Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Pinnacle Financial Partners fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Hosting the call today from Pinnacle Financial Partners is Mr. Terry Turner, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Harold Carpenter, Chief Financial Officer. Please note Pinnacle's earnings release and this morning's presentation are available on the investor relations page of their website at www.pnfp.com. Today's call is being recorded and will be available for replay on Pinnacle's website for the next 90 days. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your touchtone phone. Analysts will be given preference during the Q&A. We ask that you please pick up your handset to allow optimum sound quality.
During this presentation, we may make comments which may constitute forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other facts that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Pinnacle Financial to differ materially from any results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Many such factors are beyond Pinnacle Financial's ability to control or predict, and listeners are cautioned not to put undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. A more detailed description of these and other risks is contained in Pinnacle Financial's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2021, and its subsequently filed quarterly reports. Pinnacle Financial disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this presentation, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. In addition, these remarks may include certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G.
A presentation of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP measures will be available on Pinnacle Financial's website at www.pnfp.com. With that, I am now going to turn the presentation over to Mr. Terry Turner, Pinnacle's President and CEO.
Good morning. Thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter earnings call. Looking at performance in the fourth quarter, key success measures like net interest income growth, tangible book value accretion, core loan growth, core deposit growth, asset quality all continue to be strong. There is a fair amount of noise in our fourth quarter numbers, so we're going to move quickly to the performance detail for the fourth quarter to try to create clarity there. Then to the outlook for 2023 to help the model builders. Finally, I'll spend some time detailing why I believe we have a unique ability to continue producing outsized shareholder value. As you likely know, we believe asset quality, revenue growth, earnings per share growth, and tangible book value accretion result in long-term shareholder returns.
That's why our incentives are linked to them, and that's why we show this dashboard every single quarter where you can see the relentless upward slope of those metrics most closely tied to the shareholder returns. GAAP measures first, followed by the non-GAAP measures, which I'm personally most focused on. If you believe that asset quality, revenue growth, earnings per share growth, and tangible book value accretion most influence shareholder returns, which I do, then you have to appreciate the persistent excellent performance against those variables year in and year out. As I mentioned a minute ago, there's considerable noise in our fourth quarter financials, so we're anxious to get on to those details.
The most impactful of those items was BHG's election to fund roughly $500 million in originations on their balance sheet, thereby deferring the income on those loans over the life of the loans, as opposed to directing them into their auction platform, which would have resulted in taking the gain on sale up front, significantly increasing their and our earnings during the fourth quarter. I believe you should be able to look through to see that the core banking business continues to have great momentum. Harold, let's move on. Let's walk through the quarter. Thanks, Terry. Good morning, everybody. As usual, we'll start with loans. The fourth quarter was another strong loan growth quarter for us, and we believe annualized mid-teens loan growth going into 2023 is reasonable for us.
As we anticipated, loan yields were up in the fourth quarter. We anticipate further escalation in loan yields in the first quarter. Along with that, we are forecasting Fed increases of 25 basis points in February and 25 basis points in March. Our modeling indicates that loan yields will be up 40 to 50 basis points or so in the first quarter. The talent we've added over the last several years results in extraordinary balance sheet momentum. As we've done over the past few quarters, we're again dissecting that loan growth based on the categories noted on the slide to help everyone better understand the source of our growth. It's been a huge year for us as far as loan growth is concerned. It works out that the new markets and the new hires contributed to more than half of our growth.
That said, that represents more than just an annuity stream for interest income. Those are new clients with now new opportunities for our firm to provide all types of financial products. We're definitely in a broader footprint with new markets, but also a much deeper footprint given our model. Now deposits. Really pleased to report the growth in deposits for the fourth quarter. Growing deposits at a reasonable price in 2023 is a key focus for our firm right now. We are actively building out deposit-gathering franchises around HSA, community health associations, nonprofits, and others, and we believe we're making headway with these and other special deposit initiatives.
Our average deposit costs came in heavier at 74 basis point increase over the third quarter. Although we believe we remain inside our total deposit beta guidance of 40% through the end of 2022, we experienced an acceleration in deposit costs in the fourth quarter above our expectations by about 15 basis points. Competitive pressure around deposit costs are significant. We fully anticipate that increases in the Fed rates will continue to add a tailwind for increased deposit costs in 2023. Average deposit costs, we believe, may approach 1.9%-2% in the first quarter of this year. As to mix, we are seeing deposits move more non-interest bearing and lower yielding interest accounts into higher interest products and time deposits.
Our average non-interest bearing deposits were down approximately $440 million in the quarter from preview averages and even more based on end of period balances. Our plan would contemplate this decrease to continue at a lesser pace in the first half of 2023. About 90% of our non-interest bearing balances are commercial, with approximately 25% of that number being analyzed. Over the last year, analyzed commercial has dropped from around $425,000 per account to around $350,000, while non-analyzed commercial has dropped from $35,000 to $30,000. Pre-COVID levels would be around $300,000 for analyzed and a little less than $25,000 for non-analyzed. Average account size is still 10% or so higher than pre-COVID levels. Our number one objective remains developing strategies and tactics around funding our growth.
We continue to like our chances given the significant investment we've made in both relationship managers and new markets over the last few years. Hopefully, you'll not hear this bank's leadership ever talk about having too many deposits. Our belief is that we have and will fund our deposit growth effectively and prudently, maintaining the appropriate balance between profitability and growth. Now liquidity, we believe we have ample liquidity to fund our near-term growth. As to investment securities, our allocation to bonds was flattish in the quarter. We don't anticipate any significant growth in bonds this year. As the top left chart reflects, our GAAP NIM increased by 13 basis points compared to 28-30 basis points in the previous two quarters.
As we mentioned last time, a decrease in our NIM expansion was not unexpected, although we felt like the NIM would expand in the fourth quarter by a few more basis points than it did. Our planning assumption is that our NIM will likely be flat to down next year and likely down in the first quarter, given the first quarter is burdened by fewer days. That said, our growth model should provide for increases in net interest income. We enter 2023, we believe net interest income guidance in the high teens percentage growth for 2023 over 2022 is reasonable at this time. To credit, we're again presenting our traditional credit metrics. Pinnacle's own portfolio continues to perform very well.
Our current ACL is 1.04%, which again compares to pre-CECL, pre-COVID reserves of 48 basis points at the end of 2019. We did modify our CECL modeling this quarter with a more pessimistic assumption, set with a baseline at 20%, stagflation at 30%, and the pessimistic scenario at 50%. We continue to have conversations with borrowers about supply chains, inflation, and how it's impacting their businesses. We've been all about sustainable credit diligence efforts with the intent to actively identify any weaknesses in our borrowing base. We continue to have a very limited appetite for new construction, whether it be residential or commercial. The growth of our construction portfolio is limited to funding previously approved commitments with no new projects being added at least through the first quarter of 2023.
