Popular, Inc. (BPOP) September 15, 2026 Conference Transcript

Great. Well, good morning. Thanks for sticking with us. We're pleased to have Popular, BPOP, up next. And Jorge Garcia is joining us as the new CEO and former CFO. So congratulations on your new role. Thank you, Jared. Thanks for joining us. Maybe just kicking it off, this is your first conference appearance as CEO. While you've been deeply involved in the strategy and execution for many years, As you step into the role, what do you think investors should understand about the next chapter for Popular and the areas where you're most focused today?

I mean, I think the first thing investors should know is that Popular is not about any one single leader. It's about a great organization that's led by many different people, whether that's leaders in our branches, in our call centers, in our offices. So in terms of the momentum and all the great trends that we're seeing, they're really driven by a much larger organization. We'll continue to focus on our strategic objectives, which are be the number one bank for our clients, be simple and efficient, and be a top-performing bank. When we talk about top-performing, we're talking about not only ROTC, but also being able to attract and retain top talent in Puerto Rico and in the markets we serve. And that's not changing. You know, and we want to have a little bit of continuity. We just launched this focus last year, and certainly the management team and the core team, including myself, were important parts of developing that focus. So that's not really changing. We've emphasized that to our teams, and we've emphasized the continued search of urgency and the progress that we made. We have good momentum. We're a good spot, and let's keep moving forward on that.

Over the last several years, Popular has steadily improved profitability, increased capital return, and advanced in its transformational efforts. As you think about the franchise today, what excites you most about its current position?

Like I said, great momentum. It's not often that you see a CEO change in such a great moment in time. There aren't challenges ahead of us, but there is great momentum. There is a sense of urgency in the team, a competitive spirit. I think Javier did a great job in kind of awakening that giant and our focus on servicing our client, adding value in those interactions, and really a focus on being active participants in the growth and the improvement of Popular. and being focused on performance indicators you know this this focus on ROTC that you know it may seem like a simple thing but we used to kind of have a broad-based target of double-digit returns and being able to narrow down to a specific number and being able to guide people towards that goal and educating people you know has really helped kind of remain and have our team focused we're very much focused on on those deposit relationships we we have done a great job I think since you know 2024 where we saw a decrease in our deposits and of awaken kind of that that focus we had been you know all of our transformation efforts have you know geared towards improving our loan origination and we've continued to do that but at the same time being able to continue to emphasize to our people that that trust with our client that relationship with our clients starts with that deposit relationship so if I look through I'm excited about our position in Puerto Rico I'm excited about the progress we're seeing a US business I'm excited that people are focused and and have the level of urgency to make sure that we continue on the trends as we said in our second quarters call you know we have impeached we have more opportunities to come you remained constructive on Puerto Rico throughout the cycle, and many of the economic indicators on the island continue to look favorable.

What are you seeing today in terms of consumer activity, employment, tourism, and business investment? I guess, how would you characterize the resilience of the local economy?

Yeah, we continue to see a stable environment. You know, you just kind of talked through some of the metrics that we focus on. Unemployment is still in the low historic levels. We have more people working today, so the participation rate is higher. Even though we have about 10% fewer population, we actually have more people working than we did 10 years ago. We've seen wage increases over the last few years that have helped mitigate some of the inflationary impacts that we're seeing in the economy. So we see the stability. If you looked at our second quarter results, the net charges on our consumer loan portfolio were very, very strong, low. And, you know, the reality is that there's good momentum in Puerto Rico. A lot of people betting on Puerto Rico. We are cautious. I mean, certainly seeing, you know, oil prices where they continue to be very high. You know, the increase that we've seen the last couple of days, that is something that the longer that persists, you know, it will put pressure on the local economy. We import a lot of things. So oil prices impact all of our commerce, and on top of that, you know, you have the tariffs that, you know, we are subject to all the U.S. tariff rules. We are within the tariff wall of the U.S. So that also makes, you know, daily life more expensive for our clients. So that is something that we are paying attention to. So far, we haven't seen any significant impact of that. We were talking earlier today, just where the ECOS is a little bit of that same K-shaped economy. It's no different in the U.S., but it is something that we are vigilant, but so far there's nothing that's alerting us or worrying us.

You touched on it, but consumer credit trends have remained remarkably healthy and spending activity continues to be strong. What do you think have been the biggest contributors to that resilience and how sustainable do you think it is?

