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Operator
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the National Bank Holdings Corporation 2016 first-quarter earnings call. My name is Amy, and I will be your conference operator for today.
(Operator Instructions)
As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would like to remind you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the Company's loans and loan growth; deposits; strategic capital; potential income streams; gross margin; taxes; and non-interest expense. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed today.
These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, which are disclosed in more detail in the Company's most recent filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. These statements speak only as of the date of this call, and National Bank Holdings Corporation undertakes no obligation to update or revise these statements.
It is now my pleasure to turn the call over and introduce National Bank Holdings Corporation's Chairman, President, and CEO, Mr. Tim Laney. You may begin.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Thanks, Amy. Good morning, and thank you for joining National Bank Holdings Corporation first-quarter earnings call. I have with me our Chief Financial Officer, Brian Lilly; and Rick Newfield, our Chief Risk Officer.
We continued to make progress during the quarter in building an attractive community banking franchise, and we remain confident in our ability to grow core earnings and realize our goal of delivering a 1%-plus return on assets and $2-plus of earnings per share. Now having said this, I suspect that you are very interested in that actions we took during the first quarter to address our energy exposure.
We believe these actions were prudent, and I would remind you that the vast majority of our loan portfolio continues to exhibit excellent credit quality. On that point, I will turn the call over to Rick Newfield, and with that, Rick, the floor is yours.
- Chief Risk Officer
Thank you, Tim, and good morning. The three key points I will cover this morning: first, as I guided during our fourth-quarter earnings call, the credit quality of our $2.4 billion non-energy portfolio remains strong, and trends continue to be very positive, with a continued reduction in total classified loans.
Second, our energy portfolio remains stressed by industry conditions. However, deterioration in credit quality remains centered in the four loans that I identified and discussed during our last earnings call. Third, I will provide guidance for provision expense for the remainder of 2016.
Let me start by discussing overall credit metrics and trends during the first quarter. Including energy loans, the ratio of classified loans to total non-310-30 loans is relatively flat. However, excluding energy loans, the classified loan level improved meaningfully.
With the ratio of classified loans to non-310-30 loans decreasing from 2.1% as of December 31, 2015 to 1.4% as of March 31, 2016. Total non-accrual loans increased during the quarter; however the increase was entirely composed of energy loans.
Excluding energy loans, non-accruals continued to decrease, improving from 0.61% of non-310-30 loans to 0.52%. For the first quarter, net charge-offs were only 10 basis points annualized, in line with our performance the last few years.
Past dues in our non-310-30 portfolio remained low, and past dues of 90 days or greater remained immaterial, at about 1 basis point. Overall, we maintained excellent credit quality across our $2.4 billion non-310-30 loan portfolio, and I expect our trends to continue.
Now, let me turn to our energy loan portfolio. As a whole, energy sector loans were $132 million as of March 31, 2016, and represent 5.1% of total loans, 3.1% of our earning assets, and only 25% of our Company's risk-based capital. We saw meaningful pay-downs during the quarter, with funded balances in our energy portfolio decreasing 10% from December 31, 2015.
During the first quarter, industry sentiment and the market for oil and gas assets worsened. While oil and gas prices have rebounded from low points, oil hitting a new low of $26.07 per barrel during February, led to a continuing bearish outlook. A few of our clients realized setbacks on pending asset sales, and experienced further pressure on their revenues, cash flow and liquidity.
Our $132 million energy portfolio consists of 27 clients, with an average funded loan balance of $4.9 million. Four of these clients, which I discussed during our last earnings call, experienced accelerated deterioration during the quarter. Two of these are service companies that have been on non-accrual since the third quarter of 2015.
The other two, one exploration and production company, and one midstream company, were removed to non-accrual during the first quarter. Outside of these four clients that are non-accrual, the total $32.2 million in loan balances, the remainder of our energy portfolio continues to perform.
The performing energy portfolio is $100 million as of March 31, composed of $36.8 million in exploration and production company loans, $48.4 million in midstream, and only $14.7 million in loans to services companies. We have conducted intensive stress testing on each of these performing clients, and used this analysis to support increasing our general loan-loss reserve against our energy portfolio. In combination with specific reserves taken on the non-accrual loans, we increase our overall reserve on energy loans to 11% of $132 million portfolio.
