Earnings Labs

Wells Fargo & Company (WFC)

Q2 2011 Earnings Call· Tue, Jul 19, 2011

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Celeste, and I will be your conference operator for today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Wells Fargo Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn today's call over to Jim Rowe, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Jim Rowe

Analyst

Thank you, Celeste, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today, during which our Chairman and CEO, John Stumpf; and CFO, Tim Sloan, will review second quarter results and answer your questions. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that our second quarter earnings release and quarterly supplement 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 containing in the earnings release and quarterly supplement. Information about any non-GAAP financial measures referenced, including a reconciliation of those measures to GAAP measures, can also be found in our SEC filings, in the earnings release and in the quarterly supplement available on our website at wellsfargo.com. I will now turn the call over to John Stumpf.

John Stumpf

Analyst

Thank you, Jim, and good morning, and thanks for joining us today. The results we will review with you this morning are a product of our steadfast focus on 5 key priorities: helping customers succeed, growing revenue, reducing expense, living our vision and values and building strong relationships with our key stakeholders. The second quarter also reflected the strengths of Wells Fargo diversified business model and operating culture which continued to produce record high results in a tough economic business climate. In the second quarter, all of our business fundamentals moved in the right direction, revenues, loans, deposits, expenses, credit and capital. This is how we delivered the highest earnings in Wells Fargo's history with net income of $3.9 billion, an increase of 29% from a year ago, and an EPS of $0.70, up 27% over the same period. Our strong financial performance led to strong internal capital generation, producing an estimated Tier 1 common equity ratio under Basel III capital proposals of 7.4%. We grew capital even as we rewarded our loyal shareholders through dividends and with the reinstatement of our share buyback program during the quarter. The second quarter also included many examples of the ongoing benefit of our merger with Wachovia, beginning with the successful completion of our largest state conversion, Florida. With Florida now operating under the Wells Fargo brand, we have 83% of our banking customers on a single system, a powerful advantage for the future. We have converted 2,215 Wachovia stores as well as 23.7 million customer accounts, including mortgage, deposits, trust, brokerage and credit cards. Our success reflects the tremendous effort made by our entire team. For the conversions in Pennsylvania and Florida alone, team members in our banking stores completed over 217,000 hours of training and practice. To help support our stores…

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. My remarks will follow the slide presentation included in the first half of the quarterly supplement starting on Slide 2. I want to focus my comments today on 4 areas. First, the drivers behind our strong business results this quarter, which included record earnings, up 5% from the first quarter, our highest ROA in 3 years; continued improvement in credit and linked-quarter growth in revenue, loans, deposits and pretax pre-provision profit. Second, as I promised, I will discuss our focus on reducing expenses, including Project Compass and our $11 billion quarterly noninterest expense target by the fourth quarter of 2012. Third, I will update you on our current mortgage issues, including the quality of our servicing portfolio, mortgage repurchases, securities litigation and consent orders and also highlight some of the actions that we've already taken. Finally, I'll conclude with an update on our growing capital levels and capital actions. Let me start by highlighting just how strong our results were this quarter and our many areas of growth. We achieved record EPS of $0.70, up 4% from the first quarter. Our revenue was up $57 million from Q1, with growth in both net interest income and noninterest income. Growth was broad based, with several businesses generating double-digit annualized linked-quarter growth, including corporate banking, commercial real estate, debit card, insurance, international, merchant services, retirement services and SBA lending. Pre-tax pre-provision profit was $7.9 billion, up 4% from the first quarter. Our period-end loans were up $766 million, and average core deposits increased $10.7 billion from the first quarter. The benefit of our continued focus on meeting our customers' lending needs throughout the past few years helped produce loan growth this quarter despite the continued reduction in our liquidating portfolio. Our core loan portfolio, which excludes…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Betsy Graseck with Morgan Stanley.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley

Analyst

I just wanted to make sure. You said you were going to be doing a portfolio review, and you've mentioned that in the context of the expenses. Does that suggest that there would be any revenues impacted by a portfolio review or not?

