William C. Losch
Analyst · FBR
Thanks, Bryan. Good morning, everybody, thanks for joining us. I'll start on Slide 7. In the third quarter, net income available to common shareholders was $45 million or $0.19 a share. I'm pleased with the core performance we saw in the quarter like Bryan is. Overall, earnings were impacted by a few notable items as well, which I'll discuss on the next slide. So if you turn to Slide 8, in the third quarter, we continued our efforts to wind down our Non-Strategic portfolio with loan sales. We finalized the sale of about $315 million of UPB held-for-sale loans and booked approximately $40 million of pretax gain on those sales, which will show up in the mortgage banking income line. As Bryan mentioned, our year-to-date loan sales out of the Non-Strategic portfolio have resulted in pretax gains totaling almost $50 million (sic) [$40 million]. We have been able to manage down this portfolio to our advantage, and we'll continue to look for opportunities to accelerate the wind down of the Non-Strategic portfolio in an appropriate fashion. We also had a $50 million pretax expense related to legal matters reflected in the addition to the litigation reserve. And additionally, we booked a $15 million pretax gains related to insurance recoveries associated with the previous legal settlement. These 2 items had a $35 million net negative impact in our litigation and regulatory matters line in other expense. Segment highlights are on Slide 9, and I'll go over the details of the Regional Banking Capital Markets businesses on the next few slides. So if you turn to Slide 10, taking a look at the Regional Bank. Our Regional Bank showed particularly strong performance, contributing $51 million in net income in the third quarter, up 9% from the second. Linked quarter, our net interest income in the bank was up 3%, driven largely by higher loan balances. Noninterest income declined 3%, linked quarter, but recall that 2Q '14 included a positive $3 million impact related to some VISA incentives. Deposit transaction fees were up 2%. Brokerage and trust fees were down from second quarter seasonally higher levels. Expenses were up 2% due to technology investments and an increase in professional fees. Loan loss provision was $2 million in 3Q '14 compared to $8 million in the second. Annualized charge-offs in the bank are at 19 basis points, very strong. Pretax income, again, was up 9% linked quarter. Turning to Regional Bank balance sheet trends on Slide 11. Linked quarter, our average loan growth was 4% for the second consecutive quarter. Our focus on specialty lending areas, expansion markets and our bankers' calling efforts continue to pay off. Average Commercial Real Estate loans were up 9% linked quarter, driven by customers funding up existing commitments, opportunities in the REIT sector and growth in our Mid-Atlantic, Middle Tennessee and Southeast markets. Loans to mortgage companies, one of our most economically profitable businesses, increased nearly 30% linked quarter due to the strong home purchasing we saw in the summer season. Private Client and Wealth Management loans grew 4% linked quarter, and growth areas in our markets included Mid-Atlantic, which was up 16% link. And Middle Tennessee where loans increased 3%. We're booking loans appropriately and largely within our risk-adjusted return on capital guidelines by staying disciplined on pricing and underwriting, while borrowers' sentiment has improved somewhat, customers do remain cautious and we're still facing tough competition for loans. While we generally see a seasonal slowdown in loan bookings in the fourth quarter, our pipelines remain very solid. Moving to capital markets on Slide 12. Pretax income was $5 million in the business in 3Q compared to 2Q '14 pretax income of $50 million, which included a $47 million expense recovery. Linked quarter, fixed income average daily revenues remains relatively steady with the second quarter at $644,000, reflecting continued muted customer activity due to tough market conditions from low rates and low volatility. The FTN fixed income business continues to be a strong source of fee income for us, and we see latent opportunity for improved profitability and contribution to achieving our bonefish targets as market conditions improve. The platform is a highly variable one from an expense and capacity perspective. And we continue to be prepared to take advantage of improved markets once they materialize. Turning to Slide 13, the consolidated balance sheet margin trends. Average total assets remained stable at $24 billion. Linked quarter, our consolidated net interest margin was flat at 2.97%. Higher loan balances and lower deposit costs offset the pressure on loan yields. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, we expect our consolidated margin to be more towards the 2.90% level, plus or minus, a few basis points. Much of the reason for this anticipated 4Q decline in the margin is a high-class problem to have, deposit inflows. Our margin assumptions are based on an anticipated seasonal end of year increase in deposit inflows, and the closing of our branch acquisition of 13 branches across Tennessee from BofA, which funded today. Subsequently, we expect to hold higher levels of cash at the Fed in the fourth quarter, which will impact the margin. And in addition, the loan sales and seasonally lower loans to mortgage companies will impact the NIM as well. Fundamentally, however, our NIM remained solid in a challenging interest rate environment. Our balance sheet remains highly asset sensitive. In a 200 basis point rise scenario, our net interest income would increase roughly 10%. And on the liability side, we expect overall deposit Betas of about 40% to 45% in an up 200 basis point scenario. Moving to expenses on Slide 14. Since 3Q '11, our run rate of consolidated annualized expense, excluding litigation accruals and recoveries and the GSE repurchase provisions has declined 20%. Compared to peers who have seen an uptick in expense, we've decreased our cost base significantly. We've lowered cost by reducing our branches, streamlining our structure and processes and winding down our Non-Strategic portfolio. At the same time, we've continued to invest in technology, products and people to help us take advantage of growth opportunities, improve our processes to leverage our infrastructure and serve our customers more effectively and efficiently. We will continue working to reduce our expense base by further improving process, decreasing legacy-related costs and reducing our corporate real estate footprint. Turning to asset quality overview on Slide 15. Our charge-offs were down, as we've seen continued stable performance and positive grade migration. We also had a $3.4 million commercial recovery in the third quarter. Linked quarter, you see our nonperforming assets decrease 24% to $257 million and commercial nonperforming loans were down 11%. We sold about $60 million of nonperforming loans in the third quarter. Our loan loss reserve decreased 2% as well. Wrapping up on Slides 16 and 17. Slide 16 shows our current progress towards bonefish targets. And on Slide 17, you can see that we've put ranges on the opportunities that we see at an incremental profitability. We see a lot of growth, economic profit opportunity and upside to our business. We're managing the entire organization to our bonefish goals. And we believe the continued efficiencies, growth opportunities with new markets and products, economic profit improvement, capital deployment, increased capital markets activity and a rise in interest rates will get us to our long-term return targets from 15% to 20%. With that, I'll turn it back over to Bryan.