The Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 22nd Annual Scotiabank Financials Summit. Today is all about banks and lifecos. And kicking things off, as we do every year, is Scotiabank's President and CEO, Brian Porter. Hi, Brian.

Good morning, Meny. Good to be with you.

Good to see you. I wanted to kick things off, talk about COVID and the recovery and then hopefully get into some of the key business lines, a little bit more detail there. So first of all, it's been 16 months since COVID has turned our lives upside down. I was hoping you could kind of reflect and talk about how the bank has managed through this difficult period and specifically talk about how the recovery is progressing through the footprint. I know definitely, there's different speeds across Scotiabank's footprint when it comes to the recovery.

Sure. Well, obviously, I'm very proud of how the bank's performed through this difficult period. And going back to March 2020, we had over 60,000 Scotiabankers working from home. And we did that without a glitch. So all the prior investments we made in technology, we didn't have to rash in VPN here. It worked really without a glitch, and we're proud of that. So all the funding we did to digitize the bank, enhance banking platforms and our technology capabilities definitely paid off in a period of stress. But we kept 90% of our branches open throughout our footprint. We made sure everybody was safe, our customers and our employees were safe. And that worked out very well for us because our customers needed to reach out, they needed advice during a difficult period. So I'm really proud of how the bank performed. And I think also if you go back to 2019 versus today, we divested a lot of different properties. We took $647 million of earnings out of the bank, and we've definitely reduced volatility by doing that. But it shows the earnings power of the bank because ex those divestitures to today is -- or the earnings power of the bank is up 17%. So it shows you the quality of the assets and how we've diversified the bank. So GBM and our Wealth business performed very well through this period, and we're very proud of those businesses. So the power of diversification is an important one. So coming through Q3, Canadian Bank earnings, we're very pleased with the results of the Canadian Bank. And we continue to have momentum in that business, and we see that continuing, good commercial loan growth, good mortgage growth. The auto business is coming back, and we'll talk about -- more about that during the course of our discussion today. The GBM business, third quarter in a row of $500 million plus in earnings and very strong contribution from Lat Am on top of that. And our Wealth business continues to perform exceedingly well. And International Banking is coming back, and we see further strength in our business there. And we can talk more about that, I'm sure.

I think I want to pick up on something. You talked a lot about Scotiabank being a well-diversified bank, so I just wanted to just delve into that a little bit more, talk about that diversification and how that makes Scotiabank more resilient for pandemics and other types of events.

Yes. Well, we've got 4 very strong business lines that are contributing to the bank's overall profitability. And we've always -- as part of the DNA of this institution is diversification. We've had businesses outside this country for well over 100 years. So the power of diversification is something we think about, and the optionality of diversification is really important. But clearly, we made some acquisitions in our Global Wealth business. Those have paid off handsomely during this period. The GBM business has -- we've repositioned the earnings power of that business, and shareholders are seeing that. The Canadian Bank business is -- as we talked about, is performing exceedingly well and more to come there. And IB is coming back. The economic recovery isn't even around the globe, as we all know. And clearly, the U.S. is leading the pack. Canada is not far behind. But in terms of our IB business, Mexico and Chile are back at above pre-COVID level of earnings, and cruise on the come, and we see that. And economic growth is coming back in those countries. So from the beginning to where we are today, COVID -- the impact of COVID hit Europe and North America before it did Latin America, so there's always been a 1- or 2-quarter lag in terms of the beginning of the pandemic and the economic impact of the pandemic. And so our International Business is coming back, and it's good to see.

So it sounds like you're confident in that recovery, and what you see in Q3 only gives you further confidence.

No question about it. If you look at the -- again, the earnings power of the bank, I'm very proud of what we've done and what we've delivered for our shareholders here. I don't think it's recognized by the market in terms of today's valuation, but that will straighten itself out in subsequent quarters. But no question about it is, if you look at the International Business, asset growth is starting to come back. And it's been the same as Canada is that as we're working our way through this pandemic, mortgage growth is up quite significantly internationally as it is here in Canada, obviously. Commercial loan growth is up. And we can start to see the consumer coming back, and we see that in our bookings in our credit card business internationally, so it's all on the come.

