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Solidion Technology Inc. (STI)

Q1 2012 Earnings Call· Mon, Apr 23, 2012

$4.36

-2.02%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the SunTrust First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Kris Dickson, Director of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Kris Dickson

Analyst

Thanks, Wendy. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining SunTrust's First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. In addition to the press release, we've also provided a presentation that covers the topics we plan to address today during our call. The press release, presentation and detailed financial schedules are available on our website, www.suntrust.com. This information can be accessed by going to the Investor Relations section of the website. With me today, among other members of our executive management team, are Bill Rogers, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Aleem Gillani, our Chief Financial Officer; and Tom Freeman, our Chief Risk Officer. Before we get started, I need to remind you that our comments today may include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risk and uncertainty, and actual results could differ materially. We list the factors that might cause actual results to differ materially in our press release and SEC filings, which are available on our website. During this call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures in talking about the company's performance. You can find the reconciliation of these measures to GAAP financial measures in our press release and on our website. Finally, SunTrust is not responsible for and does not edit nor guarantee the accuracy of earnings teleconference transcripts provided by third parties. The only authorized live and archived webcasts are located on the website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bill.

William Henry Rogers

Analyst

Okay, Kris, thanks. And I'll begin today's call with some brief comments on the first quarter, and then I'm going to pass it over to Aleem to provide the details on the results. We'll start on Slide 3 of our presentation where we hit the high-level points. Net income for the quarter was $245 million and earnings per share was $0.46, which was $0.33 increase over last quarter and a $0.38 increase over the prior year. Growth in revenue and continued favorable loan deposit and asset quality trends drove the improved results. Both net interest income and noninterest income were up over last quarter. On the net interest income side, we benefited from higher loan balances, lower cost deposit growth and a reduction in funding costs, such that our net interest margin expanded 3 basis points. Sequential quarter fee income was up sharply, and most notably in mortgage production, as low interest rates and HARP 2 drove significant refinance activity. On a year-over-year basis, fee income was stable as high mortgage revenue this quarter offset the lost income due to debit interchange changes and lower security gains. Expenses declined from prior quarter, and we've made significant progress against our Playbook for Profitable Growth expense savings goal. Today, we've put in place annualized savings of $190 million, and as such, we're on track to achieve the $300 million goal for the program. So while I'm pleased with the progress, this is ultimately about establishing an efficiency-minded culture, which will allow us to exceed our goal without a bounce-back. Now moving to the balance sheet. Favorable loan and deposit trends continued this quarter. Performing loans were up 3%, with growth in targeted categories and declines in high-risk loans. We also saw sustained lower-cost deposit growth. Credit quality also continued to improve with marked decreases in all primary credit metrics. Nonperforming loans were down another 9% this quarter, and net charge-offs were down 11% sequentially. Lastly, we generated positive capital growth and our capital ratios remained strong and well in excess of our current and proposed regulatory requirements. Now that being said, however, let me take a moment to proactively address CCAR. As part of the process moving forward, we'll be resubmitting our capital plan. We're required to submit the revised plan by mid-June and then expect to hear back by the end of the third quarter. First quarter results will be included in our submission, and we'll be running another full stress test. This new submission will only cover any proposed capital actions for the fourth quarter of this year and first quarter of 2013 as anything beyond that will be incorporated in the next year's CCAR process. So we're still in the process of learning all the variables. There's not much to report at this time. We're going to be working closely with our board as we decide what to include in our revised submission. So with that, Aleem, let me turn it over to you.

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

Thanks, Bill. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us. I'll begin my comments this morning on Slide 4 with a high-level overview of the income statement. Earnings per share this quarter were $0.46, which compares favorably to the $0.13 per shares -- $0.13 per share reported last quarter and the $0.08 per share from last year. The $0.33 sequential quarter increase was driven by both higher revenue and lower expenses. Revenue increased by $171 million with growth in both net interest income and noninterest income, the latter of which was largely mortgage-related. Expenses declined by $126 million, primarily the result of the $120 million fourth quarter accrual for the potential mortgage servicing settlement. Relative to the prior year, the $0.38 earnings per share increase was driven by higher net interest income, a lower provision resulting from improved credit quality and the elimination of the TARP dividend drag. In addition to the preferred dividend payments made that quarter, we also incurred a $74 million noncash charge related to the unamortized discount upon the redemption of the TARP shares. Let's now delve deeper into each of the major income statement categories, beginning with net interest income on Slide 5. Net interest income increased sequentially by $18 million or 1%. This was driven by higher average loan balances and favorable liability trends, including reduced rates paid on deposits, strong DDA growth and lower average long-term debt. This combination of actions drove a 9 basis point decline in our liability costs this quarter, which more than offset a 5 basis point decrease in our interest-earning asset yield, leading to the 3 basis point increase in net interest margin. This increase exceeded our expectations due primarily to better-than-forecasted deposit trends. Relative to the prior year, net interest income grew $65 million or 5%. This…