We also remain attentive to our concentration limits in all areas of our portfolio, particularly in CRE, as the table on the bottom right of the slide details. No changes regarding our CRE appetite from last quarter. In summary, our outlook for credit remains strong as we enter 2023 from a position of strength, if negative trends begin to develop, we believe we're advantaged. Now on to fees, as always, I'll speak to BHG in a few minutes. Excluding BHG, fee revenues were flattish for the third quarter. All that said, we're pleased with the effort of our fee generating units are putting forth, as several units are negatively impacted by the current operating environment in a meaningful way. Obviously, residential mortgage volumes were down this year.
Mortgage does see their pipelines building back modestly in the first quarter as rates hopefully will be less volatile and the spring home buying season begins. Gains on SBA loan sales are also down significantly from the third quarter as their business was impacted by the elimination of incentives from the CARES Act, which drove more business to SBA lenders in the previous quarter. We've gotten a few questions on earnings credit rates and the impact on deposit fees. Here's a stab at that. We have approximately two and a half billion dollars in analyzed commercial non-interest bearing accounts. Our current ECR is around 35 basis points, which we feel is competitive at the moment. Our run rate on analysis fees with waivers is about four and a half million dollars per quarter.
For every 25 basis points we raise the ECR, that reduces our analysis fee by $400,000-$500,000 each quarter. Our goal is to stay in the middle of our competition peer group on earnings credit rates. We have to believe some lift in the ECR is coming. It will come in small bites. We had anticipated 2022 to return a high single-digit growth in fees over 2021. Excluding BHG and other non-equity investments, we achieved 5% growth for the year. We think mortgage should recover modestly in 2023. We've also added some strong revenue producers in wealth management late in 2022. Excluding BHG and the impact of other equity investments, we believe that high single digit to low teens growth in 2023 over 2022 is reasonable.
Expenses came in about where we thought for the quarter. We did see non-compensation expense decline from 4Q in 4Q from 3Q, but attributable to the reversal of some franchise tax approvals, with some of that being added to the tax line. It was a reclassification between franchise tax expense and income tax expense. All in, we are anticipating an effective tax rate of approximately 20% in 2023. Our incentive costs also decreased in 4Q from 3Q. This was primarily the result of the impact of 4Q 22 PPNR results on the cash plan, which came in below target, and overall performance metrics on the performance-based equity incentive awards, which came in below our expectations. All of this is a segue into a few comments about variable cost nature of our expense base.
We feel like our expense base should result in mid-teens growth for 2023 over 2022. As to how we can manage expenses, as I mentioned, we've reduced our 2022 payouts due to the firm not achieving selected incentive targets, particularly on our quarterly PPNR targets and various other measurements when it comes to equity compensation, which is, by the way, primarily impacts senior leadership. That's how it works. Our cash incentive plan is always tied to EPS growth targets, and for 2022, it was also tied to PPNR targets for each quarter. We missed our fourth quarter PPNR target, thus incentives were reduced. Our leadership equity plans are tied to results in relation to our peers. Some are return on tangible common equity, some are tangible book value accretion, some are PE and tangible book value models.
It's all based on ranking in relation to our peers for measurements that we think are directly linked to shareholder value. The higher the peer ranking, the better we do. We believe we have a very shareholder-friendly compensation system that is objective, not subjective, which is a meaningful variable cost component. The other element that brings a variable cost attribute to our expense growth is our hiring model. We can always back down or off on recruiting and have done that a few times in our history. I can recall once during the financial crisis and the other at the start of COVID. Both times, we slowed recruiting until we better understood the depth of the macro environment.
Lastly, as we mentioned in the press release, we've got the ability to modify, cancel, postpone various events and projects, which we absolutely will do should our targets be in jeopardy of not being achieved. On to capital, tangible book value per common share increased to $44.74 at quarter end, up slightly from last quarter. Our capital ratios remain above well-capitalized levels. We like our tangible common equity ratio, which stands at 8.5% currently. We are mindful of our Tier 2 capital levels, particularly at Pinnacle Bank. We'll be monitoring our capital levels as we get into 2023. We believe the actions we've taken to preserve tangible book value and our tangible capital ratio have served us well and have no plans currently to alter our PNFP Tier 1 capital stack means via any sort of common or preferred offer.
A few comments about BHG before we look at the outlook for the rest of the year. As the slide indicates, BHG had another great quarter on originations, second best in its history. Originations did decrease from the prior quarter with BHG's implementation of a tighter credit box, so fewer of the lower credit scored loans, which are typically more profitable, were funded in the fourth quarter. As a result, spreads did come in from the last quarter from 9.7% to 8.9%, as the chart on the bottom left indicates. That's more spread shrinkage than originally planned. As the chart indicated for several quarters in 2020, current spreads remain above or near historical norms.
The approval for loan substitutions and prepayments increased to 5.66% from 5.28% last quarter as a result of a more precautionary posture of BHG management. BHG's approval for loan substitution and prepayments for our sold loan portfolio increased from $270 million at September 30 to $314 million at December 31. As the blue bars in the bottom right chart show, recourse losses fell slightly from 4% to 3.96% at year-end. Additionally, given the macro environment, and as we mentioned last quarter, BHG also increased on-balance sheet reserve for loan losses to $147 million, or 4.59% of its on-balance sheet loans from 3.53% last quarter. Of course, CECL is still on the radar for adoption on October 1, 2023.
We continue to anticipate the CECL reserve to be 8%-9%, that certainly is an estimate at this point. The quality of BHG's borrowing base, in our opinion, remains impressive. As mentioned earlier, BHG has modified its credit box, particularly with respect to lower tranches of its borrowing base. This will have an impact on both production and spreads going forward. BHG refreshes its credit score monthly, always looking for indications of weakness in its borrowing base. Credit scores were at consistent levels with previous quarters, their borrowers have remained resilient through the cycle thus far. In comparison to other consumer lenders, we believe BHG borrowers remain well compensated, with average borrower earnings being around $293,000 annually. BHG's trailing 12-month charge-off ratio has increased from 1.98% to 2.94%.
