KeyCorp (KEY) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

We'll go ahead and get started. So good morning, everyone. I'm Ebrahim Poonawala, Head of North American Banks Research for BofA. On behalf of the U.S. Bank's Team and Global Research, I would like to welcome everyone to Bank of America's 2025 and 33rd Annual Financial Services Conference. Over the next 2 days, we'll be hosting over 300 institutional investors, over 120 corporates to discuss their outlook for the U.S. economy in face of a Trump policy agenda that, on one hand is expected to be very positive for domestic CapEx, job growth, and on the other hand is likely to come with a heightened level of volatility. We will also be hosting some must-attend thematic panels with thought leaders to discuss the outlook for bank regulation, a health check on the commercial real estate market. And finally, a bunch of tech panels, including impact of AI in financials, evolution of the payment space. So hopefully, you can join us for those panels as well. With that and without further ado, to kick off our discussion on the banks, I'm delighted to welcome Chris Gorman, Chairman and CEO of KeyCorp. Chris, thank you so much for being here.

Good morning, Ebrahim. It's great to be here on your 33rd conference. So we're pleased to be here. Good morning, everybody.

So maybe just to kick it off, in terms of the macro, and it's only been a few weeks since we've had the new administration in place, but I feel like we've gone through waves of emotion in terms of the optimism and we've seen some of the volatility that's going to come along with it in terms of the risks around tariffs, et cetera. Give us a sense of your view, one, from a big picture standpoint, how you think about the next year playing out, the puts and takes, and we'll take it from there.

Sure. Well, I'm very optimistic kind of for the next 2 years, we've got pretty good visibility. I think it's going to be a great 2 years for the financial services sector broadly. So I'm particularly optimistic about how Key is positioned, but I think the whole industry is going to do well. As you know, I'm out talking to our clients all the time. I think there's no question that subsequent to the election, there's been greater optimism on the part of our clients. And I see that play out in both the backlogs that we have in terms and the strategic discussions that we're having. So I feel -- to give you an interesting stat, we have a survey of about 700 middle market companies, 62% of them have indicated that they're thinking about doing something strategic in the form of M&A in the next year. A greater number are saying they're going to make investment in their business. That would not have been the case a year ago. So that's all on the positive side. On the negative side, kind of what are the uncertainties. Obviously, the tariff situation is evolving as we speak. And obviously, that takes time for people to digest. I think that could cut a couple of different ways. One, I do think tariffs are inflationary. So put a marker on that. I think that's an issue. I think it creates some uncertainty. I think in terms of loan growth, it might actually be a bit of a pop on the loan growth front because I think people may be out buying ahead of tariffs. But having said all that, we've lived through most of these tariffs before. The tariffs that are currently in place, at least as of the last 24, 48 hours, are tariffs that we've seen before. And so we've lived through that. So I am -- I think it's a pretty good climate. I personally think interest rates are going to kind of settle in somewhere around where they are now, Ebrahim. And I've always said, what the market doesn't like is if interest rates are at 4.5% or 4.6%, that being the 10-year. What the market doesn't like is if the forward say that it's going to be declining by 4 or 5 cuts. But once people kind of settle in, I think it's a good environment to get things done. So I'm optimistic.

Got it. I'd like to follow up on a few of those things, but sure. Just let's -- if we can take a step back in Key, I mean I think for those of us who follow the company closely, I think the last couple of years have been a bit interesting to navigate a rate shock that we got from the Federal Reserve. Give us a sense of, in terms of how you've navigated the bank, a frame of mind in terms of what the employee morale looks like, what the defense versus offense. We talked about this a little bit on the earnings call, but I would love to hear and get a status check on the health of the franchise.

