Zions Bancorporation N.A (ZION) — Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you, Kyle, and good evening. We welcome you to this conference call to discuss our 2022 second quarter earnings. I would like to remind you that during this call, we will be making forward-looking statements although actual results may differ materially. We encourage you to review the disclaimer in this press release or the slide deck on Slide 2, dealing with forward-looking information and the presentation of non-GAAP measures, which apply equally to statements made during this call. A copy of the earnings release as well as the slide deck are available at zionsbancorporation.com. For our agenda today, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Harris Simmons, will provide opening remarks, followed by a brief review of our financial results by Paul Burdiss, our Chief Financial Officer. With us also today is Scott McLean, President and Chief Operating Officer; Keith Maio, Chief Risk Officer; and Michael Morris, Chief Credit Officer. After our prepared remarks, we will anticipate holding a 30-minute question-and-answer session. During the Q&A, we request that you limit your questions to one primary and one follow-up question to enable other participants to ask questions. I will now turn the time over to Harris Simmons.

Thanks very much, James, and welcome to all of you who are joining our call this evening. Beginning on Slide 3, there are some things that are particularly applicable to Zion's recent quarters as well as those that are likely to be prominent over the near-term horizon. First, as Paul will discuss in greater detail, we think we're in a very good position for rising interest rates. The futures market is pricing in a Fed funds upper target rate of approximately 3.5% by the spring of next year or an increase of about 175 basis points. Our earning assets generally reprice faster and have a higher correlation or beta to the movement in rates and to our liabilities. Despite a typical lag of a month or so for variable rate loans and a longer lag for securities and longer-duration loans, we're already beginning to see significant benefits to asset yields due to recent rate hikes, while funding costs during the quarter remained low and well contained. We also estimate the impact of borrowers' cash flows under significantly higher interest rates when we are underwriting loans, and we expect that the portfolio will perform relatively well in a somewhat higher interest rate environment. Exclusive of PPP loans, our period-end loans increased $1.7 billion or 3.3% annualized during the quarter. We've achieved robust loan growth while maintaining strong underwriting standards. For example, our growth in commercial real estate loans over the past year was just over half the rate of the growth for the industry as a whole. In recent years, our risk selection has been very consistent and has resulted in one of the lowest ratios of net charge-offs to loans in our peer group. It appears that the probability of a near-term recession is more likely than not. We would expect loan growth to slow from the recent double-digit annualized rate. Turning to deposits, we experienced deposit attrition in the most recent quarter as the impact of the Fed's monetary policy tightening started to become apparent. Just over half of the 4% reduction in period-end deposits came from accounts with first quarter balances of $50 million or more, constituting about 11% of our total deposit portfolio. We continue to expect that the granularity of our deposit base will continue to provide us with ample and attractively priced liquidity and funding. We are starting from a position of strength with a securities portfolio that generated more than $900 million of cash flow during the quarter. We're well prepared for a recession, having spent many years increasing concentrations in generally safer loans such as low loan-to-value jumbo residential mortgage loans and loans to municipalities, while significantly limiting or reducing concentrations in high-leverage lending, enterprise value lending, land development and certain other segments within commercial real estate, to name a few. And our capital is strong relative to the risk profile of our balance sheet. Turning to Slide 4. We're generally pleased with the quarterly financial results, which are summarized on this slide. Circled in green, adjusted taxable equivalent revenue net of interest expense increased about 8% relative to the prior quarter. And if excluding PPP income, the increase was about 10%. Adjusted pre-provision net revenue increased 24%, and if excluding PPP, it was a 31% increase. Those growth rates are not annualized. Our credit metrics are very clean. And as previously noted, loan growth was strong when adjusted for PPP forgiveness, while deposits experienced attrition following several quarters of outsized growth. Non-interest expense came in higher than we'd like to see, something Paul will discuss momentarily. Moving to Slide 5. Diluted earnings per share was $1.29. Comparing the second quarter to the first quarter, the single most significant difference was in the provision for credit loss, which was a $0.37 per share negative variance, as can be seen on the bottom-left chart, as we added the loss reserve to reflect the increased probability of an economic slowdown. The other major factor affecting earnings was interest income from PPP loans, which was $0.07 per share this quarter, down from $0.12 per share in the first quarter. Other items that affected earnings per share are noted on the right side of the page. Turning to Slide 6. Our second quarter adjusted pre-provision net revenue was $300 million. The adjustments which most notably eliminate the gain or loss on securities are shown in the latter pages of the press release in the slide deck. Within the PPNR chart, the top portion of each column denotes the revenue that we've received from PPP loans net of direct external professional services expense. These loans contributed $15 million to PPNR in the second quarter. Exclusive of PPP income, we experienced an increase in adjusted PPNR of 28% over the year ago period. With that high-level overview, I'm going to ask Paul Burdiss, our Chief Financial Officer, to provide additional detail related to our financial performance.

