Huntington Bancshares Incorporated

Greetings and welcome to the Huntington Bank Shares first quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mark Muth, Director of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Darrell. Welcome. I'm Mark Moot, Director of Investor Relations for Huntington. Copies of the slides we'll be reviewing can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website, www.huntington.com. This call is being recorded and will be available as a rebroadcast starting about one hour from the close of the call. Our presenters today are Steve Sondauer, Chairman, President, CEO, and Zach Wasserman, Chief Financial Officer. Rich Pauley, Chief Credit Officer, will join us for the Q&A session. As noted on slide two, today's discussion, including the Q&A period, will contain forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on information and assumptions available at this time and subject to changes, risks, and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially. We assume no obligation to update such statements. For a complete discussion of risks and uncertainties, please refer to this slide and the material filed with the SEC, including our most recent Form 10-K and 8-K filings. Let me now turn it over to Steve.

Thanks, Mark. Good morning, everyone. Slide three provides an overview of Huntington's strategy to build the leading people-first digitally-powered bank in the nation. We continue to execute against this strategic vision and are pleased with our progress to date. We see significant opportunities ahead of us as we position our businesses for the recovery at hand. Over the past year, we updated our multi-year strategic plan with a focus on driving long-term revenue growth, continuing to build our brand based on best-in-class products and increasing our industry-leading customer satisfaction across our businesses. We also announced the planned acquisition of TCF Financial, which will provide a powerful opportunity to grow revenue, expand our market presence, and provide scale to our businesses while increasing our investments in digital and other areas. This combination will increase our capacity to invest, and we will become more efficient with the significant expected expense takeouts. We accelerated our digital investments as part of our strategic vision and are encouraged by the digital adoption trends. Due to the investments we've already made, for the first time, over half of new customer deposit accounts were originated digitally in the last quarter. The double digit growth in active digital and mobile engagement is similarly encouraging. As we look ahead, we're optimistic about a strong economic recovery. Unemployment has decreased significantly across our footprint. We're again hearing a crescendo of commentary from our customers regarding labor constraints and wage inflation. Consumer confidence has meaningfully improved. On average, consumers are less leveraged and more liquid. Our debit card trends have consistently posted double-digit year-over-year growth rates for the past several quarters. Consumer spending in service industries is expected to broadly accelerate this year as demand returns. Consumer loan production also continues to be strong. On the commercial side, sentiment is encouraging. Our pipelines are up across the board, increasing our confidence in recovery in commercial loan demand later this year. While supply chain constraints, such as the semiconductor shortages, will likely challenge some manufacturers in the near term, progress of the recovery and visibility into growing customer orders are causing outlooks to strengthen. Let me also share some high-level remarks on our first quarter results, which provided a strong start to the year and included solid core performance with our momentum building. Commercial loan originations were in line with expectations. However, overall growth was constrained by both forgiveness of PPP loans and continued headwinds in dealer floor plan and commercial line utilization, both of which are temporary challenges. Residential mortgage, auto, and RV marine produce seasonally strong originations in face of tight inventory. Growth in consumer loan balances was obscured by unprecedented levels of paydowns following the two recent rounds of stimulus. Deposit growth continues to consistently exceed expectations. Finally, on slide four, I'd like to give an update on the pending TCF acquisition. We believe the timing could not be better as the strengthening recovery dovetails with the growth and scale opportunities presented by this combination. We continue to make good progress toward our anticipated closing late in the second quarter and to complete the majority of system conversions late in the third quarter. In March, Huntington and TCF shareholders approved the transaction and our integration planning is on track. We completed the selection of key management. and anticipate receiving the outstanding regulatory approvals, including the required branch divestitures, in the coming weeks. We've begun major components of the cost reduction plan, including the closure of 44 Meyer branches later this quarter. Now let me turn it over to Zach for more detail on our financial performance. Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone.

