M&T Bank Corporation ($MTB)

We have M&T Bank with us. From the company, we have Daryl Bible, Chief Financial Officer. Daryl, thanks for making it over. Yet again, M&T has been a strong supporter of this event. I've been doing I think 25 years now, and they've come, I think, I want to say the majority of those. Daryl, maybe the best place to start is for maybe some of those that are in the audience may be less familiar with M&T, just maybe talk about your approach to banking, M&T is, I would say, a little bit different than maybe you're just playing with other regional bank.

Yes. Thanks, Jason, and thanks for having us here again. We love coming over to Europe meeting with investors and all that. So M&T Bank is a regional bank. We operate in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. It's 13 states plus the District of Columbia. One of the unique things about M&T Bank is we run a community banking model. It's kind of our differenting factor. If you think of it, we have 6 businesses that are verticals that we have, but we also operate horizontally across the 13 states with 27 banking regions. We have 27 regional presidents. Those regional presidents help drive the sales forces and really know the communities that they're in to help us be most effective in those serving customers and communities that we offer there. Some of the things, when you look at M&T Bank in the last couple of decades going through the great recession, we were 1 or 2 banks that didn't cut our dividend. We were 1 of 3 banks that didn't lose any money during the Great Recession. So we're very conservative, very consistent type performing company. We generate a lot of capital. We returned that capital to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases, and we continue to execute. Probably our strength that I'd say most is that our credit underwriting is really strong. When people look at our loans and our loss rates, we really thrive in times of stress because we really underperformed from a very low credit loss perspective.

Got it. I guess there's 2 priorities that you've been talking about for M&T this year, operational excellence and teaming for growth -- maybe just explain why these matter and what traction or progress you're seeing around these priorities early in the year?

Yes. These are 2 really great priorities for this company. Let me start with teaming for growth. Teaming for growth is really taking our community banking model and double down on that, and that we really want to make sure that when we go out and meet with our customers that we bring the whole bank to our customers. So it's all about deepening wallet share, cross-selling and all that. Since we've had this priority now so far this year, we're starting to see positive signs of that actually having a positive impact on us and on our customers. We're getting a lot more referrals from business banking and commercial to our wealth areas. We're getting a lot of referrals from also business banking and commercial into employment employees at work, so we can basically cross-sell retail checking accounts and banking services to the employees of our customers and all that. So it's really a positive thing that's going on in the regions. Our regions are starting to grow because of this, which is really positive, both on lending and deposit side. So we're off to a really good start. From an operational excellence perspective, Think of this as really taking all the operations that we have in the company and trying to simplify and automate those operations as much as possible. So we're going into our areas and operations and trying to ask our employees what things can we stop doing. The more we could stop doing, the more we can simplify our operations and get things done simpler, more less expensive. In the end, as we implement operational excellence, we'll have lower FTEs probably and lower costs. But it's all about putting together a bank that can basically grow double or triple in size, but be less complex as we kind of grow because we try to simplify how we do things as much as possible.

Maybe pivit to the outlook. There's been, I guess, some movement within in your guidance. But during the earning calls in April, you kid -- you made some 12 small tweaks to the ranges, which imply modestly lower estimates than during the prepared remarks, you talked about strong pretax preprovision revenue and earnings in line or possibly exceeding expectations made some positive commentary on fees in your slides on Monday or Friday. So just maybe kind of tie it all together or some kind of what's your messaging you're trying to get out there?

