Welcome to Seacoast Banking Corporation's conference call regarding the announcement of its proposed acquisition of Professional Holding Corporation and its bank subsidiary, Professional Bank. My name is Richard, and I'll be your operator. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. During the question-and-answer session, if you have a question, please press zero one on your touchtone phone. Before we begin, I've been asked to direct your attention to the statement contained at the end of the company's press release regarding forward-looking statements and the risks and uncertainties identified therein, which you should read carefully, as such risks and uncertainties may cause results to differ from expectations. Seacoast will be discussing issues that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities and Exchange Act, and its comments today are intended to be covered within the meaning of that act.
Seacoast's ability to accurately project results or predict the effects of future plans or strategies, including the impact of its proposed merger with Professional Holding Corp. or predict market or economic developments, is inherently limited. Seacoast believes that the expectations reflected or implied by any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, but are not guarantees of performance or results or the success of the proposed merger. Its actual results, performance, and integration with and into Seacoast could differ materially from the expectations set forth in the forward-looking statements. You should keep in mind that any forward-looking statements made by Seacoast speak only as of the date on which they were made, and that Seacoast undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Please note, this conference is being recorded.
I will now turn the call over to Chuck Shaffer, Chairman and CEO of Seacoast and Seacoast Bank. Mr. Shaffer, you may begin.
Thank you, Richard, and thank you all for joining us this morning. As we provide our comments, we'll reference the merger slide deck titled Acquisition of Professional Holding Corporation, which you can find at the investor relations portions of our website, seacoastbanking.com. With me today are Tracey Dexter, Seacoast Chief Financial Officer, James Stallings, Chief Credit Officer, David Houdeshell, Director of Credit Policy and Analytics, Jeff Lee, Chief Digital Officer, and Michael Young, Treasurer and Director of Investor Relations. Also present is Abel Iglesias, Professional Bank CEO, who will say a few words. Earlier today, we announced the acquisition of Professional Holding Corporation and a subsidiary bank, Professional Bank. This outstanding transaction is a natural extension of Seacoast franchise and strategy to accelerate our growth and expand our presence in the attractive South Florida market.
Professional Bank was founded in 2008 to provide financial services to professionals, including doctors, lawyers, and other high-net-worth individuals throughout South Florida. The bank's 9-branch footprint ranges from the northern part of Palm Beach County, south through Broward and Miami-Dade counties, covering one of the United States' fastest-growing and strongest markets. Professional Bank also has loan production offices in St. Petersburg and Jacksonville, Florida. The bank is led by Abel Iglesias, a well-known, well-respected banker operating in South Florida for the last 30 years. He's built a team of outstanding bankers across each of Professional's markets. I'm excited that Abel will be staying on with Seacoast as regional president to lead our Miami-Dade commercial banking franchise. When you combine the Apollo franchise with Eddy Arriola, Abel, and the broader team, we will have a premier team of bankers operating across the market.
A unique component of this transaction, one that added to Professional's attractiveness to Seacoast, is its digital innovation team. The team has a long history of digital development with KeyBank in Ohio and has built several valuable digital tools to drive banker effectiveness and streamline client experiences. Longer term, there's upside to integrating this team into our forward-leaning technology and analytics focus. Let me provide more detail on Professional's loan book. The bank is focused primarily on tri-county commercial enterprises, chiefly operating companies, and stabilized income-producing commercial real estate in Florida. As of the prior quarter, commercial real estate and ADC represent 256% and 45% of capital, with well-managed exposures.
The bank has been disciplined in client selection, with little exposure to non-resident alien relationships, which represent less than 5% of deposit and loan balances, and exposure to loan participation purchases is less than 2% of loans outstanding. In diligence, we reviewed 70% of outstanding commitments and determined that the asset quality aligns well with Seacoast portfolio. Underwriting is effective and loan-to-value and leverage ratios across the portfolio are in the low 50s on average, generally in line with Seacoast portfolio. Additionally, over 30% of the loan book is variable rate, providing upside in higher rates, and we've modeled the deal to reposition available liquidity on Professional's balance sheet into higher rates after the transaction closes. Let me explain the fundamental merits of this transaction, first starting with the operating market.
