Douglas Braunstein
Analyst · Jason Goldberg with Barclays Capital
Thanks, operator. It's Doug here. I'm going to be taking you through the earnings presentation. It's available on our website as you know. We'll take questions after walking through the presentation. And with that, let's turn to Page 1. For the quarter, we generated net income of $5.6 billion, $1.28 a share, and that was on revenues of $25.8 billion. As we've done historically, we're highlighting several significant items in the quarter right up front. I'm going to try and cover them in some detail here, but they are included in the numbers for the lines of business. First item is a $0.29 per share increase in earnings and that comes from a reduction in the Credit Card services allowance for loan losses. I'll talk you through the specifics of net charge-offs and our delinquency rates when we get to Credit Card later on. Second item is a $0.16 per share decrease in earnings. That's from a fair value adjustment to our MSR servicing asset. And this adjustment really represents the impact of the actual and our anticipated increases in servicing costs, including the compliance with our anticipated requirements that are going to be imposed through the OCC and Fed through a consent order that we anticipate receiving later today. The third item is a $0.10 per share decrease in earnings and expected cost for foreclosure-related matters, and these costs are really our best current estimate for affidavit-related delays as well as certain legal expenses. We don't view these costs as one-rate expenses, but to be clear, there could be further costs around this matter before we're finished. We ended the quarter with Tier 1 Common of $120 billion, strong Basel I and Basel III ratios of 10% and 7.3%, respectively. You see those on the page, an increase of about 20 basis points quarter-over-quarter. You'll also see on the next page, ROE of 13%, ROTCE of 18%, also strong results. And broadly speaking, we had solid performance across our businesses, but I'll dive into those. I've covered all the items on Page 2, so if you skip to Page 3, we'll start talking about the Investment Bank. Circled net income here on the page of $2.4 billion, that's on revenues of $8.2 billion. Investment banking fees in the quarter were $1.8 billion, up 23% year-on-year. We continue to be ranked #1, but it remains a very highly competitive market. Results this quarter reflect record debt underwriting fees, and if you go to Page 19, you can see our League table results. Markets revenues this quarter, $6.6 billion. That really reflects very strong client-based revenues, and we've generated, in part, through the volatility that we experienced in the first quarter in the markets and us helping our clients manage through that volatility. While these numbers are slightly down from a record first quarter 2010, still very strong results. $5.2 billion of revenue, you see on the page in fixed income. There was strong performance across all of our asset classes there: rates, FX, credit, securitized products and strong performance in commodities; $1.4 billion in revenues and equities this year, and that also represented strong performance across cash derivatives and prime services. DVA for the quarter relate to the structured notes both in fixed income and equities, it was not a material number, it was a positive $20 million. And it really didn't change quarter-on-quarter performance. You'll see here, CPG reported a revenue loss of $190 million. And just a reminder, there's three items in that number. Typically, NII and fees on retained loans are going to be about $200 million, plus or minus on a quarter. And then you have the market impact of hedges on the loan book, which were negative this quarter and the impact of CVA and DVA, which were also negative in the quarter, and that led to the result. Credit cost $429 million benefit and that really reflects the reduction in loan loss allowances, largely related to loan sales and net repayments. And just a reminder again here, as we approach a more normalized credit environment, this item is going to return to being an expense item on an ongoing basis. Expenses in the quarter, you see, were $5 billion, up 4% year-on-year. That's really due to higher performance-based compensation, and that's partially been offset by lower non-comp expense. Comp to revenue ratio, you'll see on the page, is 40% this quarter. And just a reminder, it's going to vary slightly quarter-on-quarter based on business mix, but we continue to expect our full year guidance to be consistent with what we shared with you at the end of the fourth quarter, which is 35% to 40%. One final note here, you see the loan balances in the Investment Bank up 2% modestly, and you'll see that uptick to the extent that we continue to have active participation in the investment banking market, particularly the Strategic Advisory business, and you'll see that in an uptick in our loan balances. With that, I'll turn to Page 4. RFS, just a moment on this page, this is a consolidated view. RFS for the quarter lost $208 million on $6.3 billion worth of revenue. And let me jump into the details really on Page 5. At the top, retail banking had solid performance. Net income of a little under $900 million on revenues of $4.4 billion. Revenue was up modestly year-over-year, and that was net of an impact of lower deposit-related fees. There were some key drivers on the prior page. I'd highlight the positive growth of 4% year-over-year. Investment sales revenues, up 11%. We built 33 new branches in the quarter. Expenses in the quarter were up 9% year-over-year, and that's really the continuing theme in investment. Our branch builds or sales force build out were up a