I think it's the diversity of where we're seeing investment in Puerto Rico, certainly on the construction side from where those are funded through federal money still recuperation funds from the hurricanes or private investment. We're seeing just a diversity. Areas of growth continue to be in construction, leisure, tourism, and warehouse and logistics. So that diversity helps quite a bit. In terms of tourism, we are seeing a lot of opportunities for people through the investments in Airbnb and the ability for an ecosystem that is driven by self-employment where we see kind of the Puerto Rican spirit of trying to be self-employed and be able to diversify sources of income for people, whether it is through, you know, creating tourism activities or in managing these Airbnbs, et cetera. So it's just the diversity. It's not a one-trick pony kind of thing for the Puerto Rico economy right now. And by the way, on top of that, there's been about $3 billion of announcements of investments from major pharma companies, including Eli Lilly and Amgen, that add to the diversity, right, of Puerto Rico. Sometimes we forget about 40%, 40%, 50% of the economy in Puerto Rico is manufacturing-based, and a large part of that is still pharma and biotech.

Yeah, I was going to ask about that. With the tariffs, that seemed to have created a big opportunity to bring more manufacturing in those sectors into Puerto Rico. Any update on some of that spending and what the expectation is? Is that going to drive net new employment? Are you seeing people moving back to the island?

So in terms of the announcements, one of the things that I love about those announcements is that the largest investments have been of companies that have been operating in Puerto Rico for a long time. And they understand the Puerto Rico market, the labor market, the infrastructure challenges that sometimes people highlight, and yet they're making the investments, right? And they're making those commitments. So I think that goes towards the level of confidence and resilience of Puerto Rico. those announcements right now are heavy on the construction size or expansion of production facilities so first we'll see that on the construction side and then eventually on the employment to me that's important as a sustainable employment right that will take a will go beyond kind of the federal reconstruction projects on the other hand these tends to be capital intensive projects not necessarily you know huge labor focus right particularly today in modern manufacturing, but it's, you know, a great momentum for that industry.

Great. You know, loan growth has remained solid, but you continue to guide to the low end of the 3% to 4% growth range. What are you seeing in the pipelines today, and in which parts of the portfolio are generating the most attractive opportunities?

Yeah, we see growth in the commercial side in both our U.S. and Puerto Rico market. In terms of the second quarter guide on the lower end, we do have some headwinds with our construction portfolio in the U.S. We are expecting some payoffs, and while pipelines there are good and productive, they do have some long process to kind of get going and seeing those disbursements and those impacts as well. When you're doing a takeout loan of those constraints, you take a big chunk out. So the replacement rate is a little bit slower. In Puerto Rico, the one portfolio that we see some headwind is in the auto lending portfolio. We have seen some declines quarter over quarter in that portfolio. And that's really driven by a reduction in new car sales. And that goes back to the previous conversation about the the impact of tariffs and and higher costs around you know cars in Puerto Rico I think the average car in Puerto Rico is now in the 48 to 49 thousand dollars and that is a significant investment for the average household in Puerto Rico and that's reflected there we continue to see growth in our mortgage portfolio as you know we we stopped selling our originations and retaining particularly FHA guaranteed loans given some structural benefits of retaining those in portfolio in Puerto Rico. We continue to see enough demand there that that portfolio keeps growing.

How would you compare what you're seeing in Puerto Rico today versus the mainland operations? And is borrower sentiment and loan demand evolving differently across those markets?

I mean, one of the new things, you know, of coming into the role is that I've been spending a lot more time with clients than I used to. I guess when I was CFO, they kept me hidden a little bit more. So now they have no choice. But I've been able to spend time with clients, and you do see, I think, in both markets, people see the opportunities, and they're willing to bet on those opportunities, and it gives us a chance to add value and strengthen our relationship with those clients. And I don't really see a significant difference in sentiment. Certainly, it requires a much more focused effort in Puerto Rico. I know how, you know, for us, a track record is very important in those conversations. But, you know, right now I don't see a significant difference in sentiment. Of course, everybody is very aware of kind of these microeconomic forces, you know, global forces outside of whether that's the New York market, Florida, or Puerto Rico. you've spoken in the past about being increasingly selective on larger relationships and focusing on returns in today's environment where are you most willing to say no yeah we you know one of the things is that we try to tell you know kind of our teams it's not about saying no it's it's what makes us comfortable to say yes right so creating that that balance of what structure or terms we want to see to be able to support a client um and support our communities and um you know there are times that the client is unable to to come to terms to how we are going to feel comfortable right and and those are the times where you know we have to really think and you know decide to to walk away we can't you know do every transaction and um you know that discipline is important we want to make sure that you know our our teams have long memories but also understand what it is our our need to support growth in Puerto Rico and growth in the markets we serve but it's particularly in Puerto Rico we you know we compete very hard every day you know don't think for a second that that Puerto Rico is not a competitive environment it is we are in a position where we do get a chance to see a lot of deals you know we're often you know the first-person people will come, particularly with larger transactions when they're looking to invest in Puerto Rico, and it's on us to try to make that work, and we don't want to give up our size and our competitive advantage in Puerto Rico. We want to make sure that we do it profitably and not kind of lose sight of that.

