Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (HBAN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Huntington Bancshares, Incorporated. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Steve D. Steinour, Chairman, President and CEO of Huntington Bancshares, Incorporated. Mr. Steinour, the floor is yours.

So welcome to the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Huntington Bancshares, Incorporated. I'm Steve Steinour, and I'm very pleased that all of you are joining us today for this live audio-only webcast. During these challenging times, the safety and security of our community is a top priority. We appreciate your support and understanding. I will serve as Chairman of this meeting. I'd like to introduce our independent directors who are nominated for reelection at this meeting. Dave Porteous, our Lead Director. Lizabeth Ardisana or Beth Ardisana; Alanna Cotton ; Tanny Crane; Bob Cubbin; Steve Elliott; Gina France; Mike Hochschwender; Chris Inglis; Allie Kline; Rick Neu and Ken Phelan. And we have several members of the executive leadership team on the phone as well. So I now call this meeting to order. The meeting will be conducted in accordance with the meeting agenda and the meeting procedures. The agenda and procedures are available online in the file section in the lower left of your screen. If you need a copy of the annual report or the proxy statement, the links are also available online. David Dietrich of Computershare Trust Company is in attendance and will act as the Inspector of Election for this meeting. The Corporate Secretary duly appointed proxies and representatives of PricewaterhouseCoopers are also in attendance. This meeting was called by our Board of Directors, which set the close of business on February 17, 2021, as the record date holders of shares of our common stock entitled to receive notice of and to vote at this meeting. The notice of meeting and proxy statement were first mailed or made available on March 12, 2020, to holders of shares of our common stock of record as of the close of business on the record date. I've been advised by the secretary that at least a majority of the company's issued and outstanding shares of common stock entitled to vote is represented in person or by proxy at today's meeting. Accordingly, a quorum is present for the conduct of business. I will address questions, if any, about the proposals after they are presented. You may submit questions online by clicking on the dialogue icon in the upper right corner of the meeting center screen. Out of consideration for others, we request that shareholders limit themselves to 1 question or comment. We will now turn to the proposals to be presented for a vote of the shareholders. The proposals are described in the proxy statement. For Board of Directors, our Board of Directors recommends that Huntington shareholders vote for the election of each nominee for director and each of the other agenda items. The first agenda item is the election of 13 directors to serve a 1-year term expiring at the 2022 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. The second agenda item is ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the independent register public accounting firm for the company for 2021. The third agenda item is the approval on an advisory nonbinding basis of the executive compensation disclosed in the proxy statement and the fourth agenda item is approval of the amended and restated 2018 long-term incentive plan. If you've not voted or wish to change your vote, you may do so now by clicking on the link available online. Any shareholder who has already voted and does not wish to change their vote, need not take any further action. Once again, as described in the proxy statement, our Board of Directors recommend that Huntington's shareholders vote for each of the nominees for director and each of the other 3 proposals. I'd like to ask Mark Muth, Director of Investor Relations, if there are any questions specific to the proposals. Mark?

No questions at this time related to the proposal, Steve?

So we will pause a moment to allow shareholders to vote then. . [Voting]

