Earnings Labs

Atlantic Union Bankshares Corporation (AUB)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Tue, Jan 21, 2020

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. And welcome to the Atlantic Union Bankshares Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2019 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Bill Cimino. You may begin.

Bill Cimino

Analyst

Thank you, Carl. And good morning everyone. I hope you enjoyed the brief set of news which is programmed. I do want to say that we’ll probably next time go with music instead of the news on the hold.I have Atlantic Union Bankshares’ President and CEO, John Asbury with me today, and Executive Vice President and CFO, Rob Gorman. We also have other members of our executive management team with us for the question-and-answer period. Please note that today's earnings release is available to download on our investor website, investors.atlanticunionbank.com.During the call today, we will comment on our financial performance using both GAAP metrics and non-GAAP financial measures. Important information about these non-GAAP financial measures, including reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures is included in our earnings release for the fourth quarter and full year 2019.Before I turn the call over to John, I would like to remind everyone that on today's call, we will make forward-looking statements, which are not statements of historical fact and are subject to risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that actual performance will not differ materially from any future results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.We undertake no obligation to publicly revise any forward-looking statements. Please refer to our earnings release for the fourth quarter and full year 2019 and our other SEC filings for further discussion of the Company's risk factors and other important information regarding our forward-looking statements, including factors that could cause actual results to differ.All comments made during today's call are subject to that Safe Harbor statement. At the end of the call, we will take questions from the research analyst community. And now I'll turn the call over to John Asbury.

John Asbury

Analyst

Thank you, Bill. Thanks to all for joining us today. And Happy New Year from Atlantic Union Bankshares Corporation. I do want to point out I’m fighting a cold so I apologize in advance for the rough voice and occasional cough. We closed down an eventful 2019 with a solid fourth quarter by continuing to execute on our strategic plan, and hitting the loan and deposit growth targets we revised last quarter.As we began 2020, we continue to believe we have a great opportunity before us to create something uniquely valuable for our shareholders and the communities we serve, and remain keenly focused on reaching the full potential of this powerful franchise.Atlantic Union accomplished much in 2019. To start, we closed the access National Bank acquisition on February 1st and converted their core systems in May, successfully an uneventfully rebranded the company to Atlantic Union and changed the stock trading symbol to AUB delivering 8% deposit growth while loan growth was 6% for the year. Year-end loan-to-deposit ratio was in line with our 95% target right where it should be.We completed the transformation of the executive leadership team with the hiring of David Zimmermann in the fourth quarter to head up our Wealth Management Group, Middleburg Financial. Approved and rolled out our new three year strategic plan to our teammates, added an established equipment financing team to close a commercial banking products gap, launched Zelle and added nCino to address digital products.Won a number of customer experience awards including the coveted number one ranking for the J.D. Power for the Retail Banking Satisfaction survey for the mid-Atlantic region in 2019 with the mid-Atlantic region defined by J.D. Power as Virginia to New York State. There was no better.Last, a focussed initiative to take advantage of the coming market disruption from…

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Thank you, John and good morning everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I'd now like to take a few minutes to provide you with some details of the Atlantic Union’s financial results for the fourth quarter and for 2019. Please note that for the most part my commentary will focus on Atlantic Union’s fourth quarter and full year financial results on a non-GAAP operating basis, which excludes $709,000 in after tax merger related costs and $713,000 in after tax rebranding relating cost in the fourth quarter and also excludes $22.3 million in after tax merger related costs and $5.1 million in after-tax rebranded costs for the full year of 2019.For clarity, I will specify which financial metrics are on a reported versus non-GAAP operating basis. In the fourth quarter, reported net income was $55.8 million and earnings per share were $0.69, that's up approximately $2.6 million or $0.04 from the third quarter.For the year ended 2019, reported net income was $193.5 million and earnings per share were $2.41 up $47 million or $0.19 per share from 2018 levels. Return-on-equity for the fourth quarter was 8.81% and 7.89% for the full year.The reported return-on-assets was 1.27% for the fourth quarter and was 1.15% for 2019. The reported efficiency ratio was 57.4% for the quarter and 62.37% for the full year. On a non-GAAP operating basis, which as noted excludes $1.4 million in after-tax merger related costs and rebranding related costs for the quarter and $27.4 million for the year consolidated net earnings for the fourth quarter were $57.3 million or $0.71 per share, which is up from $56.1 million or $0.69 per share in the third quarter.For the full year 2019, operating net earnings were $221 million or $2.75 per share which is up $43 million or $0.04 per share from…

Bill Cimino

Analyst

Thanks Rob. And Carl, we're ready for our first caller.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Casey Whitman from Piper Sandler. The line is now open

Casey Whitman

Analyst

Hi, good morning.