Sure. I'd love to speak to it. The franchise is very healthy. So if you think about, you mentioned the last couple of years. Last year, I think our total -- I think our TSR was somewhere around 25%, including dividends. We hired a whole bunch of people in our wealth business. We hired about 170 people. We continue to invest in people in the -- in our investment banking area. And I guess now would be a good time for me to just mention, I'm just so proud of our team. I mean, our team, to your point, had to demonstrate a bunch of agility in '23 and then in '24, and they did so. And as we go into '25, I feel very, very good about the business. You asked about the morale. We're constantly -- I'm a big believer in employee engagement. So we do these pulse surveys all the time because I think it's important to know how the team is feeling. The last survey we did, highly engaged under the rubric of the people that we have to do it, we have an outside firm do it, and increasing. I think people see that we -- what we've had over the last couple of years has been some headwinds. Those very headwinds have now flipped around and are tailwinds. And so whether it's the 20% growth in NII that's built in, whether it's pipelines that are in good places, whether it's the fact that we, in spite of everything going on, have been investing in our business. I think people feel really good about what we're doing and they feel that they can go out and compete in the marketplace because ultimately, that's what your employees want. They want to know that they can go out, compete in the marketplace and win in the marketplace. And of course, what we're really focused now is really what we call our asset-light businesses. And so we're very focused on continuing what I think is our lead in payments, namely embedded banking. Next, we focus a lot on wealth. We have about $61.5 billion of AUM. So that's a really strong wealth business. And then, of course, everyone knows we've got this middle market corporate and investment bank that's a unique business. And so that's where we're focused as we go forward in 2025, Ebrahim. And then, of course, we're armed now with kind of a top quartile capital position, which we need to make sure that we do a good job and get the kind of returns that we expect as we invest in -- continue to invest in technology and in people.

All right. I guess maybe sticking with the business. As we think about -- you spent the last year talking about loan growth and line utilization being very low, policy uncertainty. I guess the question is, do we -- do your customers have enough certainty today, knowing what we know, to actually draw down on those lines where loan growth for the industry, for Key could actually do better than expected? Are we there yet or are we still in a wait and watch mode?

So let me just back up a little bit and talk about kind of what -- sort of what the supply/demand dynamics are in the loan business. I mean it's not as though our customers weren't transacting last year. I mean we raised $127 billion for our clients. So they clearly were transacting. They weren't necessarily transacting with the banks. And so I think that's important to draw that distinction. It's not like they weren't doing anything. We had our second best year ever in our investment banking business. But as it relates specifically to your question, which is we've been waiting for -- we've been waiting for the loan volumes to come back to the banks, that is. And the question is, where is it? And it's very early. I'll emphasize that. But we're starting to see the pickup that we would have expected based on our backlogs in C&I. And we're starting to see it in places where people deploy capital, in places like affordable housing, renewable energy, those capital-intensive businesses. What we're not seeing yet is an increase in utilization. We've been running about 31% utilization. We have a high percentage of our loan book is investment grade so we have a relatively low utilization rate. We run at about 31%. Average for us over time should be 35% to 36%. Each percentage is about $700 million in outstandings. And obviously, for a bank, that's the best of all worlds when people -- when good customers draw on their lines to invest in inventory and other things. But I continue to believe that we're going to see loan growth in the back half of the year. Now as it relates specifically to Key, and we've talked about this, we have a -- our consumer loan book, we're letting that run off in the ordinary course. So we have 2 things going on. We've got our consumer loan book running off. We have about $20 billion of mortgages. These are very good mortgages to doctors and dentists, 3.3%. But it's not -- that is what it is. So what we have to do is have our C&I book outgrow that. The other book that we have is our real estate book, and we've been very successful at placing that paper out into the market. So that one, while our real estate business, which is a very good business, continues to grow, we continue to keep our risk levels low by distributing a lot of that.

Let's follow up on a few things you said. I think you made an interesting point around folks were borrowing and transacting. You're not seeing it in loan growth. And I think when you talk to investors, there's a narrative around banks kind of being disintermediated, be it capital markets, be it the evolution of private credit direct lenders. Like if you work on both sides of this in terms of markets, the business you all have, just talk to us in terms of, I guess starting with private credit, is that a risk? Is it hyped? Just kind of your assessment of how bank shareholders should think about it.

