Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the National Bank Holdings Corporation 2022 Second Quarter Earnings Call. My name is Kyle, and I will be your conference operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will conduct a question-and-answer session following the prepared remarks. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would like to remind you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements, including but not limited to statements regarding the company's strategy, loans, deposits, capital, net interest income, non-interest income, margins, allowance, taxes, and non-interest expense. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed today. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, which are disclosed in more detail in the company's most recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
This statement speaks only as of the date of this call, and National Bank Holdings Corporation undertakes no obligation to update or revise this statement. In addition, the call today will reference certain non-GAAP measures, which National Bank Holdings Corporation believes provide useful information for investors. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the GAAP measures are provided in the news release posted on the Investor Relations section of www.nationalbankholdings.com. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over and introduce National Bank Holdings Corporation Chairman, President, and CEO, Mr. Tim Laney. Please go ahead, sir.
Thanks, Kyle. Good morning, and thank you for joining us as we discuss National Bank Holdings' Second Quarter 2022 Financial Results. I'm joined by Aldis Birkans, our Chief Financial Officer, and our focus on small and medium-sized businesses operating in high-performing U.S. markets continues to produce solid results. Our teams delivered another record quarter of loan fundings, driving annualized loan growth of 12.3%. We remain prudent in our underwriting. We continue to work with businesses whose balance sheets are very strong and well-positioned for economic shocks. To that end, we ended the quarter with record low non-performing assets and positive asset quality trends across the board.
Furthermore, if we took the cumulative losses, the cumulative losses from our recent stress tests using assumptions consistent with the severely adverse scenario used in the 2022 DFAST, we would operate with a Tier 1 leverage ratio of approximately 9%. Our focus on earning the full relationship of our clients resulted in attractive growth in transaction deposits and treasury management fees. I'll add that we feel very good about our new market share gains and our momentum on that front. We're making solid progress on our regulatory approvals, having just received approval from the Federal Reserve for Rock Canyon Bank, and we remain on track for approval of the Bank of Jackson Hole acquisition. The more time we spend with these two banks and their teams, the more optimistic I am about their imminent contributions to our financial performance.
On that note, I'll turn the call over to Aldis Birkans. Aldis?
All right. Thanks, Tim, and good morning. Thank you for joining our earnings call this quarter. For the second quarter of 2022, we reported net earnings of $20.4 million or $0.67 per diluted share. Our bankers delivered another quarter of solid loan growth. Our expenses continue to be well managed, and the credit quality remained exceptionally strong. The closing and integration of our two previously announced bank acquisitions remains on track. On a related note, during the quarter, we realized $1 million in M&A-related costs. During the quarter, we funded $492.5 million in loan originations, which was another quarterly record, and as a result, the loan portfolio grew a solid 12.3% annualized.
As we have discussed on our prior earnings calls, we benefit from operating in markets that continue to outperform the national economic metrics on many fronts. While high inflation and rapidly rising interest rates will impact many aspects of the economy, we are pleased with our new relationship pipeline activity as we enter the second half of 2022. We also entered this rate cycle with an asset-sensitive balance sheet, and the increasing interest rates benefited net interest margin nicely during the second quarter. The quarter's fully taxable equivalent net interest margin was 3.38% or a 48 basis point increase from the prior quarter. Approximately 13 basis points of this increase was driven by accelerated income from an early payoff of an acquired loan, and the rest was driven by the balance sheet asset-sensitive positioning.
The total cost of deposit decreased to a record low 16 basis points. Looking ahead for the second half of 2022, we project NBH's net interest margin to be in the 3.4%-3.5% range. In terms of our asset quality, it remains strong with positive trends across the board. The second quarter's net charge-offs were just three basis points annualized, and both the non-performing asset ratio and the NPL ratio decreased another four basis points this quarter. Looking ahead and fully recognizing the increased risks to the U.S. economy, our CECL credit allowance reserve increased from 1.04% of total loans at the end of the first quarter to 1.06% at the end of the second quarter. The resulting second quarter's provision expense was $2.5 million.