John Asbury

Analyst

Good morning

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Good morning.

Casey Whitman

Analyst

Hi, good morning. Rob, just to be clear on the the updated financial targets you just outlined what are you assuming for further rate cuts if any?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes, on that front Casey, what we're assuming is that there is no further rate cuts by the Fed in 2020 and 2021 where but the curve remains in line with where it is today, the flat curve. In terms of the NIM forecast that we're looking at in terms of those targets that we set, we're thinking we will be stabilizing at the levels you see in the fourth quarter on a core basis, expect to be in about 335 to 340 range on a core basis.Now if the Fed were to cut, which the implied curves indicate maybe in the second half of this year, you could see that that that range could drop to the 330 to 335 range going forward.

Casey Whitman

Analyst

Okay understood. Let me ask a question about expenses. So your core expense run rate is now at around $92.5 million and you've got at least the FDIC expenses likely normalizing backup in the first half of the year, so where do you think expenses shake out in 2020? I think last call you had guided to like a 4% to 5% increase in expenses, but in 2020 is that -- does that still apply here or sort of what are your general thoughts about expenses in 2020?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes, that’s exactly right Casey So what we -- coming out of the fourth quarter we think we're at a run rate about $92 million. That includes some of the impacts of the investments we made this year. We are expecting to increase that run rate approximately 4% next year as we continue to invest in the various technologies digital product and people etcetera including you know a wage inflation factor about 3%.So we're looking at about a 4% increase in that run rate on a full year basis next year. Obviously the quarters will be a little different as there's some seasonality in the first quarter which will be a little higher than in an average for three sort of quarters.

John Asbury

Analyst

And Casey, this is John. I'd add that to some extent you can expect to see this front end loaded a bit. Yes, there's the seasonal aspect Rob points too, but there is a surge of activity going on in the company and we are -- we are making hay while the sun shines in terms of we are not working on a merger right now and we are very focused on completing a number of important initiatives to position the company for the future. And there are some things that will begin to drop off the schedule as we get into the second half of the year. So, I'll kind of leave it at that. But I would reiterate as Rob said, don't look for it to be evenly distributed. Look for it to be a little more loaded toward the front-end and then including trend at the back-end.

Casey Whitman

Analyst

Very helpful. And let's some else jump on.

John Asbury

Analyst

Thank Casey.

Bill Cimino

Analyst

Kyle, we're ready for our next caller please.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Catherine Mealor from TBW. The line is now open.

Catherine Mealor

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning.

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Hi. Catherine.

Catherine Mealor

Analyst

Just I want to follow-up on the margin guidance that you gave Rob. As we think about loan yields, it seems like the legacy loan yields had a pretty big decline this quarter. How you're thinking about loan yields going into next year? And you maybe where new production is coming on right now versus where the legacy loan yield is current sitting? And then, on the other side of the balance sheet maybe on deposit cost, how much further reduction do you think you can get in deposit cost if we don't see any further rate cuts?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. So, in the terms of guidance on margins, as mentioned we feel like we're going to be stabilizing in the range you see in the fourth quarter. Some of that is -- when you look at the detail of that, we're going to see additional loan yield, earnings asset yield compression, not material, but we can offset that with additional reductions in our cost upon primarily on the cost deposit. We do have some opportunities in lowering various deposit rates. There's a bit of a tail on some of our promotional money markets that we have a six-month promotional money market promotions out there. Some of which we'll reprice as we continue into this year. So we think there's opportunity there. That's a money markets, its came down about 30 basis points quarter-to-quarter. So we're expecting that will come down a little further. We are seeing a little more pressure on the loan yields as well, but when you match-up the compression on that versus lower deposit cost we should be able stabilizing in this 335 to 340 range, again, assuming no rate cuts coming down the pike.