John Stumpf

Analyst

No. I wouldn't read that into it. We're always looking at our portfolios and what makes sense, but no, I wouldn't go -- that's not our intention.

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

And Betsy, I would just reinforce that the $11 billion target that we set for the fourth quarter of next year assumes revenue growth. We believe that we can achieve that target by continuing to grow our revenues.

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

And Betsy, just let me highlight that. Nothing -- revenues remains king around here. And we think that by becoming more efficient, we actually can grow revenue faster. We'll be more competitive on the Street, so -- and we have, as Tim mentioned in his comments, we have assumed in these numbers, adding more people, putting more feet on the street. And if we see some opportunity between now and the end of 2012, we'll even do more.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley

Analyst

Okay. And then just separately on Page 6, you talked through the NII during the quarter. Can you talk about what kind of mitigating factors you have to deal with, the potential for further earning asset yield compression?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

Well, I think that the key for the business is to continue to grow loans. And we were able to grow loans on a sequential basis, particularly in our wholesale portfolios in the quarter, which was really exciting. We saw a decline in the rate of the drop off in the non-core, nonstrategic portfolios. I think in addition as we mentioned, we purchased about $18 billion of AFS securities, high-quality short-duration assets toward the end of the quarter. We'll continue to look for those types of opportunities. And it's also likely that we'll hold more mortgages that we originate on the sheet.

John Stumpf

Analyst

Especially as the conforming caps come down.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley

Analyst

Right, that's going to happen in September. So as you move into fourth quarter, is there -- can you give us any sense of how much you're expecting to retain relative to current run rate?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

No. We don't have a good estimate for that right now because we're not 100% sure what jumbo origination would be in terms of that mortgage class. But it's likely that we're going to hold more mortgages on the balance sheet than we did in the second quarter.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John McDonald with Sanford Bernstein. John McDonald - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Inc.: Tim, a question on the noninterest expense side and the target. The foreclosed asset expense doesn't decline that much in your target by fourth quarter of 2012. And I guess, does that assume that you're still working through the cycle there, and there's more room to improve that particular line beyond the fourth quarter of 2012?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

That's a reasonable assumption, John.

John Stumpf

Analyst

But I'd also say, John, there are some additional costs because of regulatory reform and some of the consent order that we had to build into our thinking there. John McDonald - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Inc.: Okay. So some piece of that is still cyclically elevated, and some of it's just going to be structurally a little bit higher than it was historically.

John Stumpf

Analyst

Correct. That's a good way of thinking of it.

Keith Horowitz - Citigroup Inc

Analyst

Okay. Another question is you're not a huge International player, but you do have some businesses. Could you comment on your exposure to the troubled economies in Europe and how you think about risks there for your business?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

Sure. Right now, we have $3.2 billion of exposure to the countries affectionately called PIIGS. Most of it -- very little of that exposure is sovereign risk. Most of it's the corporates and bonds. Having said that, one of the real benefits from putting Wells Fargo and Wachovia together was growing our international presence. And our GFITS business is a terrific business. And we'll continue to grow Internationally, but we'd want to do it in a way where we take appropriate credit risk and deal with the right customers.

John Stumpf

Analyst

And John, most of our international business, first of all, it's a very small percentage of our revenue. But as Tim mentioned, it's a business we like a lot. It's a correspondent business for central and international commercial banks. And it's highly biased or skewed towards foreign exchange, trade and those kinds of things, but it's a very small piece of our overall company. John McDonald - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Inc.: Okay. Last question is could you give us any color on where you stand in terms of building reserves for litigation and regulatory matters, including the AG discussions? Is this process of building litigation reserves likely to go on for a while? Any of you?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

Well, here's how I think about that. First, I'm not going to speculate on the ultimate outcome of the discussion with the AGs and the Department of Justice. But the reserves, the litigation reserves we have today, reflect our best estimate of the estimable and probable outcomes of the discussions and conversations we've had. And remember in addition to that, we've also written down the MSR by $2.5 billion to reflect the future costs of servicing those mortgages. And we, of course, have a loan loss reserve that we believe is adequate considering all the discussions we've had. So think of it in those 3 ways. It's our best estimate for what we know today. John McDonald - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Inc.: Okay. And then one quick follow-up, Tim, on Betsy's discussion around the NIM and the NII. So as you look ahead, how would you kind of summarize the puts and takes for the net interest income and the NIM going forward here?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

In terms of what the NIM might look like in future quarters? John McDonald - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Inc.: Just positives and negatives, and where the key variables are. And what leverage you might have, and what environmental factors are going to influence whether you're able to grow NII and keep the NIM stable?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

Well, I think that the key leverage we have is just to continue to grow loans. I mean, we've got -- we've really grown relationships, we've talked about the success of the merger integration. And so that's number one. I think number two, as we talked about in the past, to the extent that rates rise a bit, we'll invest at a faster pace than we're investing our excess liquidity today. Having said that, as we mentioned in the second quarter, we took advantage of some short-duration assets that we found attractive. Again, these are high-quality, well-underwritten. We'll continue to do that.

John Stumpf

Analyst

John, I think of it this way. We have a NIM around 4% now in probably one of the toughest environments I've ever seen. I mean, there's very tepid loan demand. We are winning new relationships, but you got to run pretty hard just to cover the runoff of some things that we'd like to see run off. And this wonderful deposit franchise we have is, I think, really undervalued in today's economic times. So these are pretty tough headwinds and we're doing pretty well in that. And we're also sitting on almost $90 billion of liquidity that's -- we're not even earning the cost of our deposits on that. So I mean, we have some real dry powder here, if you will.

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

And John, just the final point, and that is when you look at one of the reasons that our liability costs came down, it was because we repurchased some drops. As I mentioned, we'll continue to repurchase drops in the second half of the year, as well as the fact that we've got about $20 billion of debt that's going to mature in the second half of the year. And I think we'll reduce our funding cost there too. John McDonald - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Inc.: And can we assume the amount that you deployed this quarter, Tim, was pretty small relative to the $90 billion of liquidity? Can you tell us?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

Yes, that is correct. Yes, absolutely.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Matthew O'Connor with Deutsche Bank.

Matthew O'Connor - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst

Can you comment on the timing of the expense reductions as we think about getting from the mid-12s down to the 11% range over the next, I guess it's 6 quarters? Is that a straight line, front-ended, back-ended?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

Yes. It's not back-ended, and it's probably not going to be front-ended. I don't know if it's going to be at a straight line, but it's probably going to be closer to a continued quarterly reduction, like we've shown for the last couple of quarters, than anything else. Though again, I'd highlight that we could have some seasonal impacts. But the important thing, Matt, is you shouldn't expect the expenses to be flat and then all of a sudden, we'll just have a big drop in the fourth quarter next year. We're going to continue each quarter to reduce our expenses and work hard at doing that.

Matthew O'Connor - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst

And any related restructuring charges that we should expect?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

Not anything that's abnormal, no.

Matthew O'Connor - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst

Okay. And then just different topic. Among the regional and super regional banks, you have a bigger delta between your Basel I and Basel III capital ratios. I think it's about 1.8 % or so. One, can you remind us why there is such a big difference? I think part of it is deductions and part of it's the RWA inflation. And then two, what are some of the opportunities you have to narrow that 1.8% gap?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

Yes. Matt, I'll take you at your word that it's about 1.8%. But the way that we think about it is that historically, Wells Fargo has always felt that it's important to have adequate capital. That's one of the reasons why we got through the downturn as well as we did. So we've been competing against the regional banks, other smaller regional banks with more capital. And we don't believe that's a big issue. I think that the difference is specifically between our sheet, and each bank is just going to be kind of bank by bank.

John Stumpf

Analyst

Matt, I'm little confused. I thought the big banks we compete with have a bigger delta between I and III, but...

Matthew O'Connor - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst

No, I'm sorry. I meant versus other regional. I guess I tend to think about you...