I want to talk more about IB. But first, you mentioned Wealth and because sometimes I don't think we talk enough about the Global Wealth Management business at Scotia, if you could just talk about the strategy there, how is it differentiated from peers and how the strategy looks in Canada versus outside of Canada?

Yes. Well, really proud of our business and Glen Gowland's leadership. And the team is -- the Canadian piece of that business has had 10 quarters of subsequent double-digit earnings growth, so that business is running exceedingly well. The International Business is growing nicely. And in terms of our strategy, we're there. It's one size doesn't fit all, but we've got a number of discrete businesses, whether it's our trust business, our PIC business, Private Investment Counsel business. And all the businesses that make up our Global Wealth business are performing very well in a very good environment. The one piece of the business we'd like to add over time is more a bigger U.S. presence in terms of our Wealth business. We'll do that thoughtfully like we built our business here in Canada. So a bigger piece of a U.S. dollar management is important to us. It's important to our customers particularly in Lat Am. So that's something that we'll think about over time. But again, the business is performing exceedingly well, number one, in terms of revenue growth; number two, and of our peer group in mutual fund sales. So we've got a really -- the base of the business is exceedingly solid. We've got a great team, and we'll continue to build it organically and thoughtfully through an acquisition.

I was going to ask you about the U.S., and you talked about it. In terms of the strategy there, is that -- do you need to buy something in the U.S.? Or can you build it?

Well, there's 1 or 2 options, and we're looking at both possibilities. It won't be a sizable acquisition in terms of a dollar amount. But you can either buy teams of people or you can buy an existing business. We're looking at both, and I think it's too early to come to a definitive decision on that other than we're talking about it internally. We've talked to our Board about it. And the U.S. dollar management capability is important to us, it's important to our customers, and you'll hear more from us.

One other business that we don't talk a lot about is GBM, and I'm hoping you can elaborate on the changes you've made there over the years to make it more resilient, to boost the run rate of the earnings power there.

Yes. Well, certainly very pleased with the earnings power of how we structurally repositioned the earnings power of the GBM. And as I said earlier, 3 consecutive quarters of $500 million plus in earnings, it's a very well-diversified business. I don't think that that's broadly appreciated. But if you look at the business, and just I'll start with Lat Am, is Lat Am GBM business last quarter made $182 million. It's rated #1 in terms of lead arranger for Latin America in terms of corporate loans. The bulk of those are investment grade. And that business continues to build and grow in Latin America. So under Jake Lawrence's and James Neate's leadership, this business is a very good one. We're building out our DCM capability in Lat Am, we'd be top 5; ECM, top 10. And our M&A capability is building there, too. So we see lots of growth potential for our GBM Lat Am business. The U.S. is also very important to us. Our GBM business in the U.S., our corporate loan book would be $35 billion plus there. And we're building out -- we've made significant investments in people and products there, building on our technology business, our health care business, our diversified business. So lots of room to grow in the U.S. still, lots of room to grow in Lat Am. And then in Canada, we made in terms of lead tables, you can see it in terms of DCM, ECM and M&A. We've got great pipelines of business here to do in Canada, #1 in corporate lending by any measure here in Canada. So we like how we're positioned in the business. It's an important business for us and lots of growth potential.

So we talked about Wealth. We talked about GBM. Canadian Banking is next on the list. Very strong results for a number of quarters now including the most recent quarter. Commercial loan growth in particular, very strong. So if you kind of want to dig into it, what is Canadian Banking doing different than the peers? How would you articulate that strategy?