Its delinquency ratio has increased from 1.22% to 1.78%. These ratios are in line with early 2021 ratios, BHG recognizes the macro environment could lead to further deterioration of similar credits. In an effort to keep performance near historical levels, BHG has made a number of credit cuts to both their marketing and underwriting models. We believe that BHG's management team has taken a proactive approach to managing credit as it enters 2023. BHG had another great year in 2022. As I mentioned during our earnings calls this year, we have always believed BHG's earnings in the first half of 2022 would likely be stronger than the second half, as they sent more loans to the bank auction platform in the first half of the year rather than hold loans on their balance sheet.
As you know, the bank auction platform delivers immediate gain on sale income, while loans that they retain on the balance sheet and fund through various funding options deliver interest income over the life of the loan. BHG accomplished three securitizations this year, aggregating almost $1.3 billion in volume. During the last part of December, they added $550 million in new facility with Goldman and Truist. This represents incremental funding available to BHG in 2023. A third facility for $500 million was closed in late December as well. Closing of this facility required more loans to remain on balance sheet than we otherwise had been expected. This facility was fully funded at year-end 2022. Here's a simple example.
$100 million issuance through the bank auction platform could generate anywhere from $30 million-$40 million in gains immediately, while going through the securitization platform at an 8% spread would yield approximately $7 million-$8 million in interest income annually. In the fourth quarter, BHG sent more to the balance sheet than originally anticipated, which would have otherwise been sold through the GOS model. Looking forward, some key points I'd like to re-emphasize, which are basically the same comments I mentioned three months ago. BHG management is responding to the macro environment in a very real way. BHG is and will be increasing reserves based on macroeconomic data at least over the next few quarters. BHG has been modifying their credit models towards originating less risky assets. With that, spread shrinkage may occur as we head into 2023.
Production volumes are strong. We believe they will maintain production levels going into 2023. BHG's new funding alternatives will broaden their already strong liquidity platform, which we also believe is unmatched by their peers. Lastly, a few weeks ago, BHG took steps to limit its headcount with job eliminations and eliminations of most open positions, as well as other expense reductions, which should yield a 10% reduction in its expense burden in 2023 from 2022. For all those reasons, we have great confidence in our partners at Bankers Healthcare Group to deliver strong results over the long term. Quickly, here's our final initial outlook for 2023, along with a comparison of our comments on 2022, the third quarter conference call in October. We expect mid-teens growth in loans, low to mid-teens growth in deposits.
This correlates to a similar outlook for net interest income, which should result, we believe, in high teens growth in net interest income. Our plan for 2023 contemplates our NIM being flat to down for the year, which will obviously be a challenge, and we need to be nimble with respect to pricing, especially on deposits. Fee revenues may be our biggest challenge, as many fee units are facing more than their fair share of economic headwinds. We've had some key hires in several of these areas and are optimistic that we should see a lift from those new associates. We believe BHG's earnings will be flat to slightly up through 2023. We've reduced our expense growth outlook to mid-teens. Our senior leaders are still committed to a strong recruiting year, especially as it pertains to revenue hires.
Asset quality, we believe, is in great shape currently. We believe we're entering the year from a position of strength, which should be a great thing should negative trends begin to develop. We're putting the final touches on our strategic and financial plans for 2023 with just as many unknowns now as there were last year. Our goal remains the same. Top quartile earnings performance, no matter what gets thrown at us. With that, I will turn it back over to Terry.
All right. Thank you, Harold. There are two things that I hate, and I know most of you do as well. One is noise in the numbers. In my opinion, noise just forces the discussion to be around trying to create clarity about the noise and takes the focus off the underlying ability to produce outsized shareholder returns, which of course, is where I think the focus should be. The second thing I hate is economic uncertainty. So frequently it forces investors to the sidelines, regardless of the potential for shareholder value creation. I want to take just a minute to ensure understanding of how we intend to produce outsized shareholder returns, regardless of whether BHG elects to balance sheet more loans, regardless of the economic uncertainties that persist, come what may.
It's not lost on anyone on this call that there's a broad sentiment that we're headed into a difficult economic landscape. Greenwich's loan survey commercial executives as to their view of the direction of the economy going forward. Their optimism index is simply a net score of the positives less the negatives. As you can see here, commercial executives has not been so pessimistic since the Great Recession. The economic headwinds bearing on commercial banks are widely known and include a shrinking money supply, which means a shrinking deposit pool, increased rate-based competition for deposits, an inverted yield curve, inflation, and ultimately a recession, just to name a few.
There's no doubt that the banking business is subject to the economic environment. Our growth model is more a function of our ability to take both talent and market share, and therefore is substantially less dependent on short-term interest rate movements, inflation ups and downs, and those kinds of things. We literally have been pursuing this model for 23 years, so frankly, it's just hard for me to understand how competitors who've not been building this differentiation can either catch up or defend against it. It is the classic sustainable advantage. Beginning with the far right, the objective is total shareholder returns. Here you can see the dramatic outperformance over the last 10 years.
Generally, that would be true if you looked at our first 10 years of existence, true if you looked at our second 10 years of existence, true if you looked at our first 20 years of existence. While past results are no guarantee for future performance, I believe it'll be true over the next 10 years because this model is intended to produce value through thick and thin over the long term. The reason I say that is because we've built a demonstrably different client experience. Every bank says they give great service. In our case, it's our clients who say that, and they tell that to the independent researchers that prepare the data, not only for Pinnacle, but for virtually all our competitors. You can see in the center of the chart that our clients' engagement with this firm is literally unparalleled.
At the risk of oversimplifying, that differentiated service is largely contingent on our ability to excite and engage our associates. I'm not going to read you the list, but said simply, in 2022, we've been rated as the best place to work in virtually every market we operate in. On a national scale, we've been ranked as the second best workplace for women and the seventh best workplace for millennials in the country. We excite and engage our associates. It's just hard for me to imagine that competitors who've not been building this over an extended period of time will be very successful either taking our associates and clients or stopping us from taking theirs. Moving on to the advantaged markets, using United Van Lines mover study, the Southeast continues to attract people from all over the country.
I challenge you to find a bank with a more advantaged footprint than ours in terms of population migration and growth. As it relates to our chosen footprint, we operate in the vast majority of the large high-growth urban markets. We're located in the most advantaged region of the country, and within that region, we're generally located in the largest and fastest-growing cities. Moving beyond the incredibly attractive size and growth dynamics of our markets, find, frankly, the more important attraction is the competitive landscape.
Using the Net Promoter Score as the best indicator of a bank's ability to protect or expand market share, beginning on the left, according to Greenwich's national study, despite all their investments in technology, you can see scores are horribly low for the national franchises, slightly better, but declining at the super regionals, and not surprisingly better, but declining at community banks. Moving to the right, you can see that Pinnacle scores are unmatched and getting better. I fully expect that gap to widen as the industry adopts a work-from-home platform while we operate a work-from-office platform primarily for the purpose of further differentiating our service levels. Lord willing, that's what we'll do. Keep in mind, the Net Promoter Score measures clients' willingness to recommend. That's how you continue to grow safely in the face of a declining economy.
