right now, as we talked about, line utilization in a higher rate environment, it really gets impacted. As rates come down, you're going to see the opposite effect. So I think there is some, there's going to be some cyclicality, but it's just going to affect different products at different times. So, you know, we stay pretty committed to that, mid to high single-digit growth forecast. Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you. Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brandon King of Truist. Hey, good morning. Morning. So I had a question on the deposits. I noticed most of the growth in the quarter came from money market and savings accounts. I'm wondering if, you know, or is that the expectation going forward, where we'll see most of the deposit growth? Well, we think the mix is somewhat stabilized, but with these higher, you know, rates than we had, you know, a year or 18 months ago, you know, clearly, the interest-bearing products are more attractive to our clients. And so I think you're going to see money market and CD growth that, you know, you wouldn't have seen a couple of years ago. And, you know, we're working hard and hopeful that the non-interest-bearing portion, you know, continues to stay reasonably stable around 23%. Okay. And is part of that strategy also sort of anticipating, you know, a Fed easing cycle as, you know, maybe those money market accounts may be easier to lower those rates, I guess, faster than if we did more of a CD funding? Well, I, I think, I think what you said is correct, that, that the money market accounts would probably move more quickly than some of the other interest-bearing products. But, you know, we offer a wide set of options to our customers, and, you know, they, they select what they believe to be the best fit for them. So, you know, we are seeing more CD-related activity as, you know, you can get rates in the 5% range. You know, whether that'll continue as rates come down, you know, you, you may get people trying to kind of lock in those levels. Okay. And then another question. I know, I appreciate the commentary on the reserve increase. But I did notice, you know, the reserve increase was primarily driven in the C&I category. So I just wondered if you could speak to just the health of your C&I customers and the credit trends there, as opposed to, you know, a lot of attention is on CRE these days. Yeah, I think, you know, a couple of things that I would point to: One is, you know, as we noted earlier, that the level of classified assets remains pretty consistent. So we try to be very proactive on our risk ratings. And, you know, if you start to see, you know, special mention classified assets start to move up, I think that would be a pretty direct reflection. But more anecdotally, you know, we spend a lot of time talking to our customers about where their business is at. You know, and I would say, generally speaking, people still feel like that top-line revenue number is holding together pretty well, and that solves a lot of problems. Obviously, higher borrowing costs can affect them. You know, clearly, the economy, I think, has slowed a little bit, and so that's affected them. But, while it may not be as rosy when you had, you know, zero interest rates and, the economy was just really clicking along, it doesn't feel that bad for most of our C&I customers. I think that they still feel pretty optimistic about where their overall revenues are coming from and where those levels will be. I think labor has probably, you know, become less of a concern for them and, you know, just overall input costs have stabilized. So, I would say, you know, just net-net, I think they feel still pretty good. Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Thank you. ... Please stand by for our next question, which comes from the line of Ben Gerlinger of Citi. Hey, good morning, guys. Hey, Ben. So I'm going to ask a question. I know you're probably going to be a little annoyed, but I'm going to ask it anyway. So when you, when you think about 2024, what I'm getting at is kind of mid-single digit, maybe upper middle, middle single digit loan growth, deposit growth. It's called a flat margin at the—like, like what you said, if three cuts, kind of a 360 range. If the market has a little bit more, probably see a little bit pressure on that. That's largely just because of, back book repricing on, on, some CRE, and then premium finance still has a little bit of tail left in it. But as we get towards the end of the year and possibly into 25, if there is that four cut amount rate, rate cut environment, is there any incremental pressure? Because, I mean, I get that the premium finance probably rolls over and starts to work against you, but you also have indexed deposit costs. I'm just trying to think. It, it's a moving target, obviously, but, just any incremental thoughts on how you might exit the year into 2025? And I get you haven't given 20 25 guidance at all, so just kind of finger in the air. That would be really helpful. Well, a couple of things. To be, to be clear, we have very few actual index deposit products. So while the municipal rates, for example, that I mentioned earlier, are tied to some reference rates, they're, they're not contractual. So other than our CD book, we're, you