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spk12: Welcome to Signature Bank's 2022 Second Quarter Results Conference Call. Hosting the call today from Signature Bank are Joseph J. DiPaolo, President and Chief Executive Officer, Eric R. Hollow, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and Stephen Y. Rumski, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. We ask that you please pick up your handset to allow optimal sound quality. Lastly, if you should require operator assistance, please press star zero. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Joseph J. DiPaolo, President and Chief Executive Officer. You may begin.
spk15: Thank you, Gretchen. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for the Signature Bank 2022 Second Quarter Results Conference Call. Before I begin my formal remarks, Susan Lewis will read the fully-looking disclaimer. Please go ahead, Susan.
spk00: Thank you, Joe. This conference call and oral statements made from time to time by our representatives contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You should not place undue reliance on those statements because they are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties relating to our operations and business environment, all of which are difficult to predict and may be beyond our control. Forward-looking statements include information concerning our expectations regarding future results, interest rates and the interest rate environment, loan and deposit growth, loan performance, operations, new private client team hires, new office openings, business strategy, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on each of the foregoing and on our business overall. Forward-looking statements often include words such as may, believe, expect, anticipate, intend, potential, opportunity, could, project, seek, target, goal, should, will, would, plan, estimate, or other similar expressions. As you consider forward-looking statements, you should understand that these statements are not guarantees of performance or results. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements and can change as a result of many possible events or factors, not all of which are known to us or in our control. These factors include those described in our quarterly and annual reports filed with the FDIC, which you should review carefully for further information. You should keep in mind that any forward-looking statements made by signature banks speak only as of the date on which they were made. Now, I'd like to turn the call back to Joe.
spk15: Thank you, Susan. I will provide some overview into the quarterly results, and then Eric Howell, our Chief Operating Officer, and Steve Wyremski, our Chief Financial Officer, will review the Bennett's financial performance in greater detail. Eric, Steve, and I will address your questions at the end of our remarks. As we anticipated, this is a very strong quarter for earnings, and we saw significant increases to pre-tax, pre-provision earnings, and net income, both of which were records. We funded our substantial loan growth with the significant excess cash balances we maintained from the $66 billion in deposits that we grew over the last two years. This led to our strongest growth ever in pre-tax, pre-provision earnings at 54% versus the prior year. It is not a sprint. It is a marathon. We are patient and we grind hard every single day. Let's take a look at earnings. Pre-tax, pre-provision earnings for the 2022 second quarter were a record $477 million, an increase of $168 million, or 54%, compared with $309 million for the 2021 second quarter. Net income for the 2022 second quarter increased $125 million, or 58%, to a record $339 million, or $5.26 due to earnings per share, compared with $214 million, or $3.57 due to earnings per share, for last year. The increase in income was predominantly driven by strong growth in net interest income, which was fueled by substantial asset growth of $19 billion over the last 12 months, as well as the rise in interest rate and the utilization of the excess cash. Now let's take a closer look at deposits. Given the dramatic rise in interest rates, the deposit environment was particularly challenging. And as fully anticipated, we saw a decrease in most of our deposit-emitted businesses. Total deposits decreased 5 billion, or 5%, to 104 billion this quarter, while average deposits grew 1 billion. This quarter's decline was driven by, one, the New York banking teams, which were down 2.4 billion, which included, that included 1.3 billion declined in 1031 transaction balances. So that was 1031 transaction balances of 1.3 billion that were included as part of 2.4. Two, the digital asset banking team, which also declined 2.4 billion. Conversely, off-balance sheet treasuries increased 1.5 billion in that space. Three, The West Coast banking team declined $427 million and included one client who purchased $450 million in treasuries, and four of the fund banking division was down $414 million. Non-interest bearing deposits decreased $5.3 billion to $41 billion. During the quarter, four large escrow outflows made up $1.6 billion of the decline in DDA and were not related to interest rates. Just these four accounts alone make up 30% of the decrease in DDA. Despite this decline, non-interfering deposits remain at a relatively high 40% of total deposits. We can give you a color later on in the Q&A. At the end of the 2021 second quarter, deposits increased 18.6 billion to 22%, and average deposits increased 31.5 billion. Our loan-to-deposit ratio now stands at 69%, which is up from 64% one year ago. On the digital front, despite the significant decline in the value of cryptocurrencies in the latest digital winter, in its quarter, our deposits were only down $2.4 billion, which includes the movement of $1.5 billion to off-balance-y treasuries. This resulted in a minimal impact of $900 million. Some analysts say there is still confusion as to what we do in this space. To make it clear, we hold no cryptocurrencies. I'll say that again. To make it clear, we hold no cryptocurrencies. We are taking U.S. dollar deposits, and our clients use our payments platform, Signet, to transact in real time, 24 by 7 by 365. For us, it is all about the future of finance, which we believe is the blockchain technology which other ecosystems will adopt over time. To wrap up our narrative on deposits, this was only the second quarter of negative deposit growth in nearly 15 years. We were not surprised at all as we knew there were some excess deposits, what I like to call a fluff. Although the deposit environment will remain difficult due to Fed's recent policy of quantitative tightening, we continue to focus on growth. For example, the EB-5 program. New legislation in Washington has been passed which reauthorizes the EB-5 program for a period of five years. It is an understatement to say we have a significant pipeline. I'll say that again. It is an understatement to say we have a significant pipeline for EB-5. Our specialized mortgage banking solutions team has many new clients in their pipeline. Our newest addition, the healthcare banking and finance team, will help to raise deposits. The fund banking division has firmly established their position as one of the leading lenders in their space and are emphasizing deposit growth prospectively to fund their business. The fund banking division is expected after four years, which next month they'll be here four years, was expected to fund themselves 100%. They're below 10%. And so we expect that they'll continue to emphasize the deposit growth as they have just started to do so this month. And lastly, we hired 11 new teams, coupled with the 127 existing teams, who are all highly incentivized to grow core deposits. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Eric.
