Bob Diamond

Bloomberg Audio Studios.

Let's stick with earnings.

Zion's reporting a beat on earnings with a net income of $222 million despite a $50 million loss from an alleged fraud.

The former Barclays CEO, Bob Diamond, writes the following, the dislocation in regional banks stems from a few single bank-specific issues but doesn't change our view on the opportunity.

We remain very bullish on regional bank consolidation.

Bob joins us now for more.

Bob, good morning.

Good morning, John.

It's good to see you, sir.

Look, a few years ago, we had some problems managing interest rate risk.

Can we avoid it with credit risk in this segment now?

I think broadly in regional banks, as you just quoted me, we're very bullish.

I think both the interest rate dislocation that started with SVB or was recognized with SVB, and we're really a function of rates going from 0% to 5.5% is in the market.

I think the...

You know, the regional bank area has some really strong banks and some that are not as well managed.

So of course, some have more exposure, for example, to commercial real estate than others have.

And if the commercial real estate is in Iowa, it might be different than if it's in LA.

So we look at all of those things.

But as a sector,

This is a really, really strong sector, the banks.