We're really executing on our strategy, Meny. And under Dan Rees' leadership, Dan's got a great team and really focused on -- we felt we were under-indexed in Commercial Banking, you and I have talked about that a number of times, under-indexed in Quebec, for instance, under-indexed in British Columbia if you look at geographies. So we've added people and continue to build our sales force and our network. So we made good headway in commercial lending. We like that business. Equal weight of deposits and loans, that's always a good mix in banking. And there's more room for us to grow there, for sure. Our RESL business, our mortgage business is growing nicely and thoughtfully within our risk appetite. Our auto business is back, and we're definitely seeing that in our bookings, and you saw it in our last quarter numbers. So the Canadian Bank, certainly, there's a lot more runway in terms of earnings there. We like the business very much. We're investing in sales force. We're investing in technology. We're investing in our people. So I think we're really well positioned in the Canadian Bank. We've got -- in November, we put -- we'll put SCENE and our Scotia Rewards program together. And loyalty programs are very important for our customer base, and we'll have more to talk to in the future in terms of loyalty programs. So Canadian Bank, a lot of time, a lot of investment, and we're starting to see the results in the numbers.

And just to follow up on that, if we think about the quarters ahead, where is growth going to come from in that Canadian Banking business? And specifically, I think a lot of investors are focused on fee income in particular.

Yes, and that's a good point. You've seen an increase in fee income. And one thing we're very proud of in the Canadian Bank is the partnership between Canadian Bank and Wealth. And our mutual fund sales in the Canadian Bank network in the first 3 quarters of this year are just under $4 billion, and that's a big number. But it shows you, if that's showing up in the fee income line, and that shows you the power of partnership, as I mentioned. And so look, we like the runway of earnings potential in the Canadian Bank. Right now, it's doing very well. Mutual fund sales will continue. Commercial loan growth, lots of room to grow. We're under-indexed in some components of that not just from a geography standpoint but from an industry standpoint, so lots of room to grow in commercial lending. And then in terms of RESL, we're more than holding our own in terms of profitable market share there.

And then now maybe coming back full circle, we talked a little bit about International, talking about it again. It was probably most impacted by repositioning. And the question is what should we look through -- what should we look for through the recovery for the International Banking segment.

Well, we're proud of the resilience of our business. It's come back nicely in terms of earnings. And we stated we'd get to $500 million of earnings, and we were at $493 million, so we're essentially there. Keep in mind that FX has cost us about $50 million throughout that time frame too, so lots of volatility in FX markets. But our base business is coming back. Mortgages are strong. Commercial lending is strong. Corporate lending is strong. And the day-to-day retail consumer is coming back. And we've -- as I said earlier, our earnings in Chile and Mexico are through pre-COVID levels, cruise on its way back. And GDP numbers forecast continue to get upgraded in each of these countries, and rates are rising. Chile's raised rates 75 basis points last week. Peru will probably go today somewhere around 50 basis points, I suspect. So that helps our business obviously in terms of earnings power. So International is coming back, and we've got lots of runway in terms of earnings potential in our International Business.

And you talked about that $500 million target, hitting it. And just I know you talk about -- you like to talk about guidance on the Q4 call. But since we're technically -- we're in Q4 here, so I thought maybe we're sitting across from each other, maybe give us a little bit of sort of an outlook in terms of what to expect from IB from that perspective beyond that $500 million target.

Yes. It's -- well, I really talked about that is that, look, it's -- we're not near our earnings potential in the International Bank. And when it hits its -- and runs on 8 cylinders, shareholders will definitely see that. And you'll see that incrementally in Q4 -- Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. So this is a business that can definitely earn $600 million a quarter and in a short period of time. And we're well on our way back. And so we feel good about our business. It shouldn't be a surprise that the Caribbean's lagged a bit here. The Caribbean always lags the U.S. recovery, and it's really leveraged to the tourism market. Bookings are up. Caribbean's on its way back. We don't have any significant corporate or commercial loans that we're worried about, that we haven't taken care of in terms of our provisioning. So it's all about the revenue line and with running our business within our risk appetite. So we haven't de-risked the business, but we've -- I like to say we re-risk the business. And that's by re-risking, I mean you're running it in terms of what the economic reality today is and tomorrow. And the consumer, crew went through a very difficult COVID. And you have to adjust your business accordingly. But as I said, in Peru, we can see credit card bookings coming back and strong commercial loan growth, corporate loan growth. So things are coming back.