We believe our performing energy loan portfolio remains resilient in the face of industry stress, which remains elevated for oil and gas companies. We also recognize that the longer oil prices remain depressed, the greater the stress is on all companies in the industry. But as a reminder, energy loans compose only 5.1% of our loans, 3.1% of our earning assets, and only 25% of our Company's risk-based capital.
Let me provide some updated guidance on provision expense for the remainder of 2016. There are three important considerations: First, provision expense in 2016 will continue to cover our expected loan growth.
Second, energy charge-offs are expected to be incurred, however it is important to note that we have specifically reserved $11.2 million as of March 31 for possible charge-offs on our four energy nonaccrual loans, and we have an additional reserve of 3.4% against our performing energy loans. Third, outside of energy, we continue to expect minimal charge-offs in the 10 to 50 basis point range for the year, with credit metrics trending positively.
With that, I will now turn the call over to Brian Lilly, our Chief Financial Officer.
- CFO
Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone.
As you saw on our release last night, the largest impact to our results this quarter was the building of the allowance for loan losses against the energy sector loans. Rick did an excellent job walking you through our banking and, probably more important going forward, the credit profile of the non-energy portfolio, or 95% of our loans outstanding, is excellent.
One metric that the industry utilizes to understand the underlying credit trends of a bank is a return on tangible assets before provision for loan losses and taxes. On this basis, we delivered 1.18%, which represents an increase from last year's adjusted first quarter of 1.0%.
Additionally, without the large energy sector provision for loan losses, we delivered a first quarter return on tangible assets of 68 basis points, and $0.23 earnings per share, both of which compare favorably to last year's first quarter adjusted and reported results. We believe that these adjusted metrics are helpful in demonstrating the progress we are making towards our goals.
We covered a lot in last night's earnings release, so I will limit my comments and focus on the update to our outlook for 2016. Let me start by pointing out than inherent within our guidance are economic assumptions consistent with the current outlook of leading economists, where our markets continue to perform better than the national averages, and we look for 2016 to continue to provide good growth opportunities. Please note that we have not included any interest rate increases in our guidance.
Given our asset-sensitive position, we would benefit nicely from increasing interest rates, but we decided to be more conservative. Total loans ended the quarter at $2.6 billion, and grew slightly from year-end, as new fundings were offset by higher levels of payments and paydowns.
Within total loans, the total originated loan outstandings of $2.2 billion grew $42.7 million, or 7.9% annualized. Adjusting for the elevated levels of energy credits line of credit paydowns of $20.9 million, the growth of originated loan outstandings was stronger at $63.9 million for the quarter or 11.8% annualized.
The first quarter's new fundings were $184 million, excluding the $20.9 million related to the energy client's paydowns, and was 10% below last year. However, our teams have built nice new business pipelines that give us confidence in our ability to deliver on our originations goal to exceed $1 billion this year, and to support a full-year total loan growth of 15% to 20%.
Turning to deposits, average transaction deposits experienced a normal first quarter dip, but are up nicely over last year with growth of 7.4%. For 2016, we reiterate our prior guidance, as we look for relationship banking model to deliver high single-digit transaction deposit growth, with strong growth in non-interest bearing demand deposits. Given our lack of incremental funding needs, we see time deposit balances decreasing, resulting in total deposit growth in the low single digits.
In terms of earning assets, we expect to continue to fund the loan growth with cash flow from the investment portfolio and acquired loan pay downs, in addition to deposit growth. As a result, we are forecasting earning assets to increase in the low single digits, ending 2016 in the range of $4.3 to $4.5 billion.
Fully taxable equivalent net interest income totaled $39 million. It came in at the top end of the $38 million to $39 million quarterly guidance range, on the strength of a wider than guided fully taxable equivalent net interest margin of 3.68%.
Primarily driven by our modeling of lower 310-30 quarterly accretion income, we are guiding the second quarter to a lower side of the quarterly range, but feel good for the rest of 2016, as the strong fundings more than offset the decreases in 310-30 loans, and the investment portfolio income. We are also continuing our prior guidance of a [3.5%] to [3.6%] fully taxable equivalent net interest margin for the remainder of 2016.
Rick did an excellent job addressing credit quality, and please refer to his comments for our 2016 guidance. Non-interest income did experience the normal first-quarter seasonal decrease in some banking fees. In addition to lower overdraft occurrences, and a $700,000 negative fair value mark-to-market on fixed-rate loan hedges.
