Earnings Labs

Truist Financial Corporation (TFC)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 21, 2016

$50.68

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Please standby, we're about to begin. Greetings ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the BB&T Corporation Second Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this event is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Alan Greer of Investor Relations, for BB&T Corporation.

Alan Greer - Executive Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Levy, and good morning, everyone. Thanks to all of our listeners for joining us today. We have with us today Kelly King, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Daryl Bible, our Chief Financial Officer, who will review the results for the second quarter of 2016, and give you some thoughts about next quarter. We also have other members of our Executive Management Team who are with us to participate in the Q&A session, Chris Henson, our Chief Operating Officer; and Clarke Starnes, our Chief Risk Officer. We will be referencing a slide presentation during our comments. A copy of the presentation as well as our earnings release and supplemental financial information are available on the BB&T website. Before we begin, let me remind you that BB&T does not provide public earnings predictions or forecasts. However, there may be statements made during the course of this call that express management's intentions, beliefs or expectations. BB&T's actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Please refer to the cautionary statements regarding forward-looking information in our presentation and our SEC filings. Please also note that our presentation includes certain non-GAAP disclosures. Please refer to page two in the appendix of our presentation for the appropriate reconciliations to GAAP. And now, I'll turn it over to Kelly. Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Alan. Good morning everybody, and thanks to your interest in BB&T. We always appreciate you joining our call. So we had a very strong quarter from an organic performance perspective, and a strategic perspective. Net income totaled $541 million, up 19.2% versus the second quarter of 2015, and 10.7% versus first quarter of 2016. If you look at diluted EPS, it totaled $0.66, up from $0.62 on a like…

Alan Greer - Executive Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Okay, thank you, Kelly. At this time, we'll begin our Q&A session. Levy, if you would come back on the line and explain how our listeners may participate by asking a question.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we'll take our first question from Matt O'Connor with Deutsche Bank.

Matthew Derek O'Connor - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Good morning. Daryl N. Bible - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: Good morning. Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning.

Matthew Derek O'Connor - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

If I could follow up on the expense outlook, a very modest decline from the second quarter. I guess, first, did the conversion of National Penn, was that a little bit sooner than you had thought, for some reason I thought it could be later in the quarter, is that driving cost saves coming a little bit sooner than you had expected? Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Matt, it was about what we had planned. Early on we said, the second quarter, but then as we went along, we realized we'd get it done at the very first part. And so, yeah, relative to in the very beginning when we announced it, it was earlier and that did accelerate some of the cost saves. That's really good for us, but that's what drove that.

Matthew Derek O'Connor - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Okay. And then just my follow-up is on the underlying expense trends at kind of call it core BB&T, maybe you could give us an update there. I know there had been some ramp-up, maybe a year ago or so, and then hope that some of those costs would run off. Maybe give us an update on how those are trending and the outlook there? Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So generally, Matt, what's happening is exactly what we had projected. If you go back to two or so years ago, again just speaking into core area, we started a pretty major rebuild of our backroom with three major projects, our new general ledger system, which is now completed, our new commercial loan system, which is about 75% completed, and our new state-of-the-art data center, which is complete and getting ready to open. So there have been substantial upfront expenses and time commitment with regard to all of those. We're now heading into the period of time over the next year or so as that will crest, and then we'll begin to get the benefits on a relative basis. Two kinds of benefits, one will be, you will see relatively less expenses forward versus what we just invested in the previous periods, and then we'll begin to, and this will take two years, three years, but we'll begin to get the efficiencies out of these new investments, which will be meaningful over a long-term point of view. So the core fundamental operating expenses of BB&T are poised to improve as we go forward. We're not making any grand big promises for the third quarter and that kind of thing. It was not the way we operate. But in terms of our focus today with the major projects underway and substantially complete, and with our intense focus on continued reconceptualization, we feel good about expense management going forward.

