Earnings Labs

UMB Financial Corporation (UMBF)

Q1 2012 Earnings Call· Wed, Apr 25, 2012

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the UMB Financial First Quarter 2012 Financial Results Conference Call. During today’s presentation all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation the conference will be open for questions. [Operator Instructions] This conference is also being recorded today Wednesday, April 25 of 2012. I would now like to turn the conference over to our host for today Ms. Kay McMillan, please go ahead ma’am.

Kay McMillan

Analyst

Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us for our conference call regarding our first quarter 2012 financial results. Before we begin, let me remind you that our comments in this conference call contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of ‘95. Such forward-looking statements rely on a number of assumptions concerning future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in our statements made during this call. While management of UMB believes our assumptions are reasonable, UMB cautions that material changes in interest rates, the equity markets, general economic conditions as they relate to the company’s loan and fee-based business customers, competition in the financial services industry, the ability to integrate acquisitions and other risks and uncertainties which are detailed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission may cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in this call. UMB has no duty to update such statements and undertakes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that may become untrue because of new information, future events or otherwise. By now we hope most of you on the call who are listening via webcast have had a chance to review our earnings release which was issued yesterday, if not you will find it on our website at umb.com. On the call today are Mariner Kemper, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Peter deSilva, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Mike Hagedorn, our Chief Financial Officer. The agenda for today’s call is as follows. Mariner will provide high level commentary on our results, Mike will review the details of our financials then Peter will review key fee income business drivers and following that will be happy to answer your questions. Now, I’ll turn the call over to Mariner Kemper.

Mariner Kemper

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

Thank you, Kay. Welcome everyone and thank you for joining us today. I am very pleased to talk to you about our first quarter results. Not only did we see an improvement over the same period last year, but once again achieved record net income, which increased by 50.2% to $46.4 million, this equates to $1.15 per diluted share earned on record total quarterly revenue of $211.4 million. Non-interest income increased 22.8% to $132.3 million for the quarter and the primary driver behind this increase in total revenue and net income compared to the same period a year ago. Fortunately, we do not have to rely entirely on spread income to grow the company and are pleased that non-interest income comprised 62.6% of total revenue in the first quarter. As this is our first call to discuss 2012 results, I’d like to share our priorities for the year. These will sound familiar as we continue to execute on our strategies by sticking to our proven business model and doing what we believe is right to grow our business. First, we will focus on quality through a strong balance sheet, solid credit metrics, low cost funding and effective risk management. Second, we’ll emphasize diversity in both revenue and earnings. Third, we are committed to growth through accelerated fee business loans, improved sales leverage and maximized efficiency. And fourth, we continue to look for the most effective way to deploy capital. Before I go into further detail on the financial results, I’d like to announce a realignment of our segments to better reflect how we run our business. We will provide detail on 4 distinct business segments. Institutional investment management which is our Scout Investment business, asset servicing which is our UMB fund services business, payment solutions which represents our card business,…

Michael Hagedorn

Analyst · Matt Olney with Stephens Incorporated

Thanks Mariner and welcome everyone. First, I will review our holding company financials and then provide a more detailed summary of our new segment reporting. Picking up where Mariner left off in his discussion of the balance sheet our average deposits increased by 8.4% to $10.3 billion. As you know we typically experience a seasonal influx of public funds in the fourth quarter. These balances peak in mid-January and then gradually decrease through March. This year the first quarter averages were more $400 million higher than in the fourth quarter of 2011. The rate environment and less attractive yield opportunities have resulted in additional funds remaining in fed funds and repo accounts. Until rates improve we expect to see this trend continue. Average non-interest bearing deposits comprised nearly 39% of our total deposits, which puts us in the top 3% of the industry according to SNL Financial. We believe that our high percentage of free funds has a competitive advantage and is reflected in our low overall cost of funds, which was 0.29% for the first quarter versus 0.37% a year ago. This advantage will be even more important when rates begin to rise. Allowance for loan losses is $73.5 million and allowance as a percent of total loans is now 1.43% compared to 1.56% a year ago. Our allowance for loan loss coverage is nearly 3x the amount of non-performing loans, while the median industry allowance reported for the fourth quarter would cover just over half of non-performing loans. The average balance in our investment portfolio increased 8.7% to $6.2 billion and activity during the first quarter included the roll-off of $439 million in core portfolio securities at an average yield of 2.28%. In turn, we purchased $1.3 billion of securities at an average yield of 1.77%. These purchases…