We are reiterating our full-year guidance of mid-single digits growth, driven by our expanding treasury management fees, increased mortgage gains, and interchange fees, which more than offset an expected continued decrease in overdraft fees. We also expect some level of gains on the failed bank's previously charged-off loans and OREO income, with the added benefit of not sharing approximately 70% with the FDIC.
Non-interest expenses totaled $34.9 million for the quarter, and came in better than the specific guidance of $36 million. The lower expense level was driven by better seasonality and the timing of certain expenses. As you can appreciate, the first quarter more than delivered our forecasted significant reduction in run rate expense levels.
Looking forward, we are reiterating the full-year guidance in the low $140 million range, with an expected increase in the second quarter to around $36 million, as April's annual compensation actions and the timing of certain expenses, like marketing, catch up. Regarding the tax expense, you will note that the high fully taxable equivalent tax rate in last night's release, that was influenced by the lower taxable income.
We also changed the presentation slightly to give you better visibility to the tax equivalent adjustment impacting both the net interest income and tax expense lines. Going forward for 2016, we guide to a quarterly fully taxable equivalent tax rate of around 30%. This rate should be used with our guidance of a fully taxable equivalent net interest income.
Capital ratios remained strong, with $115 million in excess capital using a 9% leverage ratio as a target at quarter end. This excess capital gives us flexibility to create value through supporting organic growth, mergers and acquisitions, and share buybacks. As of last night, we have $27.5 million remaining from our prior share repurchase authorization.
Given the profitability that we are building, as best demonstrated by the 68 basis points adjusted return on tangible assets delivered this quarter, we do see buying our shares as an excellent investment. In addition, we have been active in pursuing a number of opportunities to further leverage our excess capital through M&A and a lift-out of teams, and but do not have a transaction to share at this point.
However, it is certainly nice to see that premium merger prices that have been announced in our marketplace, with the general range of 1.3 to 1.8 times tangible book value, and a median of 1.5 times. Clearly these prices provide a great valuation point for our shares, which are trading well below even the low end of the range. That completes our guidance picture, and Tim, that concludes my comments.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Thanks, Brian. Brian and Rick have done a nice job covering the quarter, so I will simply reiterate that we feel very good about the strategic path our Company is taking on our journey to surpassing $2 of earnings per share, and achieving a 1%-plus return on assets.
To that end, you should expect us to continue to buy in our shares at attractive prices, when presented with the opportunity. On that note, we will stop and open up the lines for your questions. Amy?
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Chris McGratty of Keefe, Bruyette, and Woods. Your line is open.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Good morning, Chris.
- Analyst
Good morning. Question on the buyback. You've got roughly 27, 28 left. It sounds like where the stock is that, that is priority number one. But Brian, with your comment about over 100 of excess, should we be thinking about if your stock stays in this 19 - 21 range, that you will just come back to the board and re-up it once you are done?
- CFO
I think, Chris, as we look at it, it would be too early just to project that. But certainly, you've seen by our practice, what we have done in the past. It is hard to pass up an investment at these prices. Our share price is clearly-- as we move forward and deliver on our quarterly results, getting that share price in the mid-20s seems very realistic also for us, and being able to use that in transactions is even more attractive to great value.
- Analyst
Okay, that's helpful. Rick, question for you on the energy book. A lot of great color.
If I'm doing the math, it looks like you got roughly a 35% reserve on the four credits, and again 3.5 on the stuff that's not impaired. Question, first question is, was part of the review-- we're hearing other banks talk about the Shared National Credit Review in the quarter. Was a lot of the actions you take in response to that? And also can you give us a little bit of help on the confidence level, whether it is redeterminations season-- that the rest of the 100, there won't need to be a meaningful catch-up on the reserve?
- Chief Risk Officer
Sure, Chris. Thanks for both those questions.
Let me start on the Shared National Credit piece. We were certainly subject to the Shared National Credit Exam in February, and just for reference, about 60% of our energy loans are in SNCs; however, our downgrades to nonaccrual and our reserve calculations were done completely on our own volition. There was no impact, in fact, from the SNC exam.
And just maybe for additional color, because I've seen this in a couple other reports, let me add we have no second lien or subordinated loans of any kind within the portfolio, including E&P, and that will get to your question about borrowing base redeterminations. So, we've had some redeterminations already, but there are some pending.
I will tell you that, as a matter of practice, we roll forward on a monthly basis. The last redetermination, based on reserves and depletion rates, we also adjust our price deck monthly, so our objective is to stay ahead. In addition to the borrowing base, I will also remind you that we have covenants and other controls that are also important.
