Earnings Labs

TFS Financial Corporation (TFSL)

Q4 2011 Earnings Call· Thu, Nov 17, 2011

$15.00

+0.27%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to TFS Financial Corporation’s Fourth Fiscal Quarter Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Hosting the call today from TFS Financial is Mr. Marc Stefanski, Chief Executive Officer. He is joined by Mr. Dave Huffman, Chief Financial Officer; Mr. John Ringenbach, Chief Operating Officer of Third Federal Savings; Ms. Meredith Weil, Chief Retail Officer of Third Federal Savings; and Mr. Paul Huml, Chief Accounting Officer. Today’s call is being recorded and will be available for replay beginning at 12:00 Eastern. The dial-in number for the replay is 800-283-4216. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. (Operator Instructions) In interest of time and to get as many questions as possible, we ask that you limit yourselves to one question and one follow-up. Lastly, when posing a question, please pick up your handset to allow optimal sound quality. Some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on the management’s current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It is possible that the company’s actual results and financial condition may differ possibly materially from the anticipated results and financial conditions indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of the risks and important factors that could affect the firm’s future results, see Risk Factors in the company’s latest Annual Report on www.thirdfederal.com. TFS Financial Corporation assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information provided during the conference call. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Marc Stefanski. Sir, you may begin.

Marc Stefanski

Management

Good morning, everyone, welcome. And at this time I’d like to turn the floor over to Paul Huml, who will go over the deck that was been made available to everyone and then we will follow on with questions. Paul?

Paul Huml

Management

Okay. Thanks Marc. As you know we put out the earnings release yesterday and then also the slides that we will be briefly going over today. And really just jumping to Page 3 of the slides, just an overview of where TFS Financial Corporation is as of September 30 which was our fiscal year-end; very consistent with where we have been as it's little under 11 billion; shareholders’ equity of 1.8 billion which is a little over 16% capital, which we say is very consistent. Going on to Page 4, just sort of a strategic overview and we are very consistent, simple organization focusing on individual mortgages and deposits and we have traditionally been a fixed rate lender. And recently as of July 2010, issues with the equity lines of credit where we stopped originating equity lines of credit, we looked at trying to respond to our interest rate risk exposure and we went more to way in adjustable rate product, what we call our smart rate product. And so, if you look at where we are at going from a traditionally fixed-rate, now we have got 55% of our current fiscal year production was the Smart Rate adjustable product. So, we think that’s a pretty key going forward. Generally, most of our mortgage loans and deposits have been generated in our footprint, which is Ohio and Florida, but starting in May of 2011 and expand a little bit further on; we have introduced a Smart Rate product into other states and using our same underwriting, same credit standards going out to other states that generate some loans. So, that will be a key component of growth going forward. And again, everything is originated by Third Federal Associates team, tough credit standards and you can see on the first mortgage…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And we will go first to the site of Mike Shafir with Sterne Agee. Your line is open.

Mike Shafir

Management

Just a bit of a housekeeping question on your tax rate and then also the federal insurance premium. I was wondering kind of what occurred there on the insurance premium this quarter with it rising so significantly. And then also what kind of tax rate should we be thinking about moving forward?

Dave Huffman

Management

This is Dave Huffman, Mike. On the deposit insurance, the Dodd-Frank changed the rules effective April 1, right, where now instead of being based just on deposits it’s based on our liabilities. And I believe that in that process the rate was adjusted so that the FDIC collected in total the same amount. So, companies with limited non-deposit borrowings saw a reduction in their rate while companies that had a wholesale borrowings in addition to deposits generally saw an increase to their rate. So, we did see an improvement from that standpoint. In the June quarter, however, and I think we might have tried to include a note about this, we had an interpretation with respect to long-term unsecured borrowings that we haven’t taken advantage of previously and in June, we filed a recovery for that. So, those two things impacted June and we didn’t have a recurrence of the recovery in the September quarter. So, I don’t know if that answers your question there, Mike?