Catherine Mealor

Analyst

Got it. And then, does that assume a level of deployment of the excess liquidity that we saw in this quarter as well?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes, right. So, as I mentioned, it was about three basis points of lower margin due to that liquidity. So that also comes in the play as well in that guidance.

Catherine Mealor

Analyst

Got it. Okay. And I notice also the fair value accretion guidance came down. I think it was about $60 million last quarter for 2020 and now its $37 million [ph]. Is this just from -- kind of is this from CECL or can you any color on why the decline?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. In terms of what you see in the earning release, we have not updated that projection for what we think. We're still working through a potential for CECL. The decline there for us is primarily because we've accelerated. You saw little bit of acceleration in the fourth quarter, which we do see going forward number. Our feeling is that when we recalculate under CECL we'll see a bit of pickup or an acceleration if you will that accretion more in 2020 than which currently showing up on that chart. So we continuing to work through that. We'll give better guidance probably in the next quarter. And that's probably a conservative estimate at this point.

Catherine Mealor

Analyst

Okay. That makes sense. Great. Thank you very much.

Bill Cimino

Analyst

Thanks Catherine. And Kyle, we're ready for our next caller please.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of William Wallace from Raymond James. The line is now open.

John Asbury

Analyst

Good morning, Wallace.

William Wallace

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning. Very good, thank you. Maybe just following up on the last line of questioning CECL. How would you anticipate your reserves to trend in 2020 once you implement CECL. Should they be flat on a reserve to loan basis? Or up or continue to be down like we saw in 2019?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. Well, interestingly, on that from, Wally, as you know we will -- the day one impact as we've estimated it would be about $95 million. You will see that's coming down primarily because of the runoff in our consumer -- third-party consumer book where we've got the lifetime losses embedded in that Day-1 projection. So we won't be replenishing that reserve for at least that book of business for any charge-offs that come through assuming that we've estimated properly.So you can expect that that would come down over time just all things being equal and the portfolio mix remain the same. The drivers of increasing that of course will be a loan growth and the other book of business, the other loan portfolios that we have on the books. But -- and of course, if there's major changes in the economic outlook, more risk, more tendency towards a recession that could drive the reserve up as well. But as we look for now, I think you could expect to see the Day-1 reserve level come down a bit over the year.

William Wallace

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. And then the $95 million impact, does that include the purchase loans that the full impact?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. That's right.

William Wallace

Analyst

So what's the capital impact then?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. Capital impact is about -- we've calculated about 20 to 25 basis points. In terms of regulatory capital that will be phasing over three years.

William Wallace

Analyst

Okay. And -- so but the TCE impact will be immediately…?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

On TCE its probably about 20 to 25 bps.

William Wallace

Analyst

Okay. And then, so looking at your financial -- your revise financial targets that 15% to 17% return on tangible common, what TCE base do you assume for those target?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

We expected -- as we've mentioned, our goal is to be at about a 8.5% TCE and I think our projections call for that to be about 8.5% to 8.75% for this year including the impact of the CECL.

William Wallace

Analyst

Right. Okay. John, I believe in your prepared remarks you mentioned the continued opportunity around Truist branch closures. Did you say that you anticipate those closures in late 2021?

John Asbury

Analyst

Yes. What you're saying, Wally, is that because Virginia has the most overlap, including the Greater Washington area, as any of their markets and the system the intend to go last year, presumably they get it right. And so, we do not expect those disclosures to occur until the latter part or at least the second half of next year. In fact, as you may have read there saying that there will no branch closure anywhere for a year, which doesn't surprise me, just given the scale of this combination.We've seen leadership announcement, of course, have come through. They are consolidating their commercial banking teams for time being, SunTrust branches and BB&T branches continue to run effectively independently. And so, we have -- we are adjusting a few of our plans accordingly. Surprisingly, we do market research. You'd be surprised at how many consumers have no earthly idea these two companies are merging at this point, not a clue. The commercial customers certainly do. So we don't want -- we need to make sure that we synchronize some of our initiatives with the maximum disruption opportunity on the consumer side.