spk03: Thank you, Joe. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to turn our attention to our lending businesses, where we had our second strongest quarter ever. Loans during the 2022 second quarter increased $5.6 billion, or 8% to $72 billion. For the prior 12 months, loans grew $17 billion, or 32%. The power of diversification continues to take hold with our lending businesses, with numerous teams contributing to our growth this quarter. The fund banking division once again led the charge with growth of $3.5 billion, followed by $1.3 billion in growth from our CRE banking team. Our newest group, the healthcare banking and finance team, hit the ground running with $80 million in loans in their inaugural quarter. The corporate mortgage finance team had another solid quarter with $271 million in growth. Additionally, we saw positive contributions from all our other lending businesses, including $591 million out of Signature Financial, $34 million from our venture banking group, $145 million from East Coast CNI, and $93 million from our West Coast CNI businesses. Also, important to note, the single $100 million loan exposure collateralized by digital assets on our books paid off fully, and our loan balances are now zero in that space.
spk14: Turning to credit quality, our portfolio continues to perform well.
spk03: Non-accrual loans further declined to $168 million or 23 basis points of total loans compared to $178 million or 27 basis points for the 2022 first quarter. Our 30 to 89 day past due loans increased to $152.4 million or 21 basis points. It is important to note that $91.8 million of the 30 to 89 day past dues were primarily caused by documentation delays and are now current. Excluding these, our 3089 day pass dues would have been well within our normal range at $60.6 million or 8 basis points of total loans. Our 90 day plus pass dues were $49.1 million or 7 basis points of total loans. Excluding two loans for $23.9 million that have been approved for refinancing but are still in process, As well as $15.6 million of loans delayed due to documentation and are now current, 90-day plus past dues would have been $9.6 million or just one basis point. Net charge-offs for the 2022 second quarter were $19.7 million or 11 basis points of average loans, compared with $17.8 million for the 2022 first quarter. The provision for credit losses for the 2022 second quarter increased to $4 million compared with $2.7 million for the 2022 first quarter. This brought the bank's allowance for credit losses to 62 basis points, and the coverage ratio stands at a healthy 266%. I'd like to point out that excluding very well-secured fund banking capital call facilities and government-guaranteed PPP loans, the allowance for credit loss ratio would be much higher at 109 basis points. And now onto the expanding team front where we continue to realize success with one of our strongest quarters of team hiring ever. As mentioned earlier, the bank onboarded 11 private client banking teams, including five in New York and six on the West Coast during the quarter. And our pipeline for additional teams this year remains strong. This quarter will also mark the launch of our newest national banking practice, the Healthcare Banking and Finance Team, with the onboarding of 10 colleagues to provide lending services and garnered deposits in this space. In order to support our team expansion, we continue to hire extensively throughout our operations and support infrastructure so that we can best serve our clients' needs. At this point, I'll turn the call over to Steve, and he will review the quarter's financial results in greater detail.
spk02: Thank you, Eric, and good morning, everyone. I'll start by reviewing net interest income and margin. For continued emphasis on cash deployment and higher prevailing market interest rates, our net interest income reached $649 million for the second quarter, an increase of $76 million, or 13%, in the 2022 first quarter, and an increase of $192 million, or 42%, in the 2021 second quarter. That interest margin increased 24 basis points to 2.23% compared with 1.99% for the 2022 first quarter. The increase in asset yields far outpaced the rise in our cost of funds, which led to significant margin expansion during the quarter. We expect this trend to continue in the quarters ahead. Let's look at asset yields and funding costs for a moment. Interest earning asset yields for the 2022 second quarter increased 44 basis points from the link quarter to 2.66%. The increase in overall asset yields was across all of our asset classes and was driven by higher rates as well as the deployment of cash into higher yielding loans. Yields on a securities portfolio increased 29 basis points link quarter 1.90%, given higher replacement rates and slower CPR speeds on our mortgage-backed securities portfolio. Additionally, our portfolio duration increased to 4.43 years due to the higher interest rate environment. Turning to our loan portfolio, yields on average commercial loans and commercial mortgages increased 20 basis points to 3.53% compared with the 2022 first quarter. Again, the increase in yields is driven by our portfolio repricing higher. Since over 40% of our loans reset within 90 days or less, we expect loan yields to continue to increase significantly as short-term rates move higher this year. Now looking at liabilities. Given the 150 basis points that Fed moved since March, our overall deposit cost this quarter increased 22 basis points to 40 basis points. The pace of the deposit repricing is in line with our expectations. During the quarter, average borrowing balances decreased $554 million, and the cost of borrowing decreased by four basis points to 2.81%. The overall cost of funds for the quarter increased 21 basis points to 46 basis points, driven by the increase in deposit costs. As we have pointed out, the bank is significantly asset sensitive. The bank's focus on growing floating rate loans, which now comprise 52% of our loan portfolio, coupled with our core deposit funding, make us extremely well positioned to continue to take advantage of a rising rate environment. On to non-interest income and expense. With our plan to grow non-interest income, we achieved growth of $14.3 million, or 61%, The $37.7 million when compared with the 2021 second quarter. The increase was generally across the board as many of our fee income initiatives continue to take hold. Non-interest expense for the 2022 second quarter was $210 million versus $172 million for the same period a year ago. The $38 million or 22% increase was principally due to the addition of new private client banking teams, national banking practices, and operational personnel, as well as consulting and professional fees related to various new projects which we've initiated to support the growing needs of our clients. Despite a significant hiring and operational investments, The bank continues to gain operating leverage, and as a result, our efficiency ratio improved to 30.6% for the 2022 second quarter versus 35.8% for the comparable period last year. Turning to capital, our capital ratios remain well in excess of regulatory requirements and augment the relatively low-risk profile of the balance sheet, as evidenced by a common equity Tier 1 risk-based ratio of 9.96% and total risk-based ratio of 11.85% as of the 2022 second quarter. Now we'll turn the call back to Jo. Thank you. Thanks, Steve.