Speaking of the competitive vulnerabilities, never in our existence do I remember a time when the banks that have the bulk of the share in our markets were more likely to give it up than now. Here's a smattering of recent headlines in our markets regarding our competitors. My goal here is not to disparage them, but simply to crystallize the sustainability of our ongoing market share taking for both associates and clients. Here's further demonstration of our winning the war for talent. I believe we've become the employer of choice for bankers that are frustrated with the large bank employers in our markets. It seems like every year we set a new record for hiring many of the most experienced and successful revenue producers in our markets from those banks that still have the largest market shares.
When they work in a company that despises bureaucracy and is universally focused on wowing clients, these revenue producers create literally the best experience in the market. Not to belabor the point, the three banks on the left of that chart are the market share leaders. How could you expect anything from us but rapid growth over the long term, completely agnostic to economic conditions, when you recognize that those banks are where most of our revenue producers come from, and you see the differentiated service that they're now able to provide? Here's another way to visualize that opportunity. Banks above the crosshairs have share dominance. Banks to the left of the crosshairs are least successful engaging their clients. They're vulnerable.
Banks to the right of the crosshairs are most successful at engaging their clients and best positioned to capitalize on those competitive vulnerabilities, PNFP being the most advantaged against the market share leaders, all of whom look vulnerable. Much has been written about the competitive advantage that's being created by the tech spend at the nation's largest banks. In Greenwich's study of the national franchises, you can see, sure enough, there's a strong correlation between clients' perceptions of a bank's digital capabilities and a client's willingness to add them as a bank provider. According to Greenwich, in our markets, the best overall digital experience is being provided by Pinnacle. The best product capabilities, the best service professionals, the best overall experience. Thinking about long-term shareholder value creation, Greenwich Research has long isolated the three pillars on which client loyalty is built. Number one, valuing long-term relationships.
Number 2, ease of doing business. Number 3, a bank you can trust. Over the last couple of years, they've actually expanded to a fourth pillar, which is data and analytics driven insights, a key area of investment, again, for those largest competitors. Again, in our markets, we dominate all 4 of those metrics. Further indication that our net growth of clients is likely to continue. Now trying to connect the dots, I recognize many associate engagement, client service have little or no bearing on earnings and shareholder returns. Some view those things as expenses to be cut, hopefully, this slide can connect the dots for you on why we believe our growth should be insulated from economic conditions.
The people we hire and the service we give, very few clients would consider leaving, and a great many intend to add us as a provider on their next product need. As you scan up and down those net momentum percentages for the banks in our market, irrespective of economic conditions, our net momentum is huge. In the case of small businesses, more than twice as much as the next best competitor, and in the case of the middle market, total dominance, particularly when you compare to the market share leaders, the top 3 banks on both of those charts. Without understanding our unique approach to penetrate the market, largely by hiring experienced bankers and enabling them to be easy to do business with, the uninformed might draw a conclusion that if it's growing like a weed, it is one.
Many of our competitors are out prospecting for new clients by circulating Dun and Brad lists or some other prospect list, trying to meet a prospect to borrow money. I would say even slow growers, that's typically how it's done. You can see here, according to Greenwich, we're dead last in prospect calling. As previously discussed, we're not out trying to meet clients to loan money to. We're simply supporting our relationship managers in calling on the clients that they've known and banked many times for decades. We believe that strategy provides us with better protection than our peers in the event credit turns. Q4 was a noisy quarter. Economic uncertainty is abound. My encouragement is to keep the emphasis on the right to liable. As it relates to BHG, the fundamentals remain strong. Originations were the second highest in their history.
They've rescored their loan book, and scores have not deteriorated, again, indicating strength in the loan book. They continue to add liquidity sources and utilize those liquidity sources, many from some of the most sophisticated investors in the market. At the end of the day, nearly $300 million in pre-tax earnings, 22% growth over prior year is an incredible story and continues to be a handsome asset. Beyond that, and I think this is most important to me, we run a core banking franchise that continues to dominate and continues to have momentum, regardless of what the circumstances are. We compete in the Advantage Southeastern footprint. We have a cultural focus that results in a differentiated client experience, and there is no more sustainable advantage than that.
Our organic growth model, we're having recruiting successes that resonate throughout our markets. One of the best loan growth stories in the U.S., one of the best tangible book value growers in the country. From a credit perspective, we're top quartile in terms of NPAs to loans and OREO, clearly the place you want to start if credit does turn. Lastly, I would just hit on this idea. Harold's talked about it a little bit, but I think an important consideration as people begin to focus on how do we get the 2023 estimate set, has to do with our compensation systems, how those goals are set, particularly as it relates to leadership compensation. Specifically, those incentive plans focus on tangible book value generation.
Might give you some insight into why our tangible book value grew at the pace it did versus peers in 2022. We do peer relative target setting, we have to outrun the peers. As Harold indicated, we're looking for top quartile performance on things like EPS and revenue growth in 2023. As many of you try and develop those 2023 estimates, maybe you can go to school a little bit on 2022. All I mean by that is, if you think back to 2022, generally the outlook for the industry as a whole was that there would be negative earnings, negative earnings growth in 2022. It was because most believed that the industry didn't have sufficient momentum to outrun the loss of PPP income.
I will say this, obviously, this information ends up in our proxy. Regardless of what those industry expectations are, we still targeted top quartile growth, which was not net negative, and we bet my incentive, Harold's incentive, and the incentives of the roughly 3,000 salary-based employees of this company on that idea. That's been our methodology from the start. That continues to be our methodology. As you think through that, you get some insight into our belief about the momentum in the core banking franchise in order to get that done. I'll stop there, and we'll be glad to take questions.
Thank you, Mr. Turner. The floor is now open for your questions. If you would like to ask a question at this time, please press star one on your touchtone phone. Analysts will be given preference during the Q&A. We do ask that when you ask your question that you pick up your handset to provide optimum sound quality. The first question is coming from Jared Shaw from Wells Fargo Securities. Jared, your line is live.
Morning, guys. Thank you. Maybe just starting on margin and the guidance. Harold, when you're saying it's down and, should we assume that's down from fourth quarter's 3.60% or the full year over full year, should be slightly down?
Yeah. We believe that it ought to be flat to down from the fourth quarter. We think the first quarter is gonna be, probably penalized more because it just has fewer number of days. We believe, you know, it could be 3 to 5 basis points, something like that.