It's fluid. We started the year a little soft in some of our lending areas, and we talked about that on the earnings call. That was in CRE and in our consumer book. But since March, what we've seen in the CRE book, really strong demand strong production. We had over $1 billion production in March. We had a really strong April as well. CRE is going to grow this year probably in the next quarter or 2, very, very good positive momentum in that portfolio. Really happy to see that. On the consumer portfolio, I would tell you, home equity is growing, but the indirect portfolios, auto boat and RV got off to a really slow start because of the weather. I think since March, we're starting to see more activity there. We're starting to grow our indirect portfolios, which is positive for us. For us, that helps us with a net interest margin perspective because those tend to be our higher yielding assets that we put on the books. One of the reasons we guided down in our NIM during the earnings call was because we weren't booking the higher yielding consumer assets. Those seem to be coming back online, which is positive for us. On the fee side, we've had 2 really good years in fee growth. This year is looking to have another third year of really strong fee growth. We're getting opportunities to continue to grow our mortgage servicing business, sub-servicing with some of our customers. That's a positive provider for us. We're also growing our capital markets functions, growing corporate trust as well. and BayView continues to support us and give us higher distributions because they're performing really well as well from that perspective. So fees are on an upswing again -- not sure if we'll get double-digit growth, but we'll have really strong growth in fees and exceed our expectations.

Maybe can I dive a little bit more into that. I guess just first on lending I thought on the call, you made an interesting comment on the earnings call, the loan pipelines remain strong. We chose not to chase growth or yield if the transaction doesn't fit your underwriting return standards. Maybe just expand on that or any particular areas you're concerned about?

For us, when we're out talking, trying to grow and meet our customers' needs and demands, we go through this. And there's obviously a lot of competition in the marketplace. We are very loyal to our customers. If we're going to stretch for anybody that's going and stretch for people that we've supported over the long period of time and that actually supported us as through some challenging periods. So from a pricing and structure perspective, we'll support our customers long term. If it's a new customer coming in, we're going to try to keep it more consistent with our normal underwriting standards from what we have. It is very competitive out in the marketplace, but we are getting our fair share, definitely in the C&I space, both in middle market as well as in our specialty businesses.

I guess in middle market, saw a good pickup in growth there in the first quarter. Maybe just kind of double-click on that. What are the specific drivers there? And can that stream persist, maybe just the overall health of the commercial borrower.

Yes. So if you look at our borrowers today, they tend to be really resilient. I think the last year or 2. Under the new administration, there's been a lot of things change thrown out into the marketplace, whether it was tariffs, tax changes and all that. And some of that has been really positive but they tend to be really resilient trying to figure out how best to operate. There's always a handful of people that maybe can adjust. But when you look at it, net-net, overall, I look at it from our portfolio. Our portfolio continues to improve from a credit quality perspective. So net-net, our customers are very healthy for that. I would say if you look at middle market, our utilization numbers are higher. People are investing more than they have. We see investments who are leasing businesses that we offer, so people are doing capital investments. So that's positive to see out in the marketplace. So it's think it's good, and our producers are out there meeting the needs of our customers, and all that seems to be going very well.

And then you mentioned specialty lending businesses. Maybe just delve into that, maybe speak what are kind of some of the key growth drivers there?

Yes. The majority of our specialty lending businesses really came from people that we've rightsized them. So corporate and institutional is really large corporate lending. You make loans there. Those are usually really high-quality loans to get your return holders, you have to cross-sell and get your fee income. We've had nice growth in our capital markets area, which is helping get the returns higher in that space. So we're continuing to drive and have success there. We've been growing out our fund banking, which is part of NDFI portfolio, but it's what we think a very safe type of loan that we have capital call lines. That's growing out nicely. We have some franchise lending in that space. We do dealer commercial services. So it's a mixture of businesses. Those have been growing nicely and very positively for us consistently over the last couple of years.

And then you talked about commercial real estate picking back up in April -- the senior loan officer survey last night talked about banks kind of loosening in CRE. Just maybe just talk about, I guess, is that to pick up, I guess, more a function of payoff and paydown kind of abating where you're seeing kind of real activity and just maybe kind of where the sources within CRE, you're seeing the growth?