spk15: This quarter, we continue to perform at an elevated level despite the uncertainty in the financial markets. We achieved a return on common equity of 17.9%, a very strong quarter for earnings. We saw substantial loan growth of $5.6 billion, which ranks as the second strongest growth quarter in our history, and contributions span all of our lending businesses. Our revenue growth continues to drive our efficiency ratio lower, which improved to 30.6%, even with higher-than-expected expense growth. We know what many of you are thinking. The efficiency ratio got better. It begs the question, are we investing enough to support our growth? And we are. For instance, this quarter we spent more than we had budgeted to strengthen our support areas, products, and capabilities. which will ultimately drive future net income. In fact, we always seem to exceed the budget due to growth. We continue to pave the way for future growth through the onboarding of new teams, such as the healthcare banking and finance team, as well as the addition of 11 teams across our New York and West Coast footprints. Today, we continue to be stimulated by the enormity of opportunities to grow our franchise, of which we will continue to take advantage and remain focused on the long term. We are not distracted by the uncertainty in the markets in the near term, because we continue to rely on a conservative relationship-based model, which has proven to be durable and tends to thrive in times of stress. During periods such as the Great Recession, as well as the COVID pandemic, we find clients rely on their bankers more so And now that Signature Bank has diversified across many different businesses and is not relying on any single one area, we feel we are in a better position than ever before. And like I said earlier, it is not a sprint. It is a marathon. We are patient and we grind hard every single day. Now, Steve, Eric, and I are happy to answer any questions you might have. Gretchen, we'll turn it back to you.
spk12: The floor is now open for questions. At this time, if you have a question or comment, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. Again, we do ask that while you pose your question that you pick up your handset to provide optimal sound quality. Thank you. Our first question is coming from Abraham Villas from UBS.
spk08: Hey, uh, everyone. Uh, thanks for the question. Um, so, uh, you know, at the time of the mid quarter update, um, digital asset deposits were, um, you know, we're about flat, I believe, but the end of the quarter down to an half billion. And that, that seems to be the main driver of, uh, some of that overall change to, uh, to deposit balances since then. Can you, you know, can you talk about what changed there and, um, does it have anything to do with, um, some of the crypto lending platforms and some of the funds that we saw in that space coming under stress over the last several weeks.
spk15: A large part of the decrease was $1.5 billion of the $2.4 billion of the total decrease for the quarter of clients in the digital world transferred $1.5 billion into treasuries. That was a large part of the decrease. It took money out of the balance sheet side and put it off balance sheet through the purchase of treasuries.
spk14: Okay.
spk08: Okay. And then just kind of overall deposit trends, it sounds like there are opportunities ahead for you guys with the pipeline you mentioned around EB-5. So from here on out, do you feel like it's going to be net inflows and deposit growth, or could there still be some volatility for the rest of the year here to the downside?
spk15: There's always choppiness, but we feel really good because we not only have EB-5, we believe we have the best team for EB-5, and it's gotten a little bit more complicated, which may remove some competitors. And we have an incredibly strong pipeline. Just imagine when the dollars come in, the third quarter, fourth quarter, or first quarter of next year. But we're expecting them to come in. And then our special mortgage solutions team has a very strong pipeline. They have a very strong pipeline. Along the lines of whatever they had in the last few years, it's better than it has been. So we're confident there. And then the 11 teams that we brought on, in addition to the 120-plus teams we have, we expect deposits to come there. So we're feeling very good about that. And then what happened this past quarter was we had a number of escrows leave and a number of 1031 deposits leave. So there were a lot of one-offs. For instance, we had in DDA 1.6 billion of the 5.3 billion were in four transactions. And so 1.6 billion leaving in four transactions is pretty significant. And the clients didn't leave.