Okay. you know, when we look at the asset sensitivity disclosure, it looks like, you know, you became more asset sensitive in the fourth quarter. Is this just, you know, you anticipate increased acceleration of deposit funding pressure, I'm assuming here?
Yeah. I mean, we are planning to still see rates increase here in the near term. We think our deposit beta might, you know, level off at somewhere around 45% by mid-year, maybe a little more than that by mid-year. Yeah.
Okay. All right, thanks for that. On BHG, what are some of the assumptions you have for provision in 23 with, you know, the weakening credit backdrop, and how sensitive is your BHG outlook to the provision?
Yeah, that's a great question. They plan on not nearly as significant of increases in their provisioning or their reserves going forward. They think they've gotten the bulk of it done here this quarter, but they'll just have to monitor what past dues are looking like, what charge-offs are looking like to see if they can stay within that guidance.
Okay. Just, can you give us an update on the estimate for or I'm sorry, that day one CECL impact in October for Pinnacle?
For Pinnacle? Yeah.
Yeah, the Pinnacle portion.
Well, the number I've seen from BHG would be about $190 million, so we'd be 49% of that. That would run through our equity.
Okay. Thanks. I'll step back. Thanks for the questions.
Thanks, Jared.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Stephen Scouten from Piper Sandler. Stephen, your line is live.
Thanks. Good morning, guys. I think Terry and Harold, you guys have said, you know, you spend NII, you don't spend the NIM, but obviously some of the optics around the deposit betas can be tough. You guys laid out a really good slide, I think, in the second quarter kind of showing you guys have traditionally had higher betas but also higher NII growth. Is there anything today within the balance sheet that makes you think moving forward will be any different, whether that be, you know, funding mix, the reduction in non-interest-bearing deposits, the, you know, the scale of funding pressures? Do you think that's a story that will continue to play out that, yeah, we'll have higher betas, but we'll also have this better NII growth resulting in, you know, better earnings over time?
Yeah, for sure. We're talking about high teens growth in net interest income this year and with a margin that could be flat to down. That thesis is, you know, how we, how we operate. Several years ago, I remember on a call, somebody asked a question about how we're gonna deal with this thrift-like margin. And that was back when it was down around 2.00%-2.50% or so. There is a point where our pricing and our margins get too low for us to live with, and we have to adjust. As we sit right now, our growth engine appears more than capable of providing significant net interest income growth with this, some might say, a higher deposit rate.
Okay, great. Within that composition, Harold, you mentioned some other, you know, niche kind of verticals, and I noticed it appeared in the slide deck that index deposits jumped maybe to 17.2% of deposits from, like, 11.3. Were there any meaningful changes there in terms of products or verticals there that drove that increase?
Yeah. I think most of that would be public funds. We've attracted some public fund clients here locally as well as in Washington. I think most of those are tied to some kind of index.
Okay. Just last thing for me, just on that share repurchase, the $125 million plan, as well as you noted a potential sub-debt raise. Can you give us an idea about, you know, how you're thinking about that into 2023, how aggressive you might plan to be and what the size of a potential sub-debt raise might look like?
Yeah. I mean, we've modeled out, you know, $200 million-$300 million. Right now, we think we can step through it, step through the year without, you know, any kind of need to go out and raise sub-debt. We'll just have to see how that plans out, how loan growth performs, all that.
Okay, great. Thanks a lot for the color. Appreciate it.
Thanks, Steve.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Steven Alexopoulos from JPMorgan. Steven, your line is live.
Hey, good morning, everyone.
Hey, Steve.
If the revenue environment proves to be worse than expected, could you walk us through which levers would you expect to pull early on, right? What's like first to go, last to go, and, you know, how quickly could you throttle down expense levels if needed?
There's several things that we can respond to fairly quickly. One is that if Terry believes the, kind of the revenue number appears to be kind of will be consistent for the year, like we've done in the past, we could always reduce our hiring profile or our hiring plans for the year. We also anticipate what the payout's gonna be on the incentive plan, so those accruals would also come down. We've got plans for various events throughout the year that could get on the, you know, get on the table for complete elimination or reduction or whatever.
This year, I think, you know, given what's going on here today and what we reported in earnings, I think there's gonna be an intense focus on not only expenses, but revenue growth, pricing, all of that by this management group, to make sure that we achieve our targets this year. Terry's allocated time in his senior level meeting to review those kind of things. I think our firm, particularly our senior leadership, is committed to hitting our targets and doing whatever we need to do to accomplish that.
Hey, Steven, I might just tag on there a little bit. Maybe not exactly what you asked, but I think some color re-related to that topic. As you know, in terms of annual cash incentive plan, generally we have to clear a soundness threshold. We can't make bad loans and win. Assume we clear that, most of our existence, the two variables that determine the payout were earnings per share growth and revenue growth that was required to hit that earnings per share growth. last year we looked at PPNR, and I guess for a year or two during a difficult period where, you know, allowances were being built and those kinds of things, you know, we relied on PPNR more than revenue. Our board has not technically approved the comp plan.
They'll do that here in the next few weeks in a February meeting. The anticipation is that they'll go back to the two performance variables, being earnings per share growth and revenue growth. Anyway, I just put that in perspective. I get it, you're asking about expenses, but it does create a great focus on getting the revenue generated, which drives up the odds of success there. Secondarily, to hit the earnings, if we're not hitting that revenue growth, there's plenty of focus on it. We will get in here and start working in a different way on the expenses.
Got it. Okay. That's helpful. If I could change to the margin, to follow up on your answer to Jared's question. All the commentary you gave about the competitive environment for deposits. Harold, how should we think about the trajectory for NIM? How are you thinking about it here? I think you said down 3 to 5 basis points in the first quarter, but do you think it's slow and steady declines through the year? Do you think, you know, we bottom out in the first half, recover in the second half? How are you thinking about that?
Well, as far as the rate increases and our impact on our margin, we think they will have, you know, that'll drive some of the reduction in our margins. In all likelihood, Steve, the margin's probably gonna just kind of rotate around this 3.55%, but the call it 3.60% number, we believe all year long. If funding pressures and we're not able to hit our deposit targets, then obviously that's gonna impact that assertion. As it sits right now, we believe we're just gonna kind of be in that 3.55%-3.60% range.
Okay. That's helpful. Finally on BHG, if we look at the prior expectations for 2023 versus what you're coming out with now, right? It's a reduced outlook for the contribution. Doesn't sound like that's related to you anticipating higher provisions at BHG. Is this all related to them just holding more production in portfolio? Is that really what's driving this, or is there something else?