Total second quarter's non-interest income was $16.8 million, or a $2.3 million decrease from the first quarter. The linked-quarter decrease was entirely due to lower residential mortgage income, as the rapidly rising mortgage rates materially slowed down mortgage volumes. Additionally, this quarter, we selectively retained a higher portion of mortgage loans in our portfolio. Our client engagement for both consumer spending and business account activity was strong, and total service charges grew 26.6% annualized on a linked-quarter basis. Similarly, total bank card revenues grew 40.7% annualized on a linked-quarter basis. Looking ahead for the second half of 2022, we are projecting our total fee income to be in the $30-$32 million range. Non-interest expense totaled $45.6 million and included approximately $1 million of acquisition-related costs.
Excluding these acquisition-related expenses, the core bank expense run rate was relatively flat for the first quarter and reflects our continued expense management efforts. For the second half of 2022, we are projecting non-interest expense to be in the range of $92 million-$95 million. To be clear, these projections exclude M&A-related costs. Finally, our capital ratios remain strong at 13.75% common equity Tier 1 ratio and 9.99% tangible common equity. As I already mentioned, our two M&A deals remain on track. As we have been working with our future teammates throughout the summer, we are becoming increasingly optimistic about the strategic and financial benefits of these deals, and we look forward to providing more guidance on these transactions in the coming quarters. Tim, with that, I will turn it back to you.
Hey, thanks, Aldis. I like our momentum as we enter the third quarter. We're prudently growing our company, and we're well-prepared for a broad array of economic scenarios. My expectation is that we'll continue to enhance our operating leverage while also growing diverse new revenue streams and an attractive low-cost deposit base. It's also noteworthy that our balance sheet is well-positioned to avoid any major AOCI shocks. We remain focused on maintaining a fortress balance sheet while also adding capabilities that will be leveraged across our geographic and 2UniFi platforms. We're committed to delivering solid results today while also building for the future. On that note, Kyle, I'll ask you to open up the lines for questions.
Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. A voice prompt on the phone line will indicate when your line is open. Please state your name before posing your question. Again, press star one to ask a question. We pause just for a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal. We take our first question from Jeff Rulis with DA Davidson. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning.
Good morning, Tim and Aldis.
Good morning.
Just wanted to get a sense for the deposit kind of behavior, some of the customers with some of the runoff. Any idea? Do you get the sense that this group was sort of the more rate-chasing group where there was some notable by segment, depositors that may have exited? Any comment on kind of the deposit balance change, linked quarter?
Yeah, you bet. I think what you need to focus on is the division of what we would consider to be operating accounts versus time deposits. We actually had core growth in our operating accounts or what we refer to as transaction deposits. We remain very focused on whether we're net growing new relationships, new depository relationships, and feel good on that front. I would tell you, we've been comfortable with letting some of the rate chasers on CDs, time-related deposits, move on and frankly, feel good about the growth in our core to true relationship accounts. I'll throw it to Aldis for any other detail.
Yeah, Jeff, actually, on the average basis, if you look at the we grew our average deposit balance of $61 million on a linked-quarter basis, $92 million in transaction deposits. Really what contributes to the earning asset funding component is we did quite well in terms of averages growing. What we saw was kind of ebbs and flows through the quarter spot balances in between. As Tim mentioned, no loss of clients, no loss of relationships. You know, again, the focus is on growing core and balances on average.
Yep.
Aldis, on the front, like you said, the period-end transaction deposits linked quarter. You're saying that's more of a timing issue than really. You know, we could track the average number that was up. But
Yep.
Do you think that was just some fluctuation timing-wise?
That's correct. As we obviously spent quite a bit of time analyzing, looking at it and not seeing any account losses even. It's more of a balances and those certain business client accounts.