Thank you, Harris. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'm going to start from the top. A significant highlight for us this quarter was the strong performance in average and period-end loan growth. Average non-PPP loans increased $1.5 billion or 3.1%, while period-end non-PPP loans increased $1.7 billion or 3.3% when compared to the first quarter. Areas of strength included commercial and industrial, residential mortgage, owner-occupied and home equity, as can be seen in the appendix on Slide 25. The yield on average total loans increased 15 basis points from the prior quarter, which is primarily attributable to increases in interest rates. Average PPP loans declined $658 million to $801 million. Excluding PPP loans, the yield improved 18 basis points to 3.61% from 3.43%. We expect loan balances to increase at a moderate rate of growth by the second quarter of 2023. Deposit costs remain low. Shown on the right, our cost of total deposits was stable at just 3 basis points in the second quarter. Our average deposits declined $718 million or 0.9% linked quarter. Period-end deposits declined $3.3 billion or 4%. A substantial portion of the runoff was attributable to large balance low-activity accounts. Some of our customers experienced merger and acquisition-related activity. While this activity is recurring, the size of some of these transactions over the past several months caused a brief influx of large deposits. And as expected, we've seen much of that money move elsewhere. As Harris noted, we have planned for and are prepared for deposit balance volatility as our customers emerge from the unusual pandemic period. Moving to Slide 8. We show our securities and money market investment portfolios over the last five quarters. The size of the securities portfolio remained flat over the previous quarter as we slowed new securities purchases. Money market investments declined to $3.5 billion, reflecting the decline in period-end deposits. The combination of securities and money market investments is now 36% of total assets at period end, which remains above our pre-pandemic average of 26%. The $1.3 billion of securities purchases in the quarter had an average yield of 2.91%, which is about 80 basis points higher than the prior quarter's yield. We anticipate that securities balances will decline somewhat over the near term. Over three quarters of our revenue is net interest income, which is significantly influenced by loan and deposit balances and associated interest rates. Slide 9 is an overview of net interest income and the net interest margin. The chart on the left shows the recent five-quarter trend for both. While the net interest margin in the white boxes has trended down over the past year, it gained 27 basis points in the current quarter. Also shown is the estimated net interest margin excluding the effect of PPP loans, which improved by about 30 basis points. The largest contributor to improved net interest income is rising rates, combined with our asset sensitivity. As expected, our earning assets are repricing faster than our deposits, resulting in improved net interest income. Over the past year, the decline in PPP-related revenues have largely been replaced with the strategic repositioning of the securities portfolio. Slide 10 provides information about our interest rate sensitivity. The rapidly changing environment has made our traditional disclosures regarding interest rate sensitivity somewhat less useful. Therefore, we are introducing two new terms, latent interest rate sensitivity and emergent interest rate sensitivity. First, I will describe latent sensitivity. Recent increases in interest rates have not yet been fully recognized in net interest income because the balance sheet does not reprice instantaneously. Like a coiled spring, we expect these rate changes, which were in place at June 30, to work through our balance sheet and income statement over the near term. We expect this latent sensitivity to add approximately 15% to our net interest income in the second quarter of 2023 when compared to the second 30. We would expect the forward path of interest rates, as predicted by the yield curve at June 30, would add an additional 8% to net interest income in the second quarter of 2023 when compared to the second quarter of 2022. Both measures assume that earning assets will remain flat and that non-specific maturity deposits will move and reprice in accordance with our interest rate risk modeling assumptions. In other words, and for example, loan growth would be expected to add to net interest income beyond latent and emergent sensitivity estimates, which only consider changes due to rates. With respect to our traditional interest rate risk disclosures, our estimated interest rate sensitivity to a 100 basis point parallel interest rate shock has declined by about two percentage points from the first quarter. This change reflects the recent decline in deposits, an increase in our interest rate swap portfolio and a higher net interest income denominator. In summary, we expect latent and emerging interest rate sensitivity combined with continued loan growth and manageable changes in deposit volumes and pricing to meaningfully increase net interest income over the coming year. Moving on to non-interest income on Slide 11. Customer-related non-interest income was $154 million, an increase of 2% over the prior quarter and 11% over the prior year. As has been noted, we have modified our overdraft and non-sufficient funds practices beginning in the third quarter. We expect these changes will reduce our non-interest income by about $5 million per quarter from the second quarter run rate. Including this reduction, our outlook for customer-related non-interest income in the second quarter of 2023 remains stable when compared to the current quarter. Non-interest expense on Slide 12 was flat to the prior quarter at $464 million. While certain seasonal first quarter items such as share-based compensation reverted to lower levels, that reduction was offset by increased base salaries. Higher base salary expense reflects the inflationary pressures of the tight labor market and an increase in staff as we invest for future growth. Incentive compensation and profit-sharing accruals increased in the current quarter as our expectations have again been reset toward expanded full year PPNR and EPS growth relative to recent expectations. Our outlook for adjusted non-interest expense is to moderately increase in the second quarter of 2023 compared to the second quarter of 2022. Another significant highlight for the quarter was the continued excellent credit quality of our loan portfolio, as illustrated on Slide 13. Relative to the prior quarter, we saw continued improvement in problem loans. Using the broadest definition of problem loans, the balance of criticized and classified loans dropped 7% and classified loans were down 12%. Of course, net charge-offs to average loans is the most important measure of credit quality. We had only 7 basis points of annualized net charge-offs relative to average non-PPP loans in the second quarter, and the loss rate was only 5 basis points in the prior quarter. Shown in the chart on the bottom right, one can see the volatility of the provision for credit loss contrasted with the stability of reported net charge-offs. Slide 14 details the recent trend in our allowance for credit losses, or ACL, over the past several quarters. At the end of the second quarter, the ACL was $546 million or 1.05% of non-PPP loans. The economic scenarios that we use to build our quantitative ACL were stable relative to the prior quarter. However, in our qualitative assessment, we increased the probability of recession. This change in outlook was the primary driver of the increase in the ACL to loan ratio. Our loss absorbing capital position is shown on Slide 15. We believe that our capital position is generally well aligned with the balance sheet and operating risk of the bank. The CET1 ratio is now 9.9%. Our stated goal continues to be that the CET1 capital ratio will remain at or slightly above the peer median which we believe positions us well for unforeseen internal or external risk. We repurchased $50 million of common stock in the second quarter.