Well, I think there will be year-over-year, more credit costs related to provisioning, of some call it 10%-20%. They intend to probably back off some of their balance sheeting and send more money through the auction platform this year. They think they're gonna have to do that with the elimination of these lower tiers, these higher credits, I mean, lower credit score accounts in order to hit their revenue numbers for this year. I think they'll send more to the auction platform, and I think they'll also be still adding more money to the reserves, but not at the same pace that they did in the fourth quarter.
Got it. Okay. That's helpful. Thanks for the color.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Michael Rose, from Raymond James. Michael, your line is live.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Harold, I think last quarter you talked about a cumulative deposit beta, you know, somewhere in the 60% range, and you'd kind of estimated 40% by the end of this year, which you kind of had. Any changes to that, just given the competitive pressure for that longer term cumulative beta? You know, if the Fed does stay, you know, higher for longer, does that impact that? Thanks.
Yeah, I don't know. I've not really thought about or put any kind of math to what deposit costs could look like at the end of 2023 as far as beta calculations and into 2024. We've kind of talked about a beta through the middle of the year of somewhere between 45% and 50% given the two rate hikes here in the near term. I've not really gone out and, you know, kind of looked at what the longer term deposit beta, but we fully expect that once the Fed stops raising rates, that you're likely to see deposit rate creep just due to competitive pressure.
I don't know how long we're going to talk about deposit rates, I think when you get into the latter part of the year, and like you said, Michael, assuming the Fed, we're in a higher rate environment for a longer period of time, that we fully anticipate that deposit rates will continue to creep north, you know, in a kind of a flat rate environment.
Okay, thanks for the color. Maybe just 1 separate follow-up question. Just wanted to kind of revisit where you guys are in terms of the BHG investment. Obviously, it's done a lot of great things for you all over the years. You know, I know you've kind of maybe hinted at maybe reducing the stake at some point in the future. Just given where the earnings contribution is and expected to be, you know, over the next years, it's obviously going to be lower than it has in the past.
You know, any sort of, you know, strategic thought as we, you know, kind of move over the next, you know, short to intermediate term and how you guys view that business and, you know, what the longer term strategic rationale of the investment is for you? Thanks.
Yeah, I'll start and Terry can add his comments. First of all, I want to say the partnership between us and BHG is strong. Matter of fact, I'll have a board meeting with the BHG folks here in about 2 hours. The valuation of Bankers Healthcare Group, we understand, we realize, we believe is kind of part of the bear case on our shares and trying to figure out what that number is important. Absent an arm's length transaction, is difficult to discern. That said, I think we and BHG are on the same page. There are, there have been opportunities to reduce our stake, but right now the pricing is just not, we believe, at a point to where that makes it worthwhile for us.
We think it's a valuable asset. We think it has created quite a bit of earnings momentum for us. We think BHG on another day could be worth quite a bit of money. All that said, our opinion about BHG is that a lesser ownership interest by ourselves probably wouldn't be that bad. We should consider any kind of worthwhile transaction that does that carefully.
Yeah, I think, Michael, if maybe just to echo Harold's comments, you started with the right assumption. I think what I've tried to say is that if nobody had to be happy, we would like to reduce our dependence on BHG as a function of our earnings stream. Not because we're not bullish on the company and not because any reason other than, it just has become where in investor conversations, investor outlets and so forth, it's just hard to keep telling the story that so many people either disagree with or don't understand. Again, at least for me from a strategic standpoint, I'd like to have less dependence on BHG as a function of my earnings stream. I think to Harold's point, I think we'd be good with that.
I think BHG would be good with that. I think there always are, almost always are a number of people who have interest, who pursue ownership interest in BHG. The question just comes down to what's the price. You know, if we find the right price in there, I think we would have an expressed preference to lighten our load some. If you don't find the right price, we continue to love the investment and what it does for our company and how it fuels our ongoing growth. Again, it's the worst case is a good case. Again, just to be clear, at the right price, we would certainly lighten our exposure to BHG as a function of our earnings stream.
I appreciate all the color. Thanks for taking my questions.
Yep.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Casey Haire from Jefferies. Casey, your line is live.
Yeah, thanks. Good morning, guys. Question on the fee guide, ex BHG? I was just wondering what are the drivers? Just to get to the low end of the guide implies kind of a mid-teens growth from the current run rate on average to hit the low end of that guide in 2023. Just wondering what the drivers are.
I think mortgage is going to be impactful.
Big hit in the fourth quarter because of valuation of the hedge. Their pipeline is down to the lowest level it's been at in, I don't know, 7 or 8 years, Casey. The absolute size of the pipeline drives the valuation of that hedge. We're going to at least have that tailwind going into the, you know, call it the early part of 2023 into the spring. We've also hired a meaningful number of wealth management people. We're particularly interested in a few that have been at this for decades. Their client base is broad, well supported, we anticipate some pretty significant revenue bumps from that.
As we've also mentioned, we are targeting quite a bit of commercial accounts. With that, we believe we've got both analyzed fees and unanalyzed fees, non-analyzed fees that'll be coming to us. That's kind of where that high single-digit number comes from, are primarily in those areas.
Okay, understood. Then, just digging in a little more on BHG. Just wondering what kind of spread you guys are assuming, just given, you know, the bank buy rate has increased, and that spread has kind of come in. Does the guide for 23 assume that that spread holds, or is there a little bit of deterioration in there?
The spread that I'm looking at for them for next year is 8.5-9, something like that.
Okay, very good. Then just last one from me. I know it's tricky, but the non-interest-bearing deposits, you know, settling down to 28%. Any sense as to how much more attrition, you know, is possible or, you know, before you start getting into like, you know, core working capital and, you know, you hit a floor there?
Yeah, that's a great question and, you know, you need kind of a crystal ball to figure it out. The best data that we have, that we've looked at is when we start looking at average account sizes and what they were pre-COVID to what they are now. You know, it could be anywhere from, call it, you know, 5% or so to maybe something north of that. Our planning assumption is somewhere around that.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Matt Olney from Stephens Inc. Matt, your line is live.
Hey, thanks. Good morning. First question for Harold. With Michael Rose's earlier question, you mentioned a flat rate environment and what this means for the margin. What if the Fed starts to cut its Fed funds rate? What are some incremental levers you guys could pull to help protect the margin and the NII?
Well, we have entered into 2 swap transactions for about. Well, there's actually 4 of them that we've entered into for about $2 billion in coverage on the loan book at somewhere around, call it, 4 and a quarter. We do have that. I think the biggest thing we've got is, first of all, we've mentioned we've got an increase in indexed accounts, those will come down. The other thing we've got is a relationship-based business where, we think we've been pretty strong, pretty good at being fair with clients. What happened last time in a rate down environment is we were also pretty fair on the way down. That takes a lot of communication with clients, but we've been doing that now for all of 2022.
