Earnings Labs

Flagstar Financial, Inc. (FLG)

Q3 2019 Earnings Call· Tue, Oct 22, 2019

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Flagstar Bank Third Quarter 2019 Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Kenneth Schellenberg, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Kenneth Schellenberg

Management

Thank you, Nicole, and good morning. Welcome to the Flagstar Third Quarter 2019 Earnings Call. Before we begin, I'd like to mention that our third quarter earnings release and presentation are available on our website at flagstar.com. I would also like to remind you that any forward-looking statements made during today's call are subject to risks and uncertainty. Factors that could materially change our current forward-looking assumptions are described on Slide 2 of today's presentation, in our press release, and in our 2018 Form 10-K and subsequent reports on file with the SEC. We are also discussing GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures, which are described in our earnings release and in the presentation we made available for this earnings call. You should refer to those documents as part of this call. With that, I'd like to now turn the call over to Sandro DiNello, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Thank you, Ken, and good morning to everyone listening in . I appreciate you taking the time to join us today. In addition to Ken, I'm joined this morning by Jim Ciroli, our Chief Financial Officer; Lee Smith, our Chief Operating Officer; Kristy Fercho, our President of Mortgage; Drew Ottaway, our President of Banking; and Steve Figliuolo, our Chief Risk Officer. As usual, I'm going to start the call by providing a high-level view of our performance for the quarter. Then I'll turn the call over to Jim for details on our financial results. Lee will follow with a review of our business segments and strategic initiatives, and I'll conclude with guidance for the fourth quarter before opening up the line for questions. Needless to say, I'm very pleased with the performance of our company this quarter. We reported net income of $63 million or $1.11 per diluted share for the third quarter, up $22 million or 54% of the adjusted net income we achieved last quarter. What stands out about these results is that they don't come from any one part of our business. We've built our balance sheet to be flexible in multiple interest rate environments and the results speak for themselves. When the mortgage business was challenging, we efficiently adjusted cost so that mortgage remain profitable, and thus it contributed enough to allow the company to achieve very respectable returns on assets and equity. During that time, we continued to build both our banking and servicing businesses smartly. We did a reasonably good job of managing overall costs and avoided mistakes on credit that we couldn't overcome. Now we find ourselves in an environment that is beneficial to our mortgage business, and we're taking advantage of that in a disciplined way. And the investments we made in…

James Ciroli

Management

Thanks, Sandro. Turning to Slide 6. Our net income this quarter was $63 million or $1.11 per share. This performance is compared to the $41 million or $0.71 per share last quarter adjusted for the DOJ benefit. This quarter was highlighted by adjusted revenue growth of 13% led by a higher level of mortgage revenue and net interest income. Net interest income was up $8 million or 6% over the prior quarter. Average earning assets grew $1.2 billion, mostly in our loan portfolio, with $511 million of growth occurring in warehouse lending. All major categories of loans were up from last quarter. The net interest margin held up well in the face of 2 rate cuts during the quarter as the community banking team did a nice job of holding deposit spreads. Mortgage revenues were strong as all channels increased nicely over last quarter, and we were able to flex in each of the channels to optimize our revenue mix. The combination of a 10% increase in volume, combined with a 35% improvement in margin, resulted in revenue that were 47% higher than last quarter. Asset quality remained strong as net charge-offs were only 2 basis points, our nonperforming loan ratio decreased to 21 basis points and our allowance coverage of the loan portfolio remained solid at 0.9%. Capital also remained solid. Our total risk-based capital was 11.5% at quarter end, up 2 basis points compared to the prior quarter despite nearly $2 billion period-end asset growth. More than 3/4 of this period-end asset growth was in warehouse loans and loans held for sale, 2 portfolios that have a very low risk content and should naturally deflate in the next couple of quarters. We'll go through a more extensive analysis of our capital later, so let's turn to Slide 7…