With this transaction, we will add significant scale in one of the best banking markets in the country that, when combined with the pending Apollo transaction, will make us South Florida's most competitive community bank. The truth is that COVID significantly accelerated the value of operating in Florida. We included a slide in the Professional presentation showing that Florida experienced substantial wealth migration, outperforming all other states with large outflows from New York, California, and Illinois into Florida. Moreover, Florida is benefiting from an unemployment rate below 3%, and South Florida in particular has captured more than its share of corporate relocations. When you step back and look at South Florida, Miami is transforming into a financial and technology powerhouse.
Financial industry industry giants, including Starwood Capital Group, Icahn Enterprises, Blackstone, Colony Capital, Goldman Sachs, Elliott Investment Management, and Citadel have relocated, announced, or opened substantial office locations in the last 2 years in South Florida. With respect to technology, Forbes recently ranked Miami number 2 among cities developing into tech hubs. This backdrop of significant economic activity has built resiliency and strength in South Florida. This growth, in turn, expands the smaller domestic industry segments we focus on, including healthcare, legal, engineering, scientific technical services, wholesalers and B2B suppliers, and smaller manufacturing. As a result, we see an excellent opportunity to expand the Seacoast franchise in these markets by focusing on the same industry segments we serve today and complementing Professional Bank's focus on these same verticals.
With the strength of the newly acquired teams in Apollo and Professional, combined with the expanding business community of the Tri-County market, we will be in an incredible position to step in and outcompete the regional, super-regional, and national banks who hold most of the market share. Second, let me discuss the modeling we completed. We are very deliberate in our M&A activity and especially careful on how we manage dilution and earnbacks. We have modeled this transaction very conservatively, assuming only 5% loan growth and 3% deposit growth. This allows for upside in growth rates while executing our conservative and disciplined credit playbook. While this transaction has modestly higher dilution than prior transactions, a significant portion is driven by accounting-driven interest rate marks, which represent 2% of the dilution and approximately 0.3 years of the earnback.
This is simply accounting, and all of it will earn back over a short period of time through income and into capital with zero execution risk. Additionally, we took a conservative credit mark, leaning heavily into the Moody's S3 scenario, thereby protecting downside risk and backstopping the deal. When you consider the impact of the CECL double mark, the loss absorption capacity of this deal is 5.2%. We believe this very conservative credit mark significantly reduces any downside risk in the transaction. Third, turning to cost savings. When you combine Apollo's Professional and Seacoast, you can easily see that we have significant cost out opportunities, which will materially improve our efficiency ratio and drive further shareholder value creation.
We modeled at least a 40% cost out ratio in the deal built from the bottom up using input from multiple department leaders across Seacoast to arrive at a very achievable cost out ratio while also considering future investments to scale the franchise. Cost savings and balance sheet repositioning generate over 50% of the incremental earnings from the transaction with near zero execution risk. Lastly, Professional is a highly compatible business with shared business values that importantly materially improve Seacoast's scarcity value. With this transaction, Seacoast becomes the only pure play Florida bank with market share in every primary metro market and what is arguably the best banking market in the U.S. We included a slide on page 9 that shows this position's uniqueness. In summary, when you look at this transaction, I believe it to be one of the better transactions we have completed.
This transaction is backstopped with a very conservative credit mark and growth assumptions. Approximately half of the earnings pickup is driven by cost saves and balance sheet repositioning, which carry minimal execution risk. We've modeled and structured this transaction to minimize downside risk and provide tremendous upside potential. Despite the conservatism model, it generates mid-teens earnings accretion within the first year. I want to thank Professional Bank's CEO, Abel Iglesias, and Chairman Herb Martin and their leadership team for their help during diligence and hard work bringing this deal together. We look forward to welcoming Professional's employees and customers to the Seacoast franchise. I'd also like to especially thank the Seacoast M&A team for their hard work on this transaction. I'll now turn the call over to Abel to share his perspectives on the transaction. Abel?
Thank you, Chuck, for this opportunity to say a few words about the transaction. I and the members of the Professional Bank's leadership are delighted to join forces with Seacoast to create not just South Florida's most competitive commercial bank, but the leading Florida-based bank in the state. Our board of directors believes this combination is very much in the interest of our shareholders. As Chuck has noted, our banks have compatible cultures which will aid in successfully combining our organizations. Seacoast has a track record as an accomplished acquirer and value-creating integrator of other banks. Finally, Professional shareholders will own more than 15% of the expanded Seacoast following the close, giving them a meaningful opportunity to participate in the value created by forming this highly competitive banking organization.