William Henry Rogers

Analyst

Okay, thanks, Aleem. Before we move on, let me briefly share with you a few comments about our business line performance to help reiterate the improvement we're seeing in our underlying core performance. During the quarter, Consumer and Private Wealth Management completed our deposit transformation away from free checking. We retained 98% of our balances through this process, and the average deposit size of a new checking account is up almost 50% in our Everyday Checking product relative to what it was under free checking. Loyalty, as you might expect, took an early dip during the transition, but I'm pleased to say it has rebounded and it now exceeds where we were before the transformation and maybe most importantly, total deposits have continued the favorable trend. Now another good sign of early recovery and our execution is evidenced in consumer lending overall, where production has been very strong. It's up 24% on a year-over-year basis, and that's totally organic, not from purchased assets. Our Wholesale business continues to perform well. Net income is up 60% from the prior year. Our Corporate Investment Banking business continues to build momentum, and this unit posted its second-highest quarterly profit ever. C&I loan growth, overall, remains solid, though still more concentrated in larger corporate and middle market. Deposits are strong and the Wholesale line of business is generating positive operating leverage. While we continue to manage through the legacy issues in Mortgage, origination activity was a bright spot this quarter. Production was up by 1/3 from the prior year, reaffirming our relationship-driven model. So our progress is steady. We're on the path to improved performance relative to our opportunity. I'll wrap up my comments on the quarter. I'd characterize our results as a solid start to the year that built upon improved momentum that we established and generated last year. We benefited from the mortgage refinance tailwind this quarter, helping us overcome some of the fee income headwinds on the consumer side. More broadly, though, we see good underlying improving core performance in virtually all of our businesses. So with that said, Kris, I'll turn it over to Q&A.

Kristopher Dickson

Analyst

Right, Wendy, we're ready to begin the Q&A. [Operator Instructions]

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today is from Kevin Fitzsimmons from Sandler O'Neill. Kevin Fitzsimmons - Sandler O'Neill + Partners, L.P., Research Division: Was wondering, Mortgage was definitely the main bright spot this quarter. You mentioned it as a tailwind. Can you just give us a little sense for how to look at that going forward? I know the MBA forecast is for the refinancing to peak -- have peaked in fourth quarter and for that to flow through, but you also mentioned the HARP program. So just how should we think of that? Should we think of it as kind of falling off a little bit in the next few quarters, or does it remain at this level for a quarter or 2?

William Henry Rogers

Analyst

Kevin, it's Bill. I'll take a crack at starting that, and it depends on a lot of variables. I mean, clearly, refinance -- I mean, we were -- 3/4 of our business was refinanced and 1/3 of that was HARP. So HARP was big for us. If you think about our markets, the amount of homes underwater, it’s still a significant opportunity for us. So I think HARP as an individual unit probably has more legs than maybe we would have anticipated a quarter ago, and we got off to an early start at HARP. We have to eventually see some purchase volume, though, to sort of keep the momentum up. And while we see sort of glimpses of it and we'll see a week to week or slight improvement, it still is not the big driver, and refinance eventually runs its course. That being said, I think it probably has a few more legs than it did and we need to see that purchase volume. Does that make sense? Kevin Fitzsimmons - Sandler O'Neill + Partners, L.P., Research Division: Yes. Yes, it does. One quick follow-up. You mentioned early on in the call about the impact of the swaps rolling off, and I think you said that would be roughly a 10 basis point impact to the margin. Should we look at that as the total hit to the margin, or are there other offsets that could lessen that impact on the consolidated margin?

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

Well, that 10 basis point impact, Kevin, was just for the swaps alone. In addition to that, of course, we’ve just got the regular overall drift of lower interest income and lower margins as a result of the interest rate environment we're in. So I think you'd already seen some of that happening around the industry this quarter and for the last several quarters. The 10 basis point will be in addition to what you're already assuming for us as lower margin and drift-down. Having said that, you see some of the actions that we've already taken and already been taking over the last year, to try and offset the impact of the rate environment. We're grinding down on deposit rates. We're looking at how we can manage our overall debt. One of the levers we have yet to pull is the ability to call our high-cost TruPs at some point. So all of those things will end up being offsets to the declining rate environment.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Matt Burnell with Wells Fargo Securities.

