00:00Joining us now is Priscilla Sims Brown CEO of Amalgamated Bank. Priscilla great to get you on the program. Let
00:07me ask first of all about the rate
00:09environment right now. Higher for longer is the expectation. Is that not good for your business model. Well you know
00:20for us
00:21what we've built a defensible model that we think will do well in in both rate scenarios but certainly that
00:29is the expectation. I do just wonder
00:33Priscilla because there's a couple macro things going on there. There's that on one hand and the reason that's happening
00:38is because of
00:39geopolitical angst that's causing market volatility. I know you're in a bit of a quiet period ahead of your earnings
00:45but what can you tell us just
00:46about capital flows how clients are reacting and handling this period. You know we have a very committed client base
00:57over half of our
00:58clients fit into what we call a super core category which means that they have over five years of term
01:06with us. They've been with us for
01:08that long. In fact the average in that group is 17 to 18 years. So we have clients who are
01:14interested in a lot of other
01:16things besides short-term rate fluctuations and really are values aligned and with us for that reason. We certainly do
01:25provide
01:25competitive rates. We certainly do watch rates but it is not the primary reason our clients are with us. They're
01:32generally with us for a very long time.
01:34Can you give us some color specifics? I mean by the way the idea of a quiet period is non
01:41-existent. If you say something on Bloomberg TV or in the Wall Street
01:44Journal, all investors get it. So there's no reason to worry about a quiet period. What's loan demand look like?
01:53Oh loan demand is good. In fact in this environment we're able to follow very high credit standards. We do
02:02about 40% of our lending in climate
02:04related clean energy related projects. That demand is as high as ever. In fact the supply the demands far outstripped
02:15supply for those projects. And so
02:17there's a very nice pipeline. Priscilla there's also a lot of excitement in the industry just about more lenient regulations.
02:24There had been a spat
02:25of M&A for mid-sized banks. Late last year, a little bit to start this year. How are you
02:31looking at the landscape? Would Amalgamated ever look at a tie-up?
02:38Well what I will say and what we have said publicly is that we are certainly open to opportunities that
02:45help accelerate the pace of our growth. Which has been stellar in our
02:49peer group. And we would certainly be open not only to M&A acquiring someone, but we'd also be open
02:57to continuing the success we've
02:59experienced with lift outs of various teams as needed. We think we have a pretty exciting organic growth trajectory right
03:08now. And that's been
03:10demonstrated over the last five years that this management team has been in place. And we certainly would look to
03:16accelerate that if the right
03:17opportunity came along. You're opportunistic. You're opportunistic right now. And do you think the M&A environment right now is
03:27going to
03:29continue to be this hot or maybe even heat up? Because we're starting to hear more about big mergers that
03:35normally wouldn't even be considered.
03:37Yeah, yeah. I think that's right. And this is only anecdotal. We've seen a nice lift recently. It's anecdotal to
03:45say that it's going to
03:46continue. But I certainly feel like there's a lot of marriages in the air.
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