Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Jeffrey A. Rulis – D.A. Davidson & Co.
Jeffrey A. Rulis – D.A. Davidson & Co.
I wanted to ask Mick, on the margins was there anything one-time in the quarter that would have added to that strength?
Michael A. Reynolds
No. It was generally just a regular old margin, nothing unusual.
Jeffrey A. Rulis – D.A. Davidson & Co.
Then on the loan-to-deposit ratio, it’s a little high. I don’t know if that concerns you or if you’re comfortable with the current level of borrowings that you have.
Michael A. Reynolds
Well, we manage liquidity on an overall basis. We have a number of different measures including both short term and liquidity measures and total liquidity available. So, I guess I use all the tools I have in my kit right now and yes, our borrowings from the secured borrowing lines are a little bit higher and I’ve kind of avoided the brokered CD market but as I said, recently the spreads have come back down. I’d expect the loan deposit ratio probably would improve in the first quarter. Not only from both our core deposit base and then also from the additional use of brokered deposits.
Jeffrey A. Rulis – D.A. Davidson & Co.
But just longer term could I assume that’s going to be a philosophy of the bank to kind of hold higher borrowings then peers?
Michael A. Reynolds
I’m not sure it’s a philosophy. I mean, we do try and position ourselves as a borrower of funds. We don’t particularly like to be in a funds sold position and so we would try and position that. One of the things that we do have Jeff is when times are good, and actually times have been pretty good for us with record loan growth but, we’re in some markets that have a lot of loan demand so it’s important for us to be able to continue funding those and yes, it’s probably going to require some wholesale funding in order to fund those, the growth that we expect.
Jeffrey A. Rulis – D.A. Davidson & Co.
Then one last question, I wondered if you guys took a look at the Bank of Clark County or, if yes or no you’d be interested in other like deals down the road?
Hal M. Brown
We certainly were aware of that opportunity as we’re aware of others when the FDIC present those. We did look at that opportunity, took a hard look at it. There’s some unique elements to their core deposits that we did not find attractive and so we passed on that.
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