As a reminder, share repurchase and dividend decisions are made by our Board of Directors, and as such, we expect to announce any capital actions for the second quarter or the third quarter in conjunction with our regularly scheduled board meeting this coming Friday. The chart on the right side of the Page of 15 shows recent annualized net charge-offs as a percentage of risk-rated assets. We have intentionally matched the scales on both charts so that you can see the order of magnitude of losses incurred during this timeframe relative to the capital set aside for expected losses. The allowance for credit losses and the capital set aside for unexpected losses, in the form of common equity. Given the relatively low level of losses, we feel our capital position is appropriately strong relative to our risk profile. Slide 16 summarizes the financial outlook provided over the course of this presentation, which I will not repeat other than to point out that our outlook for net interest income refers to Slide 10 for the more detailed discussion. As a reminder, this outlook represents our best current estimate for the financial performance in the second quarter of 2023 compared to the actual results reported for the second quarter of 2022. The quarters in between are subject to normal seasonality. This concludes our prepared remarks. Kyle, please open the line for questions.

Just one follow-up on the NII side. And Paul wanted to ask, you've mentioned moderately increasing loan growth and manageable changes in deposit volumes and a likelihood that the securities portfolio shrinks. So, when we think about that increment on top of the emergent and latent, like, could that be a net add to that by 2Q '23? How do we just think about the netting factors of kind of all else X-rates?

