Mariner Kemper
Analyst · Stephens. Please go ahead
Thank you, Kay and thanks everyone for joining us today. I hope you and your family are safe and healthy as we all navigate our way through not only a global pandemic, but an increasingly polarized and highly politicized environment. We have been engaging our associates, customers, and communities through proactive outreach and dialogue. Inclusion and diversity have always been core principles for UMB. However, like many others, we've taken more action in this time of heightened sensitivity. We offer a variety of resource groups for our associates and they are hosting ongoing conversations to educate and dispel stereotypes, as well as foster inclusion. On page five of the slides, we've included a few comments on our inclusion and diversity efforts, along with some key topics. I encourage you to read our recent Corporate Citizenship update by using the link shown there. During the quarter, we've continued to serve our customers fully, while most of our workforce remains offsite. We've begun seeing customers in our branches by appointment-only and continue our drive-thru operations in most locations. Our sales teams have had success with virtual calling efforts, meetings with clients via video in some instances, and I'm extremely proud and impressed with how our associates continue to adapt and perform. We're taking a measured approach in our return to the workplace, bringing back a small percentage of our employees on a phased-in basis, and including enhanced safety protocols. While I'd like to see more of our team back in the office, health and safety will take a priority. Last quarter, I shared my thoughts on the economic crisis, paired with the unfortunate timing of the implementation of CECL and its likely impact on our industry. As we continue to see there's a great deal of subjectivity on how banks apply the methodology making comparisons of actual risks difficult at best. So, we focus on what we know and our priorities continue to be maintaining the high quality underwriting standards that have served us well over the long-term, maintaining solid capital and liquidity levels to carry us through this crisis, and doing what's right to support our workforce, customers, and communities. We entered the second half of the year in a position to manage what lies ahead. We have solid capital levels and a very strong liquidity position with a loan to deposit ratio that provides us flexibility. And most importantly, we have an experienced credit team with a superior track record, particularly in times of crisis. As it relates to the U.S. economy, we are navigating through the murky waters, muddled by a global pandemic, and deep rooted social issues, where every issue is further politicized, particularly in an election year. For these reasons, the overall economy continues to be fragile and these uncertainties will likely persist into the next year. However, within our markets and among our borrowers, we haven't seen any significant signs of deterioration to-date. Now, I'll turn to our second quarter results, which highlighted the balance sheet strengths I mentioned, along with the quality of our underwriting practices, as evidenced by our 15 basis points of net charge-offs. 30 days into the quarter, we continue to hear that our customers generally remain prepared to weather the current economic headwinds. We posted net income of $60.5 million or $1.26 per share on a GAAP basis, and $63.8 million or $1.33 per share on an operating basis. Pretax pre-provision income of $90.2 million represents a 7.6% increase over the linked-quarter and a 15% increase compared to the second quarter of 2019. Total fee income was strong at $120.5 million. While, this included some market related adjustments, including whole [ph] evaluations, we saw positive results in investment banking, as higher trading volumes, particularly in municipals and MBS drove a linked-quarter increase of $6.2 million, which you can find in our trading and investment banking line. Similar to trends across the industry, we've seen reductions and 12b-1 fees in our brokerage business, as well as reduced credit and debit card spend across most categories. Net interest income increased 2.5% from first quarter, driven by lower deposit and borrowing costs, along with strong loan volume, which included $1.5 billion in PPP loans. New loan production outside of PPP remains strong at $706 million, and pay-offs and pay-downs were slightly lower than historical averages at 3.2% of balances, excluding PPP. Organic growth was partly negated by the normalization of commercial line utilization, which was 31% at June 30, following the spike to 39% in the first quarter from the initial impact of COVID. In addition, some active deals we had in the pipeline at the end of first quarter were pushed out a bit as customers pause to understand the implications of the crisis. Looking ahead into the third quarter, we continue to see robust activity. Average loan balances excluding PPP increased 8.2% on a linked-quarter basis annualized. Driven by commercial and consumer real estate, as C&I balances were impacted by the normalization of line utilization. Mortgage prequalification applications hit record highs during the quarter, helping to drive an 8.1% quarterly increase in consumer real estate. The composition of our loan portfolio which remains diverse and well-balanced across several product lines, geographies, and industries, as shown on slide 18 in the balance sheet section of the presentation, followed by loan