Matthew H. Burnell - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Just staying on the theme of interest cost. I'm just curious, Aleem, where you think you might be able to get the deposit costs down to over the course of the next couple of quarters. It was 55 basis points in the first quarter, down about 4 basis points. I'm just curious as to how you were thinking about getting that number down over the next couple of quarters.

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

Matt, that's a great question. If you'd asked me this a year ago, I would not have said we could get them down another 17 basis points in the next [indiscernible]. So rates have come down more than we expected. The ability to move rates down has been greater than we expected. And it looks like from what we can see, that we still have the ability to do more of that and more than I would have thought a few months or quarters ago. So we continue to test markets. We continue to see what we can do, how we can work with our clients to provide them the best product and service that we can at a fair rate and what the market is able to take. So I think you'll see us continue to work this down as much as we can over the course of the next several quarters in this rate environment.

Matthew H. Burnell - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division

Analyst

And then just following up on your comment on the TruPS, and I appreciate there's some timing issues with this. But in terms of the focus of what you could potentially repurchase over the course of this year, it looks like you've got one fixed rate issue and a couple of others -- couple of other smaller floating rate issues. I'm presuming that you're going to look first to repurchase the higher cost fixed rate TruPS, or is there something other than the regulatory call that prohibits you from doing that?

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

No. We're primarily waiting on the regulatory issue, and you're aware that what we're waiting for here is for the Federal Reserve to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that formally designates TruPS as no longer qualifying as Tier 1 capital. And as soon as they do that, that's a change in the structure of the product for us and where -- we can then call them. The total amount of TruPS we've got outstanding is $1.9 billion. Of the $1.9 billion, about $700 million are floating rate and we may end up keeping those just as regular Tier 2 capital. There's $1.2 billion that's at a relatively higher rate. And actually both -- the $1.2 billion is composed of 2 issues, both of which are fixed rate. So it would be a reasonable assumption to make that we would focus on that $1.2 billion first.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Betsy Graseck with Morgan Stanley.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Analyst

Two questions, one on liquidity. Could you just give us a sense as to how you define your excess liquidity, and how much more you could shift into either securities or loans? I know it has a function of deposit growth, so assuming deposits are flat?

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

Well, we don't really think about liquidity as being excess liquidity. We don’t always define liquidity as having -- from that perspective. As you know, Betsy, we've got a big store of liquidity in our securities portfolio. So we've got about $25 billion in our securities portfolio, $22 billion of which is composed basically of U.S. treasuries and agencies and agency MBS. That's a big store of liquidity. The way we think about it is our first call on liquidity is always client business. So we've got the store of liquidity always available in order to support any client requirements. That's number one. Second store of liquidity is in case we need it for liability management purposes. From that perspective, we've got lots of capacity, but we don't really think about liquidity from a sort of required and excess perspective.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And then the follow-up is just on HARP 2. Could you just give us a sense of the potential HARPs that you think you have in your portfolio, and how much you've got done this quarter? If that rate change persisted, how many more quarters we could have HARP 2 impact your numbers?

William Henry Rogers

Analyst

Yes. It's a -- there's a lot of capacity within the portfolio. So if you were just to sort of do that as analysis, you'd have a multi-quarter opportunity. But we do a lot of outreach. It's sort of hard to project and predict how a client will respond. We've been pretty happy with their response today. But if you just did a pure calculation, it's a multiple of what we did in this first quarter.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Analyst

So it could take you through 2012 into 2013?

William Henry Rogers

Analyst

Well, yes. I just want to be careful about sort of going through and saying we'd have this level of HARP all the way through 2012 to 2013, because we just sort of really have to anticipate will the program continue, how does it go and what client responses are. But as I said earlier, it has more running room than we thought initially, and the response has been very good and uniquely in our market there are a lot of -- unfortunately, a lot of opportunities.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Ken Usdin with Jefferies. Kenneth M. Usdin - Jefferies & Company, Inc., Research Division: My first question is regard to the NII outlook again. I just want to get your thoughts about future loan growth and the pace of the growing areas. And can they kind of offset the runoff, and can loan growth offset -- or can earning asset growth offset the NIM compression as we look into the second half of the year from an NII perspective?