spk14: It was just that the transactions they had came to fruition. And do any of those escrows come back later in the year, or are they –
spk15: For instance, one was a class action of $140 million. That one won't come back, but the company and law firms that we deal with constantly have transactions that go flow in and out. We had a bankruptcy of $250 million leave, and again, that happens in and out. It just happens that one large one left. We had a pension distribution Under the American Rescue Plan, underfunded pensions were provided money by the government to shore up the pension. We had a distribution of $550 million, and then we had a court-ordered distribution of $650 million. So those are things that occur throughout the year. It just so happened that there were four large transactions that occurred all at once.
spk08: Got it. Okay. And then just on expenses, if I could squeeze one last one in here. You know, you guys have been pretty straight down the fairway relative to your guide for several quarters now. You know, Q2 came, you know, a little bit on the high side. You know, obviously done, you know, great job hiring and, you know, executing growth in that way. So just, you know, just wondering just from here, you know, Is it going to drop back to that mid to high teens I believe you're on here? Growth rate that you've been talking about, just what's the trajectory from here?
spk02: Sure. So I think we'll be in this same range in the next few quarters, which is the low 20% range. Quite frankly, just given their new product initiatives or some new projects that we started entering into this quarter to bring some products and services to our clients that they were demanding as we continue to bring on new teams. We continue to expect to do that over the course of the coming quarters, but quite frankly, given our operating leverage that we continue to gain and the fact that we improved our efficiency ratio, we still expect to maintain this low-level efficiency ratio given our asset sensitivity, so we feel really good about where we are.
spk12: And our next question comes from Dave Rochester from CompassPoint.
spk07: Hey, good morning, guys. Good morning, James. Just wanted to get a sense for which customer segments drove that decline in the digital asset deposit space. Do you guys have the breakdown of that bucket for customer type for all those segments you talked about before? That would be great.
spk02: Sure, Dave. So digital asset exchanges, they were down about $1.8 billion. Our stable coin issuers were down 395 million. Our OTC debts and institutional traders were down about 100 million. And then our blockchain tech and digital miners were down about 40 million.
spk07: Got it. So that's the 1.5 billion transfer came out of the exchanges, I guess.
spk03: That's right. Yep.
spk07: Yep. Okay, and I was hoping you could just give an update on where deposit levels are today in July in that digital segment and for deposits overall, if you have any of that. And it sounds like you're really positive on the EB-5 going forward, the mortgage team. It sounds like it has a strong pipeline. Are you guys expecting deposit growth in general for the back half of the year at this point?
spk15: Well, we have all the things in place. You mentioned you know, the EV5 and the special mortgage banking solutions. And we also, to add, the fund banking division, we expected them after four years to be self-funding, and they're funding about 4% right now. They're going to make a concentrated effort in the second half of the year. Now that one of the leading fund banking teams in the country in the top five or so on the lending side, we want them to be one of the top performing banks on the deposit gathering site. So that goes well. So all the pieces are in place.
spk14: We just have to execute.
spk07: Got it. And any update on deposit balances at this point in July in 3Q?
spk14: Too early in the quarter.
spk07: Okay. And would you... Yep, I got you. And would you be able to give the spot rate on deposits at the end of 2Q? And then what you're seeing in terms of new loans or new loan yields and securities purchase rates at this point. That'd be great.
spk02: Sure. So I'll start with securities. We're in the 3.754% range on new purchases, CREs at about five and a quarter. And I believe you also asked on the deposit stock rate, and that was 67 basis points to start July.
spk12: And our next question comes from Steven Alex Opas from JP Morgan.
spk06: Hey, good morning, everyone.
spk15: Morning, Steve. Morning, Steve.
spk06: I wanted to start first. So on the deposits that you just called out from the exchanges, the decline of $1.8 billion, and I hear you on the larger transfer. But as we're all starting to learn about this business and how it impacts your company, so if we think about crypto prices declining in the quarter, volumes were up a bit. Walk us through how that drove deposit outflows for you guys. Are the exchanges just looking for a higher yield than you're willing to offer so they're moving to alternatives, or are they seeing deposit outflows themselves, and because of that, you're seeing deposit outflows? I'm hoping you can connect what's happening in their business to what's happening in your business.
spk14: It's kind of tough to answer.
spk03: You know, I mean, we saw a 65% decline in the price of Bitcoin, and yet we were, you know, hardly down not even 10% in deposits in that space. So, you know, clearly there are people leaving that space, and therefore deposits leaving. That was some of the headwinds. You know, as we talked about, a billion and five went off balance sheet, right? You know, the off balance sheet alternatives for yield are certainly there. So that's kind of pressured us a bit. So we're seeing people look for more yield, looking at all balance sheet alternatives coupled with people exiting the space a little bit. But I think given the dramatic decline in values, we're pretty pleased with the fact that we only saw a less than 10% outflow in our deposit base there. But look, it's still probably going to be a headwind for a little while. It's very choppy. In that space, you know, the digital winter hasn't quite gone away yet, although we are starting to see the value of Bitcoin firm up a little bit off of its lows. So, you know, it could be a positive as we look out over the quarter, but right now we anticipate that that will still be a headwind.
spk06: Eric, when you say that people are exiting this space, are you suggesting your own digital asset customers They left the space, and maybe give us an update of where you ended the quarter. I think you were at just over 1,200 last quarter.