My leadership team and I look forward to the completion of this transaction and to serving our customers and keeping our bank a best place for our associates to work as part of the Seacoast team. Now, let me turn the call over to Tracey Dexter, Seacoast's Chief Financial Officer, to provide other details about the transaction. Tracey?
Thank you, Abel. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Professional Bank has nine branches and had $2.4 billion in deposits on June thirtieth. Loans of $2 billion at the same date had an average yield of 4.68%. Checking, savings, and money market accounts comprise 91% of the bank's deposit funding, and non-interest-bearing demand accounts represent 33% of total deposits. Moving to the transaction metrics with reference to slide 12. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Seacoast will acquire 100% of Professional's outstanding shares.
Based on Seacoast's closing price of $36.75 as of August 5, the transaction is valued at $488.6 million. The deal pricing translates to 2.16x Professional's tangible book value and 7.8x 2023 earnings per share when including expected cost savings. We're projecting at least 40% cost savings, for which we have a very detailed execution plan and have consistently demonstrated our ability to achieve these in our prior transactions. Following the transaction, Professional shareholders will own approximately 15% of Seacoast. Professional stock appreciation rates will be replaced with Seacoast shares at closing. As Chuck noted, the credit assumptions used for modeling were developed following extensive detailed due diligence.
Given the economic uncertainty, we took a very conservative approach, resulting in a total estimated purchase mark on loans of 5.2%, including the CECL double count. That's a total estimate of $103.9 million pre-tax mark, which includes $33.6 million in day one CECL reserves through provision on non-PCD loans, another $6.6 million in day one CECL reserves on PCD loans, $33.6 million of gross credit mark, which is accretable, and $30 million of interest rate mark, which is also accretable. We also conservatively modeled forward loan growth at 5% and deposit growth at 3%. Using the crossover method, we expect tangible book value dilution of 6.4% at closing to be earned back in approximately 2.3 years.
Of note, AOCI and rate marks generated 2% dilution and impacted the earn back by approximately 0.3 years. Removing the AOCI and rate marks, the dilution is 4.4% with an earn back of approximately 2 years. We expect the merger to be accretive to earnings in 2023 by 11.8% and in 2024 by 15.4%. Our assumptions use the forward rate curve as of early July. We expect the acquisition to close early in the first quarter of 2023 after receipt of approval from regulatory authorities, shareholder approval, and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions. We look forward to your questions. Chuck, I'll turn the call back over to you.
Thank you, Tracey. Operator, I think we're ready for Q&A.
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press zero then one on your touch-tone phone. If you wish to be removed from the queue, please press zero then two. There may be a delay before the first question is announced, and if you're using a speakerphone, you may need to pick up the handset first before pressing the numbers. Once again, for any questions on the line, that's zero then one on your touch-tone phone. We're standing by for questions. Our first question on the line comes from Mr. Christopher Marinac from Janney Montgomery Scott. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks. Good morning. Tracey, you just mentioned the forward yield curve assumptions in early July. Is it meaningfully different if you use where we sit in early August?
I think the way to think about that is maybe, you know, a change in rate might impact the timing of the way the metrics work, but not the overall result. Not meaningfully different.
Okay, that's great. Thank you for that. For anybody, can you talk about the C&I lending that was done, particularly in the search fund space by Professional? Is that something that you will keep or will that, you know, change going forward?
David, do you wanna take that one?
Yeah. We took a good hard look at the search fund loans that are produced out of their loan production office in New England. We covered 90% of the total commitments from that facility. We found really well-structured leverage transactions. In each case, the bank was in a senior debt position on the facilities overall. The cash flow leverage was generally less than 3x. We were pretty pleased with what we saw there. The monitoring, the ongoing servicing was as expected, so very well booked. We will, you know, bring it into the portfolio, and we'll work with the bank on further strategies as we get closer to the conversion.
Great. That's all part of the credit mark obviously that you took and outlined in on today's discussion.
That is correct. Yes, we included that in the credit mark.
Great. Final question for me is just the digital innovation team, Chuck, will they be kind of retained and integrated just like any other executives that you've brought on in the past deals?
Yes, we're very excited about that. The key leader there has signed an employment contract. Jeff, you wanna add any details there?
Yeah, really excited to have them join the team. Very impressive group of developers and also like kind of big idea folks as well. We really look forward to integrating them with us. I think it's a really strong match. Their development expertise, our analytics expertise coming together, we're really enthused.
Great, Jeff. Thank you for all the background. Thank you, Chuck and Tracy. We appreciate it.