I'd say it's a combination. We've had some heavy payoffs and paydowns over the last year or 2. That seems to be abating a fair amount. We've also had some good demand in the CRE tough, very competitive in that space. I would say the majority of the CRE that we're putting on the books is more multifamily and industrial. Some of it is in construction lending. But we feel really good. We do also lend in some other areas within commercial real estate, but those are probably the primary areas where we're seeing most of the growth. From a pricing perspective, it's competitive, but we still think we get our returns in the long run there. When you think of our commercial real estate business, though, everybody thinks of the old M&T, we're the only way we made money and CRU was putting on the balance sheet. Well, I'm here to tell you today, we do as much off-balance sheet production as on-balance sheet production, and we generate a lot of fees in that base as we sell loans. We originate sell loans to the agencies to life insurance companies and all that. And some of our customers really want more longer-term permanent financing. So that's their need that we're filling. And it's, for us, getting more capital turnover, get higher returns. So our business is actually growing much more now than it has in the past. It's just most of it or at least half of it doesn't go on the balance sheet anymore.

Good. Good point. And you talked about a pickup in consumer lending in April after a slow start to the year. Oil is now over $100. Employment numbers have been good, but there's kind of always trepidation. Just maybe just talk about the overall health of the consumer and just your thoughts around that?

We talked about this on the earnings call, but what we're seeing is the K-shaped economy is continuing to widen out. It's widening out in that the higher end consumer is actually getting stronger. Stock market performance and their investments that they have are out there. And they are the ones really driving a lot of the large discretionary spending that exists out in the marketplace. And they're live in their spending, and you can actually see that. On the lower end of the consumer, we don't see deterioration. We see that they're kind of in the same place that they were maybe last year or in the same place this year. still struggling, but still making it. The amount of money they're spending is consistent with what they were spending a year ago. So even with higher gas prices or whatever, they're still making it and getting through that. You saw the employment numbers last week, relatively good placement numbers, pretty strong consumer spending numbers going out there. It's kind of amazing how well the U.S. economy is holding up and performing really well right now. And then maybe just it to the other side of the balance sheet. Deposit growth has been good. I guess we're seeing a pickup in loan growth throughout the industry, the Fed's on hold, it appears. Maybe just talk about the ability to grow deposits from here to deposit costs begin to level off and just how you're thinking about the competitive landscape. So I kind of go back to when rates were rising, our deposit beta was in the mid-50s. And I tell our folks, and so far, it's true when rates have been coming down. Guess what our deposit base is in the mid-50s. So we think we can stay in the mid-50s as it comes down more if they were to cut rates, not saying they are going to cut rates, we would end up getting pinched at some point because the consumer portfolios, the retail portfolios can't reprice down, what you go down maybe another 50, 75 more basis points, they get floored out from that perspective. So from a pricing perspective, feel that we're doing relatively well there. From a growth perspective, our customer deposit growth is strong. It is funding our balance sheet loan growth. The only difference that we have is the mix. Our noninterest-bearing deposits aren't growing as much as we thought they would be growing, and that's because we thought rates would be declining this year, and they aren't declining rates are staying up higher. So the growth in DDA. So that's causing an unfavorable mix change from funding. But when you look at our customer deposits, interest-bearing, we're growing, and we're getting a good share of the wallet from those customers, which is a good way to grow the balance sheet. Got it. I guess tying that together a bit just on NIM on the first quarter earnings call, you chosen to be a bit cautious, I thought with your NIM expectations. Maybe just talk to some of the puts and takes there. I think we're just cautious from a lending perspective, making sure that we can get the higher yielding consumer asset growth is really valuable for us from a margin perspective, trying to get more free funds from DDA has been challenging. That's probably putting some pressure out there. CRE coming on and strong should help alleviate some of that because we get higher yields in our CRE portfolio. So net-net, overall, I think our margin will come down some, but it's -- you're coming from the #1 position. So if we come down a little bit, I think we're okay with that. It's really all about serving our customers and our communities. And doing the right thing for the long term for serving what their needs are.