spk03: Clients, we were up 121 clients, so we had a very good quarter there. We were at 1,323 in total. I think we've got the strong – it was our best transfer volume ever at $254 billion. So it was a really strong quarter from a client acquisition standpoint. So we're seeing more and more people come into the space. which will bode well. We onboarded a few more exchanges that have yet to move over their relationships, so that'll bode well for us in the future also. But, you know, clearly people, you know, deposits are exiting and have exited to a pretty small extent, though, when you think about it, Steve, like I said, given the value decline there.
spk15: Those two exchanges that Eric mentioned starting on July 29th. We had to quiet them as clients in the first quarter, but it took a while to get them on board, and they'll be starting July 29th. So that goes well for us, we're adding on those two exchanges. They're adding on another exchange this third quarter now.
spk06: Okay. That's helpful. And on the balance sheet growth, we know you funded quite a bit of the growth this quarter with cash, but first, from like a gross view, do you still think that $4 to $7 billion of loan and security growth, is that intact? And you're getting a lot of questions on deposits. Do you think this quarter is a bottom in deposits, or could we actually trend lower and fund even more of that asset growth from cash as we move into 3Q?
spk15: Well, we'd like to fund our growth through deposits. We're guiding now instead of $4 to $7 billion, On loans and investment securities, the growth would be between 1 to 3 billion. The reason why we're doing that is the uncertainty with the Fed actions. We're not sure how much positive activity is going to be out there with what the Fed is doing to continue tightening. And so that's going to allow us to be cautious. We don't want to get into a situation where we're not funding with deposits. So we're going to slow down the growth on the interest earning asset side to $3 billion, $1 to $3 billion, and to assure that we'll do it with deposit growth, not anything else.
spk12: Our next question comes from Casey here from Jefferies.
spk11: Yeah, thanks. Good morning, guys. I wanted to touch on deposit pricing. You guys have talked about a 40% deposit beta through the cycle, calculating in the low 30s after the second quarter here. Do you just give us some updated thoughts on whether or not you still feel comfortable with that 40%?
spk02: Yeah, I think right now we're at 34% as of the end of the quarter from a beta standpoint, and we continue to expect that. I mean, that's right where we thought we would be at this point, and we continue to expect that to trend upward at this point into the low 40s.
spk11: Okay, very good. And just following up on the new asset guide of $1 to $3 billion, what will be – I mean, I'm assuming that, you know, obviously the deposit growth is still choppy, the outlook there, but Is that $1 to $3 billion, are you comfortable that you can grow that without using borrowings, meaning it'll be dollar-for-dollar funded with deposit growth?
spk15: That's the plan. That's what we're planning on.
spk03: We think we're at or near the bottom on deposits and hopefully we'll have an upward trajectory from here. It's got to be choppy though. Quantitative tightening is going to be difficult for us to fight through, but we think we will. But the plan is to fund that growth in deposits.
spk11: And just the cash position down a little under $15 billion, is that That's roughly 13% of the balance sheet. Is that kind of a floor for you guys, or is there a little bit more room to fund out of that position as well?
spk02: There's a little bit more room. We can run at or around 10% of total deposits, so we still have excess cash that we're holding.
spk11: Okay, very good. And just last one for me, and apologies if I missed this on the expense side, you know, What specific – is there a specific client base that is driving this expense pressure? And then was this at all motivated by regulatory pressure?
spk02: No, not too much from the regulatory pressure. I mean, we certainly have spending in there for resolution planning, et cetera, but relatively manageable. It's really about, you know, client and product offerings. And talking about client base, I mean, are some of the new – Teams and groups that we've added, such as commercial mortgage finance team, we've done a little bit to spend there from an API standpoint to improve processing, collateral management. And from a West Coast standpoint, integrating API and technology for those clients to, you know, continue to grow there has really been the focus of these new projects.
spk14: Great. Thank you. Thank you.
spk12: Our next question comes from Ibrahim Poonawalla from Bank of America.
spk14: Hey, good morning. Good morning, Ibrahim.
spk10: So I guess just following up on some of these questions, Joe and Eric, on deposits, I think the expectation will be, and I heard everything around EB-5 and the cross-currents there, but given what we are seeing with industry-wide crypto deleveraging, I think the sense will be we probably do see deposit outflows at signature in the near term. Just talk to us when we look at the loan to deposit ratio at 70%, how do you think about this? Like we've seen this in the past be over 90%. I'm just wondering why constrained asset growth because of funding or are you not seeing as attractive opportunities on the asset side also? Would love to sort of get context to why you're ratcheting down asset growth vis-a-vis funding.
spk15: It's not vis-a-vis funding. That's part of it. The other part is the ratio of loans to deposits. We don't want to get into a situation where we are above the amount that we're comfortable with. We don't necessarily devote what that amount is, but we don't want to get anywhere near it. So we are being cautious because this is unprecedented times where rates are being increased fed funds 75 basis points at a time, and couple that with the quantitative tightening, it's unprecedented, and it could make it tough on the deposit side. So we're just being cautious. One to three doesn't mean that we'll stick with one to three. We're just saying that we're giving that guidance for the third quarter and fourth quarter. If you go back to four to seven, we don't feel comfortable in the short term.
spk10: Noted. Thanks for that. And I think you mentioned, Joe, earlier that fund banking was about 10% deposits for loans. I'm just wondering, in a world where deposits are just tight across the system, how do you have those clients bring in more deposits at this stage? I'm just wondering, is it realistic that we see a big contribution for fund banking? And what would drive that to bring those deposits into signature, given that it's not happened in the last four years?
