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Wells Fargo & Company (WFC)

Q4 2009 Earnings Call· Wed, Jan 20, 2010

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Celeste and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Wells Fargo fourth quarter earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator instructions) Thank you. I would now like to turn today’s call over to Mr. Bob Strickland. Please go ahead, sir.

Bob Strickland

Management

Good morning. This is Bob Strickland, Director of Investor Relations at Wells Fargo. Thank you for joining us on our call today where John Stumpf and Howard Atkins will review fourth quarter and full year 2009 results and answer your questions. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that our fourth quarter earnings release and financial supplements are available on our website. I’d also like to caution you that we may make forward-looking statements during today’s call and that those forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are detailed in our SEC filings, including the Form 8-K filed today and the earnings release and financial supplement included as exhibits. In addition, some of the discussion today about the company’s performance will include references to non-GAAP financial measures. Information about those measures, including a reconciliation of those measures to GAAP measures, can be found in our SEC filings and in the earnings release and financial supplement available on our website at wellsfargo.com. I will now turn the call over to the Chairman and CEO, John Stumpf.

John Stumpf

Management

Thanks, Bob, and thanks to everyone who has joined us this morning on this call. We appreciate your interest in Wells Fargo and look forward to reviewing our results and answering your questions. First, let me say how proud I am of all the dedicated Wells Fargo team members across the nation who put forth tremendous effort to help us achieve strong results throughout the year. In my 28 years at Wells Fargo, I believe 2009 was the best year we ever had in terms of positioning us for the future growth. Looking back at where we were last year at this time, I believe our business is better in virtually every aspect. We generated record earnings, strengthened our balance sheet, and removed a great deal of risk from our businesses. We generated significant capital, both internally and externally, ending the year with capital ratios higher than they were before we completed the Wachovia merger. I couldn’t feel better about the opportunities ahead. With a company that is twice the size it was in 2008, we see tremendous opportunity ahead as we continue to integrate our two companies. The merger with Wachovia is exceeding all of our expectations in terms of expense savings, successfully meeting integration milestones, the quality of our team members and customers, and the opportunities we see together going forward. Now to be sure, we’ve had – we’ve all had to manage through a lot of change and uncertainty over the past year. While the economy is starting to show some signs, positive signs, and pockets of stability, the unemployment rate is still too high and housing price improvement continues to be spotty. No doubt, there will be surprises ahead. But the business model that has served Wells Fargo well for over two decades, focus on diversification…

Howard Atkins

Management

Thanks, John. I’d like to cover four topics in the next 20 minutes or so and then John and I would be happy to open up the call for your questions. Four things I’d like to talk about; first, a quick recap of our fourth quarter results; secondly, I’ll give you our take on credit quality; third, I’d like to give you an update on Wachovia and how credit expenses, revenue synergies have performed compared to our acquisition model and integration objectives; and I’ll conclude with a few remarks about the strength of our balance sheet and our capital. So let me talk about the fourth quarter. Our results in the fourth quarter were a great ending to what we think was a pretty remarkable year. The $2.8 billion we earned in the fourth quarter capped a record annual profit of $12.3 billion. And the key to these results, as John says and as it has always been at Wells Fargo, is revenue, which reached a record $22.7 billion in the fourth quarter, up 4% annualized linked-quarter. Revenue growth at the company was solid across many of our diverse business lines, including wealth management, which had 21% revenue growth annualized linked-quarter; our investment banking business, up 25%; our insurance business, up 23%; and our auto business, up 14%. And you can see just how diverse that list of businesses is that had some strong revenue growth. Our mortgage business once again contributed to revenue growth with $94 billion in originations, very similar to the strong third quarter volume, and solid results in our mortgage servicing business. Hedging results in the mortgage business were strong again this quarter, and in fact could remain relatively high as long as short-term rates remain low and the hedge performs effectively. Our actual hedge results…

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Matt O'Connor. Matt O'Connor – Deutsche Bank Securities: Good morning.

John Stumpf

Management

Good morning.

Howard Atkins

Management

Good morning, Matt. Matt O'Connor – Deutsche Bank Securities: First question is on the mortgage business. And I guess I always think about two pieces, the core business, which seems to be doing well and the pipeline strong heading into 1Q, and then the hedging part of it. And if I recall, I think you basically said as long as the yield curve stays steep and you keep the current hedge on, we can expect continued hedge gains. And I guess I just want to circle back on that if we can expect additional gains going forward.

