Earnings Labs

WSFS Financial Corporation (WSFS)

Q3 2016 Earnings Call· Fri, Oct 28, 2016

$72.21

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the WSFS Financial Corporation Third Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I’d now like to introduce your host for today’s conference Mr. Dominic Canuso, Chief Financial Officer. Sir, you may begin.

Dominic Canuso

Analyst

Thank you, Kelley and thanks to all of you for taking the time to participate on our call today. With me on this call are Rodger Levenson, Chief Corporate Development Officer; Paul Geraghty, Chief Wealth Officer; Steve Clark, Chief Commercial Banking Officer; Rick Wright, Chief Retail Banking Officer; and welcoming our newest member of the management team Patrick Ward, Market President of PA. Before I hand it over to Rodger Levenson, I would like to read our Safe Harbor statement. Our discussion today will include information about our management’s view of our future expectations, plans and prospects that constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from historical results or those indicated by these forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, the risk factors included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and our most recent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, as well as other documents we periodically file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that read, I’ll turn the discussion over to Rodger.

Rodger Levenson

Analyst

Thank you, Dominic. And thank you to everyone on the call for your time and attention today. As Mark is traveling on preplanned business, I will be providing our regular overview comments. Mark will be joining Dominic and me visiting with investors on the road and at an investor conference over the next few weeks to discuss a significant quarter in our Company’s path to high performance. At the end of my remarks, our team will be happy to answer any questions. The third quarter of 2016 was an important quarter for WSFS as organic loan, deposit and fee income growth were supplemented with several steps to strengthen our franchise, in line with our 2016 to 2018 strategic plan. In mid-August, we closed and successfully converted the Penn Liberty franchise into WSFS. We now have 28 offices in Southeastern Pennsylvania and are very excited about our prospects for future growth in this market under the leadership of Pat Ward and Brian Zwaan. During the quarter, we also announced that we had acquired Powdermill Financial Solutions, a local family office. And shortly after the quarter, we announce the acquisition of West Capital Management. Both, Powdermill and West significantly enhance our wealth management business. Finally, we proactively resolved a longstanding and our largest problem loan. I will provide more details on this situation and overall asset quality in a few minutes. WSFS recorded net income of $12.7 million and earnings per share of $0.41 for the third quarter. Excluding the $0.02 per share impact of securities gains and expected $0.12 per share of corporate development expenses, our earnings per share were $0.51 for the quarter. Our core net revenue grew 20% when compared to the third quarter of 2015, reflecting both strong organic and acquisition growth as well as the diversity of…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Catherine Mealor with KBW. Your line is open.

Catherine Mealor

Analyst

Rodger, could you give us just a little bit of color also on the three NPLs that you disclosed that moved into the NPL bucket this quarter?

Rodger Levenson

Analyst

Yes. So, one of from, the largest, a little over $5 million of commercial real estate loan and then it was two smaller C&I relationships, all local relationships.

Catherine Mealor

Analyst

And were any of these acquired loans or are these legacy loans?

Rodger Levenson

Analyst

One of them was an acquired loan, the other two were the legacy loans.

Catherine Mealor

Analyst

And as you look at your level of classifieds and potential problem credits, do you foresee another larger flow in of credits in the coming quarters or do you feel like the level of inflows with the C&I workout and then these were maybe a little elevated this quarter from you think you will see near-term?

Rodger Levenson

Analyst

So, I’d say from a classified asset standpoint, our inflow has been very modest. And obviously the impact of that one large loan going out was offset with that modest impact of the inflow, which resulted in a slight improvement in that ratio. We did have two credits move into the criticized bucket. As I said in my comments though, those are two longstanding relationships that are having temporary cash flow issues, which we think would be resolved in the near term future. And beyond that, negative migration was very, very modest.

Catherine Mealor

Analyst

And then maybe another question on the Powdermill and West Capital deals. Is there any way you can quantify the impact you think that’s going to have on bottom line income or fee growth, just to try to frame potential earnings impact there?

Paul Geraghty

Analyst

Catherine, this is Paul Geraghty. First of all, both of them are mature and relatively high-margin businesses. So, we expect, although relatively small compared to WSFS in total, they will be accretive from day one to the bottom line. And we believe that both with respect to our installed customer base, particularly commercial customers, will give them growth and will help us do a much better job, holistically meeting the needs of our entire customer base, but particularly our commercial business owners who through West can finally receive a comprehensive planning approach from WSFS, as well as using some of our legacy, trust and wealth products to implement those plans in addition to getting some new products delivered by either Powdermill or West.

Catherine Mealor

Analyst

Did these deals -- maybe, asked another way, you talked about a low teens organic fee income growth rate as we go into 2018. So, do these deals move that into like more of a mid teens range or does that just really help you get there to that low teens growth rate?

Dominic Canuso

Analyst

Hi, Catherine. This is Dominic. It’s a good question. To put that in perspective, we can speak to our outlook for the fourth quarter. And you’re correct, we do expect organic growth in fee income to be in the low tees year-over-year. These new acquisitions would bring that up to the high teens for the fourth quarter. And then obviously that would be step up point into 2017 and beyond and also help deliver our fee mix that we’re looking for growing from the 35% range we’re today towards to the 40% in our strategic plan.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Joe Gladue with Merion Capital Group. Your line is open.

Joe Gladue

Analyst · Merion Capital Group. Your line is open.

Just staying on the wealth management area. Could you just give us a little more color on the decline in revenues from second quarter to third quarter?

Paul Geraghty

Analyst · Merion Capital Group. Your line is open.