spk15: Well, they were concentrating on developing the lending side, and we kind of took our eye off the ball as well. They're at 4% right now, and if they go to 10%, not even asking to be 100, if they go to 10%, that's an extra $2.3 billion in deposits. So they really weren't concentrating extensively on deposits, and now they are in the second half. So we expect that there'll be some growth there that we didn't have in the past four years.
spk10: Got it. And I guess one last question maybe for Steve or Eric. You don't give margin guidance, but I think given just the moving pieces, when we think about spread revenue, where do you see NII moving? Think about third quarter or maybe as we exit fourth quarter of this year, consensus about high 700s. Is that realistic? How do you see it? Would love any perspective there.
spk02: Yeah, so unfortunately, it's really difficult to say and guide specifically. Given our asset sensitivity, we do expect to continue to see expansion just a degree based upon impact of quantitative tightening as well as the magnitude and frequency of said rate hikes. It's just too difficult and too many different scenarios to give specific guidance there. But we do expect... Meaningful expansion should be significantly higher.
spk10: And is it safe to assume, like we saw NII move up about $75 million sequentially, given, Steve, as you mentioned, the rate hikes, we should see an even greater increase in NII in terms of the third quarter reset and potentially again in the fourth quarter? Is that reasonable?
spk14: That's hard to say. There's a lot that goes into that. We expect a lot of meaningful expansion. Got it. All right. Thanks for taking my questions. Thank you.
spk12: Our next question comes from from Morgan Stanley.
spk13: Hey, good morning.
spk01: A couple of questions on the loan growth side. You know, so you brought on 11 new teams. You know, you said you have a pretty strong pipeline there as well. And, you know, I think you've done this successfully for several quarters now. But I was wondering, you know, what's your appetite to continue doing that at the same pace, particularly, you know, given that, you know, the headwinds that you mentioned on the deposit side?
spk15: It's all opportunistic opportunities. will grow. If the teams present themselves and we think they're good teams, they're revenue producing teams, we'll bring them on board. It won't affect how we feel about expense. I think I've said many times over the last few years, not the last few years, since the beginning, that if our expenses went up to 30% and they were all based on we brought on a significant number of teams, we would have no problem doing that because the revenue follows quickly and it's opportunistic. I think that if we did an acquisition, people would be less concerned about the expense because it's an acquisition. Well, we're doing an acquisition utilizing capital better than if we did an acquisition. We're doing an acquisition of people that generate revenue. So if we find the teams, we'll hire them. If we don't find any teams, then we won't have the expense, but we won't have the revenue. So, therefore, we don't control the expense based on the number of teams.
spk01: But it sounds like if the opportunity is there, and presumably there might be more opportunity as the overall environment slows, that you'd be willing to go in and get new teams on board.
spk14: Yes, absolutely.
spk15: That's what we've done for 20, 21 years. Everyone asks us every year, how many teams do we project that we're going to have next year? In the first 10 years, I think Eric and I would say that we would budget for four teams, or three to five teams, and then we'd go out and hire 12 or 13. And then there were years that we said three to five and we ended up hiring three. It really depends on what opportunities present themselves. That's how we've been running the organization.
spk13: Great, that makes sense.
spk01: And then, you know, I was just wondering if you could give us an update on fund banking and the impact on demand that you're seeing from, you know, just given higher rates and lower public market valuations. You know, I think you saw some really nice growth there this quarter of about $3.5 billion, despite, you know, what the market is looking like. You know, how are fund managers approaching the current market environment, and, you know, what are you hearing from them?
spk15: What we're hearing from them is, is that we hired the number one and number two person in fund banking from four or five organizations, and they're continuing to bring over their clientele. So if the pie doesn't get bigger, we're still acquiring clients at the same rate that we started in the first year, now in the fourth year. So there's still opportunities. we're just slowing it down a bit so we can make sure that we fund the deposits. But the opportunities seem to be as great as they were four years ago.
spk13: That's great, Kala.
spk01: And then, you know, maybe just a quick clarification question. You mentioned that the $100 million in crypto-backed loans paid off fully. Does that mean you have no exposure at all on the asset side to participants in the crypto industry?
spk03: We have a very de minimis exposure there. Some letters of credit that are fully cash-secured, MACH lines, but it's really de minimis at this point.
spk14: We have no loans that are backed by cryptocurrency.
spk12: Our next question comes from Jared Shaw from Wells Fargo.
spk04: Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks. Just a couple of follow-ups. Maybe first on that Bitcoin loan, does that mean that you're not interested in that product anymore, that that paid off at your encouragement, or is that just a paid off and you'd still be open to doing lending secured by crypto?
spk15: We didn't ask the client to pay it off. The client paid it off on their own. I would say right now we're pausing. Pausing is probably the best word to use, pausing. but to see what happens in the near term since we're in the crypto winter, we still have a product and we still have clients that want it, but I would say poison is the best word to use.
spk04: Okay. That's a good call. Thanks. And then, Joe, you had earlier said you thought that there was some flop in the deposit base and weren't surprised to see some of that go. If we look at where we are today with the you know, the pull-down in DDAs this quarter. Do you think that you could see, you know, more drawdown in DDA if there's more fluff or that it would be more, you know, interest rate-sensitive customers have shifted to an interest rate product and the beta will come more from paying up for those deposits versus a deposit remix?