Sure. No, and I think this is a really important question. So I'm glad you asked it. First of all, there's no doubt that there's excess capital out there. We have 4,400 banks in the United States plus all the private credit apparatus. That's why we, at Key, believe so strongly you have to -- you've got to have these relationships where you're doing so much more about -- as you know, about 40% of our business is fee income. Another 60% is what I'd call spread income. Getting to your question, we're in a unique position because -- and by the way, private credit has been around forever. Sometimes, it's reported as though it's a new thing. In different forms, it has been around my entire career. So with private credit, one, in some instances, they're clients of ours, right? I mean we've been selling them paper forever. In some instances, they're partners of ours. We announced a deal with Blackstone some time ago, a forward flow arrangement in our SFL business. And those are deals that can be done. I mean they're there to be done. The next piece is really kind of interesting. We have successfully launched and deployed 2 unitranche funds of our own and we're going to re-up one of those funds in the not-too-distant future. And then in some instances, we're actually competing with private credit. So kind of to deconstruct it, let me give you a perspective. Where do I think banks have an advantage? One, we have an advantage in that we are involved every day and we can move money around. I mean most private credit deals, you kind of put them on the shelf. And that's it. We, as banks, are frankly a lot more flexible, which in certain times is pretty important. And I think that's an important point of distinction. I will say what the advantages that private credit have is, one, there's regulatory arbitrage. And secondly, you can get leverage on leverage. So there's both sides of that. So then a question the group might be wondering is, so right now, are the private credit funds taking business from the banks that the banks want? I would contend that right now, not really. I mean if you look at where -- for example, I'll give you a couple of instances that are really dominated by private credit. One is small ticket LBOs. I've been around leverage buyouts my whole career. I don't have an interest in that business, but that business has basically gone completely to the private credit market. Other areas, as you know, we have, as I mentioned, we have a huge real estate business, the CLOs and the nonrecourse leverage deals, those have gone to private credit. So for us at Key, this phenomenon is really a positive one because we have the advantage of being able to distribute paper, distribute risk, serve our clients in a way that without private credit, we might not otherwise be able to. But I will say, private credit has been, obviously, in this benign credit environment, and there's probably a lot of people in this room that have invested in private credit, and it's worked out really, really well. And as a consequence, what you're going to see is the asset classes that private credit are focused on will continue to expand. And as a result, we'll continue to expand the investor base. So I think it's a fair question. Right now, net-net, it endures to our benefit. But I frankly think, as bank investors, it's a watch point just on a long-term basis as there are a lot of things.

That's helpful. I guess maybe just switching to consumer. You talked about the natural runoff of the consumer book this year. Has there been a rethink in terms of the strategy on the consumer side? Like how should we think about the runoff that's happening this year? Is that going to continue for the next few years? Just give us a status check there.

Yes. So one of the things that -- the thing that I think is so important to know about consumer banking is what really matters are operating accounts, DDAs, deposits. That is, by far, the most important thing that a consumer franchise contributes. In our instance, for example, since the financial crisis, our consumer, this is only the consumer, we're up about $6 billion in terms of consumer deposits. So that is extremely important. Now on the lending side, you correctly pointed out, we've had -- we're experiencing runoff there. Where we're focused on really is, first of all, deposits. Secondly is wealth because we're very focused on mass affluent. We have a huge unpenetrated market there. And a lot of the people that are our branch customers have investable assets of $250 million to $2 billion. And as a consequence, that's another area that we're really focused. Now as it relates specifically to loans, when you have $61.5 billion of AUM, you have a lot of clients that need to buy second homes and first homes, and we're happy to provide that. So we'll continue to lend there. We also have a very good student lending platform. As all of you know, student loans are about a $1.8 billion asset class. That asset class right now is inactive. And the reason it's inactive is where we are in the rate cycle. We think another -- and keep in mind, there's new customers every semester, every quarter, there's a bunch of new customers. We think that business with 200 basis points of rate reduction, there'll be a lot of activity there. And so then we'll focus there. And also then lastly, I would mention is just home equity. Because of our customer base, we have a super prime customer base, our average customer that has a mortgage has 50% equity. And so that's another opportunity to grow loans. I'll tell you where we won't grow, just to finish this thought, is things like indirect auto. And indirect auto, as a business, we exited $3.3 billion of indirect auto. And in retrospect, it was a well-timed trade because we did it in the pandemic when used car prices were artificially high. It was a great trade. But I'm not interested in businesses like that, that you just can't cross-sell it at all. I mean it's just a straight up loan.