I want to follow up on that re-risking comment that you made. But before that, I know you've talked a number of times about IB trends mirroring Canada, albeit with a lag. And I was hoping you could go into that in more in terms of how you see that.

Sure. So the same thing we've seen here is that as we worked our way through the pandemic, mortgage growth was fairly strong and has been building quarter-by-quarter. Commercial loan growth was fairly good for the last 3 or 4 quarters, as we discussed in the Canadian Bank. We've seen the same thing in the International Bank, albeit delayed a quarter or 2. So in Canada, that credit card spend is back, and we see the revolving component of that building. You'll see the same thing in subsequent quarters in the International Business, albeit delayed like 1 quarter, 2 quarters, 3 quarters, depending on what country you're in. But Chile and Mexico business is very good, and Peru is coming back. And that's a function of all the things we've talked about before copper prices have doubled, other commodity prices have doubled. And this has a big impact on a smaller economy, and we're seeing that.

I like how you put it in terms of re-risking, not de-risking. And just to get a little bit more into that, I don't know if it's as well understood as maybe it needs to be in terms of kind of the steps you've taken to re-risk the business such an International Business, and I was hoping you could go into a little bit of that through the pandemic but even -- I mean, this is a process that you initiated even before. So maybe just kind of talk about some of the key highlights on what you want to accomplish there.

Well, I know we're speaking largely to an audience of equity holders. But the first question I got asked in a ratings review meeting by one of the rating agencies was what would the bank look like if you still own Thailand, El Salvador, Puerto Rico and the countries that you sold in the Caribbean. So those countries would have been dramatically impacted by the pandemic. So whether it was good management or good luck, we're happy we had those repositioning efforts done and those transactions closed before the pandemic. So it's been part of a long-term program here to reposition the bank, focus on our core countries. So Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia and the Caribbean account for over 95% of earnings of the bank. And that's important to us in terms of focus and, we think, important to our equity holders. So in terms of -- anybody had to make adjustments throughout the pandemic. Countries -- or banks here in Canada might have adjusted their credit card, how they adjudicated credit card during the pandemic. That's what banks do. So when situations are fluid, like you go through a pandemic, there's a bit of re-risking that goes on, and that's what we did in some countries from time to time. But we had to focus to the economic reality. And the economic reality is our consumers were focused -- because of where the rate structure was, they were focused on possibly buying a new home, just like Canadians were or Americans were. Businesses, commercial businesses needed capital to see them through the other end, and we were there for them.

We're running up on time. I thought I could maybe sneak in 1 question, maybe 2. On the Q2 call, the subject of ALM and specifically how you manage rate risk came up. And the question is how do you gain confidence that the dynamic risk hedging is being done in the right way, in a risk-controlled way.

Well, we have lots of controls in place, and I've had experience in terms of treasury reporting to me at one time during my career here. And we're very active in terms of how we position the bank and with all the appropriate controls in place. And pre-pandemic, we were fortunate enough and we took the view here that the economy globally wasn't as strong as people thought. And we adjusted the positioning of the bank for declining rates, and that worked out very well for us. Today, we're positioned for increasing rates. As I mentioned, that's happening in Chile, it's happening in Mexico, it's going to happen in Peru, and gradually, it will happen in the developed world. Timing is always difficult to predict, but we do this with a lot of thought. And GRM is very active in terms of how we position the balance sheet, so it's done in a very risk-controlled fashion. But we're in the risk business. We're paid to have a view. And our view on interest rates and how we structure our balance sheet and gear our balance sheet, touch wood, we've been on the right side.

And just as a follow-up on that, do you expect the corporate segment to be an active contributor to Scotiabank's earnings on a quarter-to-quarter basis?

Yes. And it's -- we want all our segments to contribute positively, of course. The other bucket is always more susceptible to swings in terms of, again, as we talked about how you position the balance sheet, investments that the bank may have from time to time, securities gains, those all have an impact on the other segment. But generally, for sure, we try to run it to produce a profit for our shareholders every quarter.

Maybe that's a good place to stop, Brian. Thank you very much, as always. We look forward to speaking to you again very soon.

It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Meny.