Slide 5 provided the financial highlights for the first quarter. We reported earnings per common share of 48 cents, Return on average assets was 1.76%, and return on average tangible common equity was 23.7%. Bottom line results were augmented by two notable items. The first was a $144 million mark-to-market benefit on our interest rate caps, driven by the steepening yield curve and increased market volatility. The second was $125 million, or 7%, reserve release, resulting from the improving economic outlook and credit metrics. Partially offsetting these were $21 million of TCF acquisition-related expenses, which are broken out as a significant item in the earnings release with granularity provided in Table 8. Now let's turn to Slide 6 to review our results in more detail. We continue to be pleased with our sustained growth in pre-tax, pre-provision earnings, which increased 15% year-over-year in the first quarter. Total revenue increased 19% versus the year-ago quarter. Net interest income grew 23%. driven by solid underlying loan growth and a 34 basis point increase in NIM, which were positively impacted by the substantial mark-to-market gain that I mentioned in our interest rate cap derivatives and the $44 million of accelerated PPP loan fee accretion. Fee income growth of 9% was aided by a record first quarter for mortgage banking income, as saleable mortgage origination set its own record with 89% year-over-year growth, and secondary marketing spreads remained elevated. Similarly, our wealth and investment management businesses experienced its best quarter ever with respect to net asset flows and also benefited from positive equity market performance over the prior 12 months. Card and payments continued to post strong, consistent growth. Deposit service charges remained below the year-ago level as elevated consumer deposit account balances continued to moderate the recovery of this line. Total expenses were higher by $141 million, or 22%, from the year-ago quarter. Three percentage points of this growth can be attributed to the approximately $21 million of significant items related to the TCF acquisition. There were also approximately $45 million of expenses in the quarter, or approximately seven percentage points of growth, resulting from the pull-forward of these three expenses that otherwise would have occurred in the future, the first of which was a $25 million contribution to the Columbus Foundation, Second, we moved our annual long-term incentive grants to March from the historical timing in May. Third, we retimed some expense related to our colleagues' health savings accounts, which would otherwise have been incurred in the balance of 2021. These two compensation-related items together totaled approximately $20 million. The remaining approximately 11.5% underlying expense growth rate was driven primarily by the accelerated investment and strategic growth initiatives which we have been communicating for the past several quarters. Turning to slide seven, FTE net interest income increased 23% as earning asset growth was coupled with year-over-year NIM expansion. On a late quarter basis, net interest margin increased 54 basis points to 3.48%. As shown in the reconciliation on the right side of the slide, the linked quarter increase primarily reflected the 49 basis point net change in the interest rate caps. As we've discussed previously, we're taking actions on both sides of the balance sheet to offset the inherent margin pressure caused by the prolonged low interest rate environment, managing the underlying core and interest margin near current levels. Given the significant impact on NIM from the interest rate caps, Slide eight provides additional information on this aspect of our comprehensive hedging strategy. As we disclosed in December, we purchased $5 billion of interest rate caps with an average tenor of seven years to reduce impacts on capital from rising rates. This hedging action performed very well this quarter. In March, we subsequently sold $3 billion of new interest rate caps at a higher strike price to create a collar-like position This is expected to dampen further mark-to-market impacts and recover approximately half of the premium paid on the initial caps, while maintaining the majority of the capital protection from the position. Turning to slide 9, average earning assets increased $12 billion, or 12%, compared to the year-ago quarter, driven by the $6 billion of PPP loans and the $5 billion increase in deposits at the Fed. Average commercial and industrial loans increased 11% from the year-ago quarter, primarily reflecting the PPP loans. On a linked quarter basis, C&I loans decreased 1%, primarily reflecting the forgiveness of PPP loans and a decline in dealer floor plan utilization. As we indicated at the RBC conference in March, commercial loan pipelines remain up significantly from a year ago, and we're seeing that manifest in new commercial loan production Residential mortgage, RV, and marine all posted year-over-year growth and new production. Average consumer loan balances declined sequentially as stimulates related paydowns more than offset strong new production in the quarter. On a linked quarter basis, average earning asset growth primarily reflected the $2 billion or 9% increase in average securities as we executed our previously announced plan to deploy excess liquidity through the purchase of securities during the quarter. Turning to slide 10, we will review deposit growth and funding. Average core deposits increased 20% year-over-year and 4% sequentially, driven by increased consumer liquidity levels related to the downturn, consumer growth largely related to stimulus, increased account production, and reduced attrition. Slide 11 provides an update on PPP forgiveness and expectations for the current program. In total, Huntington approved $6.6 billion of PPP loans in the original program, and has approved an additional $1.8 billion of loans in the current program. In