William Wallace

Analyst

Okay. So, you were true to your word and there were no announcements on any new M&A in 2019. You have continued opportunity around Truist disruption through 2021 or even in the 2022? It sounds like how does the M&A discussion change or does it change in 2020?

John Asbury

Analyst

Not really. If you listen, my comments were carefully made. So what we're saying is that we have a number of initiatives and I listed off quite a few that had been completed and they are more underway. So our highest priority right now is to really get ahead of this Truist. As I said, I feel like we got the opportunity while we're not engaged in a merger transaction, conversion, integration effort, we need to make run for it. We need to knockout and get as close to competitive parity as we can during this window of opportunity.Having said that, the level of discussion is going on out there. The level inbound inquiry that we are receiving does lead us to believe that there will be opportunities when we decide that it's time. It is -- we are not of the mindset that we wouldn't want to do anything this year, but we had conversations continuously. We'll continue to evaluate this in real time. We look at the full spectrum of opportunities on the M&A front. And I would say that there's a very real opportunity as we get into 2021, you could see us active again.But for now what we do not want to do is to put off or delay strategically important initiatives internally. And they aren't all just products by the way, I hinted this. We'll talk later on about -- we have a stem-to-stern processes inside this organization. We'll be implementing. We are implementing. It's happening now, robotic process automation. There are number of things that do cost us some money frankly on the front end that will make the company more efficient, more scalable, more productive and offer higher quality. And so this is the window to do it. So that is our view.

William Wallace

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. And this is just a ticky-tack question, Rob, but are we done with merger costs? And as a quick follow-up, when should we see the discontinued operations away?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. So, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, yes, merger costs are done and rebranding cost are done, so we're running at an operating go forward here, operating expense base.

William Wallace

Analyst

And on discontinued, same thing.

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes.

William Wallace

Analyst

Okay, great. Thanks. I'll let somebody else to ask the question there.

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Thanks Wally.

Bill Cimino

Analyst

Thanks Wally. And Kyle, we're ready for our next caller please.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Brody Preston from Stephens Inc. The line is now open.

John Asbury

Analyst

Hi, Brody.

Brody Preston

Analyst

Hi. Good morning everyone. How are you?

John Asbury

Analyst

Good morning.

Brody Preston

Analyst

I just had a couple of just clean-up questions before I get into some other questions. So, I guess just following up on the CECL commentary. So I guess just the 20 to 25 basis points, that would be about a $35 million capital impact somewhere in that range. Is that fair, Rob?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. That's about right, Brody.

Brody Preston

Analyst

Okay. And then, I guess as I think about the reserve ratio moving forward, I understand that the consumer book is running off, but as the acquired book also runs off, I'm assuming that's carried at a -- if we segment the buckets for the loan loss reserve between origination and acquired -- originated and acquired, I'm assuming that acquired bucket is the reserve ratio on that is a little bit higher. And so as that run off is that also I guess add to the loan loss reserve ratio moving lower over time?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. I don't think that's going to be impacted that much in terms of the acquired book, especially the good acquired book, which is what we're putting reserve, which is pretty much in line with legacy unions reserving. So I wouldn't expect that's going to be a driver. There is, of course the PCD, the Purchase credit deteriorated, but that's not a big number for us here.

Brody Preston

Analyst

Okay. And then, on the share repurchases, just comparing the press releases it looks you bought back about $45 million reserve stock this quarter. Just wondering if you had the shares repurchased through the average price that you repurchased to that just for the fourth quarter?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. I think in total, it's like 36.91 since we started in the fourth quarter. But I think it was about $37.30 or so $37.40.

Brody Preston

Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you. And I guess just going back to the NIM guidance, you said, you sort of expected it to stabilizing this 335 or 340 range on a core basis. Is that GAAP core NIM that you're guiding to?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Would you say GAAP.

Brody Preston

Analyst

Yes. I mean, you provide an FTE and the GAAP margin in your press release and so just thinking about the core margin on a GAAP and an FTE basis.

Rob Gorman

Analyst

That's FTE basis that we're talking about here.