I'll stress again, we've never focused on CDs time deposit business. Our focus is on core transactional relationships and strategically feel good about where we're continuing to move on that front. It ties directly to the other comments we made on broader market share gains. Our focus is on earning the full relationship with clients. That means as we're bringing on new small medium-sized businesses or individuals, we're expecting to certainly capture the depository relationship.
On that core depositor, are you seeing any, you know, I guess, what you see in market is? Do you see any initial moves in a kind of rate adjustments? It's two questions within your own book of core customers that you do wanna keep. Are you seeing any pressure on pricing? Then are you seeing anything in the market that's been irrational to date?
I mean, the bulk of our focus is small, medium-sized businesses. We're capturing operating accounts and you know, we've seen in some cases some discussion around earnings credit rate pressure, but it's been nominal. On the individual side of the business or personal banking, you're always gonna have some tranches that are you know, comparing yields on interest-earning accounts. You know, those are more often than not judgment calls around what we'll do based on the nature of the relationship with the client. Fortunately, we feel like we're operating in pretty rational markets on the deposit front. I mean, I'll just be blunt, there's always gonna be somebody that's crazy out there, but we're not gonna chase crazy.
We'll let them play that game and stay focused on being rational.
Great. Aldis, you've mentioned in the past kind of the impact to margin when more of a normalized cash and cash equivalents like on the balance sheet, you know, the impact to the NIM, you know, the positive impact of the decline in cash we saw. You know, maybe you got a little bit more to go. Could you range-bound what that impact would be when you get back to a kind of a more normal level? Or are you kind of approaching that on a cash basis? Thanks.
Yeah, no, I think we still have some excess liquidity sitting in that we'll look to deploy in a loan growth. So the cash, you know, to be very precise, calculating cash still has a 21 basis point dilutive impact to the margin for the second quarter. Now we obviously, as I mentioned, benefited 13 basis points in the margin from one specific loan early payoff that is visible in acquired loan line item in the margin table. So once you kind of back those out, it's no surprise you get to very close to the margin guidance that I provided of 3.4%-3.5% with today's rate environment, and that does not necessarily take into account the potential actions here in later in July.
Aldis, is that 21 basis point drag, is that taking cash to zero, or is that taking it to a level of historical comfort?
Yep.
It's taking to the level of historical. We'll always, for liquidity purposes and intraday cash needs, we'll hold, you know, call it $50 -$100 million of cash on hand just to make sure that we manage our liquidity properly. It's taking down to those historical levels.
Got it. Perfect. Thanks. Maybe last one, just checking in on the timing. Obviously, the Rock Canyon approval, it seems like it's well on its way. Is it safe to say that expectations for the two deals you would think close by the end of the third quarter? If you could just remind us on your pegs, conversion timing of those two as well.
Yeah. I mean, certainly with Rock Canyon, just received the Fed's approval, which gives us more visibility on timing on that transaction. We do expect that at this point to be third quarter event for Rock Canyon. Again, the Bank of Jackson Hole is, what we understand, nothing far behind, but until we get that letter in hand, we're not gonna speculate when, whether it's third or fourth quarter. In terms of integrations, again, on Rock Canyon now that we can start planning a little bit more and have dates reserved with our core providers, it is a fourth quarter event.
I do wanna stress that whether you're talking about Rock Canyon or Bank of Jackson Hole, there are no known issues related to the approval of either of these banks. I'll say again, since we're discussing them, we actually grow increasingly optimistic about the contribution from each of these teams and the markets they're in. I'll say again, have absolutely no indication that there will be any issues with approval or getting these closed and integrated on a relatively very fast pace.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you. We take our next question from Andrew Liesch with Piper Sandler.
Great. Hey, good morning, Andrew.
Hey, good morning, guys.
Good morning.
Question on the loan growth here. In the past, you mentioned a 10%-12% range. It seems like it's tracking right near that high end. Some of the growth here this quarter was on the residential mortgage side. Curious, what's the appetite to grow residential mortgages? It's more of a one-off for the quarter. What sort of products were you adding, just given that there's been a slowdown in that business lately?