John Stumpf

Analyst

No. On the regional side, I get it. But surely, not on the big side.

Matthew O'Connor - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst

Right. So your gap is less, but I think all things else being equal, you'd like it to be even less than it is...

John Stumpf

Analyst

Yes. Less is good in this case.

Matthew O'Connor - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst

So are there opportunities to...

John Stumpf

Analyst

If there -- we're always looking at that, but we're not going to do anything stupid or anything that doesn't make business sense. I don't worry about us getting to whatever our number will be. We're growing capital very quickly now, and we're going to do the right thing for the business and for our customers. And I wouldn't do something different just because I'm trying to figure out some way to narrow that gap or that we have a challenge getting to that number.

Matthew O'Connor - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst

Okay. And then just lastly, it's a little bit of an annoying, an accounting question on the accretable yield. But on Page 32, you showed the accretable yield balance coming down by about $1.1 billion or $1.2 billion, the weighted average life increasing. And I'm just trying to understand what drove both the accretable yield balance down much more than the accretion that came into earnings, and then why the average life. I assume it's related, but why that increased?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

You're right, Matt. When you look at the PCI accretable yield, it was down about $1 billion from the first to the second quarter. About half of that was reduction -- was the normal accretion which we recognized in NII this quarter. The other half was due to a decline in our expected cash flows. This decline was driven by, primarily by Pick-a-Pay. Again, we'll call these our lifetime estimates. We update these quarterly. They can be affected by interest rates, liquidation timing, loan modification activity. I think the important thing to remember is that the projected accretion is still significantly better than we had at acquisition. At acquisition, we thought this would be about $10.4 billion. We're at $14.9 billion this quarter. So even after netting out the $6.1 billion of accretion we've recognized since the merger, we're still higher.

Matthew O'Connor - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst

And the pace that, that accretes into earnings, we can think about the remaining balance of roughly $13 billion. That's 10 years, so it's going to be with us at a similar pace more or less for quite some time?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

Yes. It's been pretty steady, so I think that's a fair way to look at it, Matt.

John Stumpf

Analyst

Good way of thinking of it.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Miller with FBR Capital Market. Paul Miller - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: There's been a lot of stuff -- earnings out as far as I'm all over the place. But did you address the loan demand? And also especially like, I think you had a big drive this year to drive small business loans. And I wonder, can you give us an update on that?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

Yes. We did address loan demand. Our loans were up sequentially from the first to the second quarter by $766 million. The core loan portfolio grew $5.8 billion from the first quarter. The loan growth was strongest in our commercial portfolio at $7.5 billion, which is up about 2% from the quarter. And then the runoff of the liquidating portfolio was down about $5 billion. And one of the areas that we grew -- I think we got an award actually, in the second quarter for the SBA who is our small business area. And those loans were up. Small business or SBA. Paul Miller - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: There's been a couple banks out there saying that in mid-May, they saw loan demand kind of dry up due to some of the headlines from the debt ceiling talks in overseas. Have you seen loan demand consistent throughout the quarter and even into July?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

We saw loan demand consistent throughout the quarter. Overall. Every area is going to be a little different, but overall loan demand was pretty consistent. And I think that just -- that reflects the balance of our diversified model. We're not dependent on one specific area, which is pretty exciting.

John Stumpf

Analyst

Not only -- but also by geography.

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

By geography too.

John Stumpf

Analyst

Yes. And by product type. Paul Miller - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: So did you see consistent across geography? Was there certain areas that you saw better loan demand than others?