little under 4,000 sales force year-over-year in the branches. Mortgage Banking, Auto and Consumer Lending, there was a net loss of $937 million here on revenues of a little under $700 million. And the results here were impacted both on the revenue line and the expense line by the two significant items that I covered on the first page. I'm not going to talk about those. Revenues of $1.9 billion, excluding the MSR risk management results, really reflect $36 billion in mortgage loan originations this quarter, higher volumes, wider margins in the first quarter of last year, but lower volumes and lower margins than the fourth quarter of last year. Revenues here also reflected solid performance in the quarter for our Auto business. The other number that's included in that $1.9 billion, you'll see is repurchase losses of $420 million for the quarter. That's a contra-revenue item. The repurchase losses here are really slightly above the trend line this quarter, and it's primarily related to some refinement of certain of our repurchase estimates, but I would say going forward, we continue to expect repurchase losses to be on a quarterly run rate consistent with our $1.2 billion, plus or minus for the year. I've covered really the significant issues in MSR risk and expense and other than those highlighted issues, the other line items for costs and servicing really reflect our production and volumes in the quarter. With that, I really want to turn our attention on Page 6 to the Real Estate portfolios, talk briefly on this page. Net income loss of $162 million. That's on revenues of $1.2 billion. That's down a little under $400 million year-over-year. The lower revenue number is really a decline in NII. And it’s a result of the portfolio runoff. Balances declined year-over-year a little under $32 billion, $7.5 billion quarter-on-quarter, and we told you about that. Consistent with that, you'd expect full year NII to be down around $700 million. NII was also down on some spread compression. On the credit side, what I'd like to do is go through the details on Page 7. So if you turn to Page 7 and the Home Lending update, you see circled net charge-offs on this page for the quarter were $1.1 billion. They're modestly improved from our prior quarter, but they're certainly in line with the delinquency trends that we saw in Q3 and Q4. If you exclude the one-time adjustment that we talked about in the fourth quarter, you look at Home Equity and subprime net charge-offs are relatively flat. And you see the prime mortgage net charge-offs actually improved quarter-on-quarter. And then if you took a look at that graph we put on Page 16 in the Appendix, what you'll see is delinquency rates have really declined modestly across all of our portfolios. And all other things being equal, that should have a positive impact two quarters out on our future charge-offs. The other comments I'd make on this page is you'll see we didn't make any changes at all to our reserves in either our noncredit-impaired or our purchased credit-impaired portfolio in the quarter. And we continue, given some of the uncertainties in the market, to maintain our net charge-off guidance of $1.2 billion, plus or minus, in the quarter. Page 8, let's shift focus to Card Services. Circled net income on this page was $1.3 billion. Revenues of approximately $4 billion. Credit costs, really the focus in this quarter, they were down significantly to $226 million. And if you look first at the bottom two circled numbers on the page, you see 6.20% is the charge-off rate for our Chase portfolios. That's an improvement of 88 basis points, quarter-on-quarter. That follows a 98-basis point improvement from Q3 to Q4. And then you see the 30-plus day delinquencies declined to 3.25% in this quarter. That's down 41 basis points quarter-on-quarter, and we'd expect to see modest improvement there in the second quarter. The results of that improvement is the reduction in our future estimated losses and as a result of that, the $2 billion pretax loan loss reserve release that I covered on Page 1. Just one other moment here on our guidance for the second quarter, we'd expect the charge-off rate for the Chase portfolio to be 5.5% plus or minus, and we do hope there's some modest upside at the ultimate rate for the second quarter. On the revenue line of $4 billion, it's down 10% year-on-year, 6% quarter-on-quarter. And again, there's a consistent theme here on revenues that lower revenues are driven by a $23 billion lower average balances outstanding year-over-year. And also we had 100% run rate impact for the CARD Act in this quarter relative to the first quarter of last year. Positive note here, you look at sales volumes, Chase volume was up 12% year-over-year, a little over $75 billion of spend from Chase cards. And as I mentioned last quarter, we really believe we continue to outpace the industry sales growth data, and that reflects itself ultimately in improved market share, which means when customers are going to stores, they are taking out their Chase cards more often than any other. It also does reflect some underlying positive sales trends for consumers in general. One other quick note before I move on, on January 1, you'll see on this page and in the supplement, we transferred our Commercial Card business from TSS to Card Services, modest increase in revenues, increase in loan balances and actually a reduction in margin as a result of all of that. Page 9, Commercial Bank. You see circled net income of $546 million, that's on revenues of $1.5 billion. Revenues are up 7% year-on-year, that's a function of growth in loan balances, growth in liability balances, actually some wider spreads year-over-year, higher investment banking fees