You mentioned rates. I guess the other debate around this, whether the Fed is going to hike, not hike, whether that's 10-year. Just give us a sense of if the rate backdrop remains relatively unchanged and the Fed's don't pause all. One, do you agree? Do you believe that's going to happen. But what does this current rate backdrop mean for Key and for your clients?

Sure. So we'll start with what it means for Key, and then I'll spend a little bit of time talking about what it means for our clients. For Key, the current -- my view of rates right now is -- and this has been my view for some time, as you know, I've been in the hire for longer camp for some time. I think we may be at these rates for some time. To the extent we are, that's just fine for us. We are well positioned. We're basically neutral from a rate position. And so we're well positioned. We obviously benefit from -- we can benefit from the following. If betas are greater than we had projected, and to date, they have been, we'll see how it plays out. If you get changes in the shape of the yield curve, that played out well. The other thing that we could benefit from when we talked about it earlier is just loan volume. So I feel like we're in an environment where rates are going to be pretty flat, and that's a good environment for us. As it relates to our clients. Our clients are in good shape. I feel really good about our loan portfolio. Obviously, anyone that's leveraged would like rates to continue to come down. But at this point, we've had high rates for some time. And if there were going to be a lot of cracks, you'd really start to see it. We also have this third-party commercial loan mortgage business, commercial loan mortgage servicing business that's $700 billion of office loans. And so we get a pretty good window into what's going on and the impact of higher for longer on that group.

So it sounds like, I mean, obviously, I think your NII guidance is about up 20% year-over-year. And it could be, for Key, for the industry, a multiyear tailwind in terms of what we think about NII. You mentioned deposit costs and deposit betas. How is that trending? At what point do you think deposit costs stop going down?

So this has been a challenging cycle to really predict with certainty, what deposit betas are going to be. It was that way on the upswing. On the downswing, it's been better than we would have imagined. I think our cumulative beta right now is 40%, I think the December beta was probably closer to 45%. So my guess is deposit betas, if I were going to guess, will peak out somewhere in the 50s. It's just what I would imagine. But there's not a lot of deposit pressure out there right now because there's not a lot of loan volume in any of the banks. And so probably, the deposit equation for the entire industry will probably play out in a more positive way than originally been kind of modeled.

Sounds like the NII story sounds pretty constructive when we think about lending, what's happening with deposit costs. So well, that's good. I guess maybe switching gears, sensitive to the time, let's spend some time around expenses, tax spend, I think, given what banks have had to navigate. I think maybe you've delayed some investments. Just give us a sense of where you see the franchise in terms of tech infrastructure from a competitive standpoint. What are the big projects that are underway?

Yes. So I just -- part of the premise of your question is that we haven't been investing, but we have. And so even in 2023, when frankly, as you pointed out, we had to pull a lot of levers. We continue to invest because I'm a big believer, you have to invest in technology and you have to invest in people throughout the cycle. As it relates to our technology, we're very far along in our migration to the hybrid cloud. So that's good. We've got basically all of our major operating systems and half of our apps already in the cloud. With respect to our core systems, we've replaced every core system, but 2. One is ACH, which will be replaced this year. The last one is Hogan, and having run a couple of integrations and seeing how well Hogan performs, as old as it is, I am not in any hurry to really migrate that system. I always say, when most things, I think you have an advantage being the first mover. I think on a deposit system, you might have an advantage, the last mover advantage. So we're -- our technology is in good stead. We continue to invest heavily in it. We spend -- this year, we'll spend about $900 million, and that's about $100 million more than we did last year, but it's all on customer facing, making it easier for our teammates to do business with their customers and easier for our customers to do business with us. We're spending a lot of money right now with respect to AI. I'm personally interested. I think AI is a game changer, but I'm not interested in the most -- I'm not interested in some science project. What I want to see here, what are the few things where we can use AI and really scale it. And that's still work in process.