Matthew Derek O'Connor - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our next question from Betsy Graseck with Morgan Stanley. Elizabeth Lynn Graseck - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hi, good morning. Daryl N. Bible - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: Good morning. Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Hey, Betsy. Elizabeth Lynn Graseck - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: I wanted to ask about the loan growth, and there are couple of questions here. One is, you came in towards the higher end of your range, just wanted to understand what's going on in C&I that drove some of that. It looks like to me that what else is going on? And then just bigger picture, how you think about the growth in the specialized services relative to the rest of the portfolio. Are you comfortable with allowing the specialized services growth to be a such high delta relative to the rest of the portfolio? Does it matter for RWA; does it matter for capital return longer term? Clarke R. Starnes III - Chief Risk Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: Betsy, this is Clarke. Regarding the C&I growth that was centered primarily much like the industry in our large corporate lending area. We still have a relative base to our peers, and we continue to have expansion in our verticals, so that you saw a lot of growth there. This quarter our mortgage warehouse lending with low rates, that certainly seasonally moved into public finance area, in our dealer floor plan. So it wasn't any one area, it was pretty much across the board, but it was slanted toward more the corporate side. As far as our Specialized Lending area, we have said that other than subprime auto we would expect those platforms to grow relatively faster than the core bank. Now we are purposely constraining the growth in the subprime sector to make sure it doesn't grow any faster than the core bank, so we don't increase our relative exposure there. But we believe those specialized lending areas even with higher RWA still represent with the yields a very strong risk return advantage for us. So we want to be sure we do that in a measured fashion, but we certainly would expect those to grow relatively faster than the core. Elizabeth Lynn Graseck - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: And does it matter from an RWA perspective, or it's just too small to matter really as it relates to RWAs? Daryl N. Bible - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: Yeah, it really doesn't impact our risk weighted assets that much, Betsy. They're good quality loans, and they're consumer portfolio, so they really don't hang around very long to figure they'll go on non-accrual. So I would say there is really minimal impact here. Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Low variability, high resiliency in those portfolios. Elizabeth Lynn Graseck - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great. Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go to our next question from Gerard Cassidy with RBC Capital Management.

Gerard Cassidy - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Management

Thank you. Good morning, Kelly, good morning Daryl. Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Hey Gerard. Daryl N. Bible - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: Good morning.

Gerard Cassidy - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Management

Kelly, you guys obviously put out very good return on average tangible common equity number today, 14.3%. The return on average shareholders equity was basically flat at 8.2%. Can you share with us how you expect to get that 8.2% higher, and if we assume cost of equity capital is around 9% to 10%, how do you surpass that in the next 12 months or 18 months? Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, Gerard, as you know, I think that's a grand question for all of us in the industry today. Pre-crisis we and the other good banks were operating at about 15%. You got to start from kind of the top. Way I think about it is about 2% kind of right off the top because of higher capital. And then, you've got about 1% to 1.5%, which is just the economy, margins, et cetera, and then the difference really is in increased regulatory costs and some technological cost. So from the capital point of view, we're going to continue to try to manage our capital efficiently, but it's going to stay high compared to past period. So that 2% at least for the short run is kind of non-retrievable, but that gets us to, say, 13%. So the 1% to 1.5% in terms of economy, obviously, can come back, and come back quickly, depending on the growth rates in the economy and the margins. We're not counting on that, but I personally think the flat rate scenario that everybody projecting is overstated. The underlying strength of our economy is not great, but it's good. Fed, I believe, clearly knows they need to raise rates, and I think they will the minute they see a window, which could still easily happen at least one…

Gerard Cassidy - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Management

Great. As a follow-up question to, Daryl, you pointed out on slide 10 that the interest rate sensitivity of the balance sheet has increased due to the acquisition. Do you expect to keep it at this level, or do you think you'll bring it down in the second half? Daryl N. Bible - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: You know me, Gerard, I've been doing this my whole career, asset liability management, and really not a big believer in taking one big position one way or the other. We really want to be slightly asset sensitive, and just trying to invest, balance and diversify over time. You really can't project interest rates, and if you do guess right and get interest rates right once, what are you going to do the next time around. I mean, you just can't do it. I mean, our job is to produce predictable and repeatable earnings. So we will continue to invest our securities, derivatives and all that to keep very balanced approach. We'll try to stay slightly asset sensitive, and that number might move around a little bit, but you're not going to see any big change out of us.

Gerard Cassidy - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Management

Great. Thank you, gentlemen. Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: You bet.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to John Pancari with Evercore ISI.