Howard Atkins

Management

First I’d like to say, as I mentioned before, we do manage this very holistically. So separating the products is not necessarily the best way to looking at the business in terms of how we manage the hedge. But the – as I said, if short-term rates remain low and you can make up your own – you have your own forecast about that, that does contribute to the run rate earnings on the hedge. And finally, this is a very dynamic process. We adjust the hedge daily. As you would expect, this is a very big portfolio and should our views on rates change and our estimates on what rate changes may do to both sides of the business change, we could very well decide the amount that we hedge. So – a complicated answer, but this is very dynamic. Short-term rates should remain low for a while. Net-net, that should be a plus to the profitability of the business. Matt O'Connor – Deutsche Bank Securities: Okay. And then separately, with you acquiring the remaining stake of Prudential joint venture, the earnings stream, I assume, kicks in this quarter?

John Stumpf

Management

Yes, that is correct, Matt.

Howard Atkins

Management

So we have 100% of the earnings of the business now. Matt O'Connor – Deutsche Bank Securities: And remind us what the annual pickup in earnings will be from that.

Howard Atkins

Management

We haven’t disclosed that amount. It will be what it will be. Matt O'Connor – Deutsche Bank Securities: Okay.

John Stumpf

Management

But their interest is about 23% of the business. And all the earnings plus all the cross-sell and so forth accrues to our shareholder. Matt O'Connor – Deutsche Bank Securities: Okay. Thank you.

John Stumpf

Management

Thank you, Matt.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) Your next question comes from the line of Nancy Bush. Nancy Bush – NAB Research: Quick question here on capital markets. Given the resurgence of the Glass-Steagall arguments, could you just speak to sort of the breadth of your capital markets operations here? And if indeed you ever had to split them off, would it be a big loss?

John Stumpf

Management

Good morning, Nancy. This is John. With the merger of Wachovia, we are a much larger commercial bank. And one of the great assets we got as part of the merger was a terrific team of folks from Wachovia in investment banking business. I view this as additional product, a way for us to add service to those customers who are already doing business with. Some of the proposals that I have seen, and who knows what’s going happen, about going back to the future or splitting something off or requiring additional capital tends to be for those riskier parts of the investment banking business, proprietary kinds of lending, structured activity, I’ve not heard much about splitting the baby around the so-called flow business, which we think is where we can add value to our customers. But who knows what’s going to happen, but I don’t – whatever happens surely would have a smaller impact in this company than our peer group. Nancy Bush – NAB Research: Could you just remind us what parts of the capital markets businesses basically have been downsized or shut down since you took them over from Wachovia?

John Stumpf

Management

Yes, they had activities that did not, for the most part, start with customers and relationships. And most of the things that we kept and are actually growing and developing start with the customer. And it’s customer-focused. Yes, but didn’t have that, just started with the customer, we’ve tended to not grow that or actually shrink that or get out of some of those businesses. Nancy Bush – NAB Research: Okay. And just as a final question, could you just update us, John? I mean, we’ve seen all the numbers for the Wachovia integration, but what has actually started to happen at the Wachovia branch level as far as cross-selling products, et cetera, because here in New Jersey it’s sort of not really visible yet?

John Stumpf

Management

Yes. Well, it will be coming to New Jersey. Every day we get one day closer to that. As I think Howard mentioned, I think you know, this process will likely take us three years, give or take. The first year we spent a lot of time on the plumbing and wiring, getting teams in place, and we did do one overlapping market. Those are the one you need to do first because you have Wachovia and Wells’ customers most doing retail business in the same market. So – and we are going to finish the rest of the overlapping early – or during this year, and we will get to some of the eastern markets later this year and then you will see the big push from a signage perspective in the east later this year and next year. But even before that, we have – we are increasing the number of bankers in the stores. We are learning from each other about great sales and great service. But I think the notice will change, as we probably will come to New Jersey. You will see more of that at the time of the actual changeover. Nancy Bush – NAB Research: And there is no pressure at this point to – you know, given the sort of competitive nature of the business to accelerate that sort of cross-selling timeframe et cetera?