Brody Preston

Analyst

Okay. So it sounds like maybe just a little bit more compression in the first quarter and sort of stabled up from there?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. That's right.

Brody Preston

Analyst

Okay. All right. Just wanted to touch on what percent of loans -- the loan portfolio is tied to LIBOR and how much of that is one month LIBOR?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. The total book about 24% is tied to one month LIBOR, so its pretty sensitive to that LIBOR rate. And as you know, it decline quite a bit in the fourth quarter, about 38 basis points I think. So that was a key driver of the loan yield compression we saw this year.

Brody Preston

Analyst

Okay. And what percent of the portfolio is tied to prime?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

About 12% --12%, 13%.

Brody Preston

Analyst

Okay. And I'm assuming these loans sort of reprice throughout a quarter on a monthly basis?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. That's right.

Brody Preston

Analyst

Okay.

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Some of it relates to back-to-back loss, which we press little more, I guess about -- on a monthly basis I think they typically reprice.

Brody Preston

Analyst

Okay. And then on the CD book, I guess I was a little bit surprise to see the cost of CDs flat to up a bit at this point, just given some of what I saw you were doing on the CD pricing front in the quarter. And so, I guess what was the driver of that? And what could we expect for time deposit costs moving forward?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. I think, well, you should be seeing those coming down. I think that's a reflection of some of the higher rate CDs that we were running as promotions during the second and third quarter that's playing out, but you can expect to see those rates coming down as we've lowered the rates over the last two quarters. So going into next year you'll see those declining as you'll see money market rates start to come down as well.

Brody Preston

Analyst

All right. And then just couple of quick one left. The mortgage was little bit weaker than I was looking for. It looks like refi volumes weren't quite as strong as I would have thought. Just wanted to better understand what drove that?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. Actually, I think in terms of what our expectations were, it came in pretty well when you consider that fourth quarter is typically a lower seasonal quarter for mortgages. So we felt pretty good about that. So we were expecting it to tick down for the quarter.

Brody Preston

Analyst

Okay. And then wealth management, you had a pretty good -- pretty strong quarter in terms of AUM. Wanted to get a sense for how much of that was market-related versus new inflows? And what your outlook for 2020 for that business might be just given some of the leadership changes?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. I would say, a lot of what you saw there was driven by the market in terms of driving AUM up, less so of new business coming in, although we did have some coming in. Remains to be seen in terms of expectations in 2020. Our new leadership there is undergoing a review of the entire business unit and we do expect to see an uptick there, but some of that depending on where some of its market driven as well in terms of AUM, so we'll see where we go from there. But taking that out the equation, we do expect to see some positive momentum in that business, but it's too early to tell at this point.

Brody Preston

Analyst

All right. Great. Thank you very much everyone.

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Thanks Brody.

Bill Cimino

Analyst

And Kyle, we're ready for our next caller please.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Laurie Hunsicker from Compass Point. The line is now open.

John Asbury

Analyst

Hi, Laurie, good morning.

Laurie Hunsicker

Analyst

Hi, good morning. Rob, I just wanted to go back to margin. Again, I know you've talked a lot about it. But directional as we look at just accretion income piece and I'm thinking about reported margin, I just want to make sure that I have this right apples-to-apples, because accretion income was so big this quarter. So, if we're looking at it going forward, your reported margins -- just keeping in line with your comments on your core margin, your reported margin probably is going to track in that 345 to like high 340s, 348, 359 range. Am I going up the right way?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. I've got it at 345 to 350 depending on core. That's right.

Laurie Hunsicker

Analyst

Okay, perfect. I just want to make sure, I've got that right. Okay. And then just a few things on expenses here. Just specifically three line items that looked outsized. And I wondered if you could help us think about that around your comments, the technology, the professional and the marketing, was there any one time that drove those higher?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Not really other than -- and the marketing uptick, we had some credits in the third quarter which the did not recur in the fourth quarter. So the fourth quarter was a bit more of a run rate basis for marketing. In terms of technology and processing, we're starting to see the impact of some the initiatives that we put in place during the year, for instance, CECL [ph] adds to [Indiscernible] cost et cetera. So there's an uptick relating to some of those items that started to come through in the fourth quarter. And the other item which one was that was…

Laurie Hunsicker

Analyst

So just the technology and professional fees?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. Professional fees, we do have some consulting expenses we're incurring related to some of the initiatives that we're putting in place. We're putting in a new deposit pricing platform that we spend some consulting dollars on. We've got some other project, robotic automation, as John alluded to. So there's some consulting related to strategic initiatives that's embedded in those numbers.