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

Thank you Mike and good morning everyone. As you’ve seen in our press release, our results continue to demonstrate the long-term value of being a growth-oriented organization with a diverse business mix. To provide additional context to our results, I’d like to discuss the primary drivers of our fee income and highlight some of the developments in each of our segments. I’ll begin with Institutional Investment Management, which is comprised the Scout investments, equity and fixed income mutual funds, and separately managed investment accounts. Revenue in this segment is driven by mutual fund and separately managed account net flows, equity and fixed income market performance and previously committed new business conversions. All 3 areas were strong this quarter and contributed to the 35% pretax profit margin Mike discussed earlier. Scout ended the quarter with $22.7 billion in assets under management. This represents an increase of nearly 14% over the first quarter of 2011. Assets in Scout mutual funds closed the quarter at $10.2 billion. Scout’s fixed income separately managed accounts ended the quarter with $11.8 billion in assets under management and Scout equity separately managed accounts totaled $662 million at quarter’s end. We achieved record net flows for the quarter, with $340.1 million in the Scout funds and $1.2 billion in our separately managed accounts for total net inflows of $1.5 billion. This compares to inflows of $576 million in the first quarter of last year. The midcap fund and our low duration fixed income strategy were the primary drivers of the strong net flows. Equity market performance was strong during the quarter providing a $1.4 billion boost to Scout’s assets under management. Investment performance continues to be strong across our primary strategies. And in March, 2 of our funds received Lipper Awards. Scout strong investment performance and diversified distribution…

Mariner Kemper

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

Thank you, Peter. In closing we are pleased to report a great quarter for UMB. We believe there is a strong correlation between our operating results and highly engaged associates, who deliver the unparalleled customer experience every day. In the past 5 years, net income has grown from $74.2 million to $106.5 million and associate engagement has grown from 73% to 84%, while customer satisfaction is at its highest level at 87%. Both our associate engagement and customer satisfaction scores are at world-class levels and I couldn’t be more proud of those results. We appreciate your interest in us and for attending today’s call. With that I’ll turn it back over to the operator who will open up the line for questions. Thank you.

Mariner Kemper

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

For those of you listening we have some technical difficulties, if you can still hear us wait a moment please.

Operator

Operator

Pardon me, ladies and gentlemen. [Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line from Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir.

Christopher McGratty

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

Just the question on the fee income, obviously the level and the mixes is quite above peers. I’m just wondering Mariner, what’s the - how much of it is directly tied to market performance and is the revenue priced in the current quarter is there any of the lag basis, obviously market has been strong this year.

Mariner Kemper

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

I’m going to ask Peter to take that, that’s a business, that’s mostly Scout Investments so I would let him answer that portion.

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

The first topic if you look at our fee income overall it is a broad mix of things that not all the indexed to equity markets, our payment solutions business of course is indexed to transaction volumes and other types of things. Certainly our fund services business and the Scout Investments business is along with some part of the bank platforms business is indeed indexed to offer the end fixed income markets. The markets were up strongly during the quarter, the S&P was up over 10% and as an example in the case of Scout our assets were up about $3 billion for the quarter and it was a $1.5 billion attributed to flows and a $1.5 billion attributed to new business, I’m sorry to market appreciation. And so it’s hard to say but because we have fixed income in equity in our portfolios we can’t just look at the S&P and say it’s up 10% so we’re going to be up 10%, you’ve got also look at the floor market since we have a lot of floor market exposure as well. But there is a way to look at it I suppose but it’s one that you’re going to be imprecise because of the mix of our overall assets.

Mariner Kemper

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

Correlated but not tightly correlated.

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

But in the case of Scout, what I told you was exactly right, it was about a $1.5 billion in flows and a $1.5 billion due to market appreciation so.

