Bob Young
It is, and then with a long-term growth rate applied after 2020, since neither one of us provide guidance, we think the safest thing to do is just to use in the model for those first two years 2019 and 2020 and yes, those first two years the consensus and then apply a long-term growth rate which, for them, is 8% going forward. We’re a little bit less.
Austin Nicholas
Okay, that’s really helpful. And then, you know, Todd, I know in past deals the company has been pretty successful with their—with the acquisitions, you know, especially retaining employees and really, you know, really doing a great job with that and I know part of that, you know, part of that strategy has involved bringing some lenders over the wall and putting retention agreements in place, as I think you’ve disclosed in the past. Is that something you, I guess, were able to do here and just any commentary on maybe the overall kind of retention strategy?
Bob Young
The quick answer is yes, same as we’ve done in the past with retention agreements. So, happy to get that done and get that in place prior to announcement. You know, I think that the business model with Old Line and WesBanco, kind of the way we handle landing and the way we approach things and even operationally how we do things, is very similar. You know, I think in our past acquisitions things have gone well. But here, it’s—it—just from an assimilation standpoint, looks really nice. Again, not much in the way of difference in terms of what the lenders, obviously new platform and some new processes, but I think the transition should be very seamless but we do have those agreements in place and we’ll work to probably get some more at different levels of the organization post announcement.
Austin Nicholas
Okay, great. And then just on the close date, can you remind—I know it says a couple quarters or two in the release, but can you maybe just give some more details on what–on when you’d expect the close date and what kind of would influence it?
Todd Clossin
Yes, if you look at our historical track record, you know, we’ve closed deals around four months or so after announcements. Obviously we had a shareholder vote on both sides here. We’ve got to get you the regulatory approvals and all of that. So, you know, I would say the next several quarters because it could be four months, it could be right into the holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, it could flow into the beginning of next year, depending upon how things go. So, wanted to provide a little bit of leeway in there. I see a lot of banks talk about a year. They put a year in their press release, we’re not doing that. That would be an outlier for us. So, I would think towards the end of this year, beginning of next year.
Austin Nicholas
Got it, and then just one last one if I may on the tax rate, I think you made some comments on what you’d expect the tax rate to be in—and I didn’t recall if you made an expectation for the tax rate pro forma with Old Line?
Jim Cornelsen
I did not say. We’ve done some work on that. We think adding in the Maryland state income tax, and their federal items would get us, basically, in that same 18% to 19% rate that we talk about for ourselves. I mentioned where we are today 18.2% to 18.4% but our overall guidance for this year is 18% to 19%. It will probably move up a little bit closer to 19% on a pro forma basis, just given the Maryland state income tax rate is higher than our other states.
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