Lee Smith

Management

Thanks, Jim, and good morning, everyone. We're very pleased with our net income of $1.11 per diluted share for Q3, and believe this quarter, in particular, has demonstrated the strength of our business model. We've said before that the different business lines act as a natural hedge, meaning we can be successful and deliver strong earnings in a variety of interest rate environments. As declining interest rates have put pressure on interest income for many banks, our mortgage and servicing businesses continue to thrive and provide solid noninterest fee income, which more than offset any net interest margin compression. During the third quarter, 46% of our revenues came from net interest income while 54% came from noninterest or fee income. We have intentionally created a balance between interest income and fee income generating businesses in order to fortify the model. We are unique in this regard and are confident that we have the ability to continue to deliver value for our shareholders going forward. There were several other notable developments in the quarter, which included average earning assets increased 7% or $1.2 billion, as we saw a good growth across all commercial and consumer loan categories while we are able to keep our net interest margin relatively flat at 3.05% despite 2 rate cuts during the quarter. Mortgage banking had its most successful quarter from a gain on sale revenue point of view in over 6 years. We ended the quarter servicing or sub- servicing 994,000 loans as our sub-servicing business continues to go from strength to strength, generating consistent noninterest fee income. We also closed and successfully integrated the default servicing operation we acquired and announced last quarter. The CFPB consent order expired on September 30, the last remaining legacy regulatory issue. Capital remained strong, particularly when you consider…

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Thank you, Lee. I'm going to close our prepared remarks now with some guidance for Q4 and then open the call for questions and answers. Please turn to Slide 17. We expect net interest income to be flat with the net interest margin declining 5 to 10 basis points and interest-earning assets growing slightly. We anticipate mortgage revenue including gain-on-sale and net return on MSR will decrease 15% to 20% due to the seasonality of the mortgage market. Our other noninterest income is expected to be slightly higher. As we noted, we anticipate noninterest expense will fall to $230 million to $235 million, primarily reflecting lower mortgage-related expenses. This concludes our prepared remarks. And we'll now take your questions. Operator?

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. We'll take our first question from Scott Siefers with Sandler O'Neill.

Scott Siefers

Analyst

Sandro, I was hoping you could just sort of expand upon your thoughts on the fourth quarter on the mortgage side, specifically how you see the origination environment holding up overall? I mean, obviously, there is some seasonality that will impact things, but overall, how you see the environment holding on and the longevity of it? And then, how well you see gain-on-sale margins holding up?

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Well, I think our guidance suggests -- we'll give you that answer. I mean we think that we're going to see normal seasonality in the purchase business. So that accounts for the decline in locks that we're guiding to. I think on the income side, we're guiding to a little lower, but related to volume not so much margin. Kristy, anything you'd like to add to that?

Kristy Fercho

Analyst

Yes. The only thing I'd add is that the forecast -- in September, the [indiscernible] and MBA increased their forecast over $2 trillion for the first time that year with 39% of it being from refinances. So given our refinance share runs at 7% to 10% above the industry average, we think the outlook will continue to present an opportunity for us as we go into Q4, and so we are optimistic about it.

Scott Siefers

Analyst

Okay. Perfect. And then just on the cost side. Just curious as your thoughts on why expenses wouldn't come down more as originations normalize given that virtually, all the cost increase in the third quarter is related to mortgage volume. So then maybe beyond that, if they don't come down in the fourth quarter, would they continue to flex down afterward as the environment sort of normalizes from this elevated level?

Lee Smith

Management

Yes. Scott, it's Lee. This is a bit of a timing issue here. Gain on sale is recognized at lock whereas mortgage expenses, commissions and loan processing fees, in particular, are recognized at closing. So that results in a bit of a timing issue. So that's what you're seeing when we're looking at guidance in Q4. What looks there is we will continue to be diligent in our cost management across all expense categories as we always have been.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Yes, Scott, as we grow retail and we total -- slightly bigger share of our total, that dynamic that Lee just talked about gets emphasized a little bit more, so I think that's an explanation to your question.

Scott Siefers

Analyst

Okay. So I guess beyond the -- I'm just sort of looking at the second half run rates including the fourth quarter guide relative to where you were in the first half sort of around $200 million, maybe $200 million to $205 million in the first half and then we are going to average probably $230 million to $235 million in the second half, so there's a lot of gap in between those two. Could we ever get back down to the first half level or we get structurally a higher point?