Mike Shafir

Management

So, I mean is that 5 million, kind of the run rate moving forward depending on your [table scores] and so forth?

Dave Huffman

Management

Yes. The number that’s in the September quarter would reflect our run rate.

Mike Shafir

Management

Okay. And then on the tax rate, which is lower this quarter?

Dave Huffman

Management

On the tax rate, I think we might have talked about this last time. We have the BOLI, which is our most significant tax permanent item and it’s a fixed amount and it fluctuates depending on what the pre-tax earnings is going to be or its impact fluctuates depending on what pre-tax earnings are. And as we move through the June period, we didn't want to get ahead of ourselves with respect to what our taxable income was going to be. So, we base the estimate at that time on what we knew. And as we progressed through the September quarter, we came to the realization as to what our pre-tax earnings would be and then as we are required to do, we then adjusted the effective rate to reflect the impact of that (inaudible). Mike, does that help you on that one?

Mike Shafir

Management

Sure. And then moving forward, should we think about tax rate somewhere in that 30% range then? I mean if I look at the average for the following year it’s around 27?

Dave Huffman

Management

Mike, I’d say it’s a function of what the pre-tax earnings are. If we think about having a permanent difference of somewhere around 5 or $6 million, then it becomes a function of pre-tax earnings. So, in an absurd example, our pre-tax earnings were $5 million we would expect to have a tax rate of zero. If it’s $10 million then our tax rate might be 17%. As the pre-tax number increases that effective rate will gradually increase.

Mike Shafir

Management

Okay. And then just one final one on the specific valuation charge-off. So just to confirm this, if we just kind of thought about this in isolation during this quarter, your loan loss reserve to loan ratio would drop from that 1.58 to somewhere in that 1.03, 1.04 range.

Dave Huffman

Management

Yes.

Operator

Operator

We will take our next question from the site of Michael Lee from Royal Capital. Your line is open.

Michael Lee

Management

Could you guys just give us an update on how your latest exam has gone or if that’s in process, when it's scheduled for, and your expectations on when you will be able to get a ruling on the MOU?

Dave Huffman

Management

What I can say is we have not had the exam and we are anticipating that in the near future, but the exact date we are not sure of and we can’t comment on.

Michael Lee

Management

And then just any visibility on when you might be able to take up the MOU issue with the OCC?

Dave Huffman

Management

Sure. The day after they are done. We will be right there talking to them. We feel that we have complied with all the things in the MOU and probably more. And we are very, very confident that we can have a positive outcome with the review coming up, but again we are dealing with a new regulator. We were not exactly sure how they will look at certain things. So, this is kind of a burn-in period now and we are going to know, I’m sure within the next few weeks or months, and certainly, but everyone knows as soon as we find out something has changed.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) With that we move next to the site of Frank Rango with Purchase Capital. Your line is open.

Frank Rango

Management

Just wanted to know if there were any changes in the mix between adjustable rate and fixed rate assets on the asset side of your balance sheet for the quarter?

Dave Huffman

Management

Yes. I mean originations have been about 55% adjustable and 45% fixed for the year. So, that sort of continues to increase since we introduced the Smart Rate program in July 2010.

Frank Rango

Management

Got it. So, what’s the current ratio between adjustable rate and fixed rate assets?

Dave Huffman

Management

Well, as far as the first mortgages, it’s probably close to 25% adjustable now, 75% fixed.

Meredith Weil

Management

That’s just under 20% overall.

Frank Rango

Management

Just under 20 overall. Okay, great. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

And at this time, I’m showing no further questions in queue. I’ll turn the call back to Mr. Marc Stefanski for any additional or closing remarks.

Marc Stefanski

Management

The only thing I want to say is, happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for joining in. And Paul Huml, of course, is available for all the shareholders to call right after the meeting. Good luck, Paul. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude today’s teleconference. As a reminder, the dial-in number for the replay is 800-283-4216. Please disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.