light of the recent congressional extension of the program and our current application activity, we now anticipate the total amount for the current round to reach approximately $2 billion. We continue to expect approximately 85% of those balances from the original program and the new program ultimately to be forgiven. Through the end of March, $2.4 billion of loans from the original tranche have been forgiven. and we anticipate approximately 2.3 billion will be forgiven during the second quarter. For the current program, we expect the majority of the forgiveness to occur this year, particularly in the second half of the year. Slide 12 illustrates the continued strength of our capital and liquidity ratios. The tangible common equity ratio, or TCE, ended the quarter at 7.11%, down five basis coins sequentially. The common equity tier one ratio, or CET1, ended up the quarter at 10.33%, up 33 basis points from the last quarter. The CET1 ratio is modestly above our 9% to 10% operating guideline, and we feel it is prudent to maintain strong capital levels going into the TCF acquisition. It also positions us well to execute on our growth initiatives and investment opportunities going forward. As we have previously communicated, we've paused share repurchases until we have substantially completed the TCF acquisition. and integration. Slide 13 provides a walk of our allowance for credit losses. The first quarter included a $125 million reserve release primarily from consumer, while the quarter end ACL represents 2.17% of loans and 2.33% of loans excluding PPP. We believe this is a prudent level to address remaining economic uncertainty while reflecting the improved overall credit metrics and economic outlook. Slide 14 provides a snapshot of key credit quality metrics for the quarter. Our overall credit performance continued to strengthen. Net charge-offs represented an annualized 32 basis points of average loans and leases, slightly below the low end of our average through the cycle target range of 35 to 55 basis points. Our criticized asset and NPA ratios were both relatively stable. As always, we have provided additional granularity by portfolio in the analyst package and slide. I want to spend a minute on our ongoing investments and progress on digital engagement and origination. Looking at slide 15, we continue to invest in a focused set of strategic initiatives to drive revenue acceleration and competitive differentiation. In addition to a variety of digital and product investments, we are adding personnel and core revenue-generating roles to support strategic growth in our capital markets, specialty banking, small business administration, and vehicle finance businesses. We have also increased market expense back to pre-pandemic levels and to promote new launches related to fair play banking. Slide 16 illustrates several key digital engagement and origination trends, showing some of the benefits of our ongoing tech investments. On the left side of the slide, you can see continued growth in monthly digital engagement and usage levels in consumer and business banking. The digital origination trends on the right side of the slide are particularly encouraging as they show a strong customer update of the new consumer and business digital origination capabilities we introduced over the course of the last year. We are executing robust technology roadmaps across our business lines that will drive sustainable revenue momentum via improved customer acquisition, retention, and deepening. Finally, slide 17 provides our updated expectations for the full year 2021 on a Huntington standalone basis. We now expect full-year average loan growth of 1% to 3%, down slightly from prior expectations as a result of the elevated levels of paydowns and a delayed recovery of commercial and vehicle floor plan line utilization. These expectations reflect flat to modestly higher commercial loans, inclusive of PPP, and low single-digit growth in consumer loans. Excluding PPP, we would expect to see low single-digit growth in both. For deposits, we now expect full-year average balance growth of 9% to 11%, higher than previous expectations given the stronger than anticipated deposit inflows in the first quarter, and the overall elevated levels of core deposits, which we expect to persist for several more quarters. We are also adjusting our expectations for full-year total revenue growth higher to a range of 3 to 5%. We expect net interest income growth to be in the mid-single digits, while non-interest income is expected to be modestly lower for the full year. Full-year growth expectations for non-interest expense are now between 7% and 9%. On a non-GAAP basis, excluding $21 million of significant items I discussed previously, we expect non-interest expense to increase between 6% and 8%. This increase, relative to our prior expectations, is driven by the foundation donation in the first quarter and increases in compensation expenses related to the higher revenue expectation for the year. The large majority of the underlying expense growth continues to be driven by investments in our strategic growth initiatives, as we've discussed previously. While expense growth is expected to outstrip revenue growth over the near term, our commitment to positive operating leverage remains over the long term. Our expectation and plan is to bring the expense growth rate back to more normalized levels during the second half of 2021. Finally, credit remains fundamentally sound. We now expect full year 2021 net charge-offs to be between 30 to 40 basis points, reflecting improving economic conditions and stable charge-offs in both commercial and consumer portfolios. Further reserve releases remain dependent on the economic recovery and related credit performance. As a reminder, all expectations are standalone for Huntington and do not include consideration made for the pending acquisition of TCF. Now let me turn it back to Mark so we can get to your questions.