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Well, no, we could, but we wouldn't want to because that would mean that the mortgage business is slowing down quite a bit, so this is almost entirely related to mortgage activity. It's not a base cost increase.

Operator

Operator

We will take our next question from Bose George with KBW.

Kenneth Schellenberg

Management

Can't here you Bose. Maybe you're on mute.

Bose George

Analyst · KBW.

Sorry. I was on mute button. Just a follow-up first, on the expenses. It looks like your commissions increased as a percentage of the volume. Is that also being driven by the retail mix?

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Yes.

Kristy Fercho

Analyst · KBW.

Yes.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Yes. Totally.

Bose George

Analyst · KBW.

Okay, that's straightforward. And then actually just going back to your comments on CECL. The -- does that go through the P&L, is that the first quarter of 2020, and then prospectively, I guess, presumably, there's no loss provision unless your assumptions change. Is that right?

James Ciroli

Management

So the 30% to 40% that we guided would be the day-1 impact, which is going to be to capital -- to retain earnings. Anything think subsequent to that, you're right, would go through earnings, but the 30% to 40% that I am talking about is, is going through capital, and of course, that gets amortized over a 3-year period.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Did you catch our last part, Bose? Because the regulatory -- the regulators are allowing that capital hit to be deferred over a 3-year period.

Bose George

Analyst · KBW.

Okay. So the capital impact is going to be over 3 years? Is that right?

James Ciroli

Management

Correct. It's amortized over a three year period.

Bose George

Analyst · KBW.

Okay. And then just to understand the P&L impact going -- the provision going forward, will there -- is there a provision? Or is that only based on a change in assumptions?

James Ciroli

Management

That will be both, right. So as we grow, when we book a new loan, you got to put the expected credit losses that you're going to have over the life of that loan, you got to take that on day 1. So any -- we'll have a provision that's related to loan growth and then there is this overall credit quality, and I would say, even the economics -- in the economic environment, the external factors that could impact the quality of our portfolio change and our reasonable and supportable forecasts change, that will also have an impact to the loan loss provisions.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Bose, I think we all have -- still have a lot to learn about the CECL thing as we go forward. We're giving you our best estimates based on what we know today. We're still refining all of this, and we'll be able to tell more intelligently about it at the end of Q4, of course.

Bose George

Analyst · KBW.

Okay. Great. Just one more from me. The -- just the relationship with GreenSky given the headlines out there. Any update on that on the agreement there?

Lee Smith

Management

Yes. No update. I mean if you look in the releases, we got about $58 million of those loans on our balance sheets at the end of Q3. The program has been going for about a year now as you know. So we're originating $4 million to $5 million a month, not huge amounts, and the loans are performing as expected.

Operator

Operator

We have a question from Kevin Barker with Piper Jaffray.

Kevin Barker

Analyst

Sandro or Jim, could you just give us an idea or maybe how are you changing your -- what capital levels you're going to maintain given the impact of CECL on capital? And I understand it amortizes over 3 years and it's taken a little while, but you're eventually going to have to target those regulatory capital ratios when it's fully implemented. So could you just -- are you thinking about adjusting your capital targets just given CECL?

James Ciroli

Management

No. Look, we have enough capital today. Nothing's changed. The loans are still the same loans. The capital is good today at a 12% number. And some accounting change, some book change causes that to now be 11.5%. I don't think that really impacts how much capital you have. I think it just impacts -- it's 2 different measuring systems. So you still have adequate capital in both situations.

Kevin Barker

Analyst

Regular losses or the capital haven't change at all, it's just where it's located on the balance sheet?

James Ciroli

Management

And when you recognize it.

Kevin Barker

Analyst

Yes. Right, and...

Alessandro DiNello

Management

I don't expect regulators to change their expectations relative to capital, and I don't see us changing our targets relative to capital.

Kevin Barker

Analyst

Okay. And then to follow up on some of Scott's questions regarding the mortgage outlook. Are you expecting you to be near capacity in the fourth quarter given the demand that sits out there for refinances today?

Alessandro DiNello

Management

We're always near capacity, that's way we run the business, so I mean to sound ...

Lee Smith

Management

Flippant.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Flippant, yes, but -- I mean that's a serious answer. We always run to capacity. That's why we've been able to manage this the way we have managed it.