As of March 31, our weighted average utilization on our borrowing base-based credits was only 34%. We have been working very proactively with clients, and the outlook at this point, while there certainly will be some reduction in commitments, we think in the 15% - 20% range, we do not see pressure on those performing clients.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Chris, I would remind you to Rick and his team's credit, these four credits were discussed in the fourth quarter earnings call, and there is focus going back as far as the third quarter, as the energy market continued to deteriorate and again, I would reiterate no negative impact as it relates to these actions from the SNC review.
- Analyst
That's helpful. I guess one more.
In your prepared remarks, you talked about recent multiples in the market, and you've seen a couple banks get sold in your core markets. Kind of where you're at today with your multiple, you really can't participate in M&A. Are we sensing-- and correct me if I'm wrong-- are we sensing any more potentially a pull-forward on when you guys might potentially consider a partnership given the headwinds that we're dealing with today?
- Chairman, President & CEO
If I've said it once, I've said it 100 times. I do not know how to build a quality company and talk about or think about selling it at the same time. But Brian candidly did allude to the multiples, and we think about that in terms of ultimate valuation.
Brian talked about it in terms of multiple of tangible book, but what I get excited about is with our confidence in getting to $2.00 of earnings per share, you put a14 times multiple on that, and that is a $28 stock, and I think 14 times, you would agree, is pretty conservative. So what we're focused on is getting to $2.00-plus of earnings per share, and I think as the year unfolds, it is fair to say we're very excited about revealing some strategic initiatives that will accelerate us on that path to getting there.
- Chief Risk Officer
If I could just add, bringing up the pricing for the transactions that have happened in the marketplace, we're not alluding to our intent to put ourselves out of market anytime soon. But it certainly becomes a great floor-- from investors-- through investors' eyes, when you think about 1.3 times. That's $24 or $25 at today's level. That's out there for an investor. That is why I brought that up. Just to put that in context.
- Analyst
That's great. Thanks.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Thanks, Chris. Amy, any other questions?
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Gary Tenner, DA Davidson and Company. Your line is open.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Good morning, Gary.
- Analyst
Thanks, good morning. Two questions.
One, regarding the expenses, and Brian, you laid out or reiterated your guidance for the full year on the expense line. As part of the strategic thinking on the Company down the road, it seems like there would be maybe some more room on the expense side, with the move to the community banking bucket from the regulator perspective, and what you talked about a couple of quarters ago, and things along those lines. Can you talk about maybe how much the expense side of things could work towards driving down the efficiency ratio relative to the revenue side?
- CFO
Gary, as we mentioned as recently as the last call, we took very seriously that move in from the OCC to the state, and as we looked at our shop, it's in a number of places, so we decided to step back and bring in an orderly process. We are working with an outside group, and walking through gearing ratios and expense levels and processes across our Company to identify where those can be.
We're not prepared to give you any additional guidance right now. We like the $140 million- low $140s that we have given you. And as we have said before, there are opportunities for us to lean into the revenue side, and that is first and foremost.
In the strategic decisions we're making, is if we do, if we are able to lean into the revenue side with some meaningful lift up, we are going to need some of that infrastructure that we had built. So as we manage the relationships of revenue and expenses, we see opportunities to grow the revenues at an accelerated pace from where we are today, that can support that expense base. And absent that, we are prepared and looking at getting more efficient on the expense side. But all that said, make no mistake about it, we have a very expense-conscious culture in our teammates, and it is a constant review of where can we be better, smarter, faster every day.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Gary, Brian is probably going to punch me, but I will be very disappointed if we don't beat our guidance on expense management. I would suggest, as I know you have, take a hard look at where we were fourth quarter on core expenses, where we are on first, and with the effort underway that Brian alluded to, I'm frankly very excited about the prospects here.
I think it is prudent, and not going any further than Brian's gone, but you hit on the key driver, which is we have this opportunity to appropriately adjust our infrastructure to a community bank operation, which we are. You will see the results of that over the coming quarters.
- Analyst
Okay, thanks for that. I do not know if you hit on this, if Rick had hit on it during his comments, but the interest reversals in the quarter from the two energy credits moved to nonaccrual, can you tell us what that in fact was?