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

That's a great question, Ken. When you look at the loan growth that we got over the last couple of years, I think it was very good and probably somewhat surprising in the context of the lack of economic growth that we saw throughout the country. So I think you can see over the last couple of years, we probably outperformed the average bank in terms of loan growth. We've built solid client-facing businesses. I think we're pretty close to our clients. We understand what their needs are. And if there is any type of economic recovery that's anything above sort of the anemic 1%, 2% GDP growth, we'll be there to capitalize on that. As you heard from our previous answer to Betsy, we've certainly got a store of liquidity available to support that loan growth. So we expect and we hope that in this part of the country where our footprint is, if there's any type of economic growth, we'll be able to leverage that and we'll be able to leverage that more positively than you've seen in the past.

William Henry Rogers

Analyst

And maybe I'll add to that, just on the loan growth side. Our production numbers are good, so we're continuing to see positive increases in production. I talked about the consumer side being up 24% over last year. First quarter is always lower than the fourth quarter, but production is up. Pipelines in the commercial and large corporate side look good. But to Aleem's point, the real leverage is in utilization. Utilization is basically flat and has continued to be flat multi-quarter. Given sort of our concentration in this business, the nature of the type of commitments we make, the loyalty that we have from our client base, any economic recovery where utilization starts to increase, we get, I think, sort of a disproportionate impact of that on the positive side. Kenneth M. Usdin - Jefferies & Company, Inc., Research Division: Okay, great. My follow-up question is just related to PPG and the program outlook. You mentioned you're about 2/3 of the way through the annualized run rate. I'm just wondering if you can help us understand where that is showing up underneath it. It looked like salaries were still a little bit high. And how confident do you feel in obtaining, if not exceeding, the $300 million number given how close -- how far through you already are on the realization?

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

Well, Ken, let me start that off, and Bill may kick me under the table here. I expect that we're going -- I'm very confident we're going to attain that number. And actually, I'm pretty confident we're going to exceed that number. The key with the PPG program is it was a good start to move us toward really thinking like a more efficient company. So the program in and of itself is important. We're very focused on it. We're going to make sure we hit and beat that target and probably earlier than we had anticipated when we kicked the program off. But the program itself is not the be-all and end-all of where we're going. Where we're really headed is to turn this company into a more efficient organization and try and hit that sub-60% efficiency ratio target. So this is a start for us. It's the impetus to get that thought process changed. So we'll hit this, and we'll beat it and we'll keep going. Did that get all your question?

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Kevin St. Pierre with Sanford Bernstein. Kevin J. St. Pierre - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC., Research Division: Wondering if we could just dig a little bit more into the credit-related expenses, where you saw a nice sequential decline in the quarter. I know in the back half of '11, particularly on the operating losses, you were a little bit inflated with catch-up charges. Do you anticipate the credit-related expenses declining over the balance of the year? And if so, what do you consider a more normal range?

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

Some of that decline this quarter, Kevin, was as a result of the inflated numbers you saw on the fourth quarter. You'll recall, fourth quarter of every year, there's a seasonal increase in costs, in credit and collections, for example, for taxes and that sort of thing. So some of the decline this quarter was just as a result of reversing that. However, having said that, we're very, very focused on this number. You know we are. And we're going to be continuing to try and push this number lower year-over-year, maybe not quarter-over-quarter but year-over-year from what you see. Kevin J. St. Pierre - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC., Research Division: Great. And then on the mortgage repurchase provisions. In the K, you've put a range of between 0 and $700 million in terms of remaining accruals. Are you still comfortable with that range? And can we assume now that we're talking about 0 and $525 million?

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

We're still comfortable with the overall range. I don't know that we're going to get an exact dollar-for-dollar match. But I think what you'll see is something that's directionally correct, and that overall range generally will continue to hold.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from Brian Foran with Nomura.

Brian Foran - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Analyst

I guess just following along the lines of the cost-save program when we try to benchmark how much opportunity is left kind of on the face of the income statement. So you talk about getting the core efficiency ratio sub-60% adjusted for all the credit-related items. Can you just give us what you peg that number at in the current quarter, just given there's enough moving parts that I can imagine different people would come up with different numbers?