Thank you, Zach. Farrell, we will now take questions. We ask that as a courtesy to your peers, each person ask only one question and one related follow-up. And then if that person has additional questions, he or she can add themselves back into the queue. Thank you.

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. The confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for your question.

Thank you.

Our first questions come from the line of Ken Zerbe with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your questions.

All right, great. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, Ken. Why don't we start just in terms of the interest rate caps? I probably may not be the only one who didn't appreciate how meaningful this could be on a mark-to-market basis for your NII. I get that you added the short cap position, but it still seems that you have a fair amount of long exposure outstanding. Can you just talk about the volatility that we should expect? How long does this volatility last? Is it right to assume that we could be looking at maybe not 100 plus million dollar swings, but 50, 60 million dollar swings in NII in any given quarter, up or down?

Thanks, Ken. This is Zach. I'll take that question. I would start by saying the priority of the goal for this position in our strategy here was to look around the corner to manage risk, to protect capital, and to be dynamic and proactive to do that. We thought it was a really smart move, and as you saw, I think it benefited us substantially. And so that also underlies our decision to continue to maintain this position, albeit somewhat collared, as we discussed, for the foreseeable future. And so we'll have to see what happens. These get marked to market every day, and ultimately we post the result that's extant at the very last day of the quarter. But we believe it's the right position as we go forward here. We'll have to see. We'll keep you posted. But over the long term, we think it's a really smart position for us to protect our capital.

Ken, I'll just add, when we executed these in the fourth quarter, remember the outlook was the rates would be flat through 20, well into 23. So we thought the benefit of this capital protection would be in the out years, you know, four, five, six plus. And obviously, interest rate outlook changed very rapidly after the election. But it wasn't our intent to sort of view this as some kind of short-term position when we originated it.

It was this protection of capital over time. Got it. No, it definitely worked out incredibly well this quarter.

No doubt about that. My second sort of related follow-up question is a little more in the weeds, actually. I think I'm missing something, but would love your clarification on this. If we look at just the change in net interest income from last quarter to this quarter, and we back out only the change, the way I understand it, the change in the caps of call it $140 million to the positive, and then we back out another $40 million change in PPP income, it implies the net interest income actually went down by $32 million, sort of on an all else equal basis. Am I missing something in that calculation?

I think you've got it right. I think we saw, as we noted in the commentary, a bit of pressure on underlying loans in the quarter, just from the headwinds we've seen, line utilization, but that was offset by a really strong fee income growth during the quarter. The NIM, if you were to strip out that cap gain, was 297, to give you a sense of an interest margin.

And, Ken, you also have the impact of day count if you're looking at the dollars. Got it.

Okay. All right. Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Our next questions come from the line of Matt O'Connor with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your questions.

Good morning. I know you've talked about it in the past here and there, but as we think about the increased investment spend this year, specifically on technology and digital. I was just wondering if you could summarize what a couple of the kind of bigger initiatives, bigger spend is that's driving that higher investment spend this year.

Yeah, I think, Zach, I'll take that and Steve may want to tack on as well here. What we really like about our strategic plan is it's incredibly focused and it's driven by key initiatives across each of our business lines. So within our consumer business line, which we've talked about for a while, much of the increased investment is around digital with three major focus areas. As we've talked about over the last several years, and certainly last year, improving our digital point-of-sale and product origination capabilities. We largely completed that last year, and now the teams are working through how to best optimize and incorporate that within the omni-channel client engagement process we have for client origination capabilities. Also, a lot of focus around engagement and deepening through personalization and ease of use client account servicing. In the commercial business, significant amount of digital investment as well around new client onboarding, relationship manager, digital tool sets, as well as focused investment in new people, for example, in specialty banking and in our capital markets business. We're also really pleased with the investments we're putting into our wealth and investment management business, which, again, is sort of a mixture of both technology to improve the client advisor interaction experience and relationship management tools, as well as select people hires as we bring on new relationship managers, which is, as I mentioned in my script, really driving substantial sales growth and performance. And lastly, I would highlight vehicle finance. For the last several years, we've been working to digitize the customer experience as well as continue to expand the geographic footprint of that business in a way that's really constructive. Steve, if you want to tack on to that.

That's a very helpful summary. As we think past the cost saves associated with the TCF deal, you mentioned long-term expense growth. What is a good, call it three- to five-year outlook on expense growth? I understand it might be somewhat revenue dependent, but if you think about most revenue growth coming from loans, NIM expansion, hopefully, things that aren't super high on the efficiency ratio, what would a good range for underlying expense growth be?

It's a great question, and I would note that for the next several years, based on our forecast for the integration of the TCF acquisition, overall reported revenue and expense growth levels will be substantially impacted by that, and you're going to see quite high levels of growth in both as we incorporate that business and measure the year-over-year growth, but kind of on an underlying basis, which I know is the basis of your question. My expectation and goal is that we're growing the top line at or above nominal GDP with revenue lower than that and driving positive operating leverage. I think over the long term, something like 1.5% to 3.5% sort of inflationary growth is is logical, and if revenue is stronger, then perhaps expenses are stronger than that. But generally, that's my broad expectation.

Ken, just want to reiterate the commitment to positive operating leverage. After nine years, we've elected this year to make investments coming off the strategic plan, and particularly because of the economic volatility that we saw last year with the virus and the expected recovery. We think we are playing this at a in terms of timing, exactly right. We've got a series of near-term revenue growth initiatives that we're executing, and that will position us for the long term, but we will be back to positive operating leverage.

Thank you. Thanks, Matt. Thank you.