And I guess tied to that, when we think about the investment spend. How do you think about just constant efficiencies? Like are there opportunities within the bank where you're getting 100 to 200 basis points of efficiencies each year or is that maxed out?

No. They're always -- look, any time you have a business that's a huge business, that is a legacy business and there's a lot of technology, continuous improvement is always available. And so you're not going to see us have some named program. The reason I don't like named programs, by the way, as it tends to be kind of stop, start kind of lurching one way. I think every year, you have to be investing in people and technology and there's things -- there's a lot of things we can do better, Ebrahim. I spend a lot of time walking the floors of all of our businesses. I'm constantly asking our folks, how can we do this better? How can we automate this? And so the notion of continuous improvement is real. We've demonstrated, I think, over the last 5 years, a real ability to maintain a good expense base, but at the same time, invest in the business. And the way we've been able to do that is continually finding efficiencies, and there's more to be done there.

I guess maybe switching gears. The other area that's in big focus is the regulatory backdrop as it pertains to banks. Give us your sense, one, the magnitude or the type of changes you expect from banking regulations. We've seen a lot of new appointments over the last few weeks. And then maybe bring it to Key around what will be most impactful as you think about day-to-day. Is it more flexibility on capital, liquidity or from a supervisory perspective?

Sure. So look, I commend a lot of the appointments that we've seen, a lot of the announcements that we've seen, I think it's all positive. The one thing I would caution though is these things kind of move slowly. And while people at the top constantly change, the actual people who do the work day in and day out typically are career folks. And so I think it doesn't -- it's a little bit of a dial more than a switch. And so I just -- that would be my one bit of caution. I do think for the industry, I think the notion of the new -- the new protocol for the stress test came out, which seemed, frankly, a lot more reasonable. Obviously, we've had announcements with respect to the Basel III Endgame, a major announcement with respect to the CFPB, which creates bandwidth. One of the things that I think people underestimate in the regulatory environment that we're in is just the amount of bandwidth that is taken up by preparing for an exam, participating in the exam, meeting after the exam. So to the extent that there is some flexibility there, that -- I mean time is the most valuable resource that any of us have. So I think that's important. As it relates -- one, the biggest thing in the industry, and this -- when I speak of the M&A business, I'm not talking about bank M&A, I'm talking about M&A because we have a big M&A business. The last 3 years have been probably the most challenging I've ever seen in my career in terms of things getting through the system. And I think that's going to be a big fundamental change. And I personally think that's a big unlock because if you have, all of a sudden, if you have transactions that are kind of moving through the system, that creates financing, it creates hedging, it creates other transactions as people acquire things and then get rid of the pieces and parts that they don't want. I think that's a big unlock. And I think that's for the whole industry. So the M&A game, I think, is important. As it relates specifically to Key. I'll kind of go down the list of -- so the Basel III Endgame, I think everyone has -- I think no matter what happens there. I think the industry, when I say the industry, I'm talking about all the constituents. I think people have sort of settled in on marked CET1 and at 9.8% marked, 12% CET1. I'm not -- the capital thing for Key, not really an issue. I'm not worried about that. Next topic would be liquidity. Look, everyone made -- had everyone has changed their outflow assumptions since what went on in 2023. So that's well behind us. So I don't really see that as an issue. And then lastly, TLAC. I think it's going to be -- I'm optimistic one that TLAC will be third in line behind whatever happens with respect to capital and liquidity. And I think that appropriately, there'll be, at a minimum, there will be a lot of tailoring around TLAC. So I feel pretty good about kind of the regulatory environment broadly. But a lot of it is in the state of flux. My goodness, there's been a lot of announcements just in the last 3 weeks.

I guess just on debt, I think M&A -- I saw some investors on the sidelines yesterday around, is this just too much macro noise for businesses to feel confident in making big CapEx investments, engaging in M&A? Like do you need some stability in the macro and what's coming out of D.C.? Or do you think there's enough year for businesses to actually move on with their plans?