If I understand your question correctly, please feel free to follow up if needed. You should definitely view the latent and emergent as two distinct measures that should be combined. In the latent sensitivity measure, there is an assumption that the balance sheet remains relatively stable, while deposits keep flowing according to our projections. All aspects of interest rate risk are incorporated, and these are intended as estimates based solely on rates. Yes, please continue.

Yes. No. So I'll rephrase. Accepting the 15 plus to 8% as the base, then is all other, everything else around mix and loan growth net additive to that base?

The largest part is going to be related to loan growth. And as we stated in our outlook, we expect loans to continue to grow. So, yes, I would expect that to add to that base rate measure.

Can you provide us with an update on the deposit beta? Has it changed at all, and how do you see it progressing in the future? Are there any adjustments to your original forecast, which you previously mentioned would be in the upper teens?

Yes. There's not a change to our original forecast. Although I will say, I think for us and for the industry, given the change in rates that we've seen and probably the change in rates we'll continue to see this week and over the course of the next couple of quarters, my expectation is that we're going to really start to see deposit rate movement across the industry. And I think you're going to see again, my opinion, a separation in banks as it relates to their ability to hold those rates lower. We have not changed our outlook for deposit beta. But as has been noted previously, it might be a little bit lumpy, and I think we're going to start to see those changes.

Back on the NII guide. I definitely appreciated the new quantification there on your outlook that was great to see. But Paul, when you mentioned the deposits continue to churn. Is the thought that you'll still get some measure of net growth through the end of this year over the next year? Is that baked into your guidance? Or when you say churn, is it more like flat or down?

I would say it's likely to be flat to slightly down. My expectation is that, as Harris mentioned in his opening remarks, 50% of the deposit outflows we experienced this quarter were deposits exceeding $50 million. While I believe our deposit portfolio is solid in terms of its characteristics and diversity, we do have some large depositors who are more sensitive to interest rates. Therefore, managing these deposits carefully will be crucial for us over the next six months, but I anticipate that we may continue to see a loss of some of those larger deposits.

Yes. And then just as a quick follow-up, are you thinking that you can just use securities and cash liquidity on the balance sheet to fund net loan growth from here? Do you think you'll have to tap wholesale sources going forward?

That's a little bit of a trickier and somewhat speculative question. My expectation is that we have been generating about $1 billion of principal and prepayment and amortization on the securities portfolio, and that will continue for the next several quarters. So, it's a ready source of cash for us. Part of the reason I said that I expected in my prepared remarks that I expected the securities portfolio to be declining a little bit from here was, in fact, to plan for funding loan growth between both securities portfolio and cash reduction.

On your deposit color that you just mentioned in terms of the flat to down, to the extent that there are incremental declines, should the magnitude of the incremental declines in the back half be less than what you saw this quarter because of the lumpier deposits that were M&A related and drove the downward move?

I'd say that's quite possible, John. In our interest rate risk modeling, I'll note that we do assume that there is, as I said, churn in the portfolio. We assume that demand deposits sort of run away to a relatively small extent or move to interest-bearing. And that's all figured into those deposit beta figures. So as we think about interest sensitivity, our expectation for those changes in the deposit portfolio are already in there. But the most sensitive deposits, I would expect not entirely but perhaps have largely exited for greener pastures.

Got it. Okay. And then separately on the capital front, I know you kind of left the door open on buybacks in your guidance and your commentary, and you bought back 900,000 shares in the second quarter. Can you maybe give us a little bit of color in terms of your outlook and your expectations here given where your capital ratios lie? And is it likely that we could see an increase in the pace of buybacks from where you're at now?

I wouldn't be willing to say that. Ultimately, that's going to be up to the board. I do note that the CET1 ratio decreased slightly, even though our earnings were strong this quarter. We expect our earnings to continue to grow, and the buyback acts as a bit of a buffer as we consider capital growth through earnings and loan growth. Harris, would you like to add anything?

