KeyCorp

Good morning and welcome to Key Corp's fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would 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 fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are Don Kimball, our Chief Financial Officer, and Mark Mitkip, our Chief Risk Officer. On slide two, you will find our statement on forward-looking disclosure and non-GAAP financial measures. It covers our presentation materials and comments, as well as the question and answer segment of our call. I am now moving to slide three. This morning, we reported a strong finish to a record year. For the fourth quarter, our earnings per share were 64 cents, or $2.63 for the year. Before we discuss our quarterly results, I would like to provide some perspective on our performance for the year. Importantly, we continue to deliver on our commitments and make progress toward each of our long-term targets. I'll start with positive operating leverage. In 2021, we generated positive operating leverage for the eighth time in the past nine years. Importantly, we expect to generate positive operating leverage again in 2022. We delivered record revenue, which was up 9% year-over-year, with growth in both net interest income and non-interest income. Pre-provision net revenue also achieved record levels last year, up 10% from the prior year. We raised a record level of capital for our clients this year, over $100 billion, resulting in a record level of investment banking fees. Our investment banking business has been a consistent, sustainable growth engine for Key, growing at 15% compound annual growth rate over the last decade. We expect another year of growth in 2022. Our pipelines remain strong and are higher than at this time last year. We continue to take share in our seven industry verticals. We also have leading positions in some very targeted sub-verticals, including renewables financing and affordable housing. In order to enhance our strong competitive position, we have continued to add bankers. In 2021, we increased our population of senior bankers by 10%, and we expect further growth in 2022. We also saw strong momentum in our consumer business. We grew net new households at a record pace. and we continue to expand our existing client relationships. Our strongest growth in 2021 came from the western part of our franchise, which grew households at over two times the rate of the rest of our footprint. Consumer loans in our western franchise were up 17% last year. We are also seeing very strong growth with younger clients. 25% of our new households are under 30. We continue to benefit from two consumer growth engines, Laurel Road and Consumer Mortgage. Combined, these businesses generated a record $16 billion in originations for the year ending 12-31-21. We also continue to invest in order to support future growth. In addition to growing the number of bankers, we have continued to make meaningful investments in digital and analytics. These investments have accelerated our growth improved our efficiency, and enhanced the client experience. In 2021, we launched our national digital affinity bank, Laurel Road for Doctors, which expanded our consumer footprint nationally for a very targeted, high-quality client segment. 75% of our new business is coming from outside of our traditional 15-state footprint. We also acquired HUN Strategies, a leading consumer-focused analytics firm. And most recently, we acquired ZUP, a B2B-focused digital payments platform that provides an integrated and seamless onboarding experience. Foundational to our model is a relentless focus on maintaining our risk discipline. Credit quality remains strong throughout the year, as net charge-offs as a percentage of average loans remained at historically low levels. We will continue to support our clients while maintaining our moderate risk profile, which has and will continue to position the company to perform well through all business cycles. Finally, we have maintained our strong capital position while continuing to return capital to our shareholders. In 2021, we returned 75% of our net income to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases. We are committed to delivering value for all of our stakeholders. I am very proud of our accomplishments in 2021. I want to thank our teammates for their dedication and commitment to serving our clients and growing our business. I am confident in our future. We are positioned to deliver on our commitments. Now I'll turn it over to Don to provide more details on the results for the quarter and our outlook for 2022. Don?

Thanks, Chris. I'm now on slide five. For the fourth quarter, net income and continuing operations was 64 cents per common share, up 14% from last year. Our results reflect record performance from many of our businesses, as well as continued strong credit metrics. Importantly, we delivered positive operating leverage for both the fourth quarter and the full year. We also achieved record revenue for both the fourth quarter and full year. We had year-over-year growth in both net interest income and non-interest income. Our return on tangible common equity for the quarter was 18.7%. I will cover the other items on this slide later in my presentation. Turn to slide six. Average loans for the quarter were $99.4 billion, down 2% from the year-ago period and down less than 1% from the prior quarter. The driver of the decline from both periods was a decrease in average PPP balances as we helped clients take advantage of loan forgiveness. Forgiveness this quarter was $1.5 billion. Importantly, we saw core growth in both our commercial and industrial books, as well as commercial real estate portfolios versus the prior year and prior quarter. If we adjust for the sale of the indirect auto portfolio last quarter, as well as the impact of PPP, our core loans were up approximately $4 billion on average, or 4%, and up over $4.8 billion, or 5%, on an ending basis from the prior quarter. On the consumer side, we continue to see strong momentum driven by Laurel Road and consumer mortgage. Combined, these businesses originated $4 billion of high-quality loans this quarter. Continuing on to slide seven, average deposits totaled $151 billion for the fourth quarter of 2021, up $15 billion, or 11%, compared to the year-ago period, and up $4 billion, or 3%, from the prior quarter. The linked quarter and year-ago comparisons reflect growth in both commercial and consumer balances. The growth was partially offset by continued and expected decline in time deposits. Our cost of interest-bearing deposits remained unchanged at six basis points. We continue to