Kevin Barker

Analyst

Okay. Does that imply that you are able to ramp up retail originations like you have in the third quarter, just definitely helping out the margin?

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Yes. That's right.

Kevin Barker

Analyst

And then to follow up on loan administration fees. They've been under a little bit of pressure even though you're growing your subservicing portfolio. Is there some offset there just because of higher prepays fees? Or is there something else that's impacting the loan administration?

Lee Smith

Management

Yes, yes. From the GAAP point of view, the interest on the escrows that we pay to the MSR owners runs through that loan admin income line. And that's why we've laid out on Slide 36 of the deck, the servicing profitability so you can really get an idea of the profitability about business line. So the disconnect or what you're getting in the loan admin income line, for GAAP purpose is the interest on those escrows that we're paying.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

The slide does a really nice job of laying all that out.

Operator

Operator

We have a question from Chris Gamaitoni with Compass Point.

Edward Gamaitoni

Analyst

Thank you for the additional disclosure on CECL. I was wondering if you could give us a sense of which portfolios you're seeing the most inflation in which loan categories?

Alessandro DiNello

Management

I don't think we're ready to get into that detail yet, Chris. There's a lot of inside of that range that Jim gave you. There is ranges for each piece of the puzzle, and I think it would be dangerous for us to try to give you more specific guidance on that at this point. Maybe next quarter, we'll say, but we're not ready to be that granular.

Edward Gamaitoni

Analyst

Okay. And then on the custodial deposit base, do you have any sense of maybe the near-term outlook for that portfolio based on what you see with your customers?

Lee Smith

Management

No. I mean as we said in the prepared remarks, the higher custodial base is because of the higher subservicing loan count. We are close to 1 million loans. There were higher payoffs in the quarter, which created more P&I, and then just given those higher T&I balances, that's a seasonal thing. So as long as the interest rate environment stays low, and we continue to grow our subservicing business, I think the balances that you saw in Q3 will probably hold relatively the same.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Chris, the biggest factor there is the refis, so that expanded just because of the refi volume that's flowing through the escrows. And so it really depends on what's your view on -- the mortgage market is going to be into the future, as to what the size of that custodial balance is going to be.

Edward Gamaitoni

Analyst

Right. And just trying to look at the mortgage guide and take into account normal seasonality, there's, I think there's been a pullback in the correspondent business. Would you expect that to be maybe pick up a little bit in the fourth quarter? Or it is kind of your guidance based off of a similar, call channel mix quarter-over-quarter?

Kristy Fercho

Analyst

Yes. What I see Chris is we're going to continue to deploy the strategy that we have all year, which is evaluating the opportunities that they present themselves, and we look at channels, we look at products and determine where we can most take advantage of that market, and so that will continue to be our strategy as we look in Q4.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

I think as we try to highlight that's the -- that's an advantage that we have with the scale and the broad delivery channels that we can choose from, allows us to shift, move, take advantage of the opportunities where they might be. And it does change at times, and sometimes service is more important than other times. And so I think what we've been able to do this year is very reflective of the nimbleness that we have and our ability to adjust to the business opportunities that present themselves.

Operator

Operator

We will take our next question from Steve Moss with B. Riley FBR.

Stephen Moss

Analyst · B. Riley FBR.

I wonder to ask about the mortgage warehouse, pretty big increase in commitments here this quarter. Just wondering the drivers of commitment growth there and where you're seeing pricing in that segment?

Alessandro DiNello

Management

I'll make some introductory comments and then I'll have Drew chime in as well. Obviously, the mortgage business is stronger and so for that reason, we have more opportunities in warehouse, and so you've seen the outstandings as well as the commitments grow quite a bit. There is definitely pricing pressure out there, and our resolve is being tested, but our resolve holds strong up to this point, and I expect that it will continue to. I think we told you last quarter that we passed on close to $0.5 billion of opportunities because of price. That dynamic continues, and so I think one of the reasons why we're able to continue to grow income of the company is because we are disciplined about price across all of our lines of business.

Andrew Ottaway

Analyst · B. Riley FBR.

