Tayfun Tuzun
Analyst · UBS
Thank you, Greg. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. Our company is well positioned to deliver on our pledge to provide financial support to our customers, communities and employees during the current pandemic and the duration of the economic downturn. It is important to note that despite the unexpected timing and nature of the events that led to the sudden decline in economic activity, we are entering this downturn from a position of balance sheet strength that was built through the actions that we've taken during the past few years. Although it is impossible to predict the timing of inflection points in the economy with precision, since late 2018, we had been anticipating an eventual change in the economic cycle after a record expansion period. Our client selection, capital, interest rate and liquidity risk management decisions have all reflected that expectation. What makes this downturn more challenging than others is clearly the unexpected nature of the initial trigger and the ensuing low visibility surrounding the depth and duration of the downturn. All parts of the global economy are entering this cycle at the same time, but the unprecedented level of fiscal and monetary actions will undoubtedly provide a level of support to cushion a portion of the economic setback. The actions that we have taken so far and those that we will be taking in the coming months will focus on maintaining and leveraging our strength to support our clients and stand by them as we help them manage through this difficult period. As always, we incorporate all information that is available to us at the time when we provide commentary about our business and discuss our expectations. Our overall perspective on the next few quarters have been very negative at the end of the first quarter, even before the rapid deterioration in the data and market expectations that we have seen over the past couple of weeks. As we look at the economy today, we do not expect a V-shaped recovery. Our discussions on relevant factors, including credit, will be based on an assumption that it will take a number of quarters before we see visible signs of recovery. What is unclear is the interaction between the fiscal and monetary programs and the pace of the recovery, and what the new run rate will be after that point. Turning to Slide 4. With respect to the first quarter, we were pleased with our overall financial performance despite the economic disruption. Our performance in January and February was ahead of our expectations. Once again, our net interest income, net interest margin, noninterest income and noninterest expenses for the full quarter all performed in line with or better than our guidance. Credit quality remained strong during the quarter. Charge-offs were consistent with our prior expectations, and the NPA ratio decreased 2 basis points sequentially. Reported results for the quarter included a negative $0.09 impact from several notable items, including a credit valuation adjustment for client derivatives, a charge related to the valuation of the Visa total return swap, the impact of MB merger-related charges and a mark in our private equity portfolio, in addition to the $0.55 impact of the provision in excess of charge-offs. Adjusting for those items and the purchase accounting impact shown in our earnings materials, first quarter pre-provision net revenue increased 22% from the prior year. Excluding the first quarter seasonal impacts on compensation and benefits expenses, PPNR increased 2% sequentially. Our core return on tangible common equity, excluding AOCI, increased from the prior year to nearly 15%, and our efficiency ratio continues to trend towards the top quartile among peers. Moving to Slide 5. Total average loans increased 1% sequentially with growth balanced between the consumer and commercial portfolios. Prior to the market disruption in March, total loan growth was generally tracking in line with our previous guidance. Growth in average commercial loans was impacted by the line draws of approximately $8 billion in March. Since the end of the quarter, line utilization has remained very stable. Average commercial real estate loans were flat sequentially, with the construction book declining by 4%. Our CRE balances as a percentage of total risk-based capital remained very low, around 80%, which is significantly lower than our exposures prior to the last downturn, which stood at 174%. Average total consumer loans grew 1% from last quarter. In general, our consumer portfolio trends from the past year or so continued again during the first 2 months, with the auto portfolio leading the growth, reflecting strong production of $1.7 billion with healthy spreads and the same risk return parameters as before. Clearly, the origination activity significantly slowed down in March. And in the near term, we expect the weakness to continue. The quarter-over-quarter growth in auto was partially offset by a decline in home equity balances. Average deposits were up 1%. In addition, our end-of-period deposit growth exceeded our end-of-period loan growth, which enabled us to maintain very strong liquidity levels during the quarter, even when we