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

There were a lot of moving parts, Brian. Here's a way to maybe think about it. When you look at Q4 versus Q1, our overall noninterest expenses were down $120 million. One way to think about that is that $120 million was really all the reduction of the fourth quarter accrual for mortgage servicing litigation. So that brings us about flat. Within that flat, Q4 to Q1, there were lots of puts and takes. Generally, here's the high-level numbers of what we saw Q4 to Q1. Employee comp and benefits was up about $170 million, as I said. The pieces that went into that $170 million were the low pension number in the fourth quarter as a result of the curtailment, the reduction in other incentive plans we put in place in the fourth quarter and the Q1 seasonal increase in FICA and employee benefits. So those are, basically, the components of the $170 million increase. And that $170 million was basically offset by reductions in marketing, in operating losses, litigation accruals, in FDIC premium and in those credit and collection costs and other noninterest expenses, like legal and consulting, lower PPG severance, et cetera. So net-net, down $120 million but with a lot of puts and takes. Having said that, most of those puts and takes were really a Q4 noise, not Q1 noise. As I think about Q1, it was a relative -- it was a very clean noiseless quarter, and most of the differences were really Q4 items from last year.

William Henry Rogers

Analyst

And I'll just maybe add a little bit. And I know it's frustrating because we talk in terms of run rate. And we want to see it in every quarter and it just sort of doesn't have that perfect match. But we're confident in the things that we're putting in place that permanently get that run rate down. And you look sort of -- to some examples and maybe the other I'd give you is full-time equivalents were down 300 last quarter and down another 500 this quarter. And that's clearly another leading indicator of where you look at from a -- or what you need to look at from the expense side.

Brian Foran - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Analyst

And then just one other follow-up. I mean, I guess the mortgage banking improvement in the revenue trends quarter-over-quarter, as well as -- I'm assuming relative to your expectations, what would be the kind of expense offset we should pencil into that just as we try to figure out that a couple more good quarters from HARP, eventually, that's going to normalize. And I'm assuming, at least some of the, maybe, expense disappointment that investors feel this quarter might come from the mortgage upside, but I'm not sure if that's the case.

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

So some of it clearly does. Incentive expenses will all go up as a result of the increased production. However, keep in mind, there's a little bit of a timing difference between when we recognize income unlock and when we pay incentive expense on close. So some of the revenue from this quarter, the incentive cost for that will actually show up 60 days out or so when we pay that out on close.

William Henry Rogers

Analyst

But the answer overall to your assumption is correct, is that the bulk -- other than sort of normal kind of merit increases, again, offset by sort of total reduction in FTEs, is primarily centered in the things that are driving revenue. So think mortgage, think Investment Banking revenue, the things that we're accruing relative to where we see the opportunity. And on mortgage, part of the offset of that also is just -- I think HARP 2 is a much more efficient loan done through a much more efficient channel. So it, over time, has a different efficiency dynamic and return dynamic than a traditional refinance or certainly a purchase loan.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from Craig Siegenthaler with Crédit Suisse. Craig Siegenthaler - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: First, just on the home equity book. Didn't look like there was any real impact from the kind of new change or the guidance valuation methodology put in place in January. But is there any expected future impact from this or in terms of changes in NPA balances or provisioning?

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

Well, I guess that depends on whether we're asked to make the changes that, apparently, some of the money centers were asked to do. It looks like from what the announcements we saw over the last week or so, Craig, that money centers were asked to make this change but regional banks generally weren't. But having said that, let me sort of lead you through how we're looking at this now. So we've got a $15 billion home equity book. About 1/3 of that book are actually firsts, not seconds. Of the remainder, about 1/3 of those, we already service the firsts. So we can see what's going on in the first and we have a good sense of what's going on in that book. Of the remainder where there are seconds and we don't service the firsts, we actually do a FICO refresh every quarter. And if the first does go delinquent, you know it has an immediate impact on FICO, and we're able to see that immediate impact and adjust. So our reserving methodology already takes that into account. Where we can see that happen, we built that into our reserving methodology. Therefore, if we are ever requested to put a required -- to put what are currently performing loans into a nonperforming category, we actually don't expect that the income statement impact would be material for us. Craig Siegenthaler - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Okay. So if we think about your home equity book, out of the 2/3 that are seconds, 1/3 of that, you already service the firsts. So effectively, it's the same valuation methodology the money center’s using now. And out of 2/3 of the 2/3, you refresh the FICO so the delta would be modest, if anything.

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

That's exactly right. Craig Siegenthaler - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Okay. And then just as a follow-up question. In your 10-K, you gave an upper limit to mortgage repurchase provisions of $700 million. Given that you had $175 million this quarter, is the kind of updated upper limit now effectively $525 million?

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

Well, Craig, as I said earlier, I don't think it's going to be an exact dollar-for-dollar match every quarter. But directionally, we expect when we file our K and we update that range, it'll be directionally correct.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Ryan Nash with Goldman Sachs.