Laurie Hunsicker

Analyst

Okay. And so, I guess -- and one more question. As we think about the branches that you closed, obviously no more or at least in the near term, no more rebranding or branch closure expenses, but are the cost saves from those branch closures now fully phased or are we going to see…?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes.

Laurie Hunsicker

Analyst

Okay.

Rob Gorman

Analyst

I think we said about 400,000, 500,000 a quarter that we did see in the fourth quarter.

Laurie Hunsicker

Analyst

Okay. And then where do you guys stand in terms of think about branch closures for this year. Are you feeling good about the number?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Well, we feel pretty good about where we are in terms of the culling that we've done, something that we are exploring and we're about to do one is we have a opportunity in Richmond, where we're going to go essentially close two branches and move them into one new better location. And as we asses the franchise and I'll ask Shawn O'Brien, Head of Consumer Banking to comment. We think we could replicate that model end up with better located fewer branches in metropolitan markets and lower our expense run rate. Shawn, we don't want to get into too much detail, but any perspective that you'd share on that?

Shawn O'Brien

Analyst

Yes, all I'll add is that, through acquisition we have some branches that aren't super consistent with our brand and not necessarily in the best shape. And so, we'd like to get little bit less of dense franchise footprint. And I think we can do that probably by taking 12, 14 branches over time and consolidating them into seven newer branches. So that's kind of we're looking to do. But that's a bit of a long-term play as we build up those new branches.

Laurie Hunsicker

Analyst

Okay, great. And then John you mentioned, through 2019 you had hired 39 people from BB&T, SunTrust. Are you still actively looking to hire and then just of this 39 how many people are part of your C&I team? Thanks.

Rob Gorman

Analyst

I guess, the answer is, we're always in the market for talent. And we are not going to have a big net add. A lot of -- those were not all net adds to be very clear. And so, we had I would say a good half of that numbers would be and various roles in the retail bank especially branch managers who had outstanding alternative for really bankers coming out of these larger organizations that I'm looking at Dave Ring on here, maybe best guess, maybe 40% or so those would be commercial banking related. And we think the relationship managers, and they were 15 [ph] between commercial originators and credit oriented folks. And for this year probably add in the single digits in total, but its like John said it's more of a net number because we have retirements and other things that we will replace this year.

Laurie Hunsicker

Analyst

Great. Okay. One last quick question here. Question for you, Rob, your third-party consumer, what is the balance? And then of that, what's lending club?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. In terms on the lending club, we're about $180 million at the end of those quarter. So that was down about $22 million or $23 million. And on that front, Laurie, by the end of this year we'd expect to be less than probably 15 or less as it continues to run off.

Laurie Hunsicker

Analyst

Great. And do you have the number for what your third-party consumer originated? I know most of it's lending club, but with the total?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. We had about another in terms of service finance, we have about 100 and some odd million dollars in that third-party program which we'll also be running down this year as well.

Laurie Hunsicker

Analyst

Okay. So you're still -- you're right around 200 million, 220 million?

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes, little over, yes, probably more like 225, 230 range.

Laurie Hunsicker

Analyst

Okay, great. Thanks. I'll leave it there.

Bill Cimino

Analyst

Thank you, Laurie. And Kyle, we have time for one last caller please.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Eugene Koysman from Barclay. The line is now open.

John Asbury

Analyst

Good morning, Eugene.

Eugene Koysman

Analyst

Good morning. Thank you. I wanted to follow-up on your loan growth target for 2020. Can you share how much of that 6% to 8% loan growth, are you expecting to come from the legacy Truist customers?

John Asbury

Analyst

No. We cannot do that.

Eugene Koysman

Analyst

That's fair. And can you help us maybe give us some color on how your initiatives to go after the Truist customers are progressing?