spk15: Well, I'll tell you, our feeling is that DDA in our history has been between 25% and 35%. And so... We expect that somewhere along the line that the DDA will reduce. That could be some slump or it could be just some shifting from DDA to money market because the interest rate is appealing when it wasn't appealing just a few quarters ago. And so that will allow clients to get interest. I think that being between 25% and 35% will be fine. but we'll continue to have client growth. One thing we haven't seen is a reduction in client growth. In fact, we're bringing on 500 more clients a quarter now more than we had in the past. And that's because of all the teams that we have. But it takes a while when those clients open up the account. It takes a while for funding. It's usually a quarter or two before they fund. So it bodes well that we're picking up 500 new clients more than we had in our growth in the past history.
spk04: Okay, thanks. And just finally for me, if we look at the allowance for credit loss or the allowance for loan loss as a ratio, that keeps coming down. Is this sort of a good floor for this as a ratio, or I guess how should we think about you know, the CECL modeling and some of the underlying macro weakness versus the strength in your portfolio?
spk02: Yeah, sure, Jared. So, you know, really our approach over, you know, since the adoption of CECL has really been a prudent approach. I mean, we have always had positive provisions, whereas, you know, last year or so, other institutions were reporting negative provisions. Certainly, we're utilizing our reserves where we have them set aside against specific loans for charge-offs, but we have continued to provide. From a macroeconomic standpoint, we actually, this quarter, are using a slightly more pessimistic, we use Moody's, and we're using a slightly more pessimistic scenario than the Moody's baseline suggests. We're using one that has a more aggressive interest rate path, slower GDP growth, and it takes... information macroeconomic assumptions from various constituents and therefore you know given our proven approach to reserving including this quarter we're using more pessimistic scenario in combination with our client-based relationship model we feel very good about where we're positioned though if we enter into some instance where macro deep recession certainly we'll see but we feel very good about where we're positioned today from an allowance standpoint.
spk14: Okay, thank you. Thank you.
spk12: Our next question comes from Matthew Breeze from Stevens, Inc.
spk05: Good morning. Can you talk a little bit about the outlook for loan yields as Fed fund hikes are fully absorbed? I guess I was a little bit surprised by the relatively similar moves in deposit costs and loan yields this quarter. versus the interest rate sensitivity of the bank. So I was hoping for some more color and near-term expectations for the loan yields in 3Q, 4Q, and what kind of rate assumptions you have in there.
spk02: I mean, right now we're in 45% of our book reprices within 90 days. So as we saw this quarter, I mean, the focus thus far has been on our deposit costs, but as we mentioned in prepared remarks, I mean, our asset yields were up 44%. And given that repricing, we would expect continued significant expansion into the third and fourth quarter of the Fed Heights. I mean, in particular, the short end of the curve is what's driving our fund banking portfolio, which comprises a significant portion of that 45% that's repricing. So we should continue to see expansion there.
spk05: Okay. And then back to asset growth, can you just talk about the pipeline, you know, and where you expect loan growth to come from? Oppositely, you know, what segments are you looking to slow down or they're supposed to be or you expect there to be runoff?
spk15: The two areas we expect to slow or we're focusing our attention to slow is commercial real estate and fund banking because they're the two largest by far. All the others that have come on board recently, including the healthcare, we're going to let them grow because they're the newest and they have the clients that they want to bring over. So we're not going to slow them down. We're going to let them do what it is that they do. And as I said, we'll slow down the two biggest segments. But again, if we get deposit growth of $10 billion, then we're going to utilize that $10 billion to fund loans.
spk14: So it depends on where we end up with the growth.
spk05: And I appreciate the hesitancy on providing color on deposit growth. I expect that to be more of a near-term issue. If we were to extend the time frame and look out 12 to 18 months, You know, just given, you know, you noted that all the pieces are in place for deposit growth. Could you give us some idea over the next year or 18 months, the extent you expect to see, you know, call it average deposit growth?
spk15: Well, if we feel that it's normal, whatever normal is, if we feel that it's normal, we'd probably go back to the 4 to 7 per quarter.
spk14: That may be a while. We just don't know.
spk03: Yeah, we've never really given any guidance around deposit growth. It's very difficult for us to guide on that. That's why we talk about asset growth. We see a pipeline on loans. We know that we can ratchet up the securities purchases if we see the deposits come in. But for us to predict deposit growth is near impossible.
spk05: Got it. Okay. And then just as credit for the entire banking universe becomes more of a forefront issue, I was hoping you could just give us an update on two portfolio segments. The first one is the specialty finance book. Just curious, you know, what types of equipment are in there and being underwritten, historical loss content, any recent updates you'd provide on health of the book or signs of erosion? And the second one is the New York City office book. Just, again, you know, would appreciate the size, LTVs, and any notable changes you've seen in performance there.