Thank you, Chris.
Thank you. Our next question in line comes from, Brady Gailey from KBW. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys.
Good morning, Brady.
I just wanted to start with loan growth. You know, the assumed 5% loan growth for Professional, you know, they've been growing at a pace a lot faster than that. I think they were closer to like, you know, 30% annualized for the first half of the year. You know, do you really expect growth to slow that much at Professional, or is it more, you know, just some conservatism in, you know, how you look at potential growth there?
I think the way we thought about it, Brady, is we wanted to have very, we wanted to be very deliberate in our output metrics, and we wanted them to be very achievable. We modeled the deal very conservatively to, you know, make sure we're laser focused on delivering what we've modeled. We took a conservative look on a conservative approach to that. As well as, when we merge in the portfolios, you know, the size of the loans they're doing won't have as much impact on the aggregate growth, of the combined company. More than anything, we just wanted to make sure we achieved what we put together as part of the model and wanted to also make sure we had the ability to execute our conservative credit playbook and, as we put the banks together.
Yep. All right. Then Chuck, just on M&A, you guys now have 3 deals pending. And you know, you've been very successful at acquiring over the years. But it feels like the regulatory backdrop is changing a little bit. I think it's more on the larger bank M&A. But do you get any feeling that these deals are gonna be harder to get regulatory approval just under the current backdrop? Or do you think given the size that Seacoast is, you kind of fly under the radar of Washington?
Yeah. The way I'd addressed it is, we've gotten approval on Apollo from both the OCC and the Fed, and we expect our approval to come in on Drummond here in probably this week. We don't anticipate any issues here with getting Professional approved. You know, we carry strong capital. We have an outstanding CRA rating. We have a very clean approach. We're a very conservative bank, and we generally have no issues getting any regulatory approvals done, so we don't anticipate any here. I'd say we have a very strong diligence team here. You know, this will be the sixteenth transaction we've done. We prepare a very detailed, granular look at our targets, and it goes a long way in building credibility with our regulators.
I think they have a lot of belief in us and support for us. I don't view that to be an issue. The only other thing I'd add there, you know, as we move through this, you know, we're gonna be laser focused on integrating these things successfully. We've had a slide in the deck that lays out the timing around these transactions that you can see there, but we've spaced this in a way to where we think we can very much focus on very successful integrations over, you know, the coming 12 months, let's call it.
All right. That makes sense. Finally for me, you know, as Seacoast gets bigger, and just as there's not as many Florida targets left anymore, do you come to the point where you think about expanding outside the state, or do you still really consider Seacoast to be kind of a Florida pure play going forward for the next few years?
We remain focused on Florida, Brady. You know, I think those markets are extremely strong. I think the growth profile is amazing. I think what's gone on in South Florida is transformative. When you look at the amount of domestic companies relocating into South Florida, it's building an incredible economy that we can be a part of without having to leave the state. You know, it builds depth in the type of clients we wanna bank. You know, I think we can very much remain focused on Florida. You know, if you step back too, you know, a lot of banks in Florida have gotten bigger. You know, there's actually 18 banks greater than $750 million across the state, and there's 9 banks greater than $1 billion.
There's still a fair amount of banks that are out there that would be potential targets in the long run, but in the near term, it's we're focused on integrating these, and we are focused on Florida.
Okay. That makes sense. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Brady.
Thank you. Our next question online comes from Mr. Stephen Scouten from Piper Sandler.
Hey, good morning, everyone, and congrats on the deal, both Seacoast and Professional. I think this is a deal a lot of people wanted to see, and it's not often those deals come together. Congratulations. I guess following back up on the loan growth side of things. Just, I know, Chuck, you said that 5% is definitely layering on a lot of y'all's kind of legacy conservatism, which I think will bode well. But I'm wondering, as you look at the Professional loan book, you know, is there anything there that doesn't fit with the way you guys think about credit? Are there credits a little less granular or anything of note that would drive you to maybe to do business a little differently than they had on a legacy basis?
No, not at all. I mean, I think we came away with it's a well-positioned portfolio. It's diverse, and it's a mix between operating companies and commercial real estate. We came away pretty impressed. David, do you have anything you'd add to that?
No, I'd just amplify that. You know, we saw if you look in the slide deck and look at the loan mix, it was very comparable. Just given the size of the bank, their individual loan positions are very comparable. Lots of C&I businesses. We've looked at other portfolios that were commercial real estate heavy. We saw a lot of diversity there. A lot of their CRE book is residential, lower risk type transactions. We found customers, client selection, and transactions very comparable to how we like to execute our playbook across the board.