Yes. Just a modest amount to add to that. I mean I do think that as the refi market has picked up, you've seen more volume coming through that part of the warehouse business, which tends to be some of the largest players and so more pronounced pressure on rate as Sandro alluded to, but we're sticking to our guidance. We're not leaning into credit, we're not leaning into the pricing. We have a really diversified book of business all the way from the smaller firms up to the larger ones. And so we are able to be very, I think, disciplined in terms of where that growth is coming from. I think you can see that we've had really good growth even relative to the market sizing, and we expect that to continue and it's really a function of our lenders and the service we provide to our clients.

Lee Smith

Management

And just to add. I mean you mentioned commitments, it's really the outstandings that have increased and the thing we're most pleased about is the utilization rate. The utilization rate for our warehouse business in the mid-60s, which we're thrilled about. And I think you're also seeing the benefit of the acquisition we did last year as well as on the warehouse side, which is also having a good impact for us.

Stephen Moss

Analyst · B. Riley FBR.

Okay. That's helpful. And then FEMA equipments were also up pretty good quarter-over-quarter. I know some of that was homebuilder. Just wondering where else you saw that?

Andrew Ottaway

Analyst · B. Riley FBR.

Yes. No, we saw some pretty good growth in commercial and the balance of that was really split primarily between our commercial real estate book and our homebuilder finance book. I think, as Jim alluded to, homebuilder finance led the charge. There are some really solid originations as well as some fundings underneath some of the originations that we had throughout the year. I think if you look at that market, despite some affordability issues, I think just the interest rate environment that we're in, the book that we've developed the relationships that we have, we really feel like we've got good runway there.

James Ciroli

Management

I would add it wasn't really anything unusual though. The growth in commercial, if you add all of them together, C&I, CRE, homebuilder, warehouse, I mean we've been doing that quarter-after-quarter for a number of years now. So I don't view it as anything unusual. I think that's what we're accustomed to. And that's what hopefully we can continue to see.

Andrew Ottaway

Analyst · B. Riley FBR.

Yes. I think that's exactly right, I think much like Kristy learned about mortgage. Each quarter, we're able to take advantage of what the market's offering. This quarter, it happened to be more in warehouse than some other lines, but we've seen good growth across all those lines of business, to your point.

Stephen Moss

Analyst · B. Riley FBR.

Okay, that's helpful. And then one last question on the margin here. Just wondering what your great assumptions are for the fourth quarter if you're assuming additional rate cut? And where are you seeing deposit pricing cost as well?

James Ciroli

Management

So we're seeing -- we expect the federal cut next week. They may or may not cut in December, but that's not really going to have an impact on the fourth quarter if they do. So let's just -- we assume that they're going to cut at the end of October. Regarding how that impacts, I made some remarks in my prepared part of the speech to talk about what the natural offset in our balance sheet was and when you go back and look at the administratively price deposits, I think there is some attainable level of administratively price movements that we're going to have to do in order to outperform or be at the lower end of that range. The range that we guided to though is not all deposit-beta driven, I'd say part of it's just a natural mix driven component of our balance sheet as we go from third quarter with more mortgage volume to the fourth quarter where some of the portfolios kind of naturally contract and then they expand again in the second and third quarter. So some of it's that mix component, just mixing [indiscernible] especially out of warehouse loans and some of it is just that deposit cost. We're assuming a pretty modest beta, around 40% to 50%. And then we challenge ourselves to get to that level. I think we rose to the challenge in the third quarter.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Yes. One thing that I would add and it's just an embellishment of Jim, of what Jim just said is that we're going to continue to be very resolute on deposit pricing, similar to what I commented on a few moments ago regarding loan pricing. That's what you have to do to manage a margin in the declining interest rate environment. And because we have a lot of funding that isn't directly retail-driven, we have the ability or we will see those funding costs come down pretty quickly as LIBOR or the Fed changes. So it's a challenge for sure, but we do think that we're more resilient than many relative to managing -- our ability to manage that margin.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Daniel Tamayo with Raymond James.

Daniel Tamayo

Analyst · Raymond James.