- Chief Risk Officer
It's a couple basis points on the loan yield. I think it dilutes up to-- no I think it's actually a couple of basis points. If you look at our earning asset yield in total, it's about a couple basis points on that. So we went down about four basis points, but half of that was interest reversals.
- Chairman, President & CEO
That's a very good question, Gary, that's often overlooked. It is a reminder of why, when some folks ask us why we do not go heavier into specific industries or subsectors and drive higher growth-- my response, and the best response in the current environment, is look, I am very pleased that we only have 5.1% of our loans in energy. I do not want to have 20% or 30% of our loans in any category.
Today it's energy, but what if tomorrow it is multi-family? We really are big believers in the benefit of diversification, because as we know, when an industry turns bad, not only do we have the impact of charge-offs, but then suddenly you have the loss of that revenue stream that you were dependent upon, and so you are going to see us continue to adhere to, with our Board's strong support, of an approach in building a loan portfolio that's very diverse in its nature.
- Analyst
Okay. Thanks for taking my questions.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Thank you, Gary.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Matt Olney, Stephens. Your line is open.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Sure, hi, Matt. Good morning.
- Analyst
Good morning-- thank you. I want to focus on the loan growth outlook. I wrote down in my notes here 15% - 20% in 2016. Can you confirm that is what the outlook is for 2016, and if so, that seems like quite the uphill climb from current levels. Can you give us -- get us more comfortable with that outlook for the rest of the year?
- Chief Risk Officer
I can confirm the specifics of the 15% - 20%. That is the same that we said back in January also for our full-year outlook.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Maybe the additional color you looking for, Matt, is we did have a fair amount of business slide from first quarter to second quarter. I think we will learn a lot about ourselves here in the second quarter. And then, I alluded to other strategic initiatives.
We have a number of-- we think very interesting lift-out opportunities, again the beauty of that is no capital allocation, but just additional opportunities to build additional muscle in our businesses. This continues to be a story of building, taking market share in attractive markets, and we are fortunate in that our core markets do both continue to outperform the national averages. We are even fortunate in that where we have offices in Texas, they are only in Dallas and Austin, and as you know, that is very different than being in, say, a Houston or a West Texas.
So you think about that Denver/ Front Range market, it's very exciting and very vibrant. Kansas City, very steady as she goes, but outperforming the national averages almost on every metric. And again, Dallas and Austin, very attractive markets.
So, this is the story we've told for three or four years now, and we've done it. We are going to continue to build our organically grown balance sheet, both with solid loans, low-cost deposits, reliable fee income, and we're going to do that while continuing to really focus on getting our expenses to where we think they should be.
- Analyst
Thanks for that, Tim. As far as the whole lift-out discussion, is that lift-out discussion, is it new for you guys, or is it just the opportunity that seems to be presenting itself today?
- Chairman, President & CEO
We have done a number of lift-outs. It is really how we seeded our core asset base lending operations. It is how we've really developed our government and not-for-profit business. I can go on and on, but in the absence of having the currency to make acquisitions, except in very unique situations, we view the focus on lift-outs as a key to growing the business.
I remind you, given our history four or five years ago, when we acquired these banks, they were failed or near failure, and that meant replacing the vast majority of the talent in our Company. And so we've, I think, developed a pretty strong capability in being able to attract teams and individuals that have helped us get to where we are at today. So, I would tell you it is a continuation of what we have been doing, but we are pretty excited with some work we have in the queue right now that could be very meaningful.
- Analyst
Okay. Great. Thank you.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Thank you.
- CFO
Thanks, Matt
Operator
And your last question for today comes from the line of Tim O'Brien, Sandler O'Neill. Your line is open.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Good morning, Tim.
- Analyst
Good morning, Tim. Two quick quantitative questions, first for Rick. The three points you mentioned, you said you had provision guidance for us for the remainder of the year. I did not catch that number.
- Chief Risk Officer
Yes, Tim. Good morning.
What I said is, we will obviously cover growth, and Brian talked about the 15% - 20%. So that is one input. I also mentioned that we still have confidence in a non-energy-related-- staying in that in 10 -15 basis points we've really guided really the last several years. With respect to energy, we have taken significant, specific reserve, and I simply mentioned while I do expect charge-offs, we do have significant reserves.
- Analyst
And so as far as the ratio is concerned, the outlook-- you maintain that at a static level relative to the size to your loan book.