experienced very high utilization rates. The ability to grow deposits so strongly, while reducing deposit rates by 14 basis points during the quarter shows the strength of our franchise and our relationship-based banking market. Moving on to Slide 6. Reported net interest income increased $1 million compared to the prior quarter with adjusted NII increasing $3 million. The strong NII performance reflects the impact of our $11 billion cash flow hedge portfolio as well as the wider-than-normal LIBOR/Fed fund spread near the end of the quarter. Purchase accounting adjustments benefited our first quarter net interest margin by 4 basis points this quarter compared to 5 basis points last quarter. Our reported NIM increased 1 basis point, and the adjusted NIM increased 2 basis points sequentially, which was at the upper end of our January guidance. Our NIM performance reflected the benefits of our balance sheet hedges, proactive management of deposit rates and a lower day count. The excess short-term liquidity levels in the first quarter caused a 3 basis point drag on our NIM compared to last quarter. Interest-bearing core deposit rates were down 14 basis points during the quarter, better than our previous guidance range of 8 to 10 basis points. We expect interest-bearing core deposit costs to decline another 35 to 40 basis points over the next 2 quarters and be heavily front-loaded in the second quarter. This forecast, combined with the deposit rate actions we have taken since the third quarter of last year in response to the Fed rate moves, results in a cumulative beta in the mid-30s. In the near term, we intend to maintain higher-than-normal liquidity as we continue to gauge the duration of the line draws and the corresponding deposit growth that we witnessed over the past month. Excluding the impact of PPP loans, we expect our loan to core deposit ratio to remain stable in the second quarter. As a reminder, our margin is approximately 2/3 sensitive to the front end of the curve, which results in a 3 to 4 basis point reduction in NIM per 25 basis points move in Fed funds and 1/3 to the long end, which results together in a cumulative 4 to 5 basis point impact. It's worth noting once again that our differentiated hedge and securities portfolios are expected to provide strong NIM protection on a relative basis. We executed our hedges early when the 10-year was around 3% and also structured them to provide protection for much longer than most peers with hedge protection against lower rates through 2024. And as we have discussed before, our securities portfolio is also structured in a way that is meaningfully different than peers, which results in significantly lower cash flows and less stress on the portfolio yield. Our net premium amortization was under $1 million during the quarter. Moving on to Slide 7. We had a stronger quarter in fee income than we guided in January. The resilience in our fees continues to highlight the level of revenue diversification that we have achieved. Adjusted noninterest income increased by 1% sequentially despite the March headwinds compared to our previous expectation of down 3% coming into the quarter. The strong performance was driven by mortgage banking, client financial risk management and wealth and asset management revenues. Mortgage banking revenue of $120 million increased $47 million sequentially, reflecting the widening of primary secondary spreads and strong volumes, combined with the impact of the MSR valuation net of hedges. Origination volume of $4 billion increased 6% sequentially and 145% from the year ago quarter as customers took advantage of the lower rate environment to refinance. We expect second quarter mortgage revenue to be adversely impacted by COVID-19. In our commercial business, we generated another strong quarter of capital markets revenues, which were up 25% -- over 25% from the year ago quarter. Client financial risk management revenue was very strong this quarter, reflecting investments in talent and technology, the continued focus to deepen client relationships as well as the market volatility during the end of the quarter. Wealth and asset management revenue increased 4% from the prior quarter due to higher brokerage and seasonally strong tax prep fees. We continued the AUM flow momentum again this quarter despite the broader market dynamics. Given the current portfolio allocations, we expect our wealth and asset management revenue to experience approximately a 50 beta relative to the S&P 500 on about a month lag. Deposit service charges declined slightly this quarter. Commercial deposit fees were positively impacted by deductions in earnings credit rate and solid gross TM revenue, which was offset by seasonal declines in consumer fees. Moving on to Slide 8. First quarter reported pretax expenses included merger-related items totaling $7 million and intangible amortization expense of $13 million. Adjusted for these items and prior period items shown in our materials, noninterest expense increased 2% sequentially, well below our previous guidance of 5%. In line with previous years, our first quarter expenses were impacted by seasonal items associated with the timing of compensation awards and