Got it. And then we touched on it a little bit earlier, but in a slide deck probably you kind of guided up fee income. On the first quarter call, you said high end expectations on the deck, you said kind of above expectations, kind of rounded off a lot of drivers before. Are there kind of 1 or 2 things that are kind of this last leg up? Or is it kind of just a little bit of everything?

I would say it's mortgage, capital markets and Bayview. And I don't know what your take is from analysts, but some analysts don't view Bayview as a consistent revenue stream for us. I'm here to tell you we've had it for 2 decades. They are very consistent and being very profitable, very consistent and given us a portion of those distributions that they make from that perspective. And what we're seeing is that Bayview is growing and being even more strong, and that's helped benefiting us as well. So we really value the relationship with them and really look forward to working with them in the future and all that.

Got it. And then on the expense front, you kind of gave us the start of the year you pointed to the upper end on the earnings call. you kind of stuck with that despite the fact that kind of just a little bit of a step-up in fee income. Maybe just talk about kind of the puts and takes on the expense side and just how you manage around that.

So some of the -- so as we grow our mortgage servicing business, we have to hire people and continue to grow there. So some of that cost increase is driven by the revenue increase that we did on the other end side there that's really driving it. I feel pretty good that we're going to stay within the ranges that we originally came up with just on the higher end of it. We'll see how it plays out. We may come back down at some point. But right now, I just see staying more at the higher end. And it's really not any 1 thing. It's just a lot of littles that are really right there that are driving it up a little bit, but we'll stay within the original range.

And then credit quality has been spectacular.

Our non-accruals are the best [indiscernible] it's remarkable and criticized assets. I think it's come down for multiple quarters in a 9 quarters in a row Yes, and we are projecting the rest of the year for it to still go down. So this is really positive for us.

That's Good. And then I guess on -- despite that, you're 1 of the few banks that actually regionals to build reserves this quarter.

No.

Could you maybe talk to kind of what drove that? Anything we should be kind of maybe keeping a closer on M&T or the industry overall?

It's the conservative nature of our company. It's our culture. Moody's came out with a scenario for the Iran conflict we modeled that scenario. It was version 6, I think, in a scenario, and we use that as an overlay for our allowance. That drove our allowance up our provision if we didn't use the overlay would it came in close to what net charge-offs are. So it's a $30 million to $40 million adjustment is what we made from that perspective. I'm not sure if any other of our peers did that. and we might be a load on that pace. It's just our conservative nature. That obviously gets relooked again we come again this quarter and all that, and we'll see what we do from that perspective.

I mean if there are 1 or 2 portfolios that keep you up at night? Anything in particular, I guess, with elevated oil prices, does transportation or trucking or come to mind?

We've looked at all the areas that we thought we could have stress because of petroleum, whether it's trucking, transportation, some of the supply areas. And we just don't have a major concentration in any of those areas. We have a couple of one-off companies that might be struggling. But net-net, overall, we're still forecasting our credit size book to actually get better, not worse from that perspective. Any 1 portfolio the portfolios that we have starting to ring in and really manage more centrally are the ones that are more concerned about. So like leverage lending, PE-backed companies now that were purchased. Those are ones that we were BDCs or 1 we're taking a lot of attention on lender finance loans would be another category. So those are the ones we don't have huge exposures and in those areas, but those are the ones that we're probably managing the closest from a risk perspective.

And I guess on that, I guess, you and other banks gave additional details on DFI portfolios in the quarter. How do you think investors should think about the risk in that portfolio maybe more specifically on how stresses and private credit could lead to credit risk for M&T or just other banks more generally?