John Stumpf

Management

Well, actually, Nancy, I looked at our numbers for the fourth quarter and I am more than pleasantly -- in fact I’m thrilled about how the quality of our – of the folks on the East, if you will, legacy Wachovia and the proficiency of their cross-sell and their selling, they are coming from a lower sales base largely because they have not enough bankers in their stores. But if you take sales per banker, I am thrilled with what we are seeing. So – and we have more opportunity there because the holding – the product holdings by those retail households is less than what it is on the Wells’ side, it's a huge opportunity. And that’s only one part of the business. I mean, we’ve – on the middle market and the wholesale side, there is a lots of terrific things happening in the East, but I know people tend to focus when you think about stores on the retail side. Nancy Bush – NAB Research: Okay. Thank you.

John Stumpf

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Betsy Graseck. Betsy Graseck – Morgan Stanley: Hi, good morning.

Howard Atkins

Management

Good morning.

John Stumpf

Management

Hi, Betsy. Betsy Graseck – Morgan Stanley: Hi. Couple of questions. One is on capital and obviously you did raise capital, got out of TARP last quarter. Could you just give us a sense as to how much credit you’ve got? You think you got from the regulators in the losses that you had booked upfront with the WB transaction. In other words, did you get credit for those losses in the calculation in your opinion?

John Stumpf

Management

I’d say it this way, Betsy. We know, as we look at our own balance sheet and capital, that typically we have less risk than many of our large peer banks. And one of the areas we have less risk is because we’ve already taken the hit on the PCI portfolio when we did the merger. That concept does form the basis of how we talk to the world, including regulators, about our company and how much capital we need as an organization. So I can’t tell you whether any specific numerical amount was taken into account, but the fact that we have so de-risked, we've taken so much risk out of the Wachovia portfolio, certainly in our view, and we believe in the people we talk to, it does form part of the basis of how much capital is adequate for this company. Betsy Graseck – Morgan Stanley: Okay. And then as you outlined, at the margin credits getting less bad because of some better than initially affected outcomes in some of the portfolios, right, that you bought from WB, could you give us a sense as to how you are thinking about capital generation and reallocation? I mean, what kind of trigger points do you need to see to either reinvest more aggressively or to distribute capital to shareholders?

John Stumpf

Management

Well, I would – Betsy, I’d say it this way. This company has had a long history of growing capital organically, which is always the best way. And as we look at capital – the first calling capital in my mind is to grow the business and fortify the balance sheet, and then we surely want to distribute “excess capital” to our shareholders. Dividends is one way to do that. One of the toughest decisions we had to make last year was cutting our dividend. We surely want to get back to a more appropriate dividend level as soon as practical. Of course, that’s a decision that is with the Board, and I’m sure they are going to want to see or at least consider and take into their consideration a turn in the economy or some positive signs and so forth. But as you look at capital, as Howard mentioned, I think you need to look at the risk of the organization, we have – we are not in a lot of the risk businesses. We don’t have big trading account and so forth. This is a community-oriented, customer-focused kind of business that we do. And also we are not naïve to what other levels of capital are around the world frankly. And so we will just see how things go, but we are comfortable with our capital position and we’re surely comfortable with the way we’re growing capital today. Betsy Graseck – Morgan Stanley: Okay. I mean, obviously you’ve got some proposals out from Basel at the end of the year. How much – have you taken a look at those? And is there any – maybe you would do differently with the business model based on what’s being proposed?

Howard Atkins

Management

Yes. That’s very preliminary.

John Stumpf

Management

That’s 2012 and –

Howard Atkins

Management

Obviously, we take a look at all those stuff, but it would be highly speculative to even comment on that. Betsy Graseck – Morgan Stanley: Okay. And then just lastly on the bank tax that’s been suggested, is this something that you would just pass through to shareholders or do you think that there is any ways that you could potentially offset some of those?

John Stumpf

Management

Let me answer it this way. First of all, we were invited in the TARP. We’ve repaid our TARP. It’s been a very good return to the Treasury and the taxpayer. In addition to that, we have made more loans, and we have not only paid it back, we’ve also honored the spirit of the investment to make loans to help the economy going. And as I talked with our shareholders, other people who are interested in our company, team members, customers, our stakeholders, they are talking to me about jobs. And I don’t understand how additional taxes or a fee disguised as tax at this time helps with growing jobs. Betsy Graseck – Morgan Stanley: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) And you do have a question from the line of Paul Miller. Paul Miller – FBR Capital Markets: Yes. Thank you very much. We’ve seen the housing markets starting to stabilize here and we do know there is a lot of government programs, the government buying mortgage-backed securities in the FHA program, which you saw today that they are going to up some of the down payment and fees on lower FICO scores. How do you think – I mean, how much – we know the government is supporting the housing market, but how stable do you think it really is? And how much pullback can the government do to keep this market where it is today?