Everything is relative, right? As we talk to our clients, I think the election was one big concern because with the election comes tax policy and a bunch of other policies. So that one is removed. Macro, the macro view, I think people are coming around to having coalescing, whether they're right or they're wrong around that, we're in a pretty benign macroeconomic environment. So that one gets checked off. The next one that gets checked off is interest rates, as I said earlier. It isn't so much the absolute level of interest rates. It's the anticipation of which direction they're moving and when. I think most people are kind of coalescing around, gee, we're going to be 4.5%, 10-year. Can you transact there? So I think all of those things are positive. It's early. We're just working through there. I could then give you a list of other things, whether it's tariffs, executive orders. That creates some uncertainty, but the things that have now been sort of checked off the list I think are big game changers, frankly, for our clients, and I'm out talking to our clients all the time. Don't forget, there's also a very human element to this. People haven't -- the last couple of years in the M&A business in general have been very, very quiet. You've got private equity sitting on a whole bunch of portcos, there's a lot of impetus for people to start to transact, and you're seeing it. I say start to transact. It's happening as we speak.

Got it. I guess maybe on capital. I think you mentioned marked CET1 of 9.8%. Just talk to us, I mean capital is king if you're running a bank and now you have a lot of excess capital. Just talk to us in terms of prioritization, the decision tree, how you're allocating capital, how we should think about it?

Sure. Well, first of all, having a lot of capital is a luxury. I'll start with that. I mean obviously, managing capital is an important thing, part of what we do. But having absolute capital is a luxury. The way I think about capital is, first and foremost, given some of the uncertainties that you just mentioned and we just talked about, I don't mind in the near term running with a little bit more capital than we might actually need. I don't think that's a bad idea at all. But in terms of our priorities for capital is, first, always to support our clients. That's our job is to be out there supporting our clients. And as I indicated, I think we're starting to see an environment where we're going to be able to deploy that for the benefit of our clients and our prospects. The next thing is always want to be investing in the business, and investing in the business is people and technology. The next piece is -- I don't even know if you'd call these acquisitions because for us, it's kind of business as usual, whether it's hiring groups of people, we just recently hired several groups of people and we've integrated them, or buying niche businesses that we think advance the cause for us in our focus areas. That's obviously an area of focus for us. And then if you have excess capital or a lot of capital, then you have the opportunity to tweak the balance sheet again. Certainly could do that. We've had 2 major balance sheet restructurings, as you're well aware of. We certainly could do that. And of course, last but certainly not least for this group is if you can't deploy it in all of the other areas that I mentioned, then you got to look at should we be buying back our stock, which is a discussion we always will -- we have and will continue to have with our Board.

Got it. But it looks like right now, you'd rather have some dry powder for all these things that you mentioned as opposed to buying back.

Given all the uncertainties that we just described and given what I think could be some significant dislocation, as I said, in the near term, having a little excess capital is just fine with me.

And you mentioned, I mean, I think the other investor focus has been around bank M&A, right? You mentioned all types of M&A has been kind of clogged bank M&A. I think you could put that in that same bucket. Give us a sense of, one, do you think whether or not we see a pickup in -- like is the environment right for a pickup in bank M&A? And would some kind of a strategic acquisition at some point make sense for Key or not?

It's not an area of focus for me right now. And the reason it's not an area of focus is we have so many tailwinds behind us, whether it's the 20% NII or huge backlogs, our ability to go out and take share. It's not something that I'm focused on right now. I think there's still a few challenges to bank M&A. I do think like there's 4,400 banks, there will be consolidation. I think the challenges are, in spite of everything that you've heard, the reality is most of these approvals that have -- in the not-too-distant past have taken 18 months. Now I think that's going to improve, but we'll see kind of under the new regime, what that really looks like. If you go to your Board and you say, I want to pay a premium for this business and we think we can get our hands on this business in 18 months, that's a long time. The next thing is mark-to-market. Everyone has bonds that are underwater and unrealized losses become realized losses in the context of M&A. And so that's a long way of saying, while I think M&A in general is going to pick up and I think we've cleared a lot of the traps, I think bank M&A will trail that for the reasons I just mentioned.