Our next question has come from the line of Ken Usden with Jefferies. Please proceed with your questions.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Just one follow-up on the expense side. So, clearly, you have the excess revenues helped by the swaps and then a higher expected growth rate this year on the expenses, which makes sense that you're continuing to accelerate. But just, Zach, when you mentioned last quarter a different cadence between first half expense growth and second half expense growth. I just want to try to understand, is the increment that's embedded in the new expense growth rate also going to show all in the first half, you know, in part due to the items in the first? Just kind of if you can walk us through how things, you know, traject from here would be helpful. Thank you.

Yep, Ken, thanks for the question. I appreciate the chance to clarify it. I would say approximately three quarters of the incremental expenses were what we saw come through in Q1. So there's a small lift in the balance of the year, but most of it was what we saw come through in Q1. And the key thing with our plan is that we're front-loading these investments into the first half of 2021. So the expectation is really the same as it was before. Elevated expense growth on a kind of core run rate basis in the first half. coming down to more normal levels in the second half of the year. And of that 68% underlying core expense, approximately five percentage points of that is our long-term strategic investments. And the other 1% to 3% is really sort of a natural expense inflation that you might expect and some normalization of company-wide programs like Merit and T&E and medical costs and things of this nature. and some additional expenses to support the additional revenue, as I noted in my prepared remarks. So front end loaded, back end back to historical levels, and really no change other than those factors I just talked about.

Helpful. And then the same kind of just thought process on the NII side. Obviously, NII Outlook helped by the 144. Just underneath that, can you just talk about just the underlying changes to your prior views on how NII versus the fees look as well. Thanks.

Overall, I expect mid-single digits in net interest income for the full year. I think driven in part by our modest growth in assets that we've indicated in the guidance between 1% and 3%. And spread, NIM spread overall, it'll be roughly flat for the full year. I think Just touching on NIM for a second, next couple quarters will likely be in the mid-280s in terms of NIM. Biggest impact, just changing our expectations somewhat, is continued elevated levels of Fed cash driven by the elevated levels of liquidity across the system that many folks have commented on here in the earnings cycle. And to some degree, the beginning of the roll-off of our hedges, which will be down about seven basis points into Q2. So Q2 will be the trough. to mid-280s for the next several quarters. But pulling up, FY20 still looks at like a NIM of 290 or better and long-term still forecasting to maintain those levels and stable to a rising NIM over the longer term.

Got it. Thank you, Zach.

You're welcome. Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Scott Severs with Piper Sandler. Please proceed with your question.

Morning, guys. Thank you for taking the question. Hey, I just wanted to ask you guys to follow up on the rate caps. So between what you sort of captured in the first quarter and then the sale of the $3 billion new caps in March, so does this do anything to sort of your forward rate sensitivity? I think, Zach, I've sort of thought about the hedges as more balance sheet protection than really adjusting your rate sensitivity. So is there any change to that dynamic?

So I think you got it right. The position was around protecting capital, and I think you saw on the slide, 52% offset of the OCI mark on securities was protected by this, so it's really good. We've got our treasurer, Derek Meyer, in the room. Derek, do you want to comment a little bit on asset sensitivity and your outlook for that?

Thank you. So we've continued to look at that. Obviously, we've already stated this is primarily thinking of a capital play. There is the knock-on effect because it comes to earnings on our margin. Most of our decisioning has been to retain as much downside protection while capturing the upside. As these rates have gone up, and that is these caps have obviously made us even more sensitive in that respect, we are evaluating our next hedging moves to protect that downside without giving up that upside opportunity. So it does change the posture. That's also a big part of what we're thinking about as we evaluate our positioning with TCF, which is a separate set of decisions. But that is another set of levers that we have to incorporate into our forward view.

Broadly speaking, just pulling back a second, I think I really like where the asset sensitivity kind of strategy and trend is going in that over time, as our existing hedge position slowly rolls off, we will become more and more exposed to what will be likely a gradually increasing interest rate environment as well. So I think it's sort of well-timed for us. to be exposed in that way as rates begin to rise over the next several years.

Got it. That's helpful. Thank you. And then I guess as a follow-up, I think, Zach, at a point you'd mentioned the sale of the new rate caps, the $3 billion, that should sort of dampen the new mark-to-market impacts. Is there a way to sort of speak to how much protection you have against future volatility like we saw this quarter, both up and down?

Yeah, it's a good question. We estimate it's between 15% and 30% impact on dampening. So importantly, we wanted to maintain kind of a net long exposure there because we do think, to the extent that there's a probability of moves substantially off the forward curve, it's likely to be higher. But that dampening is sort of between 15% and 30% as you go forward.

Got it. All right. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Peter Winter with Wedbush Securities. Please proceed with your questions. Good morning.