Christopher McGratty

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

Fair enough. The trade and investment banking line was obviously the very strong quarter, can you just elaborate what’s, what type of revenues are in that exactly and kind of the outlook?

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

Yes you’re talking about the trading income?

Christopher McGratty

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

Yes it was 9, 7 in the corner.

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

Yes, it was - the biggest part that goes through there in total is our investment banking group, our bond sales group that’s the line item on the income statement that they use. I think from memory that’s about $6 million I think, 2/3, Yes it’s about 2/3, that’s what’s driving it.

Christopher McGratty

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

Great. And then just last on the tax rate, what should we be using going forward?

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Chris McGratty from KBW. Please go ahead sir

Yes the tax rate on an effective basis the tax rate probably seems lower than what you’re seeing with competitors but the rationale for that is that tax-exempt municipal security income is making up a much larger portion of our revenue and hence our bottom line. And so we expect that to continue, so I think the tax rate you’re seeing in the first quarter will be close to what I go forward rate will be for a while.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Matt Olney with Stephens Incorporated.

Matt Olney

Analyst · Matt Olney with Stephens Incorporated

So Mike, on the institutional investment management business I believe you said in the prepared remarks that the pretax profit margin was about 35% in the first quarter. First off, did I hear that right and second of all has there been any change in that over the last few quarters and what are your thoughts on that margin going forward?

Mariner Kemper

Analyst · Matt Olney with Stephens Incorporated

That is the right - you heard that right, it is and that’s a scalable business and those are mostly competitive margins and it’s expected to hold.

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Matt Olney with Stephens Incorporated

Yes and as we go forward we continue to make investments in the business.

Mariner Kemper

Analyst · Matt Olney with Stephens Incorporated

Yes.

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Matt Olney with Stephens Incorporated

Obviously, we’ve got some new products that we will be launching later this year. We continue to build out our distribution system by hiring and adding people as we need to. So I think those margins are probably in the ballpark, but it’s - we are going to continue invest in the business.

Michael Hagedorn

Analyst · Matt Olney with Stephens Incorporated

And as Peter said, you have the assets and administrations are under management essentially being split into 2 buckets, market actions roughly half and half is net flows. Who knows what happens with market action, but with the net flows our expectation is that those would stick and so that’s going to pay us additional revenue in the forward or the future quarters.

Matt Olney

Analyst · Matt Olney with Stephens Incorporated

Okay, all right that’s helpful. And then switching gears, you mentioned the reauthorization of this topic, purchase plan, how should we think about this? Is this is a message that the acquisition efforts could slow somewhat or it’s just a message to investors that you think the stock price is a good value here or how should we be reading this?

Mariner Kemper

Analyst · Matt Olney with Stephens Incorporated

It’s a very neutral message. We had an authorization in place as long as I’ve been here. I guess it’s ultimately just to give us the flexibility to do so if we deem it appropriate, so I wouldn’t read much into it at all.

Matt Olney

Analyst · Matt Olney with Stephens Incorporated

Okay. And then the increase utilization rates in the first quarter, great to see that. Can you give us any more color as to what type of borrower is utilizing these lines and maybe what type of borrower is still on the sidelines that doesn’t want to utilize it, does at the line?

Mariner Kemper

Analyst · Matt Olney with Stephens Incorporated

Well, I would say that what you’re seeing in our - well this is Mariner, what you’re seeing in our loan growth is still market share gains largely and the evidence of that would really be our utilization rates, while they are up on a linked-quarter basis, they are still down, still depressed from pre-crisis periods if you will. And so I would say that while we are seeing some improvement in sort of the organic side of our business, a good majority of the growth you’re seeing is in commercial and commercial real estate for sure and still a lot of that’s market share gain at the end of March utilization rates were 28.9%. And so that’s pretty low for us, but we’re still gaining - we are still seeing our loan growth from new business.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from the line of Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee.

Peyton Green

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Just to make sure I heard this right, you mentioned that the institutional asset management business posted a pretax profit of $9.1 million, which was up 97% year-over-year on referring growth or non-interest income growth of 27.5%.

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Correct.