Yeah. I would tell you it is not a focus. We still remain confident in driving the vast majority of our growth out of small and medium-sized businesses. What's really interesting about this quarter is we did have, and we believe in a number of cases, you know, these were temporary pay downs. You know, what you really have to look at beyond the 12.3% annualized growth is the level of fundings that were generated in the quarter to offset some, you know, meaningful pay downs. I will say in a few cases, business that moved away on price. We talked about deposit side. Just as we're not going to chase business on rates on deposits, we're also not going to retain relationships that are unprofitable.
We did see a few relationships move away in the second quarter. We're more than capable of offsetting that with very strong fundings. Feel very, very good about third quarter fundings in the small and medium-sized business space as well. We are hyper-focused on the quality of the balance sheets of these businesses we're looking at, and I should add income statements as well. Intense focus on global cash flow coverage, intense focus on management teams of the businesses and their strategies for addressing different economic scenarios, and certainly, just given the environment, an intense focus on alternative sources of liquidity for coverage or payback of any loans we're extending. I know I kind of went beyond your question, Andrew, but our focus is clearly small and medium-sized business.
I wouldn't expect a lot. I wouldn't expect any kind of growth trend out of what we're holding on the balance sheet in residential. I'll also add, this is near and dear to my heart, we also carry no consumer, you know, it's not as though we're carrying floor plan or auto exposure. We don't carry consumer credit card or, for that matter, any broad consumer exposure. Not that we're suggesting that's bad or good, it's just not something we do.
Got it. That's helpful. Yes. It may be nice to have some of the mortgage growth, but more of an anomaly with the focus still being on the commercial side. That makes a lot of sense. On the loans that left, was it just on price, or are you seeing other people compensate on structure to take loans away from you?
No, I would really tell you it was largely price. I feel like we're pretty fortunate. There's always gonna be an exception to the rule, but for the most part, we're fortunate to operate with what I would describe as rational competitors. I think that bodes well for the primary markets we do business in.
Got it. On the reserve build this quarter, I'd appreciate the building of it a little bit just with some of the macro factors in there. Is this? I mean, obviously the model that you've got to follow, but I mean, do you think similar increase is possible in the next couple of quarters? Do you think the 106 level is where you want it to flatten out? Just kind of curious how you guys view the reserve.
Yeah. No. It's hard to talk about how the Moody's models or Moody's outlooks will change here and how really the economy will evolve. What I can say is in the current quarter, the scenario that we are using is already assuming certain economic slowdown, if not outright recession. The model, the way we view it is appropriately conservative, that drove the reserve that we need today.
In terms of, again, and just to be very, very clear, as I mentioned in March, I mean, it is all underlying future outlook scenario for that drove the increase. If you look at our credit metrics, NPL is down, NPA is down, 30-89 past dues down, 90+ past dues down, OREO down, classified loans down. I mean, our portfolio could not have had a better quarter in terms of credit performance. It's just the outlook is that's driving it. I'll share something that in all of my years of banking, I've not seen before, and this is just incredible. But we had in the small business loan portfolio, we ended the quarter with 0 past dues. I'm gonna repeat that, 0.
I mean, again, there are a lot of reasons for it, including some of the government funding programs coming out of the pandemic. You know, I will say when we talk about being prepared for economic shocks, we look at the balance sheets of some of these companies. In fact, the companies we bank in, I don't think they could be better prepared for a downturn. In all of my years, I've never seen zero past dues on a quarter end for a portfolio of size. Just some additional perspective.
Thanks. Yes, quite the environment we're in. Thanks for taking the questions. I will step back.
You bet. Thanks again. Thank you.
We take our next question from Andrew Terrell with Stephens Inc.
Good morning.