NDFI is a new term out there for a lot of lending that's been out there for several decades like mortgage warehouse lending. Mortgage warehouse lending is a really safe business as long as you have good operational control, you perfect your collateral. We're big in that space. We're going to stay in that space. We've never had a loss in that space. We've grown our fund banking book, capital call lines. I think that's relatively safe as well. We don't do NAV lending in that space. So we think we're pretty good there. The other is how large is we lend to REITs some public, some private REITs. We've had a lot of success there. So those 3 right there are 2/3 of our MDFIs and we view those on the lower end from the risk spectrum from that perspective. I think the ones that we focus on are the BDC one, and that's really more about the liability structure, how much risk they have from a funding perspective as well as the lender finance business that we have. Just those are the ones that we view might have more risk there that we're watching more closely.

Got it. And I guess CET1 after active share repurchase in the first quarter, I guess 10.3%, you kind of pointed to a range of 10% to 10.5%. So kind of within that -- it sounds like loan growth is getting a little bit better. Just how do we think about share repurchase for the rest of the year?

As long as the economy stays strong, we'll be towards the lower end of our capital range if we see a lot of things happen that are more risk-oriented or things, but we aren't seeing that right now. So we're on the path of being closer to 10% and we are at a 10.5% from that perspective. I think we'll buy a fair amount of shares this quarter, not as much as last quarter, but probably a little more than what you might expect.

Got it. And then obviously, the capital proposals came out late March. Maybe just talk about the puts and takes between the ERBA model, the standardized approaches model. the pros, I guess, in consent each in terms of how it plays into M&T?

The whole approach with the new Basel III is really a highlight to how we lend. We're a very conservative lender. We're a collateral lender. We have really low LTVs. So from that perspective, we feel really good, and we're being rewarded that with this new proposal. If we just adopt the standardized, we think it's about a 90 basis point increase in our CET1 ratio. If we go with the expanded version that could be up to 20 basis points more just because of our high LTVs that we have low LTVs that we have from that perspective. So I think all good from that front. Really positive with the change that they have there and really shows the strong underwriting that we have.

Does it -- do you think change how you operate or just. Well, we have to get it approved first, right? When do we think that is?

Hopefully, sooner the better, hopefully this year. But it really comes down to the governors really the rating agencies. It's not the regulators. It's really how they interpret the new risk-weighted asset calculations. If they keep their methodology as is, that will allow us to use more capital and lower our targets down some more so our tangible will actually come down further than where it is today from that perspective but more to come on that. We have to get it passed and then see what hole adopted from a methodology perspective. My hope is that we'll be able to leverage this up some as we move forward into next year.

So I think you've talked about a 17% ROTCE for next year but as before these rules.

I know.

So then I guess, how do we think about with these rules? How would you think about the incremental returns? Is it lend more? Does it buy back stock? Do returns go up, all the above?

Returns could go up, but we could actually spend more money and invest more in our companies and our business as well. So there's a lot to think about from that, and we'll have more to talk about probably later this year as we know when Basel III gets implemented and we talk to the rating agencies a little bit more. But it's either going to be neutral or better. It's not going to be worse from this perspective.

I guess 1 use of capital is acquisitions. M&T has been a very I would say, a good acquirer over the years, you've bought a lot of institutions and made them better and accretive to both sets of shareholders. Despite an improved regulatory tone, you guys have noticed, we quit or why is that?

We are very consistent. We want to continue to grow in the markets that we serve and get density in those markets. So we have a specific number of candidates that were talking to that are in that book. And at some point, maybe 1 of those might want to sell and do it at a reasonable price that makes sense for both sets of shareholders in the long term. So we're very patient. We think things will happen when it happens, and we're just going to do what we do and just continue to run a real profitable company, buy back a ton of stock, paying a huge dividend and continue to perform really well until then. But it will happen when it happens.

Now those listed candidates are they in your footprint? standard footprint

All in footprint

All in footprint.

Yes, there -- we're a lot different than other banks. We are not chasing growth. We want to get more scale and density in the markets we serve. We think that's a better way for us to serve our customers and our communities. And that's really the strategy that we're staying with. And -- we think it's a good long-term strategy, both from a profitability perspective and from knowing your customers, your clients from a credit perspective. We just think it's a better way to run the company. Maybe over time, we inch out a little bit. But for the most part, we're going to stay in the Northeast Mid-Atlantic area.