Just to say that, I mean our first preference always would be to use capital to support quality loan growth. And so it will all hinge on that. I mean I think you can see that our expectation is that PPNR is going to be pretty strong here in the next few quarters. And to the extent that loan growth can emerge, that will consume capital. I think it's a fabulous thing. If it doesn't, I expect that we'll be looking at larger amounts of buybacks.

Can you give an update how much is left in terms of adding swaps to manage the balance sheet sensitivity and where you'd like to bring the asset sensitivity down to?

Yes, this is Paul. Our asset sensitivity has changed due to a mix of balance sheet adjustments, including the addition of swaps and an increase in our net interest income, along with some deposit outflows. As a result, our net interest income sensitivity has decreased significantly. I believe this will likely lead to an ALCO decision. However, I think we can continue to expand our swap portfolio over time to further reduce our asset sensitivity from its current level. We are definitely getting closer to our target sensitivity compared to where we were a year ago.

Okay. And then just on credit. Obviously, credit is very strong, but are you starting to see any type of stress on the commercial borrowers maybe having trouble passing off price increases with the inflation pressures to the customers?

This is Michael Morris. I'm the Chief Credit Officer. I'll respond to that. We are not seeing a lot of stress with our clients passing through to their core customers yet. Most have been able to pass it on. And those that haven't have had a lot of liquidity to cover what might be a little bit of a settlement period there, so have not detected or seen any forward indicators that would suggest stress there.

Just wanted to follow up in terms of, Harris, I think you mentioned that the near-term probability for a recession seems more likely than not. Just following up to your previous response, give us a sense of how is that informing just incremental credit risk that you're putting on the balance sheet and how do we think about reserve build and provisioning from here.

The first thing I want to emphasize is that we are not undergoing any significant changes. Over the last decade, we have been making various adjustments to increase our exposure to municipal credits. Most of these deals are relatively small, averaging around $3 million. This asset class has consistently performed well for us over the years, alongside jumbo mortgages, which also maintain high quality. Currently, about 78% of our jumbo mortgage portfolio has FICO scores of 750 or higher, with only about 2% below 650. During the CCAR days when we were classified as a SIFI, the Fed's models rated our portfolio as one of the strongest in the industry. We have implemented several changes that have reinforced our position. Our approach involves underwriters assessing cash flow, with collateral as a safeguard, which has kept our losses low for over a decade. As noted in one of the slides, our losses in relation to non-accrual loans remain conservative in the industry. We believe we are entering any potential challenges from a very solid position. While we can't predict the future or the depth or duration of a recession, I believe factors like a strong labor market and job openings in relation to available workers suggest it may not be a severe recession. The Fed has challenges ahead, but I think the higher interest rates will offset any issues that arise. This is a general overview of my thoughts on the potential for a recession.

This is Scott McLean. I would like to add that our exposure to consumer unsecured loans, whether they are credit cards or personal loans, is quite low compared to our competitors. If we do enter a recession, we will be in a very different situation than before 2008, with virtually no land exposure and a distinct portfolio structure. There are good industry comparisons available. While there haven't been any recently, we can expect some to emerge soon. In previous evaluations, we generally had a favorable position regarding exposure.

I'll add a quick final thought. One product that might raise some concerns is our growth in home equity lines of credit. Approximately 47% of that portfolio consists of first lien deals. The credit metrics for these first lien home equity lines are similar to those we've seen with jumbo mortgages. We are also being quite conservative with the second lien loans. Overall, I believe we are in a solid position with our entire consumer portfolio.

Got it. When we look at your ACL reserves at the end of the quarter, what does that indicate regarding the downside compared to the base case scenario in the macro outlook, and does it suggest that your base case includes a recession?

Well, I'll start with that. This is Paul. Our reserve is established with both quantitative and qualitative measures. We use the Moody's macroeconomic forecast as the foundation for our modeled outcomes that help build our reserve. As I mentioned earlier, we have placed greater emphasis on the likelihood of a recession. This means that, in our analysis, a recession is more likely than not compared to the base case, which is the basis for our allowance for credit loss.

Two questions. First, with deposit growth being more challenging now, are you changing your strategy in terms of deposit gathering, increasing incentives to employees or anything like that?

