KeyCorp

Good morning and welcome to Key Corp's first quarter 2021 earnings call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to the chairman and CEO, Chris Gorman. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us for Key Corp's first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are Don Kimball, our Chief Financial Officer and and Mark Midkiff, our Chief Risk Officer. On slide two, you will find our statement on forward-looking disclosures and non-GAAP financial measures. It covers our presentation materials and comments, as well as the question and answer segment of our call. I'm now turning to slide three. Our first quarter was a strong start to the year as we executed our strategy and delivered positive operating leverage relative to the year-ago period. We continued to grow the number of clients across our franchise. In the first quarter, we experienced the strongest growth in consumer households in five years. Additionally, we continued to add commercial clients and deepen existing relationships. We leveraged the strength of our business model by raising over $13 billion for our commercial clients, of which we retained approximately 19% on our balance sheet. And let me just say that's exactly the way our model is designed to work, taking advantage of attractive markets for the benefit of our clients while maintaining our credit discipline with that which we place on our balance sheet. We also launched our national digital bank, Laurel Road for Doctors, at the end of March. I will comment more on that shortly. In addition, we announced the acquisition of AQN Strategies, a client-focused analytics firm that With deep expertise in the financial services industry, the acquisition aligns to Key's relationship strategy and underscores our commitment to a data-driven approach to grow our business. We also identified 70 branches for consolidation, representing approximately 7% of our network. We continue to lean into digital. Most of these closures will take place in the second quarter. Moving to our financial results for the quarter, we reported net income of 591 million, or 61 cents per share for the first quarter. On a per share basis, this is an increase of 9% from the fourth quarter results and up significantly from the year ago period. We generated record first quarter revenue, which reflected broad-based growth across our company, driven by our fee-based businesses. Our investment banking business achieved record first quarter revenues with growth across the platform. This is an area where we have invested in our teammates and made targeted acquisitions to enhance our capabilities, including such areas as healthcare and technology. We have grown this business in eight of the last nine years, including having a record year in 2020. and we expect to grow this business again in 2021. We reached another milestone in our consumer mortgage business with record loan originations of $3 billion for the quarter. In addition to adding high-quality loans to our balance sheet, consumer mortgage fees were up 135 percent from the year-ago period. Our outlook for this business remains positive as we continue to grow and take market share. We reported a record $8.3 billion of originations in 2020, and we expect to eclipse that level this year. Other contributors to fee income this quarter were trust and investment services and cards and payments income. Credit quality remains strong. Non-performing loans, net charge-offs, and criticized loans were all down from the prior quarter. We continue to support our clients while maintaining our moderate risk profile, which has and will continue to position the company to perform well through the business cycle. Finally, we have maintained our strong capital position while continuing to return capital to our shareholders. Our common equity tier one ratio ended the quarter at 9.8%, which is above our targeted range of 9 to 9.5%. Our strong capital position enables us to execute against our capital priorities, organic growth, dividends, and share repurchases. This quarter, we repurchased 135 million of common shares. Our board of directors also approved our first quarter common stock dividend of 18 and a half cents a share. Now turning to slide four. Before I turn the call over to Don, I wanted to make a few comments regarding Laurel Road. We acquired Laurel Road, a born digital company, in April of 2019. The acquisition has exceeded all of our expectations. It has accelerated our digital transformation and has been a great complement to our existing healthcare platform. Since our acquisition, Laurel Road has generated over $4.6 billion in high-quality loan originations, adding high-value digital relationships with healthcare professionals. We also have the opportunity to continue to scale this business. At the end of March, we took the next step on this journey with the launch of our digital bank, Laurel Road for Doctors, serving the healthcare segment and expanding our consumer franchise nationally. Importantly, Our approach to our digital bank is differentiated. Historically, many offerings have been product-centric or focused on deposit gathering. Ours is fully aligned with our relationship strategy. The launch broadened our offering for Laurel Road clients to include deposits, additional lending products, and other value-added services created to meet the unique financial needs of healthcare professionals. The launch was an important milestone in our digital journey, which brings together critical elements of our strategy, targeted scale, digital, healthcare, and primacy. Right now, we are focused on physicians and dentists, but soon we will expand to other medical professionals. Importantly, this launch is not the end goal, but rather just the beginning. I will close my remarks by restating that I am pleased with our results for the quarter and our strong start for 2021. I am proud of what we have achieved as a team and remain optimistic about the future as we emerge from the pandemic and the economy continues to recover. Key is well positioned to grow and deliver on our commitments for all of our stakeholders. With that, I'd like to now turn it over to Don to walk through the quarter. Don?