And what about on the nonbank front? I know you've been acquiring subservicing, we talked a little bit about earlier. Is there more to do there? And maybe other areas of focus?

Yes. We we've definitely continued to buy more subservicing out there, and that's a good business for us. We do lift out sales teams like in wealth teams and business banking and all that. So we do it on the edges. It's not really noticeable. As far as actually buying companies, it's hard to buy a company that doesn't operate now in a bank because they're coming from an unregulated entity into regulated. A lot of those don't really end up performing really well long term. So you're really important to bring people into the company that kind of no expectations to know how things work and all that rather than try to educate them from going from a non-regulatory environment to a heavily regulatory environment from that perspective.

Got it. 10 minutes left. I not sure there's any questions from the audience. And maybe just wait for the mic. Right behind you.

Maybe just talk about AI in the context of maybe as an opportunity on the cost side? And I have lots of examples as to how you're using it or how you're planning on using it and then maybe also the potential for disruption and how that impacts the the business in terms of credit quality going forward, all of that as well?

Yes. So from an AI perspective, we have 3 broad strategies that we're using AI for in the company today. First and foremost, our company has about 20,000 -- 22,000 employees. We don't give AI to our branch people right now. So we have 17,000 licenses that basically everybody has in the company. We are encouraging everybody. We have training programs in place. But with those 17,000 licenses, we are asking our folks to learn how to use it, make their lives easier, better, trying to be more productive try to use all that to just be better at what they do today from that perspective. Second thing that we're doing is that we have obviously thousands of vendors in our company. A lot of those vendors have AI solutions, looking at those AI solutions that they offer and seeing what makes sense for us. One great example that we've done and what we've adopted is in our call centers. We have a vendor called Genesis. Genesis came to us and said, we will actually take the notes of your calls automatically with AI. So your agents don't have to do that. So that was a 25% increase in productivity immediately from that perspective. So we're obviously all attuned to vendor-related AI solutions trying to get more efficient, more productive. The last way we're looking at AI is we are creating a workshop. And it's really -- the way I would think about it is we have a lot of people that know how to remake operations areas, and we're doing that now throughout the company. such that people can come in and automate using AI or whatever to make it more efficient and all that. So it's not just a one-off thing. It's actually a large process of how that works, and we're starting to do that at all. That said, to answer your question, I think long term, you could have a lot of increase in productivity, efficiency that will drive down. But if you go back to the 1800s, and if you remember when people used to use steam and they basically went to coal, that basically dropped the cost tremendously. And what that did is that lower the cost for transportation and trains and all that stuff. So the reason I say that is, is if AI can become more productive, lower the cost potentially, that creates a lot more demand in some services and products. So you could actually still have the same amount or even more people because there is more demand coming in for that service because it's at a lower cost forever. I think there's a lot to come -- it could go either way from that perspective. But first thought is it's more productive, more efficient. But if everybody starts buying that product or service because it's cheaper, that creates the demand that maybe has more people. So I don't really know which direction it's going to go. -- from that perspective. I just know it's a good tool. It's going to make us more productive and efficient, and we'll see how it plays out from an FTE head count perspective.

Maybe a second 1 for me, if you don't want -- just on on stable coins. It seems like we're a bit closer to the Clarity Act being [indiscernible]. What are your thoughts around disruption to the corporate banking side of things, particularly in terms of maybe increasing deposit costs as you're having to compete with some of these? What are your thoughts?