A lot of the names in the portfolio we know well, a lot of similar clients and, you know, a lot of familiarity with the portfolio and the client selection.
Got it. How can we think about what the Jacksonville market might look like over time? You guys both have recently kind of expanded through an LPO there. I mean, does that look like adding some additional branches there, or might that be over the next couple of years, a focus for incremental M&A, or how should we think about that, MS?
Yeah, we will be opening a branch up there, probably right around January of the coming year. We're actively negotiating a lease in that market. We've got a great team and we've continued to build out the market. It's a great market. With the team we've put in place in that market has been incredible. I mean, it's been a remarkable team. I couldn't be more excited with what they've gotten done. They're continuing to bring, you know, strong operating companies to the bank. And we've got a great group of people up there. So we'll be investing to support them with branching and other support as we move through time.
Got it. Just last thing for me. I think if I'm reading some of the comments in the deck appropriately, you're looking to deploy Professional's excess liquidity out of the gates, presumably into the securities book. How do you think about what that excess liquidity looks like pro forma and kind of how deposit growth will play into that? I think maybe you guys said you're modeling 3%. How you feel about that ability to continue to fuel the bank's growth through deposits?
Yeah. I think deposit growth from here. That's why we modeled 3%. You know, obviously, we've seen deposit outflows across the industry. I think given the market growth in Florida and operating, in particular in the Tri-County market, which continues to see, you know, significant expansion, significant population growth, I think deposits return for us in that market. We'll reinvest in securities at the time of whatever the reasonable rate profile is when we get there, you know, with a reasonable duration. We do plan to reposition. Just to remind you, we were planning to reposition the securities book at Apollo and Drummond, and then ultimately we'll reposition this book as well, depending on what rates look like when we get there. All that will be additive to the aggregate corporate margin.
One of the benefits of doing these transactions is the ability to sort of reposition securities portfolio closer, which we modeled in all of our deals.
Got it. Super helpful, Chuck. Congrats everyone on the deal again. Appreciate the time.
Thanks, Stephen.
Thank you. Our next question online comes from Mr. Steve Moss from B. Riley Securities.
Good morning. Maybe just following up on here. Just curious in terms of the rate mark, do we, you know, look as a primary reference, the five-year Treasury or a little shorter, a little longer, just kind of as we get closer to the close here, Tracey?
Yeah. You mean the rate mark on the loan portfolio, is that right? We set the 1.5% rate mark in the loan portfolio based in part on our own review of the structures, but also with input from our third-party valuation support firms. We look at the context of recent deals, and we feel like, you know, that's a good estimate at this point. Did I answer your question, Steve?
Yeah, I think so. I could take a little more offline, but that's helpful. Just one more question for me here. You know, in the deck, you guys referenced the non-resident residential alien loans and outside counsel for legal support. Just kind of curious how you're planning on managing international exposure.
Yeah. We'll continue to take a limited approach to it. Steve, you know, on the deposit side, we'll probably we've had, you know, we'll have some NRA related deposits associated with just operating in South Florida, but it's not a business we're going to rapidly expand. We're going to manage it carefully and appropriately. As a reminder, we have a very strong built-up BSA/AML team that operates out of Miami that we've built up over the last four years. We're very confident in our ability to manage it, but it's not something we plan to, you know, sort of grow from here. But we will take NRA clients where they make sense. Their loan book was primarily one to four family mortgages in South Florida to NRA related clients.
We looked at it, loan to values were low, solid portfolio, well performing. No concerns there.
All right. Thank you very much for all the color.
Thanks, Steve.
Thank you. Our next question on the line comes from Mr. David Bishop from Hovde Group.
Yeah, good morning. Hey, most of my questions have been asked and answered. I'm just curious in terms of the 40% cost saves, how should we think about maybe the outlook for the branch system down there? Obviously, some overlap in South Florida. Assume that could be a key component in achieving some of the saves.
Yeah, that's right. We do expect there will be opportunities to consolidate branches without disrupting the customer experience. There is meaningful geographic overlap. We'll work through the specifics and the timing of those here in the near term, and overall planned cost savings just over 40%. Those are identified really in a number of areas. It definitely includes consolidation of activities, locations, some back office roles, also savings in data and transaction processing, the integration of the various systems that those all also contribute to the planned cost savings, as does the consolidation of other operational expenses, things like legal and audit fees. Certainly the branch consolidation will be something that we look closely at, and that's part of the plan.