If we get into a rate down environment, we fully anticipate our relationship managers will begin to pull those deposit prices down quickly.
Matt, I might add to Harold's comments there. There's a lot of energy in the company on loan floors. As you know, going into this cycle, we had a lot of protection from the loan floors that we were able to successfully negotiate with our relationships. That's also an arrow in our quiver.
Yep. Okay. Good, good points. I guess shifting over towards the loan growth, the mid-teens guidance, just trying to get a better idea of assumptions behind this. I know the bank always does kind of a bottoms-up analysis for each of its producers. Any other commentary you can share with us about the process for 2023, especially in light of the slide in the, in the deck you guys put out there on 2023, where you include that the optimism index of commercial executives is at very low levels? Thanks.
Yeah. If I understand the question, Matt, you're trying to get at what's our assumption on how we grow in the face of a declining economy. Am I getting it?
Yeah, that's it, Terry. I guess I know you did do the bottoms-up analysis with each producer, I'm trying to appreciate if there were any more adjustments at the end of that than you typically do each year with your preliminary guidance.
Well, I guess in getting what you're looking for, we went through the same process this year that we always do, which, you know, is both a top-down and a bottoms-up deal. You know, again, we expect, I think we go through every relationship manager, where they are, what their expected production is. Their targets, as you would guess, add up to meaningfully more than what our target at the top of the house is. Many of those targets are large because of the hiring ladder that we have, where we've hired so many people over the last 3 years, so many people over the last 2 years, so many people over the last 1 year, that still owe us the bulk of their book movement and so forth.
There is a level of detail that would be down to the relationship manager, and those expectations would exceed what we believe we'll do or what we're communicating we'll do at the top of the house.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you, Terry.
Yep.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Catherine Mealor from KBW. Catherine, your line is live.
Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Just one more question kind of following up on BHG and expenses. If I just think back to the past few years, BHG has been really instrumental in really paying for the build that you've had in the hiring process and building, you know, the core bank. At a point in time when we're seeing the BHG contribution, you know, stabilizing, maybe at risk of pulling back a little bit, you know, I guess, what does it take for you to feel the need to adjust the expense outlook a little bit more, you know, than this mid 15% range? Is there a level of profitability that you feel like you shouldn't go below, and that might trigger, you know, more expense initiatives?
Is it all just about, you know, making sure revenue growth is higher than expense growth, and kind of growing EPS that way, but less about maybe what the ROA is? Any kind of just color around that would be super helpful. Thanks.
Yeah. The ROA probably not at the top of our list. We do have ROTCE and all that. At the end of the day, Catherine, what we've got are earnings targets, revenue targets per share, and BHG is a component in that. We're gonna try to get to that bottom line number in the most effective way that we can. If that means we need to cut costs, we'll cut costs. If that means we need to go try to figure out how to grow revenues in some way that's not in the plan, we'll do that. BHG in the past has provided us some tailwind with respect to growth.
They've typically outgrown our number, year-in and year-out, and that's provided us a little extra resource to go after and support our hiring platform. This year, it looks like their growth is going to be fairly flat to slightly up. That you might imply from that we may need to back off on hiring in order to, you know, kind of meet our EPS targets. I don't know if I'm getting at all your question, Catherine, or not. We're gonna eventually nail down what we think top quartile growth needs to be for this firm and assemble a plan that is the most likely to achieve it. That would include Bankers Healthcare Group in that. We'll use the latest and greatest information we have from them to do it.
Got it.
Hey, let me, if I can just maybe make a slightly different point. I don't know if it'll be helpful to you or not. It's intended to at least give you some insight into what our mindset is, what we're trying to do here. You know, I made a comment during the presentation about how the incentive plans work here, and it really was just trying to clarify for people that I don't think anybody thought that banks were going to grow earnings in 2022, given the loss of PPP income. We believe that we had momentum in the core banking franchise and an ability to do that, and our incentives were bet on that, and we did that. In fact, we outperformed the number. Of course, we got the benefit of rate increases that were beyond expectation, all those kinds of things.
I guess I just want to be clear, we believed and bet going in that we had more momentum in the banking franchise, which we carry today, and outrun the loss of PPP income. I think that's different than what I hear when I talk to most of my peers. That same phenomenon exists this year.
For me, one of the reasons I want to go through the momentum, the core momentum, just how you get clients and how much business momentum exists and is going to occur regardless of economic conditions and so forth, is to try to help people get that even in a year when we're projecting BHG to not be a major part of the earnings growth story, that we believe we have such momentum in the core banking franchise, which just goes back to this story that we've been talking about for a long time. All the people that we've hired, all the business that they're moving, all the success they're having penetrating these large banks that are giving, you know, giving up share, that we can outrun that. Again, I'm going to guess that's a different story.
I know it's frustrating because most people will easily go to, "Hey, it looks difficult. Why don't we cut expenses?" We'll do that if that's what's required, but it's just not game plan A. We believe we have momentum that's going to produce outsized revenue growth, and that's the play that we want to make. As I say, bet our, not only mine and Harold, but really all the associates of this firm on that idea.
Got it. That makes sense. You're saying in a moment where BHG revenue is less than expected, the core bank is better, and so that's why you don't have to tap into expenses. If from here, revenue becomes more challenging or BHG falls more than expected, that's when you can start to flex the expense, the expense lever.
That's exactly it. Catherine, I've got about $125 million in cash bonuses in this plan. That's all subject to hitting getting EPS growth targets.
Great. Okay. That's super helpful. This is really a small nit, but just wanted to do it for modeling purposes. The FTE adjustment typically, and I've looked historically, typically pops up a little bit in the fourth quarter, then normalizes. Should we expect, you saw that linked quarter increase this quarter again. Should we expect to see that kind of normalize back down to first quarter like we've seen historically?
Yeah, I think so.
Okay, great. I think that's all I got. Thanks so much.
Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Jennifer Demba from Truist Securities. Jennifer, your line is live.
Thank you. Good morning.
Good morning.
Harold, let's beat a dead horse a little more. Would it be fair to say that the margin is probably the most at risk element of the fundamental guidance that you guys laid out for 23?
Yeah. I think so. you know, deposit pricing will be key to it. We feel pretty good about where the loan pricing is. We feel pretty good about our fixed rate loan pricing is definitely improving. We've been beating on that drum for several quarters now, and I think it's finally getting some traction. The loan yields, we think, will hang in there. I think we've got support from Rob and Rick and Rob around the franchise on that. The competition for deposit pricing for us extends beyond what Truist is paying, what Regions is paying, what, some of these other franchises are paying around our competitive peers.