Yes. There's definitely a risk, obviously, stable coin and tokenized other assets or whatever can definitely hurt the liquidity of the banking system. That's a possibility from that perspective. And from M&T's perspective, we are now members of 2 groups of banks. One is the carry network. We're 1 of 5 or 6 banks in there, and 1 is sponsored by FIS. So we're putting ownership into these networks. They're going to build out tokenized deposits. They're going to look at collateralization. We're going to have other products and services that will be offered out there. We're just trying to be competitive with how things are changing and making sure that we are left in the dust as things continue to move from that perspective. We know there's going to be a lot of changes. But if it does impact liquidity, we have to make sure that we have the tools and the products and services to basically recapture that liquidity back into our balance sheet from that perspective. So that's really what are the main drivers that we're trying to do.

Obviously, a very well-run company, high teens ROTC as you've set out share repurchase is the means of returning cash, given valuations approaching 2x tangible book. Is there any reset at any point in favor of dividends are we just stuck in a sort of capped dividend payout ratio as far as U.S. regional banks are concerned or can M&T break away perhaps under the new -- it's a bit stretched, in my opinion [indiscernible] yours.

We pay a reasonable dividend. I mean our payout ratio is in the mid-30s, mid to low 30s. Typically, our Board approves dividends every year. And it's is something that we're very proud of in continuous dividends that we pay. It's really tied to our earnings stream as our earnings go up, our dividends increase so that we're really consistent from a payout ratio perspective. 1 of the reasons why we were 1 or 2 banks during the great recession that didn't cut our dividend is because we really cherish our dividend and we protect our dividend. So we don't want to get over our skis too much. But we also don't want to be lagged behind. So we're trying to find the right balance and medium to give a good return to our shareholders in the form of dividends -- and then we -- what we can't do as much there, then we pay more in share repurchase. Last year, we bought 9% of our stock this year, we'll probably buy back 6% or 7% of our stock. So we're buying back a fair amount of our stock as well. So we're getting a lot of distribution back from an investor perspective

any other questions? I guess, Daryl, we talked about changes on the capital front. But I guess what other changes from the regulatory supervisory standpoint, have we seen over the last year or 2 that have been beneficial and maybe looking out what else are we still waiting for?

I would say 1 of the biggest things that [ governor Bowman ] has implemented is the focus on really managing the real risk of the company and letting some of the what I would say, less risk, maybe not be so addressed. If you maybe miss some documentation or maybe some of the things aren't totally completed or whatever. Those aren't the big things that we really need to be concerned about. I mean, the real risks are cyber risk, credit risk, liquidity risk, interest rate risk, making sure you have strong capital. Those 5 things are really where the Fed is really focused on and really concerned from that perspective. And the things that we used to get, I would say, more mickey mouse type of comments and all that were more documentation errors or in completions and all that, and that would take a lot of time to fix and just really wasn't worth the effort to actually make that happen. So I think the focus on the real risk has been a huge change. The other thing that candor with the regulators with the bank management and our Board is really positive. -- really consistent dialogue back and forth on what they see, what they expect and all that. So the dialogue is very good from that perspective. And with partners like that, you can actually get a lot of things done, get them done efficiently and on a really strong company because of that rather than trying to guess what they're trying to tell you and they don't really tell you what their really want from that perspective. So we like the candor, we like the transparency that they're giving us now.

Got it. We have about 2 minutes left. Any last questions from the audience? Otherwise, I'll ask the final one. I guess, -- we have a big bank on this side of the pond buying a bank in your footprint. I guess does that create opportunity either for customers or employees? And just how do you think about that?

Yes. M&T has a playbook and it's not picking on any 1 bank or whatever. But when somebody buys a bank within our footprint, we go to our playbook and we basically want to take advantage of if there's any things that happen in the integration periods or people don't like the change of how things are done and all that. So we're basically using our playbook, and we're going to do as much as we can to try to lift out employees and customers that make sense for us to be part of us and to basically come and be part of M&T from that perspective, and we'll see how that plays out. So we want to welcome the new owners and kind of discrete them well and see what we can take from their businesses and all that.

Great. On that note, please join me in thanking Daryl for his time today.