I was wondering, could you talk about, you mentioned the loan pipelines are very strong. I'm just wondering, can you talk about what you're hearing from your customers about making investments and versus kind of the appetite to draw down on line to credit versus using that excess liquidity and maybe delaying line drawdowns.

Peter, this is Steve. So in the last four or five weeks, I've had about 50 CEOs in small meeting virtual conversations. And the outlook by them is virtually and all very positive about this year. Pipelines, their backlogs, very, very encouraging. And their overall economic outlook for the next couple of years also very positive. They have, in a number of situations, have supply chain constraints, some of it for mundane items, some of it for chips. But there's a curtailment that I think is being experienced, at least in part, by these companies on the supply chain. Universally, they talk about inability to get adequate labor, very high turnover, and clear wage inflation at the low end. A consequence of that will be more investment by many of them into automation all the way through, including packaging. So we expect there'll be a fair amount of equipment finance activity this year, and when we combine with TCF, we'll have a 7th, 8th largest equipment finance company in the country that should position us very well. We have a very good technology finance team that will play well with automation on the factory side. But even in the healthcare, healthcare product side, we're seeing a strong uptick. Healthcare systems are doing better, haven't been able to reopen. and sustained activity that was diminished during the peak of the virus. So the people we're talking to, the CEOs in that arena, generally very, very confident going forward. So we think the strong pipelines we're seeing, we're up about 40% on the commercial pipeline, year over year is reflective of what will be demand as we go through the year. Probably more in the second half than first, but in part because many of them had very good years, had liquidity, and they're using that liquidity as opposed to line utilizations and other things. Inventories are low in many of these companies, and some of it's supply chain, but some of it's It's significant demand. Inflation on the commodity side, wood or lumber, just a whole host of areas where there's cost push. And I think that will engender further borrowing as their liquidity gets soaked up. So from these conversations, we're optimistic about a continuing improvement, especially seen in the second half.

Okay. Thanks, Steve. And then If I can ask just a follow-up on the PPP, you give some pretty good disclosure on slide 11, but what's the outlook, Zach, for the rest of the year to net interest income from PPP?

Yeah, I think, as we said, the expectation is that we'll see a very substantial amount of additional Forgiveness in the second quarter, I think, to give you a sense, Q1 revenue in total from PPP was around $76 million, of which $45 million was the accelerated and $31 million was the underlying yield. My expectation for Q2 is around $50 million total revenue, of which it's basically half and half between yield and accelerated, the acceleration. And that'll represent the... ponderance of the PPP revenues for the first program. We'll see a little bit of a tail as we go into the balance of the year. The round two I mentioned is around $2 billion. About 85% we think we've forgiven much of it in 21. That'll add around $1.3 billion of ADB and $60 million of revenue we estimate to the year. I know we'll have an analyst modeling call after this, and we can probably double-click into more of the details during that, but those are probably the right high-level comments for you now.

Got it. Thanks for taking my questions. Welcome. Thanks. Thank you.

Our next question has come from the line of Bill Karkaci with Wolf Research. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks. Good morning, Steve and Zach. Some investors have expressed concern around the risk that internal combustion engine vehicles will lose value compared to electronic vehicles as they take over. And obviously there's debate around when that's going to happen, but can you speak to how HBAN is thinking about this risk, what you guys are doing about it, and the extent to which you expect to play a role in helping consumers fund future EV purchases, as well as from the standpoint of risk of declining collateral values for your existing book, if you could comment on that as well.

So, Bill, Steve, a good question. Thank you. We think there's going to be an extended transition here, and I believe the industry is of that belief as well. EV is building in the country, but it's building at a very slow rate. Now, that may accelerate with the climate posture of the Biden administration and for other reasons, including consumer awareness around environmental and change in demand. But combustion engines we think are going to be here through the decade in terms of demand and substantially there if not fully through production. Having said that, in terms of impact on us, we're a super prime lender. So whether it's a combustion engine or a hybrid or EV, we work with a view of very low default rates. And so... Marginal loss rates might increase a bit, and probably would anyway, because we're at record highs in terms of Blue Book values for use. But we don't see it as a big event. In terms of opportunity for us, it's one of the areas of environmentally sensitive financing that we're looking at. There are a series of other areas where we're actively engaged and extending credit in the over time as we look back at the billions of dollars, and there may be an opportunity for us to do something unique with hybrids or EVs as we go forward.

That's very helpful.

And as a follow-up, Steve, can you give a bit more color on some of the things you're doing ahead of the TCF closing just to make sure you hit the ground running next year? Is most of the initial focus simply on ensuring smooth integration versus Maybe is it just too early to be thinking about the revenue synergy opportunity that is down the road, or is that in the mix as well? Any color around that would be helpful.