John Stumpf

Analyst

It's not necessarily by geography different, but surely, difference based on the kind of business it is. Those who have commodities that they're selling, as commodity prices go up or down, you'll see more inventory financing. Agriculture, we're the largest U.S. lender to agriculture and people putting crops in and doing things and buying fertilizer, we're financing. That's just more, I would say, business-specific or industry-specific as opposed to geography-specific.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Fred Cannon with KBW. Frederick Cannon - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc.: I just wanted to follow up on the capital discussion. I mean, we are expecting to get some word this week out of the Basel committee on how they define global systemically important companies. I'm wondering, any thoughts in terms of where Wells falls into that? Your thoughts on that, number one. And number two, with 7.4% Tier 1 common under Basel III, that looks quite healthy relative to the 7%. Should we expect continued capital accumulation in the next year or 2, or can we expect that to level off at some point?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

Fred, we did get more information since the last call. And now the beta ask [ph] seems to be between the 1% and 2.5%. And they also shared, as you've all read, some of the criteria that gets you closer to the 1% or closer to 2.5% based on size, interconnectedness, complexity. On some of those measures, we don't even hit the scale. We're so -- whatever the opposite of interconnected is, not connected and not complex. So we've not been told our number, and we'll know more as you'll know more. But my expectation is that whatever the number is, I'm expecting it to be in the low to moderate side. And whatever you add that to the 7%, I just don't see this is an issue for us, as I mentioned in my comments. And we can't wait here to return more capital to our shareholders, our very loyal stockholders for a long time. And if you think of the kind of earnings we have today and the capital accumulation. I mean, you can just do your own math. This is just not a big issue for us as I see it today. Frederick Cannon - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc.: Great, okay. And just on that, John, once we get those numbers, would you like to operate any kind of strategic sense of where you'd like to operate, how much of above that or pretty close to it?

John Stumpf

Analyst

Wells Fargo has always had this bias and view of strong capital. We even did that before Basel -- I even knew where Basel was or anything about the accords. And that's the history of the company, and what it gives you is the financial flexibility to do a Wachovia or do strategic things that really are important at a time when that capital really matters then. But we'll have to see what the numbers are and what the rules are and how it all comes down. So it's a little too early to comment on that. But again, just we've got another 6 quarters or so before the start of 2013, and I just don't see this as a big issue. Frederick Cannon - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc.: And just one more in terms of the loan growth, one thing I don't think you've talked about too much was credit cards. It looks like you got some pretty good fee growth quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year. It's still a relatively small portfolio compared to your peers. Any color on that, portfolio or opportunities?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst

Sure. So we have something in the range of 28 million plus retail checking accounts, and the penetration of credit cards in the East is about 14.5% of our retail checking accounts have a credit card. It's 2.5 or 3x more than that on the West. We think there's huge opportunity here. And I can't wait to get a credit card in every one of our customers, our credit-worthy customers' wallets. And not only get in there, to be the dominant card or the primary card. So I think there's huge organic opportunity here. We like that business from a customer perspective, and not only for the transaction volume that they do. But it's a good -- it's another payments product. So we think there's big opportunity. And again, we're growing checking accounts also very quickly. So as we're catching the train, the train is also moving here, which is a good thing. Net checking accounts are up, on the retail side, 7% year-over-year. Those are big numbers because it's off a big base.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Moshe Orenbuch with Credit Suisse. Moshe Orenbuch - Crédit Suisse AG: Could you expand a little bit in terms of your earlier comments, John, about capital deployment and how you see kind of the mix between further purchases of drops, stock buyback, you've done obviously some of both this quarter, and whether any acquisitions for cash also fit into that category?

John Stumpf

Analyst

Okay. Again, so let's start with the idea that we like a strong capital position. It's part of our history. We have some instruments, some hybrids that are not going to fit into the capital regime going forward. And at an appropriate time, and it'll take a process, we will look to deal with those, eliminate some of those. And then the key will be how do you deploy your capital? And I think the first call on capital -- or one of the calls is to support the business. We think we're a growth business. And acquisitions are a part of that, but also organic growth is also part of it, adding people, adding distribution capabilities and so forth. I've said this publicly, the acquisitions that look most opportunistic or promising would be help build out our Wealth, Brokerage, Retirement area. We like that business a lot. We have opportunities to gain share there and have that share be more relative to the share we have in the business, compared to our deposit business. We have opportunities, I think, in the insurance distribution business. We could -- so there's just opportunities like that. With respect to -- and then the rest should be once you get to your numbers, should be returned to shareholders. It's their capital. It's your capital. And we'll do that through -- there's an annual process now to -- with our regulator. And then we'll also -- and part of that is dividends and part of that is stock repurchase, which we've done some in the first half of the year. And so you should expect that we have a strong bias to return capital to shareholders if we can't use it internally or don't need it. Moshe Orenbuch - Crédit Suisse AG: Kind of on a separate question. When I think about that $125 million for the settlement, obviously, country-wide, there's something of an [indiscernible], but even just using their kind of loss expectations, we still would've come up with a higher number. Just can you talk a little bit about how that settlement was reached and what it encompasses?

