Earnings Labs

Old National Bancorp (ONB)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Mon, Jul 27, 2015

$