John Stumpf

Management

Paul, I – I don’t know. All I know is that all rates have benefited consumers, as we have helped them last year refinance or modify 1.5 million homeowners. And I think your guess is probably as good as mine as what the government might or might not do with respect to supporting housing especially on the long end by buying mortgages. So customers are still buying homes. They are still refinancing. They have needs. We are there serving them and we will serve them whether the rates are little higher or lower, whether the government is more involved or less involved. It is fairly dynamic right now.

Bob Strickland

Management

Operator, any other questions? If not, perhaps we’ll just conclude the call.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) And you do have a question from the line of Andrew Marquardt. Andrew, please state your question. Andrew Marquardt – Macquarie Research Equities: Hi, guys. Can you hear me?

John Stumpf

Management

Yes. Hi, Andrew.

Howard Atkins

Management

Hi, Andrew. Andrew Marquardt – Macquarie Research Equities: Can you guys go back to your credit quality comments talking about 2010, expecting to see peak credit losses with consumer first in the first half and then commercial in the back half? Can you elaborate a little bit about that as well as maybe give some color in terms of will provision costs correlate with those peakings or should we also expect some reserve build to continue?

Howard Atkins

Management

Well, again, as we said last quarter, consumer early in the year, commercial later in the year. I guess, the only slight nuance we’d say is that where we see things peaking a little bit later rather than a little bit earlier, it would be more in the real estate secured portfolios, consumer and commercial rather than the other portfolios. The C&I portfolio, for example, is actually in very good shape right now. As I indicated, non-accruals are down and losses are remaining pretty low. And we are seeing peaking already in a number of the other consumer portfolios. Reserve build is a tougher question to answer. Obviously we don’t provide guidance around that. Obviously we think that the allowance that we had at the end of the year was adequate for the portfolio. But again, this is dynamic. A lot is going to depend on which particular quarter things peak, what the trajectory is after the peak on the way down, so on and so forth. So we feel comfortable with the allowance. We’ll have to see each quarter as we go forward. Andrew Marquardt – Macquarie Research Equities: Is it fair to assume that on the commercial side as NPAs continue to rise or kind of problem assets internally rated, downgraded that reserve build really should continue?

Howard Atkins

Management

Well, again, if you – the point is that commercial real estate peaks a little later and consumer a little earlier. Obviously on the commercial side, that in isolation keeps some pressure on reserving. On the other side, the consumer goes the other way. So really it’s going to depend on how each of these portfolios plays out quarter-by-quarter going forward. Andrew Marquardt – Macquarie Research Equities: Okay. Thanks. And then my second and last question was on the accretable yield balance. I think it’s now $14.6 billion. You mentioned that’s going to be realized over the remaining life of the loans. Can you give a sense of how long that might be and if we should really expect – I think you should it was – the quarterly impact this quarter was $6.10 billion. Is that what we should kind of think about as a run rate or how do we think about that playing out? Thanks.

Howard Atkins

Management

Well, again, most of the – I don’t want to say it. Most of the 6.10 in the quarter or the sort of $2 billion-plus that we recorded in 2009 is in fact the yield on that portfolio. So most of that does carry forward for a period of time. Obviously the portfolio matures, things get (inaudible) in the portfolio, and we can add to that as we continue to improve – if we continue to improve our estimates of the future losses and continue to modify loans. But – so a fair chunk of that is kind of run rate in nature, given the qualifications I just gave you. And as to the remaining life, as you would expect, Andrew, there are portfolios in the total PCI portfolio, which mature over a variety of timeframes. Of course, the big piece of that is the Pick-A-Pay portfolio and that has a relatively longer duration. Andrew Marquardt – Macquarie Research Equities: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ron Mandel [ph].

Ron Mandel

Analyst

Hi. Yes. I –

John Stumpf

Management

Ron, we can’t hear you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Betsy Graseck. Betsy Graseck – Morgan Stanley: Hey, just a follow-up question on rates, I just wanted to understand, Howard, how you’re thinking about the impact of the Fed exit on the fixed income market and how you’re planning on managing the balance sheet for that.

