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Justin Crowley
Okay, got it. That’s helpful. And then somewhat related, I was wondering if you could give a little more color just around the kind of lending team that you’re acquiring here. Growth has been a pretty big part of the Partners’ franchise, so curious how both assumed rate of growth there going forward, in addition to the type of talent across lending verticals, how that compares to legacy LINK and what that means for longer term growth of the combined franchise. We sort of talked about that 20% to 30% range when looking at a standalone basis, so curious how that fleshes out as a combined entity. And then maybe also breaking down geographically where you expect growth to skew towards.
Andrew Samuel
Right. So really, as you saw there, LINK has four regions right now. We will be expanding that to seven regions. And interestingly, we believe all of those markets have tremendous deposit gathering and loan opportunities. The Delmarva region, which will be led by JB, again, has been a strong asset grower, but more importantly, very, very strong core deposit franchise. We believe the Northern Virginia market has tremendous opportunity in the C&I area, and we’re excited about that marketplace, particularly the C&I opportunities there. And the Fredericksburg market has also been a strong producer. So, on a combined basis, we believe that we will continue to be a strong asset generator because of the additional opportunities to load cost funding from all these pieces at this point.
Justin Crowley
Okay, got it. And then, again, putting everything together, fast forwarding here, when you think about a normalized growth rate for the combined company, is the focus still going to be on that high growth type profile, in that 20% plus range? Is that still the right way to think about the asset generation side of things going forward, assuming deal close?
Andrew Samuel
Yes, yes. So not only deal close, but Justin, I want to emphasize, there is so much embedded opportunity in this combined franchise, and I can tell you the initial phase of our focus is to really become more efficient. And really, what I’d like to focus on is the efficiency of the combined organization. And this company, again, the key here is if we do this right, get the cost savings right, get the efficiencies right, we’re talking about a top quartile bank in that $2 billion to $5 billion range. So, we’re more focused on that at this point. But both companies have always had a strong history of asset generation, so you’ll continue to see strong asset generation. But I think the initial phase is really more on just consolidating and getting the efficiencies out of the combined organization. That is our best opportunity initially.
Justin Crowley
Okay, that’s helpful. And then, as noted, the addition here brings a decent amount of added asset sensitivity. So curious how you’re thinking, I know it provides some benefit, given the more near term liability sensitive positioning of LINK, but curious how you’re thinking, or if you’re thinking about bringing the pro forma franchise down closer to neutral, what sort of steps might be taken, what’s being contemplated, also referencing possible repositioning of the Partner’s securities book. So, I guess any discussion there would be helpful, just some thoughts going forward.
Andrew Samuel
Yes. I think, as suggested, we have some thoughts, but we can cover that one on one, or as we go forward we’ll expand on some of those thoughts. Right now, I’m not sure I want to comment on that yet. Okay?
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| | LINKBANCORP, Inc. | | |
| | | | February 23, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern |