Mr. Timmons: Right now, I think a lot of the interest has shifted from capital to a more normalized earnings-type environment. I think in a lot of ways the worst is behind us and people are starting to look at what banks will look like on the other side of this cycle. That's kind of where I'm at - trying to look at opportunities for banks that are clearly going to survive and have some pretty significant pre-provision earnings power coming out of this cycle.
TWST: How would you characterize the industry over the last six months or so? Do you feel like it's coming out of the woods a little bit?
Mr. Timmons: I don't know that we're coming out of the woods as much as we are stabilizing and a free-fall is kind of off the table now. In the last six months, I think results, certainly in the fourth quarter for a lot of banks out West, were better than expected and showed some stability in credit. It still remains to be seen if that can be repeated in the first and second quarter. But residential construction, I think, is bottoming; commercial construction, we still have a little ways to go there. And CRE, we're just starting to see that starting to soften at some of these banks. So I think that's going to be another couple of years.
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