When we announced, we talked about expense synergies, and we're fairly definitive, but we also alluded to revenue synergies. To start with, our offerings, both consumer and business, are much more expensive than than TCF, so it sets up a cross-sell, something we've been working on, and we refer to it as optimal customer relationships. So we've been doing this for a decade. We have very good experience with cross-sell into the first merit customer base, and we expect it to do as good or even better based on the learnings and experiences and the relative position. TCF also outsources a number of businesses or products which we manage directly. And so we'll expect lift out of those. So there's a variety of revenue initiatives which we are pursuing. In some cases, we've already activated, such as SBA in Minneapolis, an activity that TCF didn't have. And so as we go forward, we'll expect these revenue initiatives, and we'll share them at a future point, will be significant upside to what we've presented in a summary level. So we'll detail where we expect to get them as we proceed. But the first order of business is to execute the committed expense takeout and to get the synergies on that front that we expected with the closing expected later this quarter and a conversion late in the third quarter.

Got it. Thank you for taking my questions. Thank you. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Steve Alexopoulos of JP Morgan. Please proceed with your questions.

Good morning. This is Janet Lee on for Steve Alexopoulos. Just digging deeper into your commercial loan growth guidance, I understand that that in your guidance of commercial loans being flat to modestly higher for 2021, what is your assumption around the level of commercial utilization for your C&I customers as compared to the current level? And could you also provide more color around how that compares to the pre-pandemic level?

Sure. Thanks, Janet, for the questions. Zach, I'll take it. Overall, as I mentioned in the comments, the expectation is excluding PPP, low single-digit loans, growth in commercial loans, and approximately one and a half percentage of that is from some modest line utilization. Overall, the expectation for line utilization, it has been reset, and I'll come back in a minute and just speak more specifically about the pre-pandemic comparison, as you asked, but just generally characterizing the expectation. What we've seen is relatively flat in generally middle market lines. My baseline expectation is a modest improvement Likewise, what we've seen on the vehicle floor plan side is actually some retrenchment from the end of last year to where we stand now. As we go forward, we're expecting some modest improvement in both of those. Together, those represent just under 1% asset growth expectation with my total asset growth. But even if you normalize that out, I think the level of strong production we've got across both consumer and commercial, we do expect to drive accelerated level growth overall on a net basis as we go forward. Just double-clicking into the line utilization expectations. Pre-pandemic, we were running in the middle market line utilization sort of low 40%, and right now we're in the high 30%, to give you a sense. It's been roughly flat now for several months in a row, and I would expect it will be flat for a time before it starts to rise later in the year. I think, as has been well publicized, elevated levels of liquidity across the system are contributing to our clients just not meeting those lines at this point. But everything we're hearing from them is that ultimately they expect to go back to a more typical financing posture, that those will start to slowly normalize, probably more in the back half late 2021 and continuing into 2022. On the vehicle floor plan side, the historical levels are just around 80% line utilization. By the end of the year, we had gotten to almost 61%, to be precise, in December. By the end of this quarter, we were at 51%, to give you a sense. So it continues to tick down, and it's ticked down even a little bit more into April. So we'll have to see. That one is really driven by the point-specific auto manufacturer issues that have been very well documented in the popular press around microchip shortages and other component shortages. Everything we're hearing, though, is that slowly but surely that they are chipping away at that issue, the manufacturers, and that vehicles will begin to flow at a faster rate in the back half of the year. My general expectations are relatively flat in that for the next several months before it starts to normalize and rise. more again toward the very late part of 21 with a longer term expectation based on our client discussions. But they'll go back to historical levels of utilizing that financing, but probably well into the middle of 2022 based on supply.

That's very helpful. Thank you. And just turning to, I want to talk through the new money yield. What yields new purchase securities are being put onto the book versus what's rolling off and same for new loan production and also what's your plan around deploying excess cash and how much of that could be deployed into securities over the next several quarters?

Thanks. I'll take the first crack at this and then Derek Meyer, our treasurer, is in the room as well and may tack on as we go. On the security side, we feel really good actually about where the yields are and what we were able to deploy with the roughly $2 billion of net add during the quarter came on sort of around the 160 basis point level. As we think about other new money yields, generally some modest pressure, but not overly so. I think in the commercial business around a quarter point lower as we went into Q1 from Q4. CRE, likewise, around 30 to 35 basis points lower. Auto roughly stable. So we're seeing some modest downdrafts on new money, but not overly material, I would say, at this point. Most of the curb impacts have been brought into the pricing. As we take a step back and think about the the posture around elevated liquidity, I would say that as we've continued to update our forecast, we've ratcheted higher the expectation for elevated levels of liquidity and deposits, as is indicated by our deposit guidance. And likewise, ratcheted out in time, the duration that this phenomenon will last until it begins to normalize. So it likely will take several more quarters for that to slowly start to wane and it'll go all the way into 2022. So that gives us the cause to really look at the best ways to deploy that. Over time, you've seen us optimize our funding structure, and we'll continue to look for opportunities to do that, to bring down funding costs using that. But I think as well, looking at whether it's appropriate over time to invest in incremental securities is also part of the discussion. To be clear, liquidity is the primary objective in making sure that we're managing that well. So we'll leg into and step into on a phase basis any any incremental moves on that and still working through it. Nothing for us specifically to talk about there, but we'll continue to be dynamic in looking at it and just watching those trends and optimizing. Anything, Derek, you'd tack on to what I said?