year-over-year. And that's offset by a continued spread compression in our Deposit-Taking businesses. Credit costs in the quarter, $47 million, you see that on the middle of the page. That really reflects stable to improving credit trends in this business. Losses really continue to be weighted towards our Real Estate portfolio, but the losses in Real Estate also declined in the quarter. And again, I just caution that we will expect this portfolio over time to trend towards the normal through the cycle net charge-off rate of about 50 basis points that we talked about at Investor Day. Circled EOP loan balances, you see on the page of $100.2 billion. That's up modestly again this quarter, but I want to dig a little deeper. Loan volumes for the C&I portfolio have increased now for four consecutive quarters. Middle-market loan balances, the average balances are up $4.3 billion or 13% year-over-year, which is quite substantial. And balances have been up now for 12 consecutive months. And while we know that our loan growth in that area is a mix of market share gains and demand, this type of trend speaks more in part to what we believe is increasing demand in the space. Utilization rates in the first quarter have begun also to show the first signs of modest improvement, and it's the first time we've seen uptick in several quarters there. And one last comment, you see the growth in liability balances, 17% year-over-year growth. We've had $156 billion of balances. And clients continue to generate cash, and we hold that cash for them. And I think that speaks again to the quality of the customer base. Treasury & Securities Services on Page 10. Circled net income of $316 million in the quarter, that's up 13% year-on-year, 23% quarter-on-quarter. Revenue was $1.8 billion, that's up 5% year-on-year. And if you dive into WSS, revenue was up 9%. That's really driven by net inflows and higher market values of assets under custody. You see the other circled number on this page, $16.6 trillion of assets under custody. That's a record number. TS revenues were up 1%, but if you exclude the move of Commercial Card to Card Services, revenues were actually up 7% in the quarter. And you'll see in our supplement, the build out as we've talked about of our international businesses, it's really reflected in trade loan balances. Those are $25.5 billion in the quarter, that's up 86% year-over-year. It's up 21% quarter-on-quarter, and we hope to continue to grow that business. Expenses continue to be up 4% year-on-year, and that is a function of the discussion we've talked about in terms of investment, particularly around international. Although this quarter, it was offset by the transfer out of the Commercial Card business. And then one other quick item here, you see this credit allocation income expense. The details are in the footnote, but we're basically trying to capture the sharing of the economics associated with the corporate bank credit book. That's actually a net benefit this quarter of $27 million. And this line item is going to be a little more volatile than what we've done historically, which is charge through the credit cycle charge to Treasury & Securities Services. Page 11, Asset Management. You see circled net income of $466 million in the quarter, that's up 19% year-on-year. Circled revenues, $2.4 billion, that's up 13% year-on-year. And revenue growth was really based on a few factors. We continued to have strong net inflows into products with higher margins. Record asset under management inflows actually into long term products this quarter of $27 billion. That's the eighth consecutive quarter of long term flows, and that was offset by outflows in liquidity products of about $9 billion. We also had the benefit of higher market levels this quarter. And on a quarter-on-quarter basis, lower mortgage production, but higher year-over-year. Expense growth, the same theme we've talked about, up 15%, largely reflecting higher headcount. We've added a little over 1,100 people to our front office in the last year. Page 11 – I’m sorry, Page 12 now, Corporate and Private Equity. You see the top number $383 million worth of net income from Private Equity in the quarter. That's really reflecting gains in the number of realizations, also improvements in the market value and our positions in the quarter. And just remember here, financial results are going to vary based on the timing of those realizations, market valuations. But you should expect to see an appropriate return over time for this portfolio. Corporate net income reported $339 million. This line item is also going to be lumpy, but over time, trending to $300 million, plus or minus. CIO Treasury will contribute to that. It's consistent with the guidance that we gave you this quarter, but it's going to be volatile based on timing of our investments and gains in our positioning. As you'll see when we release our Q, we continue to be positioned with a portfolio to take advantage of a rising rate environment, and that's reflected in our NII in this quarter. Also, there are going to be a number of onetime items in the quarter. This quarter, we had litigation expense of $350 million in corporate. Page 13, Fortress balance sheet. I think I've really covered most of the points on this slide. What I will remind everyone that hasn't focused on it is, we did, as you know, increase our annual dividend to $1 a share, up from $0.20 a share. And we also authorized this $15 billion multi-year share repurchase program, $8 billion of which we can repurchase in 2011. Page 14 is the outlook page. I think I've covered all of this in the discussion, and so what I'd like to do, operator, is open up the line and have Jamie and I available to answer questions.