spk03: So especially finance is really made up of revenue-producing collateral. It's fared extremely well through all cycles. We've been through a number of cycles now with that portfolio. I think peak losses prior to that team coming to Signature Bank was at like 1.25%. Through the financial recession, through the pandemic, we've seen losses significantly muted from that higher level. So I don't think we've reached anywhere near 1%, even, right, Steve? Yeah, agreed. So it's very low-level losses because of our focus there of really lending on revenue-producing collateral. So it's a lot of trucks, trailers, buses, heavy metals, you know, yellow metals, as they call them. And we really don't... We haven't seen any degradation there in credit quality. And we feel very comfortable about how that will perform if we do head into a recession or a prolonged recession. As for the office space, again, we're not really seeing any issues in our office portfolio either. At this point, we have no non-accrual office loans. We do anticipate that it's going to be tough. of our lending in that space, we think, again, that any level of losses will be pretty muted. And if you look at our provisioning, that's where we really put our provisions. In the office and the retail space, we've got about 2% in provisions in those two sectors. So that's where we do think that we'll see some pressures, but as of now, we're not seeing any at all.
spk12: Our next question comes from Bernie Von G. Sickey from Duce Bank.
spk09: Hi, good morning. So my first question on the crypto deposit portfolio. So currently, I believe most of this funding hasn't been deployed given the uncertainty in the crypto markets. I know you don't charge fees generally. And we just saw that you reduced the overall cash levels down to about $15 billion. I'm not sure if I missed this, but how much cash are you holding against these deposits now? And I'm wondering, could you just walk us through how you can monetize this positioning over time?
spk03: We really haven't disclosed what level of cash that we hold against those positions. There's certainly more cash that we hold against those than we do against other types of deposits. Over time, as we see and have a greater history, certainly going through this most current digital winter, as they call it, and we see the deposit behaviors where we've seen a significant decline in the value of cryptocurrencies, yet our deposit base was not nearly down as much as the decline in the values. I think that's going to help us support having to maintain less cash against those deposits over time. and will allow us to lend against them. But, you know, we need a longer history and we need to go through more varied cycles before we can start to utilize more for lending.
spk09: Okay, and I was just wondering, just as a follow-up, I know you provided some stats on SIDNET. I believe the clients are up 121 to Q, and you had your best transfer volume with, I think you said, over $254 billion. You know, I know in the past you noted a number of ecosystems that could utilize Cignet over time. And, you know, I understand you want to keep certain details on that vague for competitive purposes. But, you know, just in light of the crypto collapse, you know, could you possibly size what the second biggest ecosystem is on Cignet and then just how these volumes may compare between crypto and whatever one is number two?
spk14: I don't think we've been able to size.
spk03: The opportunities outside of the digital space are pretty enormous. whether it be payroll, which is a massive part of the economy, to trucking, shipping, trading, energy trading. These are massive ecosystems that we've barely, barely scratched the surface on. As we've said before, Cigna is really capturing the power of blockchain and blockchain technology moving forward. We think that more and more ecosystems are going to embrace that. blockchain technology, and as they do, we've got the platform that can run parallel to the various blockchains that they'll be putting in place.
spk15: My belief is that the digital world, the digital crypto world will not even be in the top 10 of our clients on the payments platform. I think that once everyone understands what blockchain technology is, what it can do for their environment, that we will be in great shape because we're the first ones out of the gate that have done this. And it's very exciting for us to know that we have blockchain technology that could move payments
spk14: at a rate far greater than they're moving today. Okay, thank you. Our next question comes from Chris McGrady from KBW.
spk16: Hey, good morning. Eric, if I think about just the efficiency comments in your prepared remark, and I take everything you've disclosed on the call and just take a step back. Given the size and the growth profile of the company in the regulatory world, how do we think about that 30% and 31% efficiency ratio cadence from here? Is there pressure on it because of the investments? Does it hold serve because of the revenue growth? How do we think about that broadly?
spk03: It's a great question. We're certainly investing significantly. We saw a 22% increase in our expenses, and we expect that that will continue for quite some time. Fortunately, We've got a really powerful earnings story here. You know, still have significant asset sensitivity, and we expect that that will play out over the next, you know, several quarters. So there's going to be tremendous revenue expansion that we believe will more than offset, you know, the additional expenses that we're putting on, and it will lead to further efficiencies. But as Joe said in our prepared remarks, you know, We get the efficiency going down. It's kind of a big question. Are we spending enough? We're spending enough. We're spending a tremendous amount to ensure that we've got the appropriate systems and platforms and products and services in place to meet our clients' needs. But the revenue power here is tremendous. It should really further drive down that efficiency ratio.
spk16: Okay. Thank you. And then in the past, you've given some comments on the cadence of the growth in non-interest income, given some of the strategies there. How do we think about the outlook for non-interest income from here? I know you called out a derivative mark-to-market in the quarter.
spk03: Yeah, I mean, we expect that we'll continue to further drive that north. You know, I think if you look at the trend over the last couple quarters, you know, I'd continue that trend. We're up a few million quarter over quarter. We have a lot of opportunity there yet to tap, whether it's foreign exchange, credit cards, some of these projects that we've been talking about for a while. A number of the new business lines and initiatives that we've brought on board tend to generate more fee income, especially the mortgage banking team, amongst others. So we've got some positive fee income movement there. But, you know, meaningfully moving that higher as a percentage of overall revenues is going to be tough just because of how much in net interest income. You know, that growth is tremendous growth on that front.
spk14: Great. Thank you. Thank you, Chris.
spk12: This concludes our allotted time for today's conference call. If you'd like to listen to a replay of today's conference, please dial 800- 839-5128. A webcast archive of this call can also be found at www.signatureny.com. Please disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day.
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