John Stumpf

Analyst

Well, I won't talk about how it was reached, but I'll talk about how it was -- first of all, think of that as securities. So you've got to separate reps and warranties kinds of settlements and litigation from securities law. This related to securities issues, and it's a settlement that involves most of the purchasers of those securities. You first have to think. So let's think about first of all, securities and then think about reps and warranties. But everything starts with the quality of the portfolio. So you go to Page 20 and look at that portfolio and look at the dichotomy, the differences. And remember, in our numbers, and the 7.2 is also some of the stuff that's on balance sheet. Pick-a-Pay, which is in that. So if you took that out, it'd even be a better number of what we sold. So how I think about the reps and warranties side, the portfolio is different than our competitors. Some of the riskiest or more problematic portfolios we have on balance sheet. And we've dealt with the rep and warranty cost through our PCI process. So we don't live that way. And in our $125 million, it's still a lot of money.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Joe Morford with RBC Capital Markets.

Joe Morford - RBC Capital Markets, LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets.

Just following up on Paul's questions, I guess. CNI balances in particular were up nicely from the first quarter. And I just wonder if you could talk more about what was driving that. Any particular businesses? Was it more kind of large corporate or middle market? Did you see line utilization tick up at all? And any comments just in general on the competitive environment.

Timothy Sloan

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets.

Yes, a good question. I think the first point is that we do not see much line utilization, which makes the growth that much more impressive from my perspective, that's number one. Number two, it was really broad based across the entire wholesale platform. We saw it in commercial banking, real estate, corporate banking, capital finance, asset-backed finance and international. So it was good that it wasn't just based upon line utilization, and it was great that it was broad based.

Joe Morford - RBC Capital Markets, LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets.

And then any comments on the competitive environment right now?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets.

You know what, it's competitive out there. I mean, it's always going to be competitive. I think that depending upon the business, it's probably a little bit more competitive than others. It's probably a bit more competitive at the high end in some of the large corporate when there's investment banking opportunities, but it's certainly a very reasonable environment. We like our chances in this environment, given how much we've grown customers over the last couple of years because we were there for people when things were a little bit tough.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Nancy Bush with NAB Research.

Nancy Bush - NAB Research

Analyst · NAB Research.

Three questions for you. On the Pick-a-Pay portfolio, do you continue to try to convert those loans to a "more normal" type of amortizing loan? Can you just speak to sort of ongoing restructuring efforts in that portfolio?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst · NAB Research.

Absolutely. Yes. I mean, we're trying to, any time we have an opportunity to modify a loan on a makes-sense basis for a customer and for us, we're going to do it. And we'll continue to do that. I think that's one of the reasons why the portfolio continues to perform better than our initial expectations because we got at it very quickly.

Nancy Bush - NAB Research

Analyst · NAB Research.

You have a sense of how -- I mean, at what point will that portfolio essentially disappear? I mean, is there still sort of a half life on it at this point?

John Stumpf

Analyst · NAB Research.

Yes, I would think of it that way. First of all let me just say, on the loans that have an option to them, about 56%. So less than 60% overall today has the Pay option, if you will. And that's down substantially from where it was when we started out. But some of these customers are -- these portfolios were built earlier. The average loan balance is in the 200 range for the ones that were not marked, if you will. And about 1,000 for the ones that were marked. So this will probably behave much like a real estate first mortgage portfolio as it is over time. So there will be a tail here.