I'm going to allow about 20 seconds for those on the call who wish to vote, and then we'll proceed. So we're coming up on that. And hopefully, anyone who is intending to vote or change a vote has done so. So let me thank you. The polls are now closed. The inspector has issued a preliminary report and has informed me that all of the nominees for the Board of Directors have been elected. The appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the company's auditors for 2021 has been ratified. The advisory resolution to approve the compensation of executive officers has been approved, and the amended and restated 2018 long-term incentive plan has also been approved. . Based on the preliminary report of the inspector, I declare that the proposals are approved. The final results of the balloting will be recorded in the minutes and will appear in a current report on Form 8-K that the company will file within 4 business days after this meeting. This concludes the formal business of the meeting. Now I'd like to offer some comments and then to the extent there's time, we'll proceed to your questions. Before we begin, I'd like to direct your attention to our safe harbor statement on Slide 4. I'll make some forward-looking statements today in my presentation. So I ask that you please review this slide. Let's start on Slide 5. Thank you again for joining us virtually for the 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Today, I'm going to discuss our purpose, how we lived it this past year, the time our customers and communities needed us most. I will cover our pending acquisition of TCF Financial and the significant opportunities it presents as well as an overview of our 2020 financial performance. And finally, I'll provide a brief business and strategy update, including the steps we're taking to deliver long-term success and shareholder value. Following the presentation, I'll close with a general question-and-answer session. The executive leadership team and I always look forward to your questions and insights and the webcast will provide that opportunity. You can submit your questions at any time during my presentation by clicking on the dialogue icon in the upper right corner of the meeting screen and our Investor Relations Director, will post those to us on your behalf. So let's turn to Slide 6 and begin. The unprecedented and uncertain times we experienced in 2020 were challenging to say the least. Our purpose of looking out for people guided our planning and our response, we quickly recognized that the pandemic was first and foremost of public health crisis. And we took swift action to ensure the safety and well-being of our colleagues, their families and our customers. We were among the first in the industry to close our branch lobbies and move to drive-through only with in-person meetings by appointment only to keep our colleagues and customers safe. We adhere to social distancing guidelines. We closed all in-store branches and traditional branches, which did not have a drive-through. We accelerated development of our digital products and services as well as updated our ATMs to better serve our customers. We implemented a work-from-home policy for most other colleagues and had more than 80% of those other colleagues working remotely, as states issued stay-at-home orders. We took measures to keep our colleagues engaged and connected whether we're working from home through increased communication. The commitment and flexibility of our colleagues demonstrated -- that our colleagues demonstrated was inspiring and allowed us to continue living our purpose and serving the needs of our customers. And finally, we added several new benefits during the year, including emergency paid time off and other programs for those directly impacted by the virus. As the pandemic progressed and economic activity shuttered, it became clear that many of our customers would face financial hardships. Again, we acted rapidly and announced multiple relief measures that included loan payment deferrals, fee waivers and the suspension of foreclosures and repossessions. Our involvement in the Paycheck Protection Program illustrates our dedication to the small businesses that are the backbone of our economy and communities as we remain the #1 SBA lender in America in 2020. During the first round of the program about a year ago, we manually processed over 38,000 loans totaling $6.6 billion, making us the 11th largest lender to participate in the program. And many of you know, the program was reopened for a second round earlier this year. And as of end of March, we processed an additional $1.8 billion of loans. We are committed to helping our small business customers meet their financial needs, and the past year has provided us the opportunity to prove just that. Lastly, we accelerated our financial commitments to the communities we serve. resulting in the completion of a 5-year $16 billion community plan that we announced in 2016. This plan was completed over 1 year ahead of schedule, but we didn't stop there. The clear challenges of our communities we're facing during the pandemic as well as the social unrest experienced across the nation, motivated us to announce a new 5-year $20 billion community plan. The plan addresses specific needs such as affordable housing, economic development, food and security and financial literacy in our neighborhoods. Further, we introduced a program called Huntington Lift Local business, which provides micro loans to minority women and veteran-owned businesses. While 2020 undoubtedly was the most challenging, I have -- challenging year I faced in my career, and we as a nation have faced in quite some time. I'd like to thank my colleagues for their inspiring efforts and commitment to serve our customers and by living our purpose of making people's lives better, helping businesses thrive and strengthening the communities we serve. In the second quarter of 2020, management and the Board began the process of updating our strategic plan in light of the dramatically changing circumstances and outlook. We look to position the company to respond to the challenging economy and plan for the recovery, including the potential opportunity to build additional scale through opportunistic acquisitions. Slide 7 highlights our pending acquisition of TCF Financial, which I believe will be a key driver of our performance over the coming years. We're making good progress in our preparation for closing and the acquisition and -- closing the acquisition and integrating their businesses in the Huntington. We're meeting or exceeding the time lines that we have set to be ready to close the acquisition during the second quarter and complete the systems conversion in the third quarter. We completed our regulatory application filing in early January. We're executing our integration plans with progress on product and data mapping, vendor conversion planning and systems integration road maps. During the last week of March, shareholders of both companies approved the transaction. We continue to remain very confident in our ability to execute the cost synergy plans, while our excitement about the incremental scale and