And I guess the other component on capital means Key announced, obviously, a very unique transaction with Scotia last year. Give us a sense of -- if you can go back kind of the thought process behind that and how we should think about that relationship evolving from here?

Well, the thought process was really a strategic optionality. When I say strategic optionality, bringing in capital, giving us the opportunity to restructure our balance sheet, to have 12% and 9.8% capital, respectively. I looked at that at a premium. I looked at that, it's just a huge opportunity. Now what we haven't talked about at all -- and again, the $2 billion of the capital came in, in the last week of December, so this is still relatively new. What we haven't talked about a lot publicly is what can -- and for Scotia, from their perspective, if Scott were here, he'd say it's a financial investment. It is a financial investment. But I think there are things that we can do together. For example, Key is completely a domestic company, and we have clients that are literally all over the world. And so our ability to serve our clients all over the world is pretty significant. When people talk about near-shoring and reshoring, what that really means is out of China, out of Vietnam, into Mexico. I mean there's a bunch of permutations, but that's the principal flow. We, Key, don't have any presence whatsoever in Mexico. And I think there's a great opportunity for us to serve our clients. Additionally, Scotia has a huge wealth business that -- and there are certainly a lot of wealthy Canadians that spend a significant amount of time in the States. So I'm just giving you a few ideas. And the other thing is we distribute -- I already said, we only put 15% of the of the paper we originate, we put on our balance sheet, the rest of it we distribute. So it's very early days. I've put one of our most senior people guy named Randy Paine, who runs our institutional business. Similarly, Scotia has put somebody very, very senior, and we're going to just -- we're going to see if there's anything there to be done. We have not modeled anything, but I do think is, for all the reasons I just described, there could be some interesting things.

Definitely could be. I know we have a couple of minutes. I just wanted to open it up and see if anyone in the room had any questions for Chris? If not, I have a couple of last questions. One, I think you and I talked about this, I think, 2, 3 years ago when the CRE concerns were at its peak back in -- when the Fed started hiking. Given your exposure and experience for the CMBS business, are we out of the woods on commercial real estate?

No. No, we're not. And let me -- and I'll spend a little bit of time talking about our commercial real estate business, I do think it's a great business. So again, we have $700 billion of loans that we service. Of that, we're named special servicer on $250 billion. Of that, $9 billion are in active special servicing. So this is all office real estate, and think of us as working out $9 billion worth of loans. I can tell you that this won't be a surprise to you. The biggest percentage is office, and that's not coming back. I mean certain cities are getting better than they were. But the reality is everyone had too much office space going into the downturn and everyone changed the way they work, and B and C class office space in central business district, that's a tough way to go, multi-tenant. The other area that is -- that I do think will heal, because it was just a function of overbuilding, is multifamily, particularly in the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and to a lesser degree, Chicago and San Francisco. I think that's a matter of absorption. But I don't think we're out of the woods yet on real estate. We're at record highs right now in terms of active special servicing, which I think is a good data point, which gives me an opportunity to talk a little bit. Real estate sort of became somewhat of a dirty word and that people thought that there's -- let me tell you something. A properly run real estate business, and I modestly believe that ours is because we basically distribute all the risk, is a really, really good business because as everyone knows, the raw material for real estate is really capital. And we have a huge advisory business around real estate. And so while real estate is clearly challenged, it's also, I think for banks and particularly for us, a pretty good business.

I guess we are out of time, but one last question for you. I guess to wrap up, your message for key shareholders I guess as you think about what's in store for them over the next year or two?

Sure. I just -- keeping with what I said, I think the headwinds that we experienced over the last couple of years, and I will say 2024 again was a year that we checked all the boxes and really achieved all of our objectives, those headwinds are now tailwinds. I think we're going to be in a great position to really grow our business and to really take share in our targeted areas. We're not trying to be everything to everyone. But in the areas where we're competing, I think you'll see us compete, as we have in the past, extremely well. I'm very optimistic over the next 24 months.

Chris, thank you so much.

Thank you, Ebrahim. Thank you.