Yeah. Like other markets that we've done M&A in, you know, there's great opportunities for driving operating leverage by doing acquisitions in markets with overlap, you know. As we've seen, you know, we've driven up, you know, the partners per branch to 160 million in the Seacoast franchise. I think when you put these three organizations down together down in South Florida, will even be higher than that. All of that operating leverage drives the stronger efficiency ratios and stronger returns to shareholders here as we move through this deal. That's one of the real upsides to this deal, as I mentioned in my prepared comments, is that the earnings delivery of the deal is pretty given the overlap in the market.
There's not a lot of execution risk in executing these cost saves. That's gonna drive operating leverage, it's gonna drive benefit to efficiency ratio, and it's going to drive up our return on tangible common equity.
Got it. One follow-up. Just curious how maybe average loan size at Professional compares to Seacoast, maybe on the commercial real estate side?
David, you wanna take that one?
Yeah. I would say there's not much difference. As a whole, the loans are a little bit larger than Seacoast on average, but when we look at it doesn't really provide any meaningful change in how we would view them. We're running a commercial average loan size, about $550,000. Theirs was larger than ours, but still less than $1 million. Not much of a change. Something we can certainly accommodate with regard to all of our portfolio analytics and all of our forecasts.
Importantly, if you look at our commercial real estate and ADC percentages of capital, you know, when you combine the two organizations and Drummond and Apollo, we really don't see it. It moves up a little bit, CRE ratios, but then it starts to come back down with capital growth. Still well within board tolerances and well within regulatory tolerances.
Great. Appreciate the color.
Thank you. Again, for any questions, that's zero, then one on your touch-tone phone. Our next question online comes from Mr. David Feaster from Raymond James.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions.
Hey, David.
Have you sized potential revenue synergy opportunity from this deal? Which business lines do you feel will be most effective in cross-selling in the near term?
Well, at the outset, there's an incredible opportunity for wealth, and we're already seeing opportunities to put wealth clients in Seacoast, just due to the relationships we've developed. So there's great opportunity to bring wealth to the table here. Ultimately, we'll bolt on a bit more mortgage capability. They have an SBA group where we'll bring SBA in a bigger way. Then uniquely, when we get Drummond closed and put together, we'll have insurance as another revenue potential synergy. A lot we can bring to the table. I'm actually super excited about the fact that we're already starting to bring wealth clients together, which is really cool.
Got it. How should we think about new lender hires from here? You guys have been pretty active on the hiring front, but does this give you more opportunities or provide those new hires with a better platform for growth?
We're still very focused on it. You know, we'd like to add another 15-20 over the next, say, 9-12 months as we continue to build out the portfolio. You know, the exciting thing of what has gone on for us here at Seacoast is what we've built organically in some of these markets, and then you combine it with M&A and just the excitement of the build of the company and the. You know, being a combined company, when you put all this together, it'll be somewhere north of $15 billion. We have a lot of balance sheet to bring to market that brings more digital products, it brings more tools, and it's bringing stronger and a larger group of bankers to us that market wasn't available prior.
You know, they can now bank some bigger operating companies, and that's opening up the lower-end and middle market to us. All of this continues to bring scale to the company. Scale brings further leadership in the market, and we got a lot of room to keep going here.
Perfect. Lastly, I was hoping you could discuss kind of the background of this deal and kind of how it came together.
Yeah, I can give a little bit of color, but the Professional received an unsolicited bid sometime earlier in the year that initiated a process. A full auction process was run. The board brought in multiple bidders. Seacoast was brought in and we ultimately the board, I think, chose Seacoast, given our history and reputation of integration and the upside of the investment in the combined company. We couldn't be more pleased. We're excited to work with the board and the team at Professional. I think ultimately, when this is all said and done, we're gonna be one heck of a bank here in Florida. Everybody's very excited about that.
The board's excited about it, we're excited about it, and can't wait to get going here.
Great. Well, thank you very much, and congratulations on the deal.
Thank you.
We have no further questions at this time. I now turn the call over to Chuck Shaffer for closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you all for your questions. We're excited here to get going on this deal and excited to see what we can get done in the coming years. Thank you all for being on the call, and we're available if anybody wants follow-up calls, just reach out to any of us and we'll set that up. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.