Our loan-to-deposit ratio is 66%. I'm not particularly worried about the level of deposits in relation to the balance sheet. Historically, we have usually adjusted pricing on an exception basis rather than broadly. While we will see some rate increases, I expect that the main method for managing deposit rates will remain exception pricing.

I would just add to that, Jennifer, that we have reported the details of our deposit base many times before, and it relates directly to our focus on banking small and medium-sized businesses. In previous periods of rising rates, such as in 2016 and 2017, we observed that the granular nature of these deposits causes them to remain stable compared to what you might see in other banks. This is largely because small business owners tend to prioritize top-line revenue over trying to earn an extra 10 basis points on their free cash.

And also on fee income, you said you're expecting kind of flattish customer fees over the next 12 months. What do you think will be the best offset for the insufficient funds and overdraft fees you're going to lose?

That's a great question, Jennifer. Year-over-year, we're experiencing strong growth in our customer fees across the board. Our expectation is for solid mid-single-digit balanced growth. Capital markets are likely to perform well in terms of both dollar and percentage increases, particularly in areas like syndications, swaps, and foreign exchanges, as well as other businesses where we're making investments. Our wealth business continues to see healthy growth, in the high single-digit to low double-digit range. Additionally, our commercial account fees and basic treasury management fees, despite the accounting adjustment we made in the first quarter, are growing at mid-single-digit rates. Overall, we remain optimistic about customer fees.

Harris, in your prepared remarks, you mentioned that you were somewhat disappointed with the expenses this quarter. I want to note that you're not alone in this sentiment. I'm curious about any potential strategies to mitigate some of these inflationary pressures.

I have a few thoughts on this. Part of our strategy involves setting aside resources for incentive compensation, as we anticipate a stronger second half of the year. We've already made some accruals. Scott highlighted capital markets as an area where we expect to see growth. While it’s uncertain how a mild recession might impact this, we are committed to building a stronger team, and we've had some excellent hires. We're making significant investments in this area. Additionally, we are nearing the completion of a major technology project, which involves updating our core loan and deposit systems. This should help stabilize that segment, and we expect to see the amortization of costs for this new release around mid-next year, which should alleviate some of the expenses we've been incurring. Overall, I believe this will be beneficial. The current environment is challenging, and like many of you, we are focused on strong defensive measures to maintain our positions. I think conditions will improve slightly in the coming quarters as the Fed manages its policies, which might ease some pressures. However, costs will remain a challenge industry-wide. The positive aspect is that we expect our revenues to more than cover these costs.

Thanks. Good afternoon. Wanted to just ask about the swaps. I don't know if I missed this, so I apologize if I did. But can you talk about the amount that you added in the quarter? And then as you think forward, do you have any thoughts on additional adds to get your rate sensitivity down to any particular area, thinking about the other side of this rate cycle?

Yes, this is Paul. I'll start. Rather than focusing on what we've just added, I would direct you to Page 24 of the slide deck that accompanies today's earnings release, where we provide some good disclosures on the notional amount of outstanding swaps and the associated fixed rate. Specifically, regarding our interest rate sensitivity, if we were to reach mid-single-digit asset sensitivity for a 200 basis point rate change at June 30, that would require an additional $5 billion in interest rate swaps, for example. To be clear, I'm not predicting that, but that's the scale needed to reduce our asset sensitivity down to that mid-single-digit range for a 200 basis point shock. And then second question I had was in terms of the loan kind of promo rate specials you're running for a while, are you totally through those right now given kind of the changing rate and potentially economic environment? Or are you still running any of that throughout your franchise?

Yes. The programs we announced in the second quarter of last year have terminated now. We're always cycling through some promotional pricing for consumer and small business lending, but of the magnitude we were doing before, no, that's discontinued.

I want to quickly mention that the figure I shared for the latent sensitivity fully accounts for the expiration of all promotional rates over the next several quarters.

They had a one-year promotional rate. Depending on when they fund it, it will expire this year and early next year.

Thank you, Kyle, and thank you all of you who have joined the call today. We really appreciate your questions. If you have additional questions, please contact me through e-mail or phone listed on our website. And we will be connecting with you through the next couple of months until we see you again next quarter. Thank you again for your interest in Zions Bancorporation.