John Asbury

Analyst

I'll ask Maria Tedesco, President of Atlantic Union Bank to provide some commentary. We have a comprehensive set of initiatives. Now the timing of some of these has changed a bit. Certain gorilla-marketing tactics for branches that are going to be consolidated doesn't really make a lot of sense at this point in time. Maroa, do you want to speak just in terms of high level, how project -- forgive me, Project Sundown, for those of you who don't know it, is our formerly secret code name for taking advantage of the SunTrust BB&T disruption. I hope you see the humor and sun down.

Maria Tedesco

Analyst

Well, we see this as a multiyear opportunity. This is -- we're planning on a marathon event with initiative to go over the next couple of years. But much of what you see us doing now closing the gap to our sort of competitive set is exactly what we're doing. Those are the short term plans. But we see this as an offensive plan. We know this disruption. We're at ground zero to this event. And we have a sense of what will happen that would be disruptive to customers that will make opportunistic for us. So those initiatives without getting into much detail is really set against what we believe is the time line of disruption. And literally every business has their plans in which to be offensive and be opportunistic.

Rob Gorman

Analyst

And recognizing that this a public forum, we don't want to show our hand to much. Rest assure there's a very robust action plan to Maria's point, each line of business has a very targeted set of initiatives. And I would reiterate this is a multiyear disruption that has began. This will play out for years.

Maria Tedesco

Analyst

Yes. And I think you'll see on lot of the initiatives that we've even talked about today on this call help us to be a strong competitive positioning in the market, but certainly those were specific product gap.

John Asbury

Analyst

And on the commercial side we do the discretely track clients that we have won coming out of BB&T or SunTrust and trust me there is a list and its growing. We're not going to get into details, but we're having pretty good success chipping away at that.

Eugene Koysman

Analyst

That sounds pretty good. Given the number of technology initiatives you've talked about, can you share with us what is your technology budget for last year and for 2020? And maybe help us understand how much of it you're spending to run the bank versus innovate the bank?

John Asbury

Analyst

I don't want to answer the former question, Eugene, in terms of too much specificity on exactly what we were using for digital strategy. In some respects there's certainly a dollar cost issue here. One of the bigger constraints for midsize bank like us candidly is not so much the dollars, although that's important, is having the subject matter experts available to work the project and that is the single biggest reason why we don't want to do as very near-term acquisition, because we will take those very same people off-line to work on the merger conversion integration. And when you've been focused on laying this out. Rob, do you -- what if anything would you share on in terms of how much do you think we're spending on new. It will be relatively small portion.

Rob Gorman

Analyst

Yes. I think incrementally we're probably talking about maybe a 10% increase year-over-year from what we've normally got down on that. So incrementally including all of digital type investments we're making, all the automation, the Zelle's of the world, the nCino's of the world. So, I would say, probably good 10% increase in our budget related to technology.

John Asbury

Analyst

And then beyond technology budget per se, you have think holistically, I'm looking at Kelly Dakin now. He is Head of Digital Strategy and Customer Experience. Kelly, how many people on your team now today?

Kelly Dakin

Analyst

There are 17 people that supports digital strategy and another three that supports customer experience.

John Asbury

Analyst

And when I got here, it was probably one and a half and you been here just under a year and half as you walk into?

Kelly Dakin

Analyst

I walked in, there was about four people.

John Asbury

Analyst

So there you go. So its people as well who are working on these initiatives. And you could expect to see on the digital strategy side that the idea is to have essentially quarterly release schedule. And so there's a plan that there's out for a long, long time in terms of a timeline of things you want to do everything from continuous upgrades to mobile banking suite of offerings, new product initiatives, some of these needs to modulated. If we are in higher-rate environment, frankly we were doing more than we're doing right now, but going to do the things that need to be done. I'm sorry, Eugene, probably about as much clarity as we're willing to share publicly.

Eugene Koysman

Analyst

This is actually very helpful. Thank you very much.

John Asbury

Analyst

Thank you, Eugene. And thanks everyone for calling today. As a reminder, we'll have a replay available in our investor website, investor.atlanticunionbank.com. We look forward to talking with you next month. Have a good day.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect. Thank you for your participation.