Timothy Sloan

Analyst · NAB Research.

But it's a 10-year -- you should think about it as a 10-year portfolio, Nancy.

Nancy Bush - NAB Research

Analyst · NAB Research.

Secondly, I know it's very early on in the expense reduction, of the Project Compass, days. But do you have any sense very roughly at this point, how much of the expense reductions are going to come from sort of frontline branch activities versus non-branch?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst · NAB Research.

Well, most of it's -- very little going is going to come from frontline branch activity. And let me just go back, we've been working on Project Compass for a year. And one of the reasons why we started a year ago is because we wanted to make sure that it was a bottoms-up process. So it was focused on improving how our team members do their jobs and how they interact with our customers, right. It's not hard to reduce expenses at the expense of revenue, right. And we're just not going to do that. We want to continue to grow revenue during this time period. So when you think about Project Compass, I would think about in a reduction in merger integration expenses, we're nearing the tail end of the merger. It's costing us between $400 million and $500 million a quarter. Then you think about the reduction in loss mitigation expenses, and then it's going to come much more from staff and back-office type functions as opposed to the frontline. We want to continue to invest in our frontline bankers and stores as we've done in the East, in our relationship managers in wholesale and our financial advisors in Wealth, Brokerage and Retirement to take advantage of the opportunities we have out there.

John Stumpf

Analyst · NAB Research.

Nancy, I've been convinced for 25 years now that distribution matters. And we were convinced that when people were saying it didn't matter and it wouldn't be around anymore. And now you're having people -- then, everybody said this was just mere [ph], and now you're kind of getting some saying it doesn't [indiscernible]. We think it does. And you should expect more stores, net stores, we're still opening stores. And you should expect more people in the stores in the East. I mean, that's -- we wouldn't be growing the accounts that we are without it. So now that does not mean the store make up might not change. We continue to innovate. I mean today, we have about 5 billion retail transactions a year. And 2.5 billion, half of those, are online. Another 300 million or 400 million are on mobiles. I mean, so we continue to innovate and change. In the store design make up, what we do there, we continue to think about that. But distribution matters big-time.

Nancy Bush - NAB Research

Analyst · NAB Research.

And finally, just Tim, do have an estimate of the tangible book value per share for Wells Fargo? I know that's a metric you guys don't think that much about or really present that much, but do you have the number? And if so, can you just kind of walk us through how you come up with it?

Timothy Sloan

Analyst · NAB Research.

You know what Nancy, Jim will give you a call on that.

John Stumpf

Analyst · NAB Research.

We're so interested in Basel, we don't think of that.

Nancy Bush - NAB Research

Analyst · NAB Research.

Well, unfortunately, the market still does from time to time.

John Stumpf

Analyst · NAB Research.

Seriously, we'll get you that number. And I don't have it at the top. I mean, I...

Operator

Operator

Your final question will come from the line of Chris Mutascio with Stifel Nicolaus. Christopher Mutascio - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Two quick questions. Do your litigation reserves take into account the civil money penalties that could be coming about from the federal regulators and/or the AG settlements that may be coming?

John Stumpf

Analyst

It's the best estimate we have for everything we know today. Christopher Mutascio - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Okay. And then as a follow-up, John, my fear is that the AGs will look at the penalties or fines, whatever they want to do, and they'll prorate it based on originations or based on servicing book and not based on the quality of the servicing book, which you showed in your slides, is much better than others. Is my fear justified? And if it is justified, do you balk and take your chances in court?

John Stumpf

Analyst

I think what we should think about that is that our portfolio is different from others. And we're very proud of the prudence we had. We didn't do everything right, but the prudence we had. And we tell the Wells Fargo story in plain English when we have those kind of discussions. Christopher Mutascio - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Are they listening?

John Stumpf

Analyst

We say it in plain English. Thank you very much. Very much appreciate all of you on the phone. And we will see you next quarter at this time. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's Wells Fargo Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. You may now disconnect.