Mac McCullough
Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open
Thanks Mark. Good morning and thank you for joining the call today. We appreciate your interest in Huntington and we think we have good results to share with you this morning. Over the past several years, we have followed a contrarian path built around our fair play philosophy and our welcoming culture. We have strong recognizable brands and differentiated product set and industry leading customer service. In addition we have been investing in our franchise building and expanding in a time when others have been focused squarely on cost cutting. We will continue to invest in our business although we will pace our investments to manage our positive operating leverage on an annual basis. Our second quarter results highlighted by solid revenue growth and improved margins provide proof that our strategies are working and the investments we’ve undertaken over the past few years are paying off substantially. Our investments are yet mature and should continue to drive future revenue growth and future performance improvement. We remain focused on disciplined execution and we are well positioned to finish the year strong, delivering positive operating leverage for the third consecutive year as well as improved returns for shareholders. Slide 5 shows some of the financial highlights for the second quarter. Strong revenue growth for the record setting quarter resulting in net income growth of 19% over the same quarter of last year. Earnings per common share of $0.23 increased 21% year-over-year. These results equated to a 1.16 return on assets and a 14.4 return on tangible common equity. The underlying strength exhibited this quarter was broad based and included the impact of our acquisition of Macquarie Equipment Finance which we have rebranded Huntington Technology Finance or HTF. Total year-over-year revenue growth of 9% benefited equally from spread revenues and fee income. Net interest income grew 7% while fee income grew 13%. Healthy balance sheet growth included a 6% year-over-year increase in average loans and leases and a 9% in average deposits. For the second straight quarter deposit growth was driven largely by growth in core deposits which is a very encouraging trend as we continue to focus on deepening relationships and earning primary banking status with our customers. Core deposit growth more than fully funded loan growth over this period. While the value of our core deposits may not be fully appreciated in the current rate environment, we believe that our strong core deposit franchise will provide true differentiation when interest rates begin to rise. Our credit quality remained very strong with only 21 basis points of net charge-offs and 81 basis points of non-performing assets. We repurchased 8.8 million common shares at an average price of $11.20 per share effectively returning more than 99 million of capital to shareholders. We also completed a 750 million indirect auto loan securitization during the quarter resulting in a net gain of 5 million. This securitization demonstrated investor’s endorsement of the quality and consistency of our auto finance business, one of our distinctive capabilities. Finally we continue to be recognized for our focus on excellent customer service and our distinguished brand. During the quarter we were recognized by both J.D. Power and TNS for the third consecutive year for our customer’s centric focus. We were also recognized by the American Banker for our strong reputation. Slide 7 is a summary of our quarterly trends and key performance metrics. We've already touched on many of these, so let's move to Slide 8 for a more detailed review of the numbers. Relative to last year's second quarter, total revenue increased 9% to 780 million. We are very pleased with our strong revenue growth in this challenging environment. As I mentioned previously spread revenue and fee income accounted for roughly equal parts of the increase of the revenue. Spread revenues benefited from balance sheet growth as earning assets increased 10% year-over-year partially offset by continued NIM progression of 8 basis points. Spread revenues during the second quarter included 17 million of net interest income from HTF. Fee income for the 2015 second quarter was 282 million, a 13% increase from a year ago quarter. The primary components of the increase were a 60 million increase in mortgage banking income, 12 million in fee revenue from HTF and a 9 million increase on gains on the sale of loans which included a 5 million gain on the 750 million indirect auto loan securitization. Other fee income sources also posted double digit year-over-year growth rates including electronic banking and capital markets. We continue to see the benefits of consumer and commercial customer growth manifested in these areas. Deposit service charges also benefited from our robust customer growth as we have almost grown through the 6 million per quarter impact from changes to our consumer deposit growth -- our consumer deposited products including All Day Deposits implemented in July of last year. Reported non-interest expense in the second quarter was 492 million, an increase of 33 million or 7% from the year ago quarter. Recurring expense related to HTF was 16 million or almost half of the year-over-year increase. The second quarter also included 2 million of merger related expense that is not recorded as a significant item for the quarter but is expected to be recorded as a significant item for the year as we will complete the systems integration of HTF later in 2015. Slide 9 details the trends of our balance sheet mix. Average loans and leases increased 3 billion or 6% year-over-year including 839 million of leases from the HTF acquisition. During last quarter's earnings call we mentioned that we expected lower second quarter growth in C&I and CRE due to our risk return expectations, and this was the case. However loan growth in our loan pipeline will strengthened later in the second quarter providing room for increased optimism in the back half of the year. Notably in the second quarter we experienced year-over-year growth in every loan portfolio. The indirect auto portfolio increased 10% from the year ago quarter. As shown on Slide 53 in the appendix our indirect auto operating model remains unchanged with our disciplined approach to the business reflected in the credit performance metrics. As mentioned in the opening remarks we completed a 750 million indirect auto loan securitization. Recall that we previously moved 1 billion of auto loans to help our sale and near the end of the quarter we moved the remaining 250 million of indirect auto loans back into the portfolio. After reviewing the existing and projected size of the overall auto portfolio relative to our concentration limit as well as the transaction economics, we opted to scale back to size of the securitization. This allows us to realize the longer