Howard Atkins

Management

Well, that’s a good question, Betsy. And the Fed obviously is active in buying MBSs. And despite the fact that the yield curve is as positively sloped as it right now, their active purchases is a factor that is in some senses artificially keeping long MBS yields lower than they might otherwise be. At some point, presumably they will either gradually or more quickly reverse course and that could lead to an increase in interest rates. And as I mentioned a couple of times in my remarks, in possible preparation for that, we have been keeping our powder dry in effect under-investing this large base of core deposits that we have for the possibility that that reverses course. Betsy Graseck – Morgan Stanley: So you might get some OCI [ph] hit near-term, but dry powder leads you to a better outlook for earnings. Is that the way to think about it?

Howard Atkins

Management

Yes. Again, while the mortgage business is showing good results right now, in effect on the portfolio side, the investment portfolio, we in effect are giving up some current income. We don’t believe in the carry trade, and we do want to preserve some powder in case rates do go up and we will have the powder at that point where we will invest the powder at that point to offset some – whatever is going on in the mortgage business.

John Stumpf

Management

Betsy, actually this as the classic short-term view of the business or long-term view of the business. 400 basis points or something like that, which we make in the carry trade today, is very attractive. But we think it’s the wrong decision long-term because we think the bias is for higher rates, not for lower rates, and we’re willing to wait for that to happen. We think that’s the better trade.

Howard Atkins

Management

But rather than believing the point, we are effectively giving up 400 basis points today for possibly a year or so, maybe plus or minus, to avoid the potential risk of a large number of basis points for 30 years. So the last thing we want to do is get stuck with –

John Stumpf

Management

Correct.

Howard Atkins

Management

– with the securities at these low levels of interest rates.

John Stumpf

Management

Because – I think when rates move, they are probably going to move at some speed and I don’t think there is going to be maybe a quarter. It could be – it could be more than that and it could happen relatively quickly.

Howard Atkins

Management

Also, Betsy, this is the same thing that we did back in 2002, 2003, when interest rates were also at cyclical low points just before they went up a lot. So this is – what we’re doing now is not very different from the way the company has always managed itself. Betsy Graseck – Morgan Stanley: Okay. That’s good color. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John McDonald. John McDonald – Sanford Bernstein: Hey, guys. A question on the mortgage business. I was wondering how much the expense base of your mortgage business is variable and gives you flexibility to manage the slowdown in originations.

Howard Atkins

Management

I don’t have a precise ratio for you, John. But as you know, we manage the mortgage business with a reasonably high content of variable expense. And we do that by design. The mortgage – the people manage our mortgage business have been in this business for the last five cycles, 20 years plus. And we know there is a cycle to the mortgage business. And as a result, we try to keep the expense base of the business as variable as we can keep it. And as you know, the way we’ve done that in the past is when we start seeing applications rise quickly, typically we are adding part timers and peak timers rather than full-time staff, and that gives the ability to move the other way if production slows down.

John Stumpf

Management

And John, you know, all of the producers are on commissions. So that’s all variable. John McDonald – Sanford Bernstein: All right. All right. Okay. And again, on the servicing side, don’t need a number, but just a feel for things. Are the servicing margins getting hit now by the high cost of servicing, modifications, collections? Is that a meaningful impact on your servicing margins at this point?

Howard Atkins

Management

It is an expense, John. I wouldn’t call it necessarily meaningful, but what’s meaningful is if we have devoted significant resources to the modification process. We have 15,000 people now dedicated to doing that. That’s the right thing to do for the customer. We want to keep the customer in the home, and we want to work through all this. And I’d also say finally, we factor any of the costs that we incur in this business are in fact factored into our MSR. John McDonald – Sanford Bernstein: Okay. And then just on NII, just your high-level thoughts on growth or shrinkage in the balance sheet, given the challenge of finding loan demand, your cautious stance about securities and then the run-off portfolio, is that a big challenge to find growth in the balance sheet as you look out over the next year or two?

John Stumpf

Management

John, I would – we've been dealing with that for some time now. And if you look at 2009, we’ve had a lot of challenges and we have – we are hiring more people. There are more feet in the street. We are doing a double look on loans that we turn down to make sure that we’re turning them down for the right reason. And I think that will be a challenge for the industry in 2010 until economy turns around. Now with respect to Wells uniquely, our business model, the fact we have 80-some different horses pulling the coach and that we have such great balance between where our revenue comes from, half from non-interest income, the other half from net interest income, and the geographic diversity we have and some of the new businesses that we are in that we have – we are still sub-optimized we can grow. But I am not saying this can be easy, but we surely – we believe we can outperform on a relative basis in that area. John McDonald – Sanford Bernstein: Okay. And just one final follow-up on that, Howard. Could you just give us a couple sense of the puts and takes on the net interest margin factors that will – positive and negative that kind of influence the outlook on margin as we look ahead.