Hey, good morning. Let me just quickly, Aldis, I wanted to go back to the net interest margin guidance. You said 3.4%-3.5% range for the back half of the year. Just wanted to clarify, make sure that doesn't assume any further rate increases past what we've already gotten, correct?
That is correct.
Okay. Just as you kind of think about that guidance, are you assuming any kind of step up in deposit costs, as we work in the back half of the year? Or is there-
Yeah. Again, as we discussed, while the markets that we are in are fairly rational, our competitors and major competitors for sure are very rational. It's not to say that we haven't seen odd rate increase offers to our clients. Long way of saying is that when I project the margin, it does not assume any rate increases in deposits. Now again, if Federal Reserve increases here in July, whether it's 50, 75 or 100 basis points, certainly it will be hard to imagine that overall market does not start having more pressure on deposits. We'll react and make sure that we are competitive and offer fair value to our clients.
in terms of what, you know, again, we are asset sensitive, so we expect that the loan and asset repricing at least covers that, if not, of course, exceeds the way it has to date.
Okay, great. Thank you. I think in the past you guys have maybe given the yield on new production for the quarter. Are you able to share kind of where new production was coming on in the second quarter versus the, you know, 4.17% kind of average originated loan yield in the quarter?
Yeah. Our second quarter's new loan fundings average rate, weighted average rate was 4.8%. Certainly accretive to that 4.17% or 3.91% last in the first quarter. To put that in perspective, first quarter was closer to 4%. Late last year, you know, while we held for most part in 4 handle, there was a quarter or two where we dipped in high threes. Our discipline, very happy about the discipline that our bankers have had in terms of new loan funding rates. The 4.8%, again, it's throughout the quarter, so that does not necessarily reflect the later rate movements that took place in a quarter.
I expect that to drift up here in the third quarter even more so.
Okay. Got it. Thank you guys for taking my questions and congrats on a good quarter.
Yeah, thank you very much.
We're moving forward to Kelly Motta with KBW.
Hi, Kelly.
Hi. Good morning. Thank you so much for the question, Tim a nd Aldis . Maybe on expenses, your new guidance implies a run rate that's a bit below what you had guided for the year last quarter. Just wondering.
If you know, with the inflationary pressures, if that revision lower is mostly a function of mortgage or if there's other things you're doing to help control expenses since, you know, I know that's been a keen focus of yours for the past several years.
Yeah. It continues to be and will continue to be as we really look at every function in our company and realize opportunities to be more efficient. We also believe with these two impending acquisitions, we're going to have another opportunity to really look at creating some attractive synergies, adopting some of the processes and practices that we've discovered in those two banks. You know, we'll continue to look at rationalizing our banking center network. It's just practical to be thinking that way as we continue to watch the migration of our personal banking clients to the digital world, and that lends itself to opportunities to reduce expense.
I expect, as I've said in my earlier comments, I expect to see positive trends in and around the improvement of our operating leverage. Aldis, I'll ask you what you would add.
The primary driver down on the guidance is the mortgage commission as we're certainly adjusting our fee revenue guidance to the current market environment as well. If you look at what the run rate is today and what the implied guidance for the rest of the year is, there's a little bit of a step-up, and that is, to be very clear, it is the 2UniFi build-out initiative that we continue to invest in.
At the core banking run rate and strategic focus that we have internally and have had for multiple years now on managing expenses and finding efficiencies remains there, as you mentioned and t hat's the real key.
You're gonna see the natural ebb and flow with mortgage. The real key is what we're doing to continue to improve the core, and I really appreciate our team's focus on that front. They're doing a fine job.
Got it. That's really helpful. I appreciated all the earlier color on loan growth and the outlook. I know you usually give a guidance for the year, and I didn't hear that. Maybe I missed it. Just wondering if that's some reticence towards, you know, the pricing competition you're seeing or if you're still pretty confident that you can hold that outlook after what was a pretty strong quarter.