term benefit of keeping these high quality assets on our balance sheet. Previously, we mentioned that we expected to complete an additional securitization during the latter half of 2015 or perhaps in early 2016. However completion of the securitization in the second quarter, we reexamined our appetite for indirect auto loans taking into consideration the strong consistent performance of the asset class during the past economic cycle and in the CCAR and DFAST stress test. As a result of this review we decided to raise our auto concentration limit from 150% of capital defined as Tier 1 capital plus reserves to 175% of capital. As such we no longer anticipate the need for an off balance sheet securitization in the back half of 2015. Turning attention to the right side of the balance sheet, averaged total deposits increased 9% over the year ago quarter including an 8% increase in core deposits. Average non-interest bearing demand deposits increased 18% year-over-year reflecting our focus on the consumer checking and commercial relationship level. Specifically, commercial non-interest bearing deposits increased 19% year-over-year while consumer non-interest bearing deposits increased 15%. Total core deposits from commercial customers increased 17% year-over-year while total core deposits from consumers increased 2% as we continue to remix the consumer deposit base out of higher cost CDs into other less extensive deposit products. Importantly, the year-over-year growth in total core deposits more than funded our loan growth over this period. Average short and long-term borrowings increased by 1 billion year-over-year which includes 750 million and 1 billion of bank level senior debt issued during the 2014 second quarter and 2015 first quarter respectively. We also issued 750 million of bank level senior debt on the last day of the 2015 second quarter. Average brokerage deposits increased 600 million. These deposits provide a cost effective means for funding balance sheet growth including LCR related securities growth while maintaining focus on managing core deposited expense. Turning to Slide 10, we see net interest margins spotted against earning asset yields and interest bearing liability cost. The NIM increased 5 basis points quarter-over-quarter to 3.20% primarily due to the addition of higher yielding assets from the HTF acquisition. In addition we recorded approximately 3 million of prepayment penalties within the securities portfolio, which added 2 basis points for the margin. These contributions were partially offset by continuing pricing pressure across most asset classes. The net interest margin decreased 8 basis points from the year ago quarter, also reflecting downward asset reprising pressure. Going forward, we expect pricing pressure to remain a headwind, as many asset classes continue to re-price lower while funding cost have limited room for improvement besides from continuing remixing them on deposit base. Slide 11 provides some detail on our current asset sensitivity and how we manage interest rate risk. For the past several years we have run a more neutral about position balance sheet compared to many of our peers in part related to our swap portfolio. These swaps were added at a time when the outlook suggested a prolonged period of consistently low rates. As shown in the top of -- the chart on top, our models estimate that net interest income will benefit by 0.3% if interest rates were to gradually ramp 200 basis points in addition to increase that’s already reflected in the current implied forward curve. This is consistent with our estimates from the past few quarters. In a hypothetical scenario without the 9.2 billion of asset swaps our models estimate that net interest income will benefit by approximately 4.3% in the same up 200 basis point ramp scenario. The chart at the bottom of the slide illustrates the weighted average life over asset and liability swaps. As well as the net impact of the swaps on our net interest income. As you can see on the green line, the asset swap portfolio continues to age in and had a weighted average life of 1.5 years at 6/30/15. As we have said it previously, our asset swap portfolio is the laddered portfolio. There are no cliffs looming on the horizon. Over the next two quarters 1 billion of these asset swaps will mature and an additional 3.5 billion will mature during 2016. The maturity of these swaps would increase our estimated asset sensitivity. Slide 12 shows the trends in our capital ratios. Our regulatory capital ratios improved modestly from the first quarter, while tangible common equity remained relatively flat. We repurchase 8.8 million common shares over the quarter at an average price of $11.20 per share under our 366 million share repurchase authorization. We have 267 million in authorized capacity remaining from the next four quarters. Slide 13 provides an overview of our credit quality net trends. Credit performance remain solid and in line with our expectations. Net charge-offs remain well controlled at 21 basis points, below our long-term expectations of 35 to 55 basis points. The non-performing asset ratio fell slightly in the quarter due to lower inflows compared to the prior quarter as well as the higher number of loans returning to recurring [ph] status. The criticized asset ratio also improved in the quarter aided by an increase in the volume level upgrades in the past category. The allowance for credit losses ease modestly with the ACL ratio falling from 1.3% last quarter to 1.34% currently. All credit metrics fully reflect the results of the recently completed annual shared national credit exam. Slide 14 highlights trends in criticized assets, non-performing assets and delinquencies. The chart in the upper left shows a slight decrease in the NPA ratio for the quarter to 81 basis points. The level of NPAs has been fairly consistent over the past six quarters and is in line with our expectations. The chart in the upper right reflects continued improvement in our 90-day delinquencies with the improvement coming from both the commercial and consumer loan portfolios. The chart in the bottom left shows the criticized asset ratio which also improved in the quarter as new inflows of criticized assets were more than offset by upgrades and pay downs. Finally the chart on the bottom right shows a reduction in NPA inflows as a percentage of beginning period loans fall in from 30 basis points to 26 basis points. Turning to Slide 15, the loan loss provision was 20.4 million in the second quarter compared to 25.4 million of charge-offs. The ratio of allowance for non-accrual loans remain steady at 180% compared to 181% in the prior quarter. The ACL ratio fell modestly to 1.34% from 1.38% in the prior quarter in line with modest overall improvement in credit metrics. We believe the allowance is appropriate and reflects the underlying credit quality of our loan portfolio. Let me now turn the presentation over to Steve.