know, largely pricing at our discretion. You know, as we talked about, if you get more rate cuts or faster rate cuts or you get 50, that would slightly pressure our margin beyond the assumed three cuts. But our mortgage business would likely perform better. And to Rich's point, you know, we're at very low levels in terms of utilization on lines right now, and we would expect to see some rebound there as rates come down. So, while there might be some pressure on the margin, as rates continue to drop, we have other aspects of our business that we think will perform well. So that's kind of the best way we're looking at that and why we value the diversified businesses, you know, as an important part of our model. Yeah. No, that's a great color. It's a great point, too, that the fee income aspect will definitely kind of pick up some of the slack, or if not all the slack goes, the softer spread revenue. Can you just remind us any sort of kind of efficiency ratio on mortgage? I get that we haven't seen a robust mortgage market. I'm just trying to think, like, if that does start to turn back on, expenses are also obviously going to go up as well. I'm just trying to match the two, if we do see a rebound in mortgage. Yeah, I mean, it sort of depends on, you know, how hot the market gets and how wide gross margin, gain on sale margins are. But I generally think of the efficiency ratio in the mortgage business to be in about an 80% efficiency ratio business, so. Gotcha. That's really helpful. Appreciate the color. It looks like you guys have a kind of just a pure growth horsepower year. It's good that the margin should stay roughly flat, so I'm looking forward to it. Thanks, guys. Yep, thanks. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Terry McEvoy of Stephens Inc. Hi, good morning. Dave, and I'm pretty sure it's in the appendix, but what are the hedges costing you each quarter? So like $24 million comes to mind, but do you have that number handy? And what is that - what would that be if we get three rate cuts, and when does that turn from a headwind to a tailwind? Yeah, well, so it's I think it was about 19 basis points of impact to the margin, and it's about $8 million a month, so $24 million a quarter right now. You know, if SOFR moves one way or the other, that would change that. But we put a slide in our presentation deck that gives all the details of what the particular strike rates are. But we're receiving fixed and paying variable. So if SOFR goes down at all, even though we may not hit the strike rate, we'll get benefit because we'll pay less. So that $24 million a quarter, if SOFR comes down, will decline by, you know, what we pay by 25 basis points. So it's effectively locking in, you know, $6 billion worth of our variable rate portfolio into more of a fixed rate scenario that are SOFR based. Thanks for that. And then, are you or how are you using loan modifications within commercial real estate? And what - how are you defining a market rate if you are using modifications? Yeah, I mean, modifications are, you know, a part of the business, you know, so. But, you know, we don't, if a loan is seriously affected by lease rates or vacancy or rising rates, I mean, and, you know, you can't just hide a problem with a loan modification. So, you know, similar to, you know, the one that we just identified, you know, that loan's current, you know, but at some point, you know, you have to look at that and say, you know: Is there really going to be the opportunity to, you know, change the income stream or, or change the, the cash flow with a modification. You know, generally speaking, you really have to be honest, you know, and the borrower and the bank have to be honest about, you know, whether that's going to solve the problem. In a case like that, you know, it's so challenging, it's not, you know. So we do use modifications, but, you know, it's really got to be a situation where, you know, it's the difference between the, you know, the targeted policy-driven cash flow coverage, you know, and the actual cash flow coverage are relatively close. And, you know, you're just working with them to maybe extend the amortization a little bit or something like that, to give them a little bit of relief to bridge the gap. But generally speaking, I mean, you know, we don't use modifications all that often, and when we do, you know, we're pretty much, you know, the interest rate is pretty much a market rate. Great. Thanks for the color there, and thanks for taking my questions. Thanks, Tim. Thank you. Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brody Preston of UBS. Morning. Hey, good morning, everyone. I just wanted to get a little bit more granular, Dave, on the loan yields. You know, I understand the margin commentary that you gave, but wanted to kind of ask you, you know, just given the premium finance books, how you'd expect the loan yields to trend in the middle part of the year, just given the moves in the one-year CMT that have already occurred? Yeah. Well, the book that's tied to the one-year CMT is the life insurance premium finance book. And so as you're alluding to, the rate now is very similar to the rate a year ago. So the benefit from that book is pretty baked in right now. So the repricings on those should stay relatively the same. The commercial premium finance book, however, you know, is still repricing over time. And although those are not indexed to the prime rate, they have pretty good correlation to the prime rate, because we generally are adjusting our rates when the Fed is adjusting, and therefore, you know, most people are adjusting prime. And if you go back a year, you know, prime was 7.5% at the end of 2022, and 8.5% at the end of this year. So there's another 100 basis points of repricing on that portion of the book. And then we have the, you know, the fixed-rate commercial real estate loan book that we have out there, some of that will reprice, too. Got it. And the stuff that is—the stuff that's fixed rate, you know, that's not the, like, premium finance related at all, how much of that, you know, do you expect to reprice on a quarterly basis, over the next year? Well, we've got eight billion in total. But if you look at that, the big portion of that is our premium finance portfolio. It's $6.8 billion. So we got another, you know, $1.2 billion of commercial and commercial real estate type of loans that will reprice over the course of the year. And I'd probably just say it's, you know, ratable. I don't think we have any seasonality per se, to that portfolio. And that- Okay. At these levels, is generally slightly helpful as they reprice. Yeah. Yeah, understood. Is it fair to assume, you know, when I look at that kind of 1-5-year bucket as well, that it's a similarly ratable repricing there? I'm just trying to make sure I get the cadence correct through 2025. Yeah, we've sort of looked at this. We don't have any maturity walls coming from that that you can say, "Oh, my gosh, when we get out, you know, 18 months, we're going to have just a boatload repricing or, or we don't get any repricing for three or four years." It's fairly ratable. Got it. On the NIBs, you guys kind of bucked the trend versus the group this quarter. A lot of other banks have actually seen a re-acceleration in NIB outflow. Wanted to ask you specifically if there was anything that drove the strength in the fourth quarter on a period-end basis, like if there's any chunky kind of deposits that came from institutional type money? No, not significantly. I mean, we have large flows at the end of the year as people position their balance sheets. But we've worked really hard on the deposit side of the equation to continue to grow clients. And, you know, we are hopeful that the 23%, you know, turns into a stable level for us. And, you know, our team continues to add commercial clients that have non-interest-bearing deposits and treasury services and use other products and services we offer. So it's sort of a function of building the franchise. Yeah, that's the way I would look at it, too. I mean, Rich talked about there's a little less line usage, so some of those people that maybe would have drawn on the line have used some of their deposit non-interest-bearing deposits. And maybe that's a reason why you're seeing some of that industry-wide. But as Tim said, if we continue to grow the franchise and add customers, that right now is offsetting any of that leakage additional leakage, and we're being able to hold it pretty well. And it's been pretty stable on an average basis for the last couple quarters. So, we're hopeful that we can hold it in there. ... Great. And then just last one for me is just on the wealth business. There's a pretty decent pickup in the assets under administration this quarter, after they were flat last quarter. Just wanted to ask what caused that to occur? That's for the revenue to be flattish, you're saying? Just the growth, I think. Okay. No, the AUA was up from $44.7 billion to $47.1 billion. Yeah, a couple things with that. I, you know, with some of the brokerage accounts grew a little bit. We also, our MaxSafe product that we have, it, you know, the way we operate that is that works through our trust company as a fiduciary account, so those get included. So it's a little bit of growth in that area, and just a little bit spread out in other places. So nothing significant per se, in any one chunky sort of deal. Yeah, and we have also in that number, as we note in the press release, you know, our investment portfolio is also managed out of our wealth management area and included in those assets under management, and those ticked up a little bit. Got it. Okay. So that the move higher shouldn't necessarily result in a similar move higher in revenue for next quarter? Yeah. Some of it is based on beginning of quarter asset valuation, so versus, you know, daily or end of quarter. So you might see a little bit of pickup there. All right, great. Well, thank you very much for taking my questions, everyone. I appreciate it. You bet. Thanks. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference back to Tim Crane for closing remarks. Sir? All right, great. Thank you, everybody. As you can tell, we're generally pleased with the 2023 results, but we've moved on. We've got an eager team that is, you know, trying to win clients and new business for the bank every day, and we appreciate your time and your interest in Wintrust. So we'll be working hard, and we'll talk to you in a quarter. Thanks, everybody. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.