Well, you heard me right. I didn't give exact guidance this go around. You know, having grown 12.3% second quarter, 13%+ in year-to-date basis, we certainly are on a track to deliver the full year guidance of 10%-12%. As I mentioned, the pipelines that we see today are quite strong. The only caution that we have in our outlook is the what we don't know and really the inflationary pressures are real. That impacts the business activity. The rate increases are real. That you know potentially could slow down the borrowing need, and we just don't wanna overpromise something that is out of our control.
Understood. That's helpful. Maybe one last question for me. I know I'm jumping around a little. On the deposit cost side, obviously, it was very well controlled. You guys have a lot of liquidity and balance sheet room, and the deposit betas were. You guys have much lower betas than the group overall last quarter. Is there anything that would suggest you wouldn't again outperform on the funding side here, as the Fed continues to crank up rates? Just wanted to hear your thoughts. Thanks.
Well, again, that asks us to comment on what others will do, so I can't do that. What I can say is that our deposit beta last go around was, you know, call it 15 basis points all in through the full cycle. Certainly, we've had a zero beta today, and we've seen a 150 basis point rate increase on the Fed funds at least, and more to come. Whether we can on next basis point of increase hold to 15 basis points, it's hard to tell. It will depend on the comparative margins.
I do believe that it all comes down to how we approach our deposit gathering efforts, which, as Tim mentioned, is very much focused on building a full relationship, obtaining the operating accounts and the rate product that we offer, whether it's a savings, money market or time deposit account. It is an ancillary type of excess liquidity that people leave with us or businesses leave with us. The primary focus is grabbing their operating accounts, which, as you know, is certainly a non-interest bearing for the most part.
I'll just say again and again: that is our focus. We are simply focused on earning the operating accounts of our small and medium-sized business clients and earning core accounts, not free accounts, core paying accounts from individuals and their families.
Got it. Thank you. This is really my last one now. Aldis, just quick modeling question for the back half of the year. Tax rate, is this a good tax rate to use for second half?
The answer is yes. I mean, we have 17.6% in the second quarter. It does not assume, again, any M&A related expenses, which will certainly take pre-taxable income down and therefore tax rate down more so. Just to be very clear, our, you know, non-taxable income component is not gonna change because of the expenses incurred on M&A. 17.6, I would say, is probably high end of the range if once we start realizing real M&A costs. Again, we don't project any of our numbers with M&A.
Got it.
Kelly, I feel like I'm hearing all the analysts this morning pepper Aldis with modeling questions. I'm gonna be real curious to see what all of you come up with.
I really appreciate all the help guys and all the color as well, not just on the modeling questions, on the operational side too. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
You bet. Have a good day.
We take our next question from Brett Rabatin with Hovde Group.
Hey, Brett. Good morning.
Hey, guys. Good morning.
How can we help you?
I guess first, I'll take another crack at the deposit question and wanted to just think about, you know, you obviously are gonna have some level of higher deposit betas and the margin expansion like in 2Q was more than expected maybe in 2Q. Plus you've got, you know, the positives of two solid banks coming on in the back half of the year. Aldis, would it be fair to assume that the margin increases in the back half of the year quarterly are somewhat more muted than 2Q. Can you give us any thoughts on, you know, kind of the margin going forward, you know, just as you see it relative to the Fed hikes from here?
I think that's a very fair assessment that the increase from here on out is gonna be a little bit more muted because certainly back to the deposit betas, they're not gonna remain at zero, or go negative really. We continue to decrease our costs here in the second quarter. You know, fully understanding that there will be some depositor pricing up, the margin benefit from future rate increases, I think, will be to date.
Okay. What will the balance sheet management look like in the back half of the year with the two additional deals? You know, obviously this quarter you used the liquidity to kind of manage the improved margin. Does the balance sheet, you know, in combination with these two acquisitions, does that kind of mean that the balance sheet stays a little bit flattish the back half of the year while assets being added in current portfolio? Can you give us on?