Peyton Green

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Okay, so there’s the operating leverage answer, okay. And then on these segments is there any holding company offset that we should know about that gets us down to the consolidated number?

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Yes, so you will notice if you compare it to our prior segment disclosures we had a treasury and other category.

Peyton Green

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Okay.

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

And we don’t have that anymore, so when you look at these 4 segments we are literally pushing down every cost, every investment security, manager’s margin mismatch that we have, everything is pushed down in to those 4 segments.

Peyton Green

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Okay, so everything is transferred across the lines and so what you do, what you get, okay.

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Yes.

Peyton Green

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Great and then I think Peter you mentioned that the institutional asset management business want to mid-cap international product mandate.

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

It was a mid-cap mandate, it’s a domestic mid-cap mandate from an international bank, a European bank.

Peyton Green

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Okay and I mean how big would you expect that to be?

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

I really don’t want to disclose that, it has the potential to be sizeable I’ll just leave it at that.

Peyton Green

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Okay. And when was that announced?

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

That was funded in the last 45 days.

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

There were press releases about it, I mean it was…

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Yes, not the size but it was funded in the last 45 days.

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Yes.

Peyton Green

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Okay so it’s not necessarily in the March AUM I think as that would be going forward is that…

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

It’ll be in the, it’s in the Q1 ending figures, yes, that’s correct. Now it’s not a product that, that’s going to sit idle it should continue to grow as it flows into the product overtime.

Peyton Green

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Okay, so there was some benefit in the first quarter, but it should continue to increase. And then, maybe if looking from kind of a 10,000 or 15,000 foot view I mean if you could compare or contrast the sales build out in the institutional asset management business or even the asset servicing or payment solutions businesses compared to where they were maybe a year or 18 months ago and what kind of that would lead you to believe about the outlook?

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

You mean in terms of what we’ve - how we built our sales force or just the environment in general?

Peyton Green

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

How you built yours and kind of what you’re seeing versus maybe contempt, what you were contemplating 18 months ago when you really made the investment like or cost most probably in businesses?

Mariner Kemper

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

All right. I would just say nothing has really changed, we’ve maintained a very positive outlook on all those businesses and are investing in a like fashion.

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Yes I mean if you think about Scout we’ve made investments in the intermediary channel and the sub advisory market and the insurance market some of those are beginning to pay off for us, some of those would be a little further down the road and the payment solutions business. We’ve haven’t really added any new healthcare sales individuals, we feel good about the coverage we have nationally in that business, institutional cash management, we’ve again feel good about the sales team we have on the ground there maybe overtime might add a little bit more strength there, but overall we feel good about that. So this has been an ongoing series of investments we’ve been making and we’ll continue to make to ensure that we can cover the full, the full country in the case of our national businesses, which a lot of those payment solution, investment management businesses really are, they are national - nationally scope…

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

And they’re all, all very scalable on the fixed basis expenses, so we should be able to get leverage with the investments we’ve made that has been made.

Peyton Green

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Okay, but I guess what I mean it seemed to me like 18 months, 24 months, because you were really making sure that you were getting all the businesses positioned, and now it seem like you are having more success on the sales front and that it would seem like the outlook is brighter for new sales so to speak that would have been even 12 or 18 months ago.

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Yes I mean mostly investments have been made.

Peyton Green

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

Okay.

Peter deSilva

Analyst · Peyton Green with Sterne, Agee

I think that’s right and pipelines will vary from time to time, but there is some strength in a lot of these pipelines right now.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] On part of the management there are no additional questions in the queue, please continue.

Kay McMillan

Analyst

Thank you very much for your interest in UMB this call can be accessed via replay at our website beginning in about 2 hours and it will run through May 9. And as always you can contact UMB Investor Relations with any follow-up questions by calling (816) 860-7106. Again we appreciate your interest and time. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you ladies and gentlemen this does conclude the UMB Financial first quarter 2012 financial results conference call. If you would like to listen to replay of today’s call you may dial (303) 590-3030 or the toll free number of 1(800) 406-7325 and enter the access code of 4529910. Thank you again for your participation and you may now disconnect.