Shifting to deposits, the sustainability of the deposit franchise continues to be one of the most differentiated aspects of the popular story. What gives you confidence in the long-term durability of that funding base?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's the commitment that I see in our employees to their communities, to service, to Popular. We just had our, we have, we celebrate the years of service, we call them like anniversary celebrations. And then you have people that, a number of people have been working for Popular for 25, 30, 40 years. and the level of enthusiasm that they have in these celebrations gives me a lot of optimism that that same enthusiasm is reflected in the relationships in their communities and with their clients. As I said before, we had kind of focused more people on loan generation and trying to grow and kind of maybe let our eye off the ball on that deposit relationship. That's not going to happen again, right? And I think in every conversation that we have, We reinforce that. We reinforce the opportunity to not only retain a client, but make sure that those are opportunities for getting more of their funds and the deposits into Popular. We're able to offer a diverse group of products with our broker subsidiary. As we see people looking for higher yields, we have that opportunity to provide that service and integrate our teams. We have a lot of new efforts that are focused on personalization. And, you know, for example, we launched an effort that is focused on health care. So we're targeting, you know, doctors, dentists, vets, et cetera. And we started a very early time in their careers, and we've developed programs that support not only that med student, but also that doctor that's retiring and is looking for maybe a succession strategy and be able to monetize their practices. And we've created teams that are composed of retail, commercial, insurance, and broker teams to be able to provide a breadth of services. And we've seen great traction in those efforts in terms of increasing deposits. So it's continuing to find those segments and those opportunities within the Puerto Rico ecosystem that we can continue to add value. That is the important part. We don't want to compete exclusively on price. We know that's important, and at times you have to step up on price, but the important part is that our clients see a lot more value across the platform and not just on a yield and a deposit.

Deposit balances can be influenced by seasonality, tax refunds, and public fund flows. When you look beyond those short-term movements, what trends are you seeing in customer behavior and relationship growth?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's always going to be a challenge in a small island, right, that as we look forward, there aren't a lot of, you know, catalysts for significant deposit growth beyond increasing our market share. I mean, as we look through, you know, I think we need to expect Puerto Rico deposits to grow 1%, 2% range, you know, with the general economy or inflation in Puerto Rico. I mean, that's the natural. So it's on us to be able to make sure that we create those relationships. One of the things that has been different, at least in the last few years in Puerto Rico, is that I think our clients used to be exclusively with one bank. Now, after the hurricanes and the pandemic, they've learned a little bit to diversify and have multiple banks. So that creates an opportunity for us as well. Once we have those clients on board, we want to continue to be that primary bank, right? the number bank for those clients, having access to that client that maybe was at a different bank before and gives an opportunity to bring more of that relationship with us at the same time we have the onus to keep the main relationship with our existing clients. But, you know, those trends, you know, are consistent. As long as the Puerto Rico economy is growing, we should see that reflected in the positive. but no significant trigger given the migration you asked about the population growth. We continue the outbound migration of people leaving Puerto Rico that we saw earlier in, I guess, between 2010 and 2020. It has slowed down, but our mortality rate is still higher than our birth rate, so we're still not seeing necessarily population growth in Puerto Rico.

As you think about the franchise several years from now, What does the optimal deposit mix look like, and where do you see the best opportunity to improve profitability?

I mean, I think, you know, in terms of Puerto Rico, I mean, we're happy with the deposit mix. I mean, you have to look at our book, you know, and we look at it in two different ways. We have our public funds, right, that are an important source of income for us, and it's a very important set of clients. It is more expensive deposit for us, but we do like that deposit relationship. They do provide significant contribution to our profitability. And then you have the non-public funds. And those non-public funds, as you've alluded, are very transactional-based, low-cost deposits, and they really are the strength of the franchise. So we aren't necessarily as focused on the deposit mix in Puerto Rico as we are in continuing to maintain and grow that deposit. We're doing a lot of things to be able to make sure that we grow and retain those balances. In terms of profitability, I think we have still opportunities. First, we have some tailwinds in our investment portfolio still, particularly in the rate environment that we're in. We continue to reprice kind of our ladder investment strategy, both in terms of the legacy investment portfolio that's maturing every quarter, as well as the more recent vintages that we purchased that in today's environment provide a little bit of a potential lift there in their yield. So that's certainly a tailwind. We continue to see commercial and general loan demand in our market, so that's an opportunity. And then we still have opportunities in creating efficiencies in Puerto Rico. Our current expense base for this year included a reduction of about $50 million in expenses. that we are right on target for those. For next year, we expect that to increase to about $70 million cumulative. So, and our teams are pretty focused and those are not big restructuring or heavily labor reduction efforts. These are just having a commitment to excellence to really pay attention on how we procure, how we manage our technology, how we manage data, You know, just little things that add up, and that's permeated across the organization. And so, and then certainly when we look at our U.S. business, the trends there continue to demonstrate improved profitability, and we just recently had a, you know, a switch in our leadership in the U.S., our new U.S. market director is, you know, used to run our Florida business. And now he's running the U.S. business, and, you know, he's very much focused on improving the deposit strength in the U.S. As you know, that's been an area, a challenge for us in the U.S. is the deposit franchise. The teams are ultra-focused on that as well. We're managing, changing our compensation structure to make sure that we're providing more focus on deposit gathering and low-cost deposit gathering, and all these things will help continue to drive profitability. And then, of course, we need to manage our capital and be able to optimize our capital levels who are suddenly resulting in a better ROTC as we reduce that denominator.

I know you're CEO now, but you were CFO, so I feel like I can ask this question, too. This time last year, we were talking about the potential for rate cuts. Now we're talking about the potential for rate hikes. How has the balance sheet dynamics changed over that year, and how are you positioned for that with the lens of the margin backdrop?

Yeah, so the reality is our balance sheet is fairly neutral. If you look over the last few quarters, we tend to switch between slightly asset to slightly liability sensitive depending on the level of public funds. So this last quarter, the second quarter, we tended to be slightly liability sensitive because of the increase in public funds. So we've tried to manage our portfolio. We haven't extended to make sure that we feel comfortable with our rate position. Right now, the fairly neutral position gives us some comfort that our profitability is not really driven on some scenario that may or may not occur.

You know, Popular has invested significantly in digital capabilities, branch modernization, cash management tools, and customer-facing technology. What have you learned from those investments so far, and where are you seeing the most tangible productivity benefits?

Well, I've learned that there's no new technology that's cheaper than the old obsolete technology. That's one thing. It is a heavy investment, but it creates a lot more resilience. and obviously the functionality of our new investments and the experience for our clients and for our employees is significantly better. I'm very excited about the efforts that we have done with the deployment of our commercial treasury and cash management product. We're coming towards the end of finally rolling out to all of our clients in Puerto Rico. And we see the tangible difference in that. We, in the end of the first quarter, we started launching some corporate credit card products that we saw a lot of uptake in the second quarter. We saw the benefits and our non-interest income in the second quarter. We continue to expect to see some of that going forward. So the investment, it takes time. It's patience. But it brings in talent. It keeps people engaged. It creates a lot of buzz for our clients, and we will continue to do that to differentiate ourselves. Again, we want to be able to add value in those relationships and not focus so much on just one item of price with our client relationship.

As part of that, I guess AI continues to evolve rapidly. Where do you see the most promising applications inside the bank today, and how do you think AI could improve customer engagement and productivity or profitability over time?

Yeah, so we are in the early stages of our efforts with AI. We started by creating a governance and an infrastructure that could create some guardrails around the AI deployment and AI use. And then we combined that with top-down initiatives and bottom-up initiatives. The top-downs are center-led, and these are focused on five work streams. one of the software development one is BSA cybersecurity claims management and fraud all those you know have strong value cases that were focused there in different stages I would say that where we are prioritizing right now it's in cybersecurity and software development and then the the bottoms-up approach are more kind of you know real of warfare you know the the teams being able to bring to the management team opportunities, whether that's leveraging, you know, broad-based tools like co-pilot agents or other embedded solutions like in Salesforce or SAP within the context of that governance, right? And, you know, we're trying to be very strict in monitoring and making sure that we don't have any unauthorized use of tools that are not part of our stack um you know for us the integrity of data and the cyber security is is critical um in terms of the benefits it's too early i mean of course when you look at the opportunities and the improvement in productivity that's clear where they're when and how those translate to lower cost efficiencies would probably take a little bit more time given kind of where we're at we certainly watch what competitors and some of the larger banks are are doing and announcing as opportunities. We've got to make sure that also you have a base of control. This token economy of all these AIs, I want to make sure that we don't get in a situation where all of a sudden we realize that we're spending more than we're actually saving. But the early stages, we do see that there's kind of a human-in-the-middle concept that some of the efficiencies that we're creating, for example, software development, create a funnel somewhere else. So as we're using AI, for example, to move some legacy systems to new coding in a new platform for like maybe something all going to like a Salesforce, AI can help us in that software development very quickly. But at the end, you still need human in the middle. You still need quality control and review. So you create the funnel somewhere else down the stream. So we haven't necessarily seen the speed to market yet, but sure, we'll get better at it and start seeing some benefits.

I guess one of the most important developments in second quarter was the introduction of a long-term ROTCE target of 14% to 17%. Walk us through the key building blocks behind that framework, if you can, and what gives you confidence that those returns are sustainable through a full cycle?

Yeah, so when we look, I mean, first when we look at 14% to 17%, you know, we live in a, unfortunately, in this quarterly reporting, right? So that's important that any given quarter, I mean, you know, $5 million of net income gets analyzed, so that's about 30 basis points in ROTC. So, you know, there is some natural drift in those results for what, you know, would normally not be a big number. But in terms of what gives us confidence, you know, we look at the efforts and the sustainability of those efforts in deposits, in expense control, in the diversity of our fee income, you know, and it gives us opportunities to use different levers. So as we see growth in income on credit cards, for example, that gives us the flexibility or the ability to then maybe shift our deposit structure a little bit and maybe reduce fees on deposits to make that an opportunity to increase deposit balances, right? It gives us that confidence that we can, you know, replace some of that income. and you see all that momentum at the same time that we've been intentful with managing capital and that denominator is is a clear opportunity to improve on the Roxy target right so it is a lever that is available to us so and it gives us about a hundred million in you know lower capital CT one is it translates to about 20 basis points improvement at Roxy so when when you have all those levers available to you then you start getting some confidence in the momentum and the focus of the team and that sense of urgency, this concept of being an active participant in making these opportunities happen and these results happen, and that gives us confidence to go out and put that target. And frankly, as I said earlier, it helps us in manage that messaging internally and keep people focused. What we found is that sometimes people were focused on a budget, and you'd have conversation with people, Jorge, why do you keep pushing for this? our campaign or our efficiency effort, we've already hit the budget. It's like, we haven't hit the profitability. Let's go. Let's keep going.

So being able to have that mindset makes a big difference in a large organization. I guess you're already operating near the upper end of that range today. As you think about the next several years, what are the biggest opportunities to continue to improve returns?

Yeah, I think we talked about that earlier. It's just the focus on deposits, the investment portfolio repricing still provides tailwind for us. The improvement and focus and profitability in the U.S. operations contribute to that and capital management.

On credit, consumer credit performance remains favorable, mortgage quality remains strong, and many headline credit metrics continue to improve. What areas of the portfolio are you monitoring most closely today?

Yeah, I mean, I think the second quarter was a really strong quarter. There is nothing in our portfolio that's flashing any morning lights at this point. Certainly with a high-cost environment where oil prices are, gasoline prices in Puerto Rico, that translates to everything in daily life in Puerto Rico. So we'll continue to monitor that. I think the area we talk about where we would see that potentially impacting first would be in small business, We've been focused on that. We don't see any nothings coming out in that group yet. We hope that stability continues, that resiliency continues in Puerto Rico, but we're not naive. We want to make sure that we are prepared. We have strong capital base. We have strong reserves. We have a very strong team. We have efforts in our collections efforts that are geared towards being prepared for anything to get worse. But so far, there is nothing that's worrying us. The diversity of investment coming into Puerto Rico, the diversity of employment, we don't foresee any significant changes in that. But, you know, we do see life, everyday life in Puerto Rico getting more expensive. So how do we help our clients prioritize that debt repayment and in their quality of life and all that will be very important. But so far, you know, we don't see any changes in the trend of Puerto Rico. Great. Let me see if there's any questions to the audience.

Charlie? Yeah.

So we do look at this on a quarterly basis. And as you can imagine, Charlie, when you're looking at the DTAs, you're looking at what we call positive and negative evidence towards being able to generate those NOLs, use those NOLs. And because you are forecasting into the future. That makes it very difficult. It is something that we consider and we balance. Certainly the continuity and the sustainability of those results would give us confidence to be able to readjust the DTAs. That's normally how it works. If you look back, I think the last time we made adjustments in the DTA was in 2024, if I remember correctly, 23 or 24. So it's really about looking at all the positive and negative evidence and the level of comfort that you have in sustainability of it but we do look at it every quarter but what you described essentially you know if you have a high level of confidence that you're going to be able to generate an amount of profit above and beyond what we already have reserved against the DTAs then we would then release the reserves remember I mean we when we're looking at this it's it's not at a point in time right so we are forecasting and some of the results that we're at, we have visibility into that in the assessment of those, the realization of those NOLs. So, it's not just a moment in time.

You know, I guess looking at capital, roughly 16% CET1, you continue to operate with one of the strongest capital positions in the peer group with the new billion-dollar authorization, the dividend increase. How are you thinking about the optimal long-term capital structure?

Yeah, well, we certainly want it to come down, and we've been more intentful in our messaging and our actions to be able to bring that capital down. We just increased our dividends to 90 cents. It's declared this quarter, and we continue to do our buybacks. We said in the second quarter call that we expected the buybacks for the rest of the year to be in the $300 to $400 million range. When you add that to what we've already purchased in the first have and the dividends you're getting fairly close to 100% return for the prior years net income so you know we we want to reduce capital we want to do it in a steady and patient way we have a conservative management team and it's conservative board to have long memories and we appreciate the flexibility of having capital levels if things get either require the level or provide opportunities that you can act in in a turmoil right so we get it we we understand I'd love to be able to say this is this is our target and so we're gonna get to we're not there yet to announce anything like that beyond the fact that we want to make it lower we want to look more like our peers but always with a buffer for the level of geographic concentration that we have in Puerto Rico we all we wholeheartedly believe that that's necessary we do still have levers you know when we look at ct1 you know we are higher than peers but when you look at our additional tier one capital we're lower than our peers so we have to fund that essentially that tier one with with common that's one area that we continue to explore where we see opportunities where we could have a preferred issuance that would replace common stock um you know unfortunately the the market you know where where rates are you know it's just not something that you know we're willing to do at these levels and you know because we're not the level of precision it's a good to have not a must have at this point given our our level of return capital return to our shareholders right now and where we're at on on our capital stack how does M&A play into the discussion around capital you've talked about yeah you know your US presidents in the past and how should we think about? Yeah, I mean, listen, we, you know, we're not naive. We're not going to say, you know, we're not going to do M&A or we're not open to M&A, right? We, you know, there's always opportunities out there and sometimes we look. But the reality is that our M&A for us needs to, you know, attend to a handful of things. And that creates a really high bar, right? First and foremost, it has to improve our deposit franchise in the U.S. so any potential target would have to provide for low-cost deposits number two it has to be a commercial-led organization you know we with you know we like niche businesses that can be profitable let's not just exclusively focus on on CRE we like the geographies that we're in so we want to be you know near those geographies or adjacent you know so talking you know South Florida Central Florida or New York in metro area you know adjacent areas right we want to jump out I'm sure there's plenty of good banks in Iowa Montana that that we're not going to pursue it has to be a good cultural fit and and culture for us is not only the culture of the employees of the organization but then but also the the culture of the clients I make sure that that that target would would you know be comfortable with being owned by a bank from Puerto Rico right we you know we want to make sure that that we're not trying to a challenge of integrating a client base. And then the last thing is size. When we look at acquisition target, you have to find a sweet spot. Too small of acquisition doesn't do anything. It's not worth it. And when we look at a target, we see Popular Bank, so a $14, $15 billion bank buying a bank, not Popular Inc., a $75 billion institution buying a bank. So the size of it. And when you put all those things together there just aren't a lot of options out there that are attractive at this point and you know so we will continue to to prioritize our capital distribution through loan growth organic loan growth and through dividends and earn buybacks for our shareholders great well thanks with that we'll end it but thank you very much for joining us and thank you