Thanks, Chris. I'm now on slide six. As Chris said, it was a strong start to the year with net income from continuing operations of $0.61 per common share, up 9% from the prior quarter and over four times from the year-ago period. The quarter reflected a net benefit from our provision for credit losses. The reserve release was largely driven by expected improvement in the economic environment. Importantly, we generated record first quarter revenue driven by the strength in our fee-based businesses. I'll cover the other items on this slide later in my presentation. Turning to slide seven, total average loans were $101 billion, up 5% from the first quarter of last year, driven by growth in both commercial and consumer loans. Commercial loans reflected key participation in PPP, partially offset by decreased utilization. PPP loans had an impact of $7 billion in the first quarter of 2021 average balances. Consumer loans benefited from the continued growth from Laurel Road and, as Chris mentioned, record performance from our consumer mortgage business, with $3 billion of consumer mortgage loans this quarter. The investments we have made in these areas continue to drive results and, importantly, add high-quality loans and relationships. Blink quarter average loan balances were down 1%, reflecting lower commercial utilization rates and reduction in average PPP balances. We had just under $1 billion of PPP forgiveness in the current quarter. Consumer loans were up 1% from the prior quarter, again related to continued production from consumer mortgage and Laurel Road. Continue on to slide eight. Average deposits totaled $138 billion for the first quarter of 2021, up $28 billion, or 25%, compared to the year-ago period, and up 1.5% from the prior quarter. The linked quarter and year-ago comparisons reflect growth in both commercial and consumer balances, which benefited from government stimulus. The growth was offset by a continued and expected decline in time deposits. The interest-bearing deposit cost came down another three basis points from the fourth quarter of 2020, following an eight basis point decline last quarter. We continue to have a strong, stable core deposit base, with consumer deposits accounting for over 60% of our total deposit mix. Turning to slide nine. Taxable equivalent net interest income was $1.012 billion for the first quarter of 2021 compared to $989 million a year ago and $1.043 billion for the prior quarter. Our net interest margin was 2.61% for the first quarter of 2021 compared to 3.01% for the same period last year and 2.7% from the prior quarter. Both net interest income and net interest margin were meaningfully impacted by significant growth in our balance sheet compared to the year-ago period. The larger balance sheet benefited net interest income but reduced the net interest margin due to the significant increase in liquidity driven by strong deposit inflows. Compared to the prior quarter, net interest income decreased $31 million and the margin declined nine basis points. The decrease in net interest income was caused by the day count of approximately $14 million lower loan fees of $8 million and lower loan balances resulting in an additional $8 million reduction to NII. Non-interest margin also reflected a four basis point reduction due to the increases in our liquidity position. Moving on to slide 10, we have continued to see growth in our fee-based businesses. Non-interest income was $738 million for the first quarter of 2021 compared to $477 million for the year-ago period and $802 million in the fourth quarter. Compared to the year-ago period, non-interest income increased 55%. We had a record first quarter for investment banking debt placement fees, which reached $162 million, driven by broad-based strength across the platform. This quarter, both debt and equity markets were especially strong. Record mortgage originations drove consumer mortgage fees this quarter, which were up $27 million, or 135% from the first quarter of 2020. Cards and payments income also increased $39 million related to higher prepaid card activity from state government support programs, as well as a growth in the core platform. Other income in the year-ago period included $92 million of market-related valuation adjustments. Compared to the fourth quarter, non-interest income decreased by $64 million. The largest driver of the quarterly decrease was seasonality in our investment banking line. coming off an all-time high record quarter. This was partially offset by the strength in trust and investment services income and cards and payments income. I'm now on slide 11. Total non-interest expense for the quarter was $1.071 billion compared to $931 million last year and $1.1 billion in the prior quarter. The increase from the prior year is primarily in personnel expense. related to higher production-related incentive compensation, which increased $58 million, and the increase in our stock price, resulting in a $36 million increase compared to last year. Employee benefit costs also increased $15 million. Year over year, payments-related costs reported in other expense were $32 million higher, driven by higher prepaid activity. Computer processing expense this quarter was elevated related to software investments across the platform, accounting changes, and timing differences. Compared to the prior quarter, NIOSH's expense decreased $57 million. The decline was largely due to lower production-related incentives and severance costs. Moving now to slide 12, overall credit quality continues to outperform expectations. For the first quarter, net charge-offs were $114 million of 46 basis points of average loans. Our provision for credit losses was a net benefit of $93 million. This was determined based on our continued strong credit metrics, as well as our outlook for the overall economy and loan production. Non-performing loans were $728 million this quarter, or 72 basis points of period-end loans, a decline of almost $60 million from the prior quarter. Additionally, criticized loans declined, and the 30 to 90-day delinquencies also improved, again quarter over quarter, with a five basis point decrease, while the 90-day plus category remained relatively flat. Now on to slide 13. Key's capital position remains an area of strength. We ended the first quarter with a common equity tier one ratio of 9.8%, which places us above our targeted range of 9 to 9.5%. This provides us with sufficient capacity to continue to support our customers and their borrowing needs and return capital to our shareholders. Importantly, we continue to return capital to our shareholders in accordance with our capital priorities. Our board of directors approved a first quarter dividend of 18.5 cents per common share. We also repurchased $135 million of common shares under the share repurchase authorization we announced in January of up to $900 million. This leaves us with a capacity of up to $765 million for the next two quarters. On slide 14, we provide our full year 2021 outlook, which we've adjusted to reflect our strong start to the year, positive momentum in our business, and more favorable revenue outlook. Consistent with our prior guidance, we expect to deliver positive operating leverage for the year. Average loans are expected to be relatively stable, reflecting continued momentum in our consumer areas, the impact of PPP and stronger commercial growth in the second half of the year. The first quarter should be the low point of the year with expected growth from here. We expect deposits to be up mid-single digits and that we will continue to benefit from our low-cost deposit base. Net interest income should be up low single digits. Net interest income will benefit from higher loan fees related to PPP forgiveness and continued deployment of some of the excess liquidity offset by the ongoing impact of low rates. Non-interest income should be up mid-single digits, reflecting the growth in most of our core fee-based businesses. Non-interest expense should be relatively stable, reflecting higher production-based incentives related to our improved revenue outlook. Our continuous improvement efforts and branch consolidation plans remain on track and will help support our ongoing investments and talent and to stay at the forefront of our digital offerings. Moving on to credit quality, we have reduced our net charge off guidance, which is now expected to be in the 35 to 45 basis point range for the year. This reflects the quality of our portfolio and our current outlook. And our guidance for our GAAP tax rate remains unchanged at around 19% for the year. Finally, shown at the bottom of the slide, are our long-term targets, which remain unchanged. We expect to continue to make progress on these targets by maintaining our moderate risk profile and improving our productivity and efficiency, which will drive returns. Overall, it was a good start to the year, and we remain confident in our ability to deliver on our commitments to all of our stakeholders. With that, I will now turn the call back over to the operator for instructions on the Q&A portion of our call. Operator?