payroll taxes. Excluding these seasonal items, our total expenses in the first quarter would have been down approximately 4% sequentially. In the current environment, there will be a natural decline in expense items that are directly tied to business performance and activity. In addition, we recognize that as we navigate this environment, investments and projects with lower returns will need to be reprioritized, which gives us the ability to evaluate a wide range of potential actions. As we develop better visibility on the extent and duration of the downturn, several of these items will be actionable. We will provide more details on our expense management in this environment in the coming months. In March at the RBC Conference, we provided a snapshot picture of our exposures to COVID-19 high-impact sectors. Slide 9 provides an update for quarter end exposures and also expands our scope of highly impacted industries to include nonessential retail and exposures to health care facilities. We are also adding more information on the utilization rates and the percentage of the portfolio that is described as highly leveraged. The totals on this page represent 12% of our total loans, approximately 1/3 of our total leverage loan portfolio, which at the end of the quarter was just over $4 billion in outstandings. We believe that in these segments, our client selection has been very disciplined with a focus on larger companies that have access to capital in stressed environments. 75% of our total C&I loans in the industries most stressed by COVID-19 are shared national credits. In addition, on Slide 10, we give you a snapshot of our energy portfolio. This portfolio is less levered and more hedged than the portfolio before the last downturn in oil prices. Nearly 80% of the portfolio is in reserve-based lending. During the 2015 disruption, we experienced approximately $25 million in losses. In the current environment, we estimate that the production breakeven is about $18 per barrel. On Slide 11, we give you an updated view of the consumer and mortgage portfolios. The FICO scores clearly indicate the high credit quality of the portfolio with over 55% of the portfolio containing FICO scores of 750 or higher on a balance-weighted basis. Approximately 90% of the consumer portfolio is secured. And as you can see by our FICO band distributions, our portfolio is heavily weighted in the high prime super prime space. From a hardship perspective, only 10% of the mortgage forbearance requests have LTVs greater than 80%, except for those with guarantees or insurance. Also in February, we further tightened our underwriting standards, specifically on minimum FICO scores and maximum LTV levels. Turning to credit results on Slide 12. Net charge-offs remained near historically low levels during the quarter. The consumer net charge-off ratio was down 12 basis points, and commercial was up 12 basis points sequentially, resulting in a total net charge-off ratio of 44 basis points, consistent with our previous expectations. NPAs continue to be well behaved, up just 4% sequentially. Given the loan portfolio dynamics I mentioned earlier, the NPA ratio was down 2 basis points sequentially. Obviously, with the adoption of CECL, we substantially increased our reserves at the beginning of the quarter. And given the COVID-19 impact and loan growth, our provision was 525% of charge-offs. Slide 13 provides an overview of the major changes in our loan. Our day 1 build was $653 million, consistent with our previous guidance and includes $171 million from the MB portfolio, as we discussed previously, which was significantly impacted by the disparate manner in which purchase accounting discounts were treated under the incurred model versus the CECL model. The post-day one incremental allowance during the quarter was based on several factors: a significantly weaker economic outlook, including a lower oil price, higher funded loan balances and the impact of unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus. The overall approach is a combination of quantitative model-based estimates and qualitative overlays. We use a three year reasonable and supportable period, followed by a two year reversion to historic losses. The quantitative process is based on multiple economic scenarios. The expectation for the two predominant macroeconomic factors is a sharp downturn in GDP and a rise in unemployment in the next two quarters, the impacts of which are partially cushioned by the aggressive levels of fiscal and monetary stimulus, leading to a very weak recovery in the fourth quarter. The challenge associated with calibrating our expectations is, as other banks have discussed, the speed at which the real-time updates to the economic forecasts are changing. The base scenario assumes that GDP growth will slowly start to recover in the fourth quarter and will reach a year-over-year growth of approximately 3% in 2021, with the unemployment rate remaining above 6% throughout 2021. The more stressful scenario has GDP continuing to decline through the first quarter of 2021 and unemployment staying about 7% for almost the entire 3-year reasonable and supportable forecast period. The oil price under the base case