No, I think you've covered it. We have reached a point with our BAU security strategy where the new money yields are sort of equal to our runoff yields, plus or minus 0.5%. a lot of it was going to happen with prepayment speeds and then what the yield curve shape is.

I don't see a big change in trajectory. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Good question.

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of John Arkstrom with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.

Hey, thanks. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, John.

Good morning, John. Most of it's been handled, but Steve, can you talk a little bit about retention and synergies that you saw out of First Merit and also touch on, like you've got the 44 branches that you're closing, what kind of retention you get from those and how you're thinking about TCF in terms of retention as well.

We have a set of opportunities. Thanks, John. Good morning. I'm sorry. We have a set of opportunities with TCF that are substantial in terms of retaining customers. If we think about Michigan, for example, even after our consolidations of branches, and in aggregate there'll be more than 200 branches affected by consolidation and divestiture, we will still have number one branch here in Michigan by a factor of about 50%, so it will be quite a bit larger than the next bank with physical distribution. So that provides an enormous set of opportunities for us in terms of retention. And we have had very high retention coming out of First Spirit and other in-store branch consolidations. Remember, we consolidate about 4% of the franchise every year on average. And so our retention efforts, where we decide to drop remaining ATMs, outreach, we have a process we call white glove treatment. that's been well-defined over the years and developed a combination of those activities. The uniqueness of the product set, all-day deposit, 24-hour grace, safety zone now, things like that also give us a distinct retention advantage. So we expect to have very high retention on the TCF side, on the consumer, and on the business side. Again, better product, more capabilities as we go forward. But it starts with winning minds and hearts. of our soon-to-be new colleagues, and we're actively working that. We would expect that would be successful, as it was with First Merit. That will set up, then, this retention of customers through the conversion and beyond. And the product menu would be just being substantially different, much bigger and better in many respects. will be to the benefit of the customer base, both consumers, small and medium-sized businesses. So we're very, very optimistic. On the specialty finance side, their equipment finance and ours is almost hand in glove. The combination will be extraordinarily effective, and they have a great team. We think we do as well, and this hand in glove will give us opportunities to further grow that business. We're excited about their inventory finance business. get some great people in these business lines as well as in the company generally, and we're going to be a stronger company as a consequence of the combination. So very bullish about the expectations, both on retention and revenue synergies as we go forward, and we'll get the expense synergies largely complete this year.

Okay, thank you. That's very helpful. Zach, can you touch on mortgage expectations for the second quarter? I know it's kind of a mixed bag, but Looks like originations were pretty flat. What kind of thoughts do you have for the next quarter?

Yeah, I don't know about the Q2 right in front of it, but just broadly still thinking mortgage just continues to beat expectations, frankly, and be very robust. I think overall for the full year, expecting revenues to be down between 15% and 20% a year, year-over-year basis, just off of the torrid pace that 2020 represented. But most of that growth or challenge really occurs in the second half of the year. Volumes continue to be very, very robust, and I think just at an industry level, you've probably seen even mortgage banker associations are rationing higher its volume expectations for the year. I think there's something that we're watching carefully is the saleable spread, and that continues to be elevated above historical levels, but it can move quickly, so we'll see, but so far seems to be holding up relatively well also.

not the expectations that we've got.

Okay, good. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Tom.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back to Mr. Steinauer for closing remarks.

Thank you for your questions and interest in Huntington. I'm pleased with our strong start to what will be an important year for Huntington as we execute on our strategic initiatives, as well as close and integrate the TCF acquisitions. I'm increasingly optimistic about the opportunities they see in 2021 and beyond and am confident of our ability to capitalize on the accelerating economic recovery. The disciplined execution of our strategies coupled with the pending acquisition set us up to grow revenue from a larger customer base from which we will deepen existing and acquired customer relationships, resulting in top quartile financial performance. We have a strong foundation of enterprise risk management and deeply embedded stock ownership mentality, which aligns our board management and colleagues. Again, thank you for your support and interest. Have a great day.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.