It extends into, you know, what the money market accounts are doing, what the high yield savings accounts are doing, what the brokers are trying to do with folks, all that as well. That point is that, you know, there is a limit to how much these deposit costs will go. We don't think we have to go all the way up to those levels for sure. But we have told our sales force that we will not lose a deposit because of price. Their marching orders are to go out there and make sure that whenever they've got a chance to defend their deposit portfolio, they do it. We're not letting those deposits walk. Secondly, there was an earlier question about DDAs and where those are headed.
There's also a strong emphasis on that and protecting those deposits best we can. We did see kind of an initial thrust during the quarter that a lot of that DDA movement occurred around November and the November rate increases. We didn't see nearly that kind of reduction in December. We're hopeful that a lot of that, although we anticipate more to occur, we're hopeful that it won't occur at the same kind of levels that it's occurred here in the fourth quarter. The one more thing on as far as margin protection that we're doing tactically, Jennifer, as far as the loan guidance and all of that, we are actively selling to our sales force the notion of prepayment penalties on all fixed-rate credits.
I think, we've been working on that, too, for the last two or three quarters, and we're getting traction there as well. We're hopeful that if rates do come down on us, at least in the near term, or at least in the longer term, we've got some protection there.
The deposit growth that you're projecting for this year, you know, would be very strong. Is this a permanent shift for Pinnacle in terms of just focus, putting a more intense focus on deposit growth overall?
Jennifer, I think the answer to that question is yes. All I mean by I think that yes is, I think we have, since the founding of the company, had an intense focus on deposit acquisition. As you know, if you have a mature company, you got a mature retail deposit book, and you can sort of milk and ride that. In our case, we got to fund it as we go, and so there's a different energy and emphasis around that always and has been there since the beginning. Clearly, during, you know, the pandemic and all the influx of liquidity, we didn't concentrate so much on the defense of our deposits. We didn't have to do that, and those kinds of things. It is a different day as the money supply collapses, deposit pool collapses.
It does require a different level of energy.
Happily, during that pandemic period, we built three or four specialty deposit businesses that all have some level of traction in them. I'm gonna guess, Jennifer, that in 2022, those four specialties probably produced, I don't know, $800 million-$900 million in deposits for us. We expect that growth to be still bigger as we go forward. We're in the early stages with still positive momentum in all four of those specialties. That's the reason that I say, okay, yeah, I think there is a structural difference in our ability to do it, which in addition to all the energy and emphasis of the relationship managers, we do have some product specialties that are pretty meaningful in terms of how they're bolstering our deposit growth.
Thank you. Thank you. The next question is coming from Brian Martin from Janney Montgomery. Brian, your line is live.
Hey, guys. Good morning. I'll be brief. Harold, Terry, just the hiring outlook for this year. I mean, I think you talked last quarter about where you thought it might be, but given fourth quarter's wrapped up and some of the commentary earlier, how are you thinking about hiring in 23 relative to 22?
Yeah, I think one of the things that's important, Brian, when we talk about hiring, most of the time when we're talking with investors, we really talk primarily about hiring revenue producers, 'cause that's really the thrust of our company, has been all along. What we're trying to do is grow our revenues, grow our top line in order to grow our bottom line, all that sort of stuff. Again, just to sort of maybe make a point that's obvious, but sometimes forgotten, those revenue producers are generally gonna be supported 2 to 1 by non-revenue producers. The total number of people that have to be hired in a year, I think net increases were in the 400 person range.
Don't hold me to the exact number, but it'd be in that range for total associates hired, whereas the revenue producers were down closer to 125, I think, for the year. The point I'm really trying to get to with you is, I think we'll expect a similar year on revenue producers. We'll expect a less, what we'll expect to hire less is support personnel in 2023 than in 2022, primarily because a lot of that support personnel have been in control infrastructure and so forth, which generally, in my view is, a stairstep kind of expense. You know, you got to build the capacity for, you know, you pick a compliance monitoring, BSA res, loan review, all those kinds of things. You invest in people in the stairstep mode.
I think we've made significant investments in the control infrastructure. It's a long-winded way to say, look, I think revenue hires might be a little less in 2023 than 2022, but it ought to be comparable. Total number of hires ought to be less in 2023 than 2022, because of the stairstep nature of some of those control expenditures.
Gotcha. No, that's helpful. Maybe one or two for Harold, just on the reserve level, Harold. You know, I guess you talked about maybe being a little bit more pessimistic on, or Terry did, on the kind of the outlook. Just how should we think about the reserve level, you know, as you kind of go through the next several quarters, given your outlook?
Yeah. I meet with the credit officers quite a bit. Right now they're still having the same posture that our credit book is strong. We're not seeing any kind of systemic kind of weakness in it. Our planning assumption today is that our reserves probably will be fairly flat here on out. We'll obviously monitor that, see if we start seeing some weakness and adjust accordingly. Right now we think credit is in check as best we know today.
Gotcha. Okay. Just going back to your comment, Harold, about the fee income. I mean, I guess you highlighted the wealth. I mean, when you think about the mortgage and the SBA piece in there, are those expected, I guess, kind of in your big picture planning to rebound a fair amount? I guess just kind of getting to this, you know, this number you talk about on the fee income side, the high single digit or low double-digit growth in fee income ex those kind of, you know, more volatile numbers. Just seems like there's, you know, more to it, I guess, on some of those other items that you're not calling out. Like the, for instance, the mortgage and SBA. Do you expect? I know SBA was down this quarter, same thing with mortgage.
It's a pretty meaningful rebound in those, you know.
Yes.
in the next couple quarters.
Yeah, for sure in mortgage. I don't know about SBA. SBA's got some other headwinds. No, mortgage should have a better year this year than last year. This whole wealth management investment that we've made should produce tangible results. We've also hired some very capable individuals in our capital markets area that ought to help us. They have a long resume of success, we're planning on that being influential as well.
Gotcha. Okay. Last one, Harold, and I'll let you go, is the margin outlook you talked about, that kind of assumes your two rate hikes. If you see a, you know, the Fed, you know, lower rates at all, how does that change the margin outlook, you know, I guess particularly later in the year into next year, I guess? Does that, if it's not material, you know, declines, is it not much change from what your forecast is today or kind of your outlook?
We actually have some rate decreases in November and December in our forecast right now, but they are pretty much inconsequential.
Gotcha. Okay. Thanks for taking the questions.
Thanks, Brian.
Thank you. That does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.