activity during the quarter, and breakdowns of our commercial portfolios by asset class. On slide 22, we've updated our exposure to sensitive industries that we shared in April. We removed transportation after reviewing its performance. That group is largely comprised of freight and warehouse relationships with top industry companies. And we've had little exposure to travel-related businesses. We've added senior living CREs to the list based on the potential strain on occupancy levels and operating expenses related to the COVID restrictions and increased pandemic-related costs. This category represents 2.1% of our loan portfolio or just 1.6% when risk adjusted. As we did last quarter, we again looked at each category for specific characteristics or specific credits that we feel comfortable with as well as those which may carry more risk if the crisis is prolonged. After an in-depth analysis, the portion we view as potentially being more impacted represents about 10% of total loans, excluding PPP balances. Of course, this isn't an indication that we expect losses in this portfolio, but we continue to keep a close eye on the conditions as they evolve. We've included some details and considerations in each category on the slide. Details on the $1.5 billion in PPP loans we booked during the quarter are shown on slide 23. The median size was $56,000 and as you can see, they're broadly diversified among industries. Now, looking at asset quality and provision, you see on slide 27, that second quarter provision under CECL was $21.5 million, which represents 3.9 times net charge-off of $5.5 million. As we noted previously, our substantial provision and reserve build in the first quarter was prudent and conservative. Additional reserve build in the second quarter brings our total allowance for loan losses to $200.3 million as of June 30 with an allowance to loan coverage of 1.3%. Excluding PPP loans, that coverage is 1.45%, or nearly two times what it was at year end 2019 prior to the adoption of CECL. Total reserves to non-performing assets is now 2.3 times compared to the peer median of 1.6 times based on those who have reported to-date. Net charge-off to average loans for the quarter of just 15 basis points is better than our long-term historical performance and NPLs improved from the first quarter to 0.54% of loans. UMB has always had a reputation for being responsive, consistent, and prudent as it relates to credit and we have a good long-term track record for keeping rank credits from moving to loss based on our relationships with our clients. While this unpredictable environment is a new territory for all of us, we'll keep our focus on risk management and believe that our credit quality will remain one of the key differentiators, especially during periods of stress. This quarter, we've added a more granular look at loans by type in the loan risk table on slide 29. This data shows the quality inherent in our portfolio. We're continuing to provide flexibility for our clients through modifications and you'll see those totals in in the table as well. Based on initial requests, we approved approximately $2.1 billion in modification. However, many of those were ultimately not accepted as customers determined they weren't fully necessary. This speaks to the general strength of our customer base. At June 30, we had loan modifications of $1.3 billion on our books, representing 9.6% of the portfolio excluding PPP balances. This includes our proactive offer a six-month deferrals to our practice solution clients, largely dental offices in our business banking group. Our teams are in regular contact with our clients and have ongoing dialogue. Anecdotally, conversations with our CRE customers indicate that a good portion will begin making payments at the end of the deferral period. As we indicated last quarter, a significant number of our borrowers within the sensitive industries have strong balance sheets and sponsors. Well ahead of the pandemic, we had begun the reinvigoration of our retail business, including online banking upgrades, online account opening, and our new Teller platform. We onboarded the second wave of our existing online banking users just days after we moved our branch operations to drive-thru-only in mid-March. Usage has increased, although the timing makes it difficult to fully engage the drivers of the uptake among our customers. The average number of daily online banking users increased by 12% during the second quarter and the number of users enrolled in our personal finance tool in the new platform increased 42% from March to June. Mobile deposit capture has increased 44% since customer access to branches was limited and finally, since our online account opening capabilities fully launched in May, about 17% of our new DDA accounts have been opened through the digital channel. Ultimately, it's clear that a mix of options is important to our customer base and we'll continue to make sure our network has the appropriate capabilities. We continually look at staffing and the use of technology as we transform our digital offering, especially in light of the headwinds we're living through. In closing, I reiterate what I said at the beginning, we're in a sound position to navigate what lies ahead. We continue to manage for the long-term with a strong capital liquidity position, a history of prudent risk management, and diverse revenue sources to help provide buffers in the interest rate environment we're living in. Now, I'll turn it over to Ram to discuss some of the drivers of our results. Ram?