reaches $33 in the fourth quarter, but under the more stressful scenario remains below $30 through 2021. As a reference point, we compare our current reserve level with a 9-quarter total loss estimates within the 2 most recent severe stress test runs that we ran, including the 2019 stress test that we ran last year despite the fact that we were not required to submit, and the 2020 stress test that we recently submitted to the Fed, in addition to the most recent Fed-run adverse and severe stress tests from 2018. Our current reserves stand at 76% of the 9-quarter cumulative losses projected under the 2018 Fed adverse scenario, 44% of the 9-quarter losses under the 2018 Fed severe scenario, 50% of the 9-quarter losses under the 2019 severe scenario, and 54% of the 9-quarter losses under the 2020 severe scenario that we just submitted. In the absence of better visibility on future levels of economic activity, these reference points give you some guidance on the strength of our current ACL ratio of 2.13%. In addition, we still have approximately $200 million or 17 basis points of our total loans and remaining discounts associated to the MB portfolio. As other management teams have mentioned during their earnings calls, most of the economic scenarios published since the end of the quarter are forecasting a weaker outlook compared to previous forecasts. As more quantitative and qualitative information becomes available, we will incorporate them into our reserve analysis. As the significant fiscal and monetary support is likely to reduce the impact of both the near-term decline in the GDP and the increase in unemployment, the more meaningful impact on reserve levels will be the shape of the recovery and the level of the economic activity in the post-recovery period. Turning to Slide 14. Our capital and liquidity positions remained very strong during the quarter. Our CET1 ratio ended the quarter at 9.4%, over 280 basis points above the well-capitalized minimum. Given the various dynamics during the quarter, we are providing you a CET1 reconciliation between net income, RWA growth, CECL adoption and the impact of dividends. As a reminder, we did not repurchase shares during the first quarter. As you can see, the majority of the 39 basis point change in CET1 was attributable to line draws from the commercial book, along with the impact of CECL. Dividend payouts constitute a smaller portion of the change in fees. Understandably, the topic of dividend sustainability is of major interest to our shareholders. We believe that we are similar to other banks in that we are entering this downturn from a position of strength, and that strength will be able to withstand severe downturns. That does not mean that dividends will be sustainable in all scenarios, but at this time, we expect to maintain our dividends, which our Board will continue to evaluate based on the data available. Our tangible book value per share was $22.02 this quarter, up 18% year-over-year. We have grown our book value for 5 consecutive quarters. At the end of the quarter, our unrealized pretax gain in our securities and hedge portfolios was approximately $3.3 billion, which is not included in our regulatory capital ratios. From a liquidity perspective, we have over $80 billion in readily available and contingent liquidity. Although we are no longer subject to the LCR, we have since continued to stress test our positions on a monthly basis under 7 different types of liquidity scenarios, and we then hold ourselves to the most stressful scenario. Our liquid securities positions have not changed since our phase outs of the LCR. Slide 15 provides a summary of our current outlook. Given the uncertain environment, we are withdrawing our previous full year guidance until we get more visibility on the economic environment. For the second quarter, based on the line draws at the end of the first quarter and PPP activities, we expect low double-digit growth in average commercial loans and relatively stable consumer loans. Net interest income should grow slightly as a result of higher loan outstandings, while NIM tightens based on my earlier discussion on our interest rate sensitivity. In addition to the impact of the rate environment, NIM will also be impacted by the PPP loans and the amount of short-term liquidity on the balance sheet. Noninterest income and expenses are both expected to decline by high single to low double digits from their current levels, reflecting the impact of COVID-19 related impacts. Total net charge-offs are expected to be in the 45 to 50 basis points range. In summary, our first quarter results were strong and continue to demonstrate the progress we've made over the past few years, improving our resiliency, diversifying our revenues and proactively managing the balance sheet. That being said, we are in an unprecedented environment right now and have limited visibility with respect to the economic path forward. We will continue to rely on the same principles, disciplined client selection, and service underwriting and a focus on a long-term performance horizon, which gives us confidence as we navigate this environment. With that, let me turn it over to Chris to open the call up for Q&A.