So let me just follow up again on the margin questions, on the net interest bearing. So the deposit beta, you just reported 50%. But -- and there was a component of that margin pressure with deposit costs. Does that assume that noninterest-bearing comes down at all in the fourth quarter? Or are you assuming those kind of stay flat? And then the second part being, you think you hit an inflection point in interest-bearing deposit cost in the third quarter and that those can start to come down now?

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Noninterest bearing, was your question relative to the balance of noninterest-bearing deposits?

Daniel Tamayo

Analyst · Raymond James.

You're right. Right, average balances.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Yes. I don't think the interest rate environment really impacts that much. Those are real core deposits and they don't change much. If anything perhaps, they'll grow a little bit as opposed to decline. And yes, I think that we're -- now clearly, everybody believes in a declining interest rate environment including the retail customer base. So I think there's more -- now there's an acceptance of that's the world we're in, and so that does allow us to maybe be a little bit more aggressive though I will say, our team was very aggressive in the third quarter on reducing rates already. So I don't know if that will change a whole lot for us. But, yes, I think the mental dynamic of where we stand in the market that probably was an inflection point in the third quarter.

Daniel Tamayo

Analyst · Raymond James.

Okay. And can you remind me the custodial deposits, does those fit into the noninterest-bearing category? Or those are independent?

James Ciroli

Management

We've broken them out in the press release separately for you, so that should help, but mostly they're noninterest-bearing.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Let me be clear though. The noninterest-bearing and have no cost if we own the MSR.

Daniel Tamayo

Analyst · Raymond James.

Correct.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

If we don't own the MSR then we do pay for those deposits. And we do disclose that and that is part of the profitability that we show on Slide...

Lee Smith

Management

36.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

36 for the servicing business.

Lee Smith

Management

Which flows through the net loan admin income line when you're looking at the GAAP P&L.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

But those are largely -- the paths of those funds are largely tied to LIBOR, almost entirely...

Lee Smith

Management

Entirely.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Yes. So when LIBOR does down, those costs go down as well.

Lee Smith

Management

Immediately, yes.

Operator

Operator

And we'll take a question from Henry Coffey with Wedbush.

Henry Coffey

Analyst

Just some more detail sort of stuff on the servicing business breakout, which is very helpful. You include the revenue and related cost from your own servicing? Or is it just consumer servicing business?

Lee Smith

Management

No. This is including our own servicing business. The reason being the MSR, the Flagstar, just think of it being owned by treasury and our servicing business is the manufacturing company that subservices those loans for our treasury group, so those economics are on Page 36.

James Ciroli

Management

A good roll of [indiscernible], Henry, is about 80% of those deposits are controlled by external parties, about 20% are our own MSR.

Henry Coffey

Analyst

Actually I am looking at the servicing revenue. So there's a transfer -- I mean basically what we're looking at is the profitability of the subservicing business, or we are looking at -- and so there's a transfer price between treasury and the servicing business?

Lee Smith

Management

Yes. Correct. We -- the servicing business just treats the treasury group like any other MSR owner.

Henry Coffey

Analyst

And so if we were to look at the total equation, we could also fold in whatever you're getting -- whatever the treasury group is earning and then we’d have a full -- sort of a complete picture of what's going on?

James Ciroli

Management

Yes. You're turning in the external picture.

Henry Coffey

Analyst

Yes. And if we were going to use the transfer prices, can you disclose that? Or is that -- or can we pick that up in the queue?

James Ciroli

Management

No, but what it did say earlier, when you look at these numbers, it is a whole, so it's 100% both what we service for ourselves and what we service for others. And it's about an 80-20 split, 80% service for others, 20% service for ourselves.

Lee Smith

Management

It's actually 83-17. Not to get too finer with it. So 83% ...

Henry Coffey

Analyst

It was 83-point-what?

Lee Smith

Management

I can give you if you like, Henry.

Henry Coffey

Analyst

No, No. But yes, that's helpful, and we'll dig into that a little bit more. When you look at your CECL guidance, you basically -- if we're going to put together a pro forma, should we assume basically that your loss reserve goes from 0.9% to something in the 1.2% range? Is that the way to think about it today? And then the related question...

Alessandro DiNello

Management

[Indiscernible].

