Dominic Ng
Analyst · SunTrust Robinson.
Yes, we'd love to. I mean, if you look at East West Bank right now, our industry focus has been very, very strategic. We look at what the investors and business from China want and then we will make sure that we have those industry expertise available at East West. A good example is that, obviously, we do a lot of real estate, and then Chinese investors are coming to the U.S. and buying a lot of real estate, from hotels to office buildings and then single-family homes and so forth. And then you look at agriculture, biotech, bioscience, entertainment, film. These are the type of activities that the Chinese companies are coming to the U.S. to look into, either collaboration or acquisitions. Energy is a big, big thing in terms of -- for Chinese investors. And clearly, that is a high priority there. And frankly, from an East West Bank point of view, we currently do not have much exposure in that area because we only have 1 branch in Houston. And so with Houston, Dallas and, combined with MetroBank, and altogether, 13 branches, I think that we clearly would have some opportunity to explore our sort of like expansion into the energy sector. And if we do well there, I think that it can get beyond Houston and Dallas and there will be opportunities. I'm not thinking about expanding in terms of branch network, but there are obviously commercial banking activities in the energy sector from Oklahoma to Denver. So I do feel that there are all these opportunities that potentially will be available, but first thing first is that we need to close the deal with MetroBank and have the platform available. And after that, I think it makes it easier for us to build up the expertise. If you look at what we've done in California from the entertainment sector, it didn't take long for us to build up that expertise and then the business, simply because we have a great value proposition here with our contact connections and our ability to provide Chinese currency lending and, also, deposits in China. It does makes it very, very convenient for a lot of American business who need to do business with folks in China.