PacWest Bancorp. (NASDAQ:PACW) Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call October 20, 2022 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Bill Black - EVP, Strategy & Corporate Development

Matt Wagner - CEO

Bart Olson - CFO

Mark Yung - EVP and COO

Paul Taylor - President

Conference Call Participants

Jared Shaw - Wells Fargo Securities

Christopher Marinac - Janney Montgomery Scott

Matthew Clark - Piper Sandler

Gary Tenner - D.A. Davidson

Brandon King - Truist Securities

Chris McGratty - KBW

David Long - Raymond James

Jon Arfstrom - RBC Capital

Operator

Good day and welcome to the PacWest Bancorp Third Quarter Earnings Call. Today’s conference is being recorded.

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Bill Black. Please go ahead.

Bill Black

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to PacWest’s third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. With me today are; Matt Wagner, CEO; Paul Taylor, our President; Bart Olson, CFO; and Mark Yung, our COO and the leader of our Venture Banking business.

Before I hand the call over to Matt, please note that we may make forward-looking statements during today’s call that are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. For a more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements, see our company’s SEC filings including the 8-K filed yesterday afternoon, which is also available on the company’s website.

Now I’d like to turn the call over to our CEO, Matt Wagner.

Matt Wagner

Thank you, Bill. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining our call today. I want to start off by making a few comments about the overall business and operating environment. Overall business activity remains strong. But we are proceeding cautiously as we are thinking about and planning for weaker economic environments ahead.

We continue to focus our time and attention on our customers, making sure we are there to serve them throughout the cycle. We slowed some of our running businesses, given the economic environment and our desire to grow capital more rapidly, while optimizing our balance sheet. Given the current economic backdrop, we believe this is a prudent thing to do.

Credit remains strong and currently we do not see any negative credit trends and we continue to monitor the loan portfolio closely as part of our conservative approach to credit. Finally, but most importantly, building capital, as we did in the third quarter remains our primary focus and this will continue to be a key component of decisions we make each day.