- CFO
No, Tim, what we're trying to broadcast is the energy-- we expect we will have charge-offs to the energy that will move the allowance number, but what Rick-- I think did a real good job-- was giving you the provision for loan losses --
- Analyst
But more broadly, the provision feeds into ALLL, so you have your reserve ratios, so will you provision, generally speaking, at a level that holds that ALLL ratio static relative to loan growth?
- Chief Risk Officer
Tim, what were trying to say is no. The way we build-- you think about supporting the allowance, and for new loan growth, around that 1%, then plus covering charge-offs on the non-energy portfolio is what Rick is guiding to- what we're guiding to.
- Analyst
Okay. Fair enough. And then as far as the provision that you took this quarter, the $10 million (inaudible), I think I caught this. You said that was entirely related to energy.
- Chief Risk Officer
Not technically. There's two components that come through our provision line. One that most people don't see real clearly, but it's that recoupment on the 310-30, so there's about $800,000 there. So our total provision was around $11.7 million, or $11.5 million, sorry.
- Analyst
I saw that. Yes.
- Chief Risk Officer
Which $10.7 of that was in the energy sector, and the other would have been just for the general.
- Analyst
So 11% of $132 million in energy loans, so that's about $14.5 million in related reserves. How much of that is allocated to specific credits versus unallocated? I think you suggested 3.4% of -- you have a 3.4% reserve on performing credit?
- CFO
Tim, Matt actually referenced this. We have $11 million specifically against the non-accruals. And call it just under 3.5% of that 3.4% against all other of the performing loans.
- Analyst
Great. And then, as far as workout strategy on the non-accruals, can you give some color of how you're going to treat those loans here, going forward, and what your expectation is on resolution, any sense, any color you can give? I know it's early, but how do you plan to approach this just to give us a little color there.
- Chief Risk Officer
Here is what I say, as Tim Laney said just a few minutes ago. All four of these have certainly been on our list. Loans that we are working very closely, given the uncertainty in just the nature of the oil and gas markets at this point, I am really avoiding any speculation. We are laser-focused on each of the four, and ultimately having the very best resolution regardless of where oil and gas prices do go.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Go ahead, Tim.
- Analyst
Are any still current, are still paying or are they all, have they all stop paying?
- Chief Risk Officer
Really, I can't answer that for you, Tim, I'm afraid. I will say, we have one that is current of the four.
- Analyst
Okay. And then last question.
In the release, just looking at the originations table, C&I originations had been tracking in the trailing four quarters at, call it $123 - $135, $136 million in C&I originations. That declined to $59 million. Tim, can you give little color on what's up with that?
- Chairman, President & CEO
I think you will see a big make-up here in the second quarter.
- Analyst
Was it just timing, Tim?
- Chairman, President & CEO
We saw a fair amount of business slide into the second quarter, and we are benefiting from that in the early stages of this quarter.
- Analyst
And then one last question, that you alluded to higher pay-downs. Can you give little more color about what precipitated that? Again, you aren't alone in terms of seeing slowing loan growth in your markets. We have seen it with other banks as well. So maybe it is something market-driven.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Tim, I actually feel very good about the prospects for our loan growth. Again, a lot of what we have done has been related to taking market share, earning new relationships. And so as we look at our pipeline, our queue of opportunities, I think our bankers are getting more traction every quarter. I want to go back -- you asked a very good question about the resolution of these four specific energy credits.
I want to remind you-- I don't really have to remind you, you all know, our special assets teams worked through roughly $2.5 billion of acquired, very troubled loans. They did so very successfully. We do not think the outcome with these four specific credits will be any different in terms of their ability to successfully resolve these situations. So I think that is important context.
- Analyst
That is great context. That is a great reminder. So thanks for answering my questions.
- Chairman, President & CEO
You bet.
- Chief Risk Officer
Thanks, Tim.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Amy?
Operator
Thank you. I am now showing we have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Laney for his closing remarks.
- Chairman, President & CEO
Thank you, Amy, and as always to those of you that had questions for us this morning, thank you for taking the time to research our business. Very thoughtful questions, and we hope we answered them adequately. And certainly invite any follow-up.
Have a good day. Thank you.
Operator
And this concludes today's conference call. If you would like to listen to the telephone replay of this call, it will be available beginning in approximately 2 hours and will run through May 6, 2016, by dialing 855-859-2056, or 404-537-3406 and referencing the CID number of 79920801. The earnings release and an online replay of this call will also be available on the Company's website on the investor relations page. Thank you very much, and have a great day. You may now disconnect.