Ryan M. Nash - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Just one other follow-up on the HARP stuff. Where are you in terms of the capacity to increase production at this point? And are you actually refi-ing just out of your own servicing portfolio, or are you looking outside?

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

We're primarily within our own portfolio. And as I said earlier, I mean, the runway within our own portfolio is pretty long. And given sort of our capacity and our portfolio, and quite frankly, the desire to serve our clients and we're reaching out very specifically, I don't see that changing short term. I think we've got plenty of runway there. And using our capacity, I think we'll stay with our portfolio here in the short term.

Ryan M. Nash - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And then just on utilization. You talked about this being flat for multiple quarters. Are you seeing actually higher commitments? So is it more you just not seeing a ramp-up in utilization on the part of your borrowers?

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

We're continuing to increase commitments. I mean, as we grow our business and add relationships, our commitments are continuing to go up. But we're just not seeing the utilization firm. So if you look multi-quarter over the last 3 or 4 quarters, we sort of have a continual, steady increase in commitments.

Operator

Operator

Our final question today is from Greg Ketron with UBS.

Gregory W. Ketron - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Analyst

Question on Mortgage. It looks like your application volume's up about 30% over the last quarter. And just a couple of points there that I was looking at. One, it looks like your correspondent volumes picked up, and we know some people have downsized their correspondent business. So I guess one question would be the market share that you sense that you're picking up, and then two would be the production spreads that you're seeing in this current pipeline compared to what we saw in the fourth quarter -- I'm sorry in the – yes, in the fourth quarter that may -- or first quarter that may carry on to the second quarter.

Aleem Gillani

Analyst

Yes. Greg, I'll take a crack at both those. Correspondent was up, and you know what's going on in the industry. But that being said, our retail was also up and clear focus on our clients and clear focus on HARP. Could correspondent be up more if we didn't have HARP 2.0? Probably, but we're trying to manage that fairly tightly and keep a focus on our clients and on HARP as using up a good portion of our capacity. On the spread standpoint, spreads were better. I mean, we know everybody's talked about that and that's the case. Spreads were better in the first quarter. Would they come in slightly over the second quarter? I would anticipate they would because they were at universally abnormally high in the first quarter, and I don't imagine over time that's sustainable. So they'll come back at -- to a more normalized level over the next couple of quarters.

Gregory W. Ketron - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Analyst

Great. And one maybe bigger-picture question in terms of loan growth and deposit growth. And you guys are growing the balance sheet in these areas at rates that we haven't seen in a while, and the industry is experiencing a much faster growth rate. But do you sense that you're gaining market share? And if so, the strategy or what are the sources of that -- of the market share gains?

William Henry Rogers

Analyst

Well, you can look at the things you look at. So we talked about, in the fourth quarter, where we looked at FDIC data and from the deposit side and clearly looked at 8 of the 10 largest markets we had. You couldn't come up with the conclusion other than we've gained market share, I think, I mean, from that data. As it relates to loans, you just look at sort of the fed data and sort of industry growth and how we look relative to that. And I’d have to come up with a sort of a similar conclusion that there's some gain in share. Where that comes from specifically? I'd say everywhere. I mean, it starts up -- there's a lot of disruption and things that are going on in our market that we all know about. On the small side, we've had, gosh, I think, 140 bank failures in Georgia and Florida since the beginning of this. So we're seeing reduced competition from that standpoint. So I don't think, Greg, it's any one place. I just think it's just good, raw execution everywhere for us and picking up incrementally every opportunity that we have.

Gregory W. Ketron - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Analyst

And that's something you feel that's sustainable as we look forward?

William Henry Rogers

Analyst

We've been on a good path. And I think as we continue to not only gain marginal share and probably more important is share of wallet, and I think that's where our big opportunity is, so not only within the market, but even within our own client base, we're really putting a lot of efforts to gain that share through share of wallet. Yes, let me just take a minute to wrap up the call and just make a couple of comments. I hope that you've been able to conclude that momentum and intensity are building here at SunTrust as we continue to progress against our game plan to significantly improve our performance. We've seen evidence of this in our core performance coming out of last year and very positively continue in the first quarter. I believe we've prioritized appropriately. We're focused in areas that can best impact our future performance, and we very much look forward to updating you on our progress throughout the year. And with that said, I thank you.

Kris Dickson

Analyst

Thanks. Feel free to give the IR Department a call if you have any other questions. Thanks for joining us.