Yeah. Well, again, the two transactions themselves, just to recap, are going to add about $1.5 billion in loans, $1.2 billion in deposits and call it $2.4 billion in total assets. I will say that those two institutions' balance sheets are sitting on combined approximately $500 million of cash themselves. So that certainly is going to provide us with a lot of flexibility, whether we talk about having to manage our betas, deposit betas and be more, maybe aggressive and what it gives us freedom, a little bit more aggressive in terms of not chasing as much.
Certainly, if we continue on the pace of the loan originations that we've seen year to date, then provides a ton of liquidity to deploy into the loan growth and which would be obviously the preferred route for anybody. You know, the third option certainly will look at the time of closing and what the rate environment is then and maybe adding a little bit to the investment portfolio. Again, to Tim's point early on, we've done that to date in very conscious manner with of what that does potential risks around our AOCI and tangible book value print.
You know, any and all of that move would be with a very high focus on short duration type of asset that is, you know, risk reward is there.
Obviously you just mentioned AOCI. Can you give us any update on, you know, those two transactions in terms of initial dilution to tangible book given the AOCI?
Yeah. What book value we had put in the original decks and no reason to update or change those guidances right now. Rock Canyon Bank, we had 4.8% tangible book value dilution. Bank of Jackson Hole, 7.2%. For combined, call it 12% tangible book value day one dilution.
Okay. All right. You know, maybe a question just on credit. It seems like, you know, there's such a strange environment, like you mentioned, Tim, earlier, that we're in. One of the things that's interesting is, you know, credit can't seem to get much better than it is for most of the industry. Obviously the market and investors are worried about a recession and the implications for credit quality.
Yep, exactly.
Yeah. Tim, as you look out at the world, I mean, you know, what asset classes, everyone's worried about consumer to some degree, but as you look out, is there anything that you guys have circled that you would say, you know, either with your portfolio or just, you know, from a lending perspective that you think like, "Hey, this should be watched more than in other categories?" Or is there anything that you're kind of easing up on in terms of wanting to be bigger in?
Well, you know, I think the fact that we're not a player in national syndication, certainly not in areas like highly leveraged transactions, that we tend to stick with fundamental knitting around small and medium-sized businesses that have strong track records of performance through different economic cycles, bodes well for us. You know, we're always worried about commercial real estate, hence our low levels of commercial real estate relative to risk-based capital. You could certainly, but everybody, you know, has the same observation. You could certainly pull out certain areas of commercial real estate and arguably be even more concerned. But I think a lot of what we're talking about here is really the importance of enhanced due diligence and ongoing monitoring.
Coming back to what we believe are critical to understanding credit risk, and that's global cash flow coverage, that's secondary and third sources of repayment should you have a fundamental issue on the front end. It's management experience through, again, these cycles. I don't-
tend to think about any particular industries or subsectors that, you know, we've said absolutely no to outside of strategic decisions like exiting, you know, energy a number of years ago, that frankly had nothing to do with ESG and more to do with just not being able to get our heads around as senior bank lenders being able to take the volatility risk. You know, as we see, as Rick and his team, if they identify sectors or subsectors where we also see a level of risk volatility that would suggest we can't earn adequate risk-adjusted returns on senior bank debt, we will not be afraid to exit them. I can't point to, you know, I can't really call out any particular sectors as we sit here today.
Okay. Fair enough. I appreciate all the color.
You bet. Thank you, Brett. Thanks.
Thank you. I'm showing we have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call to Tim Laney for his closing remarks.
Thank you, Kyle. I wanna thank everyone for their questions and your interest in National Bank Holdings. Have a great day.
This concludes today's conference. If you would like to listen to the telephone replay of this call, it will be available beginning in approximately four hours and will run through July 25th, 2022 by dialing 888-203-1112 and referencing passcode 8588483. The earnings release and online replay of this call will also be available on the company's website on the investor relations page. Thank you very much and have a great day. You may now disconnect.