Earnings Labs

Wells Fargo & Company (WFC)

Q4 2007 Earnings Call· Wed, Jan 16, 2008

$81.21

-0.20%

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Transcript

Bob Strickland

Management

Hello, this is Bob Strickland. Thank you for calling in to the Wells Fargo fourth quarter 2007 earnings review pre-recorded call. Before we talk about our fourth quarter and full year results, we need to make the standard securities law disclosure. In this call we will make forward-looking statements about specific income statement and balance sheet items and other measures of future results of operations and financial conditions such as statements about credit quality and future credit losses generally, specifically that we believe the allowance for credit losses is adequate for losses inherent in the loan portfolio at December 31, 2007, and we expect credit losses to be higher in 2008 than they were in 2007. Forward-looking statements give our expectations about the future. They are not guarantees and results may differ from expectations. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we do not undertake any obligation to update them to reflect changes that occur after that date. For a discussion of some of the factors that may cause actual results to differ from expectations, refer to our SEC filings - including the 8-K filed today, which includes a press release announcing our fourth quarter results - and to our most recent annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC and to the information incorporated into those documents. Now, I will turn the review over to our Chief Financial Officer, Howard Atkins.

Howard Atkins

Management

Thanks, Bob. Despite the economic, housing and capital markets challenges in 2007, Wells Fargo's businesses performed well overall and relative to our industry peers. By focusing on the core fundamentals of our time-tested business model, we acquired new customers, solidified relationships through cross-sell, filled in our franchise with valuable acquisitions, grew revenues at double-digit rates once again and at a faster rate than expenses, and maintained our strong capital and liquidity positions. As a result, we generated double-digit growth in revenue, loans, deposits, and fee income for the year. Fourth quarter diluted earnings per share of $0.41 included a previously announced credit reserve build that cost $0.27 per share, largely for expected future losses in our home equity portfolio originated in certain indirect channels through which we are no longer accepting business. To date, the financial services industry has announced over $100 billion in credit reserve builds in asset write-downs. While we were not immune to the adverse economic environment, we largely avoided many of the problems and costly write-downs that other large financial institutions incurred. The $1.4 billion credit provision in excess of charge-offs we took in the fourth quarter to build reserves represents less than 2% after tax of our common equity, significantly less as a percent of capital than almost all the financial institutions which have announced credit-related write-downs or reserve builds. We had double-digit revenue growth of 10.4% for the full year, and revenue rose to a record $10.2 billion in the fourth quarter, up 8% year-over-year on 20% loan growth, 11% core deposit growth, and 8% fee growth. Since we grew revenue more than expenses for the year, we once again had positive operating leverage, reflecting this strong revenue growth combined with disciplined expense management. Our pre-tax, pre-provision profit - that is, our total revenue…