Hi, Joe, it’s Paul Geraghty again. The second quarter contains a significant slug of revenue that goes with the tax preparation, which means that the second quarter for us is typically seasonally higher than the other three quarters. And I always like -- when I look at our growth, I always like to compare the present quarter with the same quarter prior year, and there I think we have -- we continue to have meaningful growth.

Joe Gladue

Analyst · Merion Capital Group. Your line is open.

Okay. I thought it might be the tax issue; I just wanted to be sure. Moving on, I guess, yes, I see you put some details in the press release on the impact of accretion on the net interest margin. But I’d just like to make sure I understand what the -- how much that changed from the second quarter, basically I think 9 basis points this quarter. How does that relate to where it was last quarter?

Rodger Levenson

Analyst · Merion Capital Group. Your line is open.

So, Joe, good question. So, as we mentioned in the second quarter the impact on the quarter of the debt raise was about 2 basis points, so it increased 7 basis points quarter-over-quarter for the full nine. Joe, is your question about purchase accounting accretion?

Joe Gladue

Analyst · Merion Capital Group. Your line is open.

Yes. And again, I think there was some of that in the second quarter and some in the third; just wondering how much that changed from quarter to quarter?

Rodger Levenson

Analyst · Merion Capital Group. Your line is open.

Yes. So, all-in, purchase accretion was 11 basis points in the second quarter and it was 15 basis points in the third quarter.

Joe Gladue

Analyst · Merion Capital Group. Your line is open.

Okay. Thank you. That’s helpful. And lastly, again, sort of looking back at the last quarter, I think on the last conference call, you mentioned that there was I think a $35 million construction loan that was expected to pay in the third quarter, and just trying to make sure I understand the ins and outs; did that actually occur or is that still in there maybe?

Steve Clark

Analyst · Merion Capital Group. Your line is open.

Yes. Joe, this is Steve Clark. There are actually two loans that we anticipated paying off during the quarter and in fact, they have paid off. There was approximately $40 million in total of CRE loans that moved into the permanent market during the quarter.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Frank Schiraldi with Sandler O’Neill. Your line is open.

Frank Schiraldi

Analyst

Rodger, on the C&I credits, you mentioned that moved. I think you said one CRE, two C&I credits that moved into non-performing status. Is there any common thread between the two C&Is that went into NPA, the one that were paid off at a discount in the quarter? Any common threads in terms of industry or can you give us maybe a little bit more color on the two that went into NPA?

Rodger Levenson

Analyst

Yes. So, the short answer is no. They are really very, very discreet situations. Although they are all local, they were in different parts of our footprint. And the two smaller C&I loans that I mentioned was one -- they are both very relatively small I’d say an operating company basically related to financial services and the other one was the hospitality related credit. But totally unrelated, had nothing to do with the larger credit. And the one larger real estate loan is CRE loan. [Technical Difficulty] it was just issue with vacancy and the global cash flow with the sponsor and again in a different part of our footprint.

Frank Schiraldi

Analyst

Okay. And where, are these all Delaware loans or any Southeast PA?

Rodger Levenson

Analyst

It’s a combination, little bit of stuff in Delaware and Southeastern PA, as well as on Northeast Maryland, all close to Wilmington.

Frank Schiraldi

Analyst

And then just if I X out the delta in the provision versus what we were looking for, and I think about credit costs going forward that you guys outlined your expectations for 4Q or what you’re targeting I guess. It seems like you sort of on a core basis reported something close to a $0.60 number. Is that a reasonable run rate going forward?

Rodger Levenson

Analyst

Well, I think if you normalize out the one large credit situation that gets you close to that. I think the other components of the credit costs for this quarter were kind of a mix bag of a bunch of different things. So, it’s kind of hard to pin in exact impact of what kind of a normalized impact of that would be. But, I think you are in the general range.

Frank Schiraldi

Analyst

And to see, if you could remind us on your targets -- your expectations, ROA, you mentioned a little bit, the 1.25, is that -- of course and sustainable 1.25 ROA that you’re targeting, is that as of 4Q 2016? And then, do you have an additional target out there longer term?

Rodger Levenson

Analyst

So, it is a core and sustainable Q4 2016 and then the only additional target we have at this point is our goal to be at 1.30 by the Q4 of 2018. We’ll obviously be updating guidance once we complete our budget for 2017 and talk a little bit more about ROA goals for next year as part of the fourth quarter conference call.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Stan Westhoff with Walthausen & Company. Your line is open.

Stan Westhoff

Analyst · Walthausen & Company. Your line is open.

I just had a quick question about the component costs of the transaction in the corporate development line. Can you give us a little of bit extra color on what was included in that?

Rodger Levenson

Analyst · Walthausen & Company. Your line is open.

So, there is a variety of onetime costs that one through that corporate development line. Exiting leases, payments of various contractors including to some employees, other contractual arrangements we have; it’s really broken up amongst a pretty wide variety of categories.

Stan Westhoff

Analyst · Walthausen & Company. Your line is open.

Okay. Actually that’s all I really had.

Rodger Levenson

Analyst · Walthausen & Company. Your line is open.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we have a follow up from the line of Joe Gladue with Merion Capital Group. Your line is open.

Joe Gladue

Analyst

Actually, you’ve answered it again. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And I am showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back to Mr. Levenson for closing remarks.

Rodger Levenson

Analyst

Thank you. And thanks for everybody for taking the time. As I said, Dominic, Mark and I’ll be at the on the road and at an investor conference over the next 30 days, and we hope to see many of you during that period of time. Thanks again.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today’s conference. This does conclude the program and you may all disconnect. Everyone have a wonderful day.