Henry Coffey

Analyst

Well, you said, up 30% to 40%.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

It's probably the sum of the coverage ratio.

James Ciroli

Management

Yes, that's probably the right way to think about it. But also, I want to point out, Henry, one of my remarks was I said that we are also including the impact of the unfunded loan commitments, which would be sitting in the liability section. So you're thinking about it right, it's just not going to show up exactly that way because the liability or the reserve we have for credit losses on unfunded loan commitments is technically a liability. So it's in the liability section of our balance sheet.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

And this is an area, this unfunded loan commitment piece, where this is more -- quite a bit of change from the past.

James Ciroli

Management

I think...

Henry Coffey

Analyst

We've done a lot of work on CECL and to be perfectly blunt, it's solving a problem that doesn't exist, but it is what it is, and we're all going to adjust.

Andrew Ottaway

Analyst

Lot of heads nodding over here.

Henry Coffey

Analyst

So the obvious question that comes from all this around CECL, you don't lose any money. Your losses are certainly low. So how do you come up with lifetime losses on a business that doesn't lose money? You just have to assume a once-in-a-lifetime recession? And then you ...

Alessandro DiNello

Management

We're using external information that help guide us here, I guess.

James Ciroli

Management

Yes, we are. We're using just kind of like average -- we're using Moody's. And so we're going back to our reference set of credit losses on our portfolio. So I think we've proven that we can outperform what those expectations are. We're better than average on managing credit, but for now I don't think we get credit. I think we can get credit for that over time in our accounting numbers.

Henry Coffey

Analyst

And then finally given you've got this crosswind from CECL. You could halt, obviously, alter your loans held for sale and some other things. How does the GreenSky business fit into any of this? I mean is there a franchise value that comes from that? Or is it just a financial return that's now going to have a much higher reserve content to it?

Alessandro DiNello

Management

I actually don't think it changes much at all. The reserve content on GreenSky will be unchanged as we view it, and it's $50 million, so the impact on a $22-billion company is just nothing.

Henry Coffey

Analyst

So what's the benefit of it?

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Well, that's the part of diversification. There's a lot of things that we have. We don't have billions of dollars -- that we don't have billions of dollars invested in, but if you can find something that, in this case, all the expenses are pretty much borne by a third party that brings you some loans, and it brings you some -- a return that hurdles then why not? So there's a lot of little pieces that don't get the attention that GreenSky does.

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

There are a lot of bigger pieces that don't get the attention that GreenSky does show...

Henry Coffey

Analyst

All right, no, I...

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

0.3% of our balance sheet.

Henry Coffey

Analyst

No. GreenSky has just come into the news because it's got a lot of controversy around the stock but, yes, no, that's helpful.

Operator

Operator

And there are no further questions in the queue at this point. I would like to turn the call back over to our speakers for any concluding remarks.

Alessandro DiNello

Management

Thank you. As Lee highlighted, Flagstar is a unique company, a $20-billion bank with a $30 billion mortgage business. While most banks decided that mortgage is not a good business to be in, we have a different view. It's a business that started our bank, it's in our DNA and we understand the challenges better than anyone. Volatility, expense management, MSR management, compliance, the politics of regulation, and how to best manage all of these things, so let's look at where we are. We have proven very we can manage volatility. Does any one manage profitability through volatility better than Flagstar? We've proven we can manage expenses. Did anyone adjust more quickly when volumes declined? We met the challenge that Basel III presented us with respect to investments in MSRs. Does anyone had a better track record managing their MSRs? And we've built a risk and compliance framework that I will put up against any ones in the industry. And one more thing, does any bank built a servicing business post-Recession, not to mention one that stands out on its own, is growing and is making money? Very well balanced and diversified banking business on top of all that and yes, we have a unique company. That's why we like the model. It's one that works in any market and one we will continue to invest in to keep delivering solid operating results quarter-after-quarter. Finally, none of our success would have been possible without the selfless contributions from the Flagstar team. My sincere thanks to everyone in the Flagstar family for the important contributions they have made to our success. Thanks, again, for spending some time with us this morning to hear our story. I hope you have a great fall and holiday season.

Operator

Operator

And once again, that does conclude today's conference. We appreciate your participation today.