revenue growth opportunities coming from this combination are increasing. Now moving to our financial performance. Slide 8 shows our year-end balances for total assets and deposits as well as full year 2020 revenue. Our year-end assets of $123 billion make Huntington, the 31st largest bank holding company in the U.S. Our deposit base at year-end was $99 billion, which represented the 26th largest bank holding company in the U.S. Total revenue of $4.8 billion in 2020 represents a $143 million increase from 2019 despite the economic headwinds and challenging interest rate environment. Turning now to Slide 9. We reported net income of $800 million in 2020, which represents earnings per common share of $0.69. Earnings were materially negative impacted by the elevated credit provisioning expense under the new CECL, CECL accounting methodology implemented at the beginning of the year. This new methodology requires us to reserve for the lifetime expected loss predicted by our models, which understandably increased due to the economic challenges and uncertainty brought on by the pandemic. Nonetheless, we were particularly pleased with Huntington's underlying earnings power as illustrated by the 4% year-over-year growth in pretax, pre-provision net revenue or PTPP, which measures our profitability prior to any changes in these credit reserves. On Slide 10, you can see the chart on the left that since the FirstMerit transaction in 2016, we've significantly improved our efficiency ratio as we realized the cost savings and revenue synergies of that acquisition. Our 2020 efficiency ratio of 57% ranks us among the most efficient banks in the nation. We're optimistic about becoming even more efficient through similar cost savings and revenue synergies related to the pending TCF transaction. Return on tangible common equity for 2020 was 9%. Like our earnings per share on the prior slide, this metric was reduced by the elevated credit provisioning. Slide 11 continues -- illustrates the continued strength of our capital ratios. Entering 2020, our capital base served as a source of strength amid the pandemic and allowed us to support our customers' needs and positioned us to take advantage of growth opportunities. Common Equity Tier 1 ratio, or CET1, ended the year at 10%, and we continue to manage CET1 with respect to our 9% to 10% operating guideline. Our tangible common equity ratio ended the year at 7.2%. The underlying strength of Huntington's balance sheet and earnings power allowed us to increase the dividends paid to our owners for the 10th consecutive year. Slide 12 highlights our share performance in 2020. Total shareholder return, or TSR, is the price appreciation of the common shares assuming reinvestment of dividends. Our 2020 TSR of negative 11% placed us slightly above the negative 12% TSR for our peer group, but taking a longer-term view from 2011 to 2020, Huntington's cumulative total shareholder return of 148% outpaced our peer average by 42%. While our share performance was negatively impacted by the pandemic, our performance during the second half of 2020 and year-to-date in 2021 reflects the outlook for more constructive times ahead. It also reflects the Street's confidence in our ability to manage through challenging economic times. And this is a direct result of the strategic changes we implemented since the global financial crisis in 2009 and '10, particularly strengthening our enterprise risk management. Closely connected to our purpose is our commitment to corporate sustainability, which is detailed each year in our environmental, social and governance or ESG report. The 2019 addition on Slide 13, provided a comprehensive view of our purpose and values in action. Our forthcoming 2020 ESG report documents, the continued advancement and maturation of Huntington's ESG strategy, and it will be our first report adopting the important TCFD, so that's the climate reporting and SASB ESG reporting standards. The 2020 addition we'll post to huntington. com later this spring, and I encourage you to read it. In keeping with our efforts to reduce our environment footprint, this is an online document only, but if you don't have access to the Internet, investor relations can print and mail you a copy. Slide 14 is always one of my favorite slides when talking to our shareholders and potential shareholders as it clearly illustrates some of the waves that we've created a high level of alignment between the Board, management, our colleagues and you, our shareholders. The Board and our colleagues are collectively a top 10 shareholder of Huntington, and all of us are appropriately focused on driving sustained long-term performance. We have measures in place to ensure that management interests are aligned with those of our long-term shareholders. We have long-standing, hold to retirement and clawback provisions with all of our equity awards. We are all long-term shareholders. Finally, on Slide 15, I'd like to end my presentation today with an independent validation that our strategies and our investments are working. Much of our strategic focus for the future is on mobile and digital technology. And while rapidly emerging mobile and digital capabilities will define the customer experience of the future, it's also important for us to recognize the progress we've already made. In 2020, we were honored to receive the J.D. Power Award for highest in customer satisfaction with our mobile app among regional banks. This came just 1 year after being recognized for the highest customer satisfaction in both online and mobile banking nationally. And while these awards serve as a proof point of the progress we've already made, we're not resting on our successes. Our investments in digital and mobile capabilities are resulting in a real competitive advantage. These outcomes and future capabilities, we'll deliver for our customers, come from tremendous collaboration from all parts of Huntington from our technology and omnichannel teams to our marketing and operations groups, amongst others. Because of their commitment to innovating for our customers, I'm confident we'll continue to enhance our already distinguished customer experience. We now have time for shareholders to ask questions or to be heard. Mark, will you review the procedures for this Q&A period?

Thanks, Steve. At this point, Steve, we have 1 question. And the first question is will Huntington offer premium credit cards like Mastercard World Elite or Visa Signature after the merger?

We currently offer Mastercard World Elite, and we will offer 1 of the 2 after the combination with TCF, and you'll hear more from us about that in the near future. Thank you for that question. Is there another question, Mark?

At this point, I'm showing no further questions.

No further questions, nothing pending?

No.

All right. Well, this concludes the question-and-answer period. Thank you for joining us today for our second virtual Annual Shareholders Meeting. I'm grateful for your support during this past year, and I look forward to seeing you next year. I now declare this meeting concluded. Have a great day, everyone.

This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.