Howard Atkins

Management

Well, there is lots of puts and takes, including growth in the left hand side of the balance sheet and growth in the right hand side of the balance sheet. Interesting phenomenon in the fourth quarter, we did tick down a couple of BPs in the margin. But interestingly, that in effect was because we had such good deposit growth in the quarter in combination with the loans that were coming off. So the – because of the large deposit growth, the size of the asset base actually remained relatively constant even as loans were declining and that actually diluted the margin a little bit. So that’s just one fact. I think two – I guess my two important points on the margin would be, one, we should continue to have a higher margin than the other big banks in the country because we have such an incredible deposit base. As I mentioned, 87% of our deposits are now in low-cost checking and savings. And that’s growing rather than shrinking. So that’s a good factor. And secondly, as I said before, there's lots of factors going up and down. If loan demand reemerges, we may see a decline in the margin, but that would be good for income. So our focus here is really on net interest income per se, not the margin per se. John McDonald – Sanford Bernstein: Okay. And again, the reason the deposit growth in the fourth quarter was just that you invested it in low-yielding liquid stuff?

Howard Atkins

Management

In fact, not by design, but basically the combination of loans coming down a little bit. Normally if loans come down and your deposits are shrinking, you may not actually get a diminution in the margin. But if your loans are coming down and your deposits are growing, the incremental asset – your assets are not shrinking even though your loan income is going down. So you get a little bit of a diminution in the margin as a result. John McDonald – Sanford Bernstein: Okay. Got it. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Joe Morford. Joe Morford – RBC Capital Markets: Thanks. Good morning, John and Howard.

John Stumpf

Management

Hi, Joe. Joe Morford – RBC Capital Markets: Couple things. First, just following up on Nancy’s question, given the three-year timeframe you talked about for the integration, when can we expect to see the gap narrow between the two companies, retail household cross-sell ratios? And separately, maybe you can talk a bit more about some of the cross-sell progress on the wholesale side?

John Stumpf

Management

I think we’ve mentioned that the – in our release, that the difference is on the legacy Wells side, it is 5.95. On the Wachovia side, it’s 4.70, in that range. So there is a delta. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but you multiply that times 11 million or 12 million households, it’s a lot of products. I can’t give you an exact timeframe as to when that will close, but the way you close it is by adding more people to the Wachovia stores and frankly sharing ideas and working together as one team. So that will close. I think the more interesting thing is, on the Wells side, we are not stopping. In fact, our cross-sell is actually accelerating. We went from 5.73 to 5.95 on the retail side. We grew by almost a quarter of a product per household over the whole fleet in one year, which is tremendous. And that’s because of the great service that we’re providing in the stores. On the commercial side, if you look at the legacy Wachovia business in the middle market, it’s all – you know, that business we like a lot and we are making good progress there in fact. The wholesale side happens to be the cross-sell champions in the company. So we have a new business model on the East in place this quarter. We are seeing good progress. We are working together with each other. So, of all the things I worry about, that’s about the last one. There is great – there are cards and letters going back and forth between the company and each other of how to improve in this area and we’re winning every day. Joe Morford – RBC Capital Markets: Okay, thanks. And then at this point, do you have much interest in pursuing smaller FDIC-assisted transactions to fill in your franchise? And if so, what markets are of the highest priority or interest to you?

John Stumpf

Management

The highest priority I have right now is do Wachovia really, really well. And it – I never say never to anything. But you’ve seen we’ve done nothing this past year on the banking side. And frankly, when we put – when we get this all done, we will have, I believe, the best franchise with more stores in the biggest economy in the world, not to be replicated, it’s just that unique. Are there couple places that we would like something more? Sure. But I view those as – of the top 20 MSAs in the country, we are number one in ten of those. So we have dominant share, and I’ll worry about that sometime later, but all hands are on deck getting Wachovia done really, really well. Joe Morford – RBC Capital Markets: Okay. Thanks, John.

John Stumpf

Management

All right. We are going to be – is there –

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s Q&A portion of today’s conference call. I will now turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

John Stumpf

Management

I want to thank everybody for joining us today. I appreciate your interest in our company, and we will see you in 90 days from now. Thank you much.

Howard Atkins

Management

Thank you, everyone.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s Wells Fargo fourth quarter earnings conference call. You may now disconnect.