have a strong, stable core deposit base with consumer deposits accounting for approximately 60% of the total deposit mix. Turn to slide eight. Taxable equivalent net interest income was $1.038 billion for the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to $1.043 billion a year ago and $1.025 billion for the prior quarter. Our net interest margin was 2.44% for the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to 2.7% for the same period last year and 2.47% for the prior quarter. Year over year and quarter over quarter, both net interest income and net interest margin reflect the impact of lower investment yields, as well as the exit of the indirect auto loan portfolio last quarter, which impacted our net interest margin by three basis points. These were largely offset by a favorable earning asset mix. The net interest margin was also impacted by elevated levels of liquidity as we continue to experience higher levels of deposit inflows in 2021. A couple of areas of interest in the past have been the impact of the repricing of our interest rate swap portfolio and the potential benefit from investing our excess liquidity position. Today, the current market rates actually exceed the average received fixed rate of our current swap portfolio. Also, if we reinvested the $20 billion of liquidity, our benefit to net interest income would be about $350 million a year. We've also included in the appendix additional detail on our investment portfolio and asset liability position. Moving on to slide 9, we reported record non-interest income for both the quarter and the full year. Non-interest income was $909 million for the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to $802 million for the year-ago period and $797 million in the third quarter. Compared to the year-ago period, non-interest income increased 13%. the increase was largely driven by an all-time high quarter for investment banking debt placement fees, which reached $323 million. Additionally, commercial mortgage servicing fees increased $16 million year over year. Offsetting this growth was lower consumer mortgage fees, reflecting higher balance sheet retention and lower gain on sale margins. Compared to the third quarter, non-interest income increased by $112 million, again primarily driven by the record fourth quarter investment banking debt placement fees, Other notable drivers were other income and commercial mortgage servicing fees, which increased $33 million and $14 million, respectively. Partially offsetting this was a $25 million decrease in cards and payments income, driven by lower prepaid card revenues. I'm now on slide 10. Non-interest expense for the quarter was $1.17 billion compared to $1.128 billion last year and $1.112 billion in the prior quarter. Our expense levels reflect higher production-related incentives related to our record revenue generation, as well as the investments we've made to drive future growth. Our expense levels in 2021 reflect a number of direct investments. As Chris mentioned, we invested in our team, including adding 10% new senior bankers. We invested in Laurel Road, in the rollout of our national digital bank, in the team, and in increased marketing. and we strengthened our digital and analytic capability, including the acquisitions of AQM and SUP. These investments correlated to higher levels of personnel costs from increasing hiring as well as the production-related incentives. On the non-personnel side, we saw an increase in business services and professional fees, computer processing expense, and marketing. Now moving to slide 11. Overall credit quality continues to outperform expectations. For the fourth quarter, net charge loss remained at historic lows and were $19 million or eight basis points of average loans. Our provision for credit losses was $4 million. This reflects our continued strong credit measures as well as our outlook for the overall economy and loan production. Non-performing loans were $454 million this quarter or 45 basis points of period end loans. A decline of $100 million or 22% from the prior quarter. Now on to slide 12, we ended the fourth quarter with common equity tier one ratio of 9.4%, with our targeted range of nine to nine and a half percent. 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. The final settlement of our accelerated share repurchase program disclosed last quarter was reflected in our share count this quarter. No additional open market repurchases were executed. Additionally, our board of directors approved a fourth quarter dividend increase of 5%, which now places our dividend at 19.5 cents per common share. On slide 13 is our full year 2022 outlook. The guidance is relative to our full year 2021 results and ranges are shown on the slide. Importantly, using the midpoints of our guidance ranges, which support Chris's comments by delivering another year of positive operating leverage in 2022. Average loans will be up low single digits on a reported basis. Excluding PPP and the impact of the sale of our indirect auto business, average loans will be up low double digits. We expect continued growth in average deposits, which should be up low single digits. Net interest income is expected to be relatively stable, reflecting lower fees from PPP forgiveness offset by growth in average earning assets, primarily loan balances. Our guidance assumes three rate increases in 2022, with the last one in December, which would not have a meaningful impact on results for the year. On a reported basis, non-interest income would be down low single digits, reflecting lower prepaid card revenue related to the support of government programs. Excluding prepaid card, our non-interest income would be relatively stable. We expect non-interest expense to be down low single digits, once again adjusting for the expected reduction in expenses related to prepaid cards. Expenses would be relatively stable. For the year, we expect net charge-offs to be in the range of 20 to 30 basis points. Given our strong credit trends, we would expect low loss rates to remain below our range early in the year and to move modestly higher later in the year. And our guidance for the gap tax rate is approximately 20%. 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 a moderate risk profile and improving our productivity and efficiency, which will drive returns. Overall, it was a strong quarter and a good finish to the year, and we remain confident in our ability to grow and deliver on our commitments to all of our stakeholders. With that, I'll now turn the call back over to the operator for instructions of the Q&A portion of the call. Operator?