Stephen Moss - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI

Good morning. It's actually Steve Moss for John. I want to circle back to the efficiency and the expenses, your expense plans. Wondering if you could provide updated thoughts on the efficiency ratio for 4Q 2016 and also 2017? Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Steve, I've mentioned this before on these calls. I know everybody likes to be hyper-focused on the efficiency ratio, and we're willing to talk about it. But remember that it is a ratio, and so we have a lot of visibility in terms of the numerator, but we don't have as much visibility in terms of the denominator, that is revenues. Obviously if we did nothing today with our expenses, and the economy got better and margins got better, our efficiency ratio would go down. I mean, you wouldn't give us any credit for that, but that's what would happen. Conversely, if you have a period where revenues go down, maybe if you're doing a great job on expenses, then your efficiency ratio goes up, you will blame us for that. So I think that efficiency ratio is taken out of context. Having said that, we think we are generally on a downward trajectory with regard to the efficiency ratio. We're just not going to be able to give you exactly what this could be quarter-by-quarter. We think for the rest of this year and into next year, it will be down. Our intermediate term, I'll call that two years to three years to get into the 56%, 57% range, assuming reasonableness with regard to revenues, which I think will happen. And that will be very good. That will be a top performing level of efficiency. We're not trying to drive expenses so low that we put revenues at risk. And so, I'm very, very confident about our ability to execute on a very efficient organization, and I think that will show up as a very slow, but methodical decline in the efficiency ratio.

Stephen Moss - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI

Okay. Good. And then with regard to commercial real estate, just wondering what your appetite for growth is there, and if there are any markets you may be pulling back from? Clarke R. Starnes III - Chief Risk Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: Yeah, Steve, this is Clarke. We feel really good about the quality of the underwriting of what we're putting on our books today and have been doing. We saw some additional growth this quarter, a lot of that was, we're not seeing projects go out across the industry quite as fast as the secondary markets, so some of that was more around the velocity of outflows. But we are trying to be a little more measured in certain segments. We think, for example, multi-family and hospitality might be peaking or have peaked. We don't want to get ahead of the market fundamentals in any asset class. So we do not want to wake up with more concentration if there are issues in the future. So I think you will see us be a little more measured in those sectors, and in CRE in general, although we certainly take care of good high quality clients. So, for us, we are a little concerned about some of those asset classes, and we are watching specific markets and submarkets very closely. So no particular market per se individually, but just in general, the fundamentals for each of the areas we operate in.

Stephen Moss - Evercore ISI

Analyst · Evercore ISI

Great. Thank you very much. Clarke R. Starnes III - Chief Risk Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: Thanks.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go to our next question from John McDonald with Bernstein. John Eamon McDonald - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Hi, good morning, guys. I was looking for a little perspective on the CCAR this year, you went in, looking to do more on capital return due to the hiatus on M&A and your new approval reflects that. Just wondering on the actual numbers, how did your process land on the $640 million buyback, and what looks like the total payout probably in the mid $60 million range? Daryl N. Bible - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: Yeah, John. When we went through the process, you go through and you really evaluate your risks in the company, you run your stress models. The CCAR 2015, we actually used up over 100% of our capital, so our capital ratios came down a little bit. So when we did CCAR 2016, we wanted to make sure our capital ratio stayed above 10% in tangible common Tier 1, which is really what we're targeting. So you'll see us slowly accrete even with the repurchase and dividend increase, a little bit more capital over this next four quarters, probably around 20 basis points or so, which is exactly what we planned for. If you look at our (40:00) in total in 2016 versus 2015, it's basically 5% higher. I know we did an extra acquisition and all of that, but the actual (40:10) that we came in with, came in a little bit higher overall, if you don't count the acquisitions. John Eamon McDonald - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Okay. Great. And Daryl, just on your NIM outlook, could you give a little bit of color on the puts and takes on the core NIM holding flat,…

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Jennifer Demba with SunTrust.

Jennifer Demba - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · SunTrust

Thank you. Good morning. Question on your M&A hiatus. How long do you think that hiatus will last, and what would cause you to get back into the acquisition game, sooner than maybe expected? Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, Jennifer, we've not projected an exact timeframe, and the reason is because there is no exact timeframe. The fact is we're going to stay focused on expense management and improving our profitability and hopefully resulting in improvement in our relative stock price, until it's done. And people push me in a corner, I'll say it's longer than 90 days and less than five years, and that's about as close as I can give you. And I'm not going to try to do any less than that. I just won't. Our shareholders understand we are not going to do M&A, until we feel good about executing on what we already have invested in. Recall we bought $35 billion worth of assets over the last year and a half, and we got plenty of work to do to right size that, and get the returns for our shareholders. So I think where we are, I think this is where we're going to be, and is just really that simple.

Jennifer Demba - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · SunTrust

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Marty Mosby with Vining Sparks.

Marty Mosby - Vining Sparks IBG LP

Analyst · Vining Sparks

Thanks. Daryl, I had a couple of very kind of technical specific questions. When you look at the postretirement benefit, you had $55 million fee income increase, $40 million in expenses, did that $15 million drop to the bottom line? And then, I think you talked about that also affecting the insurance sub-segment, where you saw expenses outpacing revenue, so I just had to know if there was some operating leverage in that segment, that maybe there was some noise that you're going to eventually see. So I just wanted to see those two things, and see if they are connected in anyway. Daryl N. Bible - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: Yeah, Marty, I appreciate it. It's confusing. If you go back to the first quarter, the deferred comp pieces in the first quarter of every year there's always a piece that goes into net interest income. That was $15 million. That only happens once a year, and it's basically a result of the investments done in mutual funds. So that really balances it out. So you have the $15 million, and then the $55 million and $40 million kind of all balance out. As far as the insurance business goes, when you bring that in, net-net day one, just their efficiency costs versus the bank, they're just a little bit higher overall, but Chris and his team are working really hard in achieving cost saves and synergies. I don't know if you want to comment? Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. That's right, especially with Swett. We talked about a $30 million synergy opportunity. We've already actioned half of that. We won't – we'll probably realize about little less than a third of it this year, but the balance will come next year after we convert in the first quarter. But if you look back at our business over the last, say, four years, what you'll see is a relatively stable declining efficiency. So we're always trimming and pruning, but the acquisition does give us a really good opportunity to try to take the efficiency up or down. What I would also say about Swett is it's gone exceptionally well. In fact, I can't think of one that has gone any better. We have no revenue distractions and our margin, just after having them in three months, is actually better than it was last year. So all things going really well with Swett & Crawford.

Marty Mosby - Vining Sparks IBG LP

Analyst · Vining Sparks

And then, mortgage, Daryl, the mortgage-backed security rate actually went up this quarter. We've been seeing a lot of impacts on prepayment speeds and some amortization of premium because that's kind of the bonds you've been having to buy. I think it didn't have an impact on you this quarter. And then also, was there any servicing valuation adjustments embedded in your mortgage banking number for the quarter? Daryl N. Bible - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: Yeah, so on the investment portfolio, you are correct and that the agency securities we've been buying, we've been buying at premiums. We're very disciplined to try to have a handle of one or two or less if at all possible. We did actually have an advantage. Now, if you go back to the crisis, we got a lot of non-agency securities back then at discounts. So we, overall, you go back quarter-after-quarter, we've been relatively balanced where the premiums on the higher quality agencies have been offset by the non-agency securities. This quarter was the big drop in interest rates. We actually saw a slight benefit in the guidance that were at a discount, the non-agency guys were prepaying faster and we were accreting more, and that's kind of that duration adjustment you saw come through. So we actually had a slight benefit in the security yields. As far as mortgage banking income goes, is that what your other question?

Marty Mosby - Vining Sparks IBG LP

Analyst · Vining Sparks

That was, servicing valuations. Daryl N. Bible - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: Servicing valuations. Our servicing valuations really haven't improved, or it's within a couple of basis points to what it's been of late. Now on a go forward basis, pricing has expanded. And as pricing expands and rates continue to fall, you might see an increase on a perspective basis in valuations. But right now, you look at our historical numbers and what we reported were pretty much status quo.

Marty Mosby - Vining Sparks IBG LP

Analyst · Vining Sparks

Thanks. Daryl N. Bible - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: Yeah.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Stephen Scouten with Sandler O'Neill. Stephen Kendall Scouten - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Hey, guys. Thanks. Don't mean to continue to ask questions that have maybe already been answered on expenses, but just as it pertains to the Nat Penn cost saves in particular, would there be any of those cost saves, or any material cost saves that have already been realized, or is still the bulk of that to come kind of 3Q and 4Q? Daryl N. Bible - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: The cost saves that we announced was a total of $60 million. My guess is we're probably a quarter of the way through, probably kind of $15 million right now. Stephen Kendall Scouten - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: And that would have already shown up in the 2Q numbers, or those were just completed late in the quarter? Daryl N. Bible - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive Vice President: I would say some of that would be in the 2Q numbers. I mean whenever you announce an acquisition, you don't want it to happen, but people just start looking for other opportunities. And you saw some attrition out of National Penn as it got closer and closer to close. So you saw some of those cost saves come through a little early. Stephen Kendall Scouten - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Okay, great. And maybe just on the growth that you're seeing in Consumer Lending, specifically maybe some of the specialty sectors there, any concerns there longer term from increasing that exposure on the credit front? I know there was maybe some seasonal just kind of weakness on the consumer side here in 2Q, but any kind of longer-term apprehension about increasing that…

Operator

Operator

And we'll go to our next question from Matt Burnell with Wells Fargo Securities.

Matthew Hart Burnell - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo Securities

Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Just, Kelly, I wanted to follow up on your comments about the efficiency ratio. Last quarter you mentioned that you were confident in getting the efficiency ratio in the fourth quarter down to sort of the 57%-ish level. It sounds like from your comments earlier today that you're getting – that you're not going to be quite as specific about that going forward. I just wanted to make sure that I heard that correctly. Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: You did. And the reason is because when we made that comment last quarter, we were assuming certain projections with regard to the denominator, revenue level, and the revenue level because the economy is just a little bit softer. So it just makes that a little bit harder to get to that, maybe to 57%, 58% level. I'm hedging a bit, to be honest, because if revenues come in stronger, we might hit that. But I'm mostly trying to say that this is not that kind of a precision ratio that you can project with absolute certainty. So I'm not saying anything in terms of our taking away from our commitment to expenses. We hit our expense number for the second quarter. We will be able to do exactly what we said in conceptually with regard to expenses for the next several quarters; and the ratios will pop around based on what happens to the revenue.

Matthew Hart Burnell - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo Securities

Okay. Understood. And then just a question on the insurance business, which you mentioned ex-acquisition over the past year is up about 1% in terms of revenue. I'm curious in the newly acquired markets, I guess, specifically Susquehanna, are you seeing greater traction in those markets in terms of your ability to get into those markets and sell insurance products, or is it at this point a little too early to tell? Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: That's a fair question. It is up about 1% common quarter, year-to-date it's actually up closer to 1.4%, 1.5%. So it was both Susquehanna and National Penn, which is unusual. We picked up small retail agencies. So they already had agencies in market. They're not big enough long term. We'll have to add to that chassis. But they are very excited about the horsepower their overall agency brings, and we'll be able to bring much larger variety of product like aviation, performance payment bonds, access to things they never had before, they'll get through our franchise. But it does take some time, but I would say that we're already in the market, rattling the sabre, and there is a lot of excitement, and we would anticipate more momentum as we go in that market; just like we would and will for example. Good insight.

Matthew Hart Burnell - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo Securities

Okay. Thanks for taking my question. Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Sure.

Operator

Operator

We'll go to our next question from Paul Miller with FBR & Company. Paul J. Miller - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Hey, on a follow-up on that. Thanks a lot guys. And a follow-up on that question, you've been in Philly, you've been in Philly now for over a year. What are some of the opportunities that you see there that maybe you didn't see when you first entered the market? Because everybody is always talking about how Philly is a very tough market for outsiders. Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So from a general point of view, Paul, the receptivity we've had in Philly has been fantastic. We are a top 10 U.S. bank, and we have very, very good capabilities to help medium size, larger businesses. And the people there frankly like us. I mean we are very well received in terms of our culture and our style of doing business, and so the receptivity has been very strong. And keep in mind that with National Penn and Susquehanna, while they have good relationships with a lot of the players in that market, they haven't had the capacity to be able to meet a lot of their needs. So the hardest part in those kind of relationships is developing trust with the leaders of the companies, the CEO and the CFO. We have that kind of trust and relationship built up for years and years and years through our people up there and all of our people are in place. And so now what we have to do is lever those trust and relationships with our additional capacity. So early feedback from our people is frankly very, very positive. Paul J. Miller - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Okay. Hey, guys. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go to our next question from Christopher Marinac with FIG Partners.

Christopher William Marinac - FIG Partners LLC

Analyst · FIG Partners

Thanks. Good morning, guys. Kelly and Daryl, I was wondering if you could elaborate on the ability to organically grow in markets that are tangent towards BB&T, whether that's in Pennsylvania, Ohio or really other parts of the Southeast? Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Chris, I think that Pennsylvania obviously is a major growth for us, but as far as growing tangentially, we're not focused on it trying to grow really around our footprint. The only exception to that I would say is, we are now in Ohio technically through Cincinnati. We'll certainly spring forward through our Corporate Banking efforts up into all of the major markets in Ohio. But frankly, we've been working on that for a while anyway. As you know, our Corporate Banking initiative is a national platform anyway. So you're probably talking specifically about retail, and we do not expect any retail movement outside of the existing defined footprint for a period of time. We've got a lot of work to do in all the areas we're in, and that's where we will stay focused.

Christopher William Marinac - FIG Partners LLC

Analyst · FIG Partners

Okay. So the digital banking efforts really it's hard to push those beyond the current borders of the footprint? Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, I think as digital transformation – that's an insightful question, digital transformation continues to occur, there will be the possibility of expanding beyond your footprint, obviously not through branches, but through pure social media and other techniques with regard to expanding digitally. That's why, Chris, last year we named one of our new executive management members as our Chief Digital Officer. He has assembled his team. He is aggressively working on what is our strategy with regard to expanding digital within our "geographical footprint" but much broader than that. So it is – that will be a much broader footprint initiative.

Christopher William Marinac - FIG Partners LLC

Analyst · FIG Partners

Great, Kelly. Thank you for the feedback. I appreciate it. Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: You bet.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to – we'll take our final question from Nancy Bush with NAB Research.

Nancy Avans Bush - NAB Research LLC

Analyst · NAB Research

Good morning, Kelly. This might be a good way to end. I'm listening to your guidance about expenses, and you said that there would be – the efficiency ratio would have a downward trajectory, but you can't predict quarter-by-quarter. We've got one significant piece of news this morning and it's apparently Jamie Dimon and Warren Buffett and Larry Fink and some others have gotten together, they are going to put forth a set of principles, I guess, for corporate governance or corporate behavior, and one of them is a lessened emphasis on quarterly guidance. And I would contend that the banking industry has probably been one of the ones most negatively impacted by the need to guide on a quarterly basis. Can you just reflect on that and can you envision a time in which your company would not give quarterly guidance? Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, Nancy, it's good to hear from you, and obviously I just heard that announcement this morning as you did, but I really agree with where they are coming from. I think that businesses in general and the banking industry in particular are doing an injustice frankly to the market at large and to our own shareholders, in terms of trying to be that specific, in terms of projecting quarter-to-quarter. It just makes no sense. That's the way, it's always been. And so, we've kind of fallen into that trap. But as you've heard me say over the last year or so, I've been trying to dislodge us from just talking about efficiency ratios and things like that because of exactly what Jamie and them are talking about. So we will definitely follow us along with that momentum, and yes, I can foresee us not giving guidance. Frankly, what I like to say to our shareholders is that, my pledge to you is that we are going to work really hard to provide a good long-term growing, steady, less volatile total shareholder return that will be a top tier type performance. That's about as far as I think we're ought to give. And then, they measure us over time, and if they like what we do, they buy more stock, they don't they sell.

Nancy Avans Bush - NAB Research LLC

Analyst · NAB Research

Okay. All right. Thank you very much. It's an interesting concept and I hope, it develops as well. It's just hard to see at this point, how we would get from here to there. There would have to obviously be a transitional time, particularly for the banking industry to put forth certain ratios or whatever that would be the guiding principle. But anyway, let's keep hoping. Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I think that folks like you that are well respected in the industry can help. And I think, the major banks, I'm glad that Jamie is on board, and I think if all the major banks will start moving in that direction, I think, you will see it move very quickly.

Nancy Avans Bush - NAB Research LLC

Analyst · NAB Research

Thank you. Kelly S. King - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks. Have a good day.

Operator

Operator

And that concludes today's question-and-answer session. Mr. Greer, at this time, I would like to turn the conference back to you for any additional or closing remarks.

Alan Greer - Executive Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Okay. Thank you, Levy, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. This concludes our call. If you have further questions, please don't hesitate to contact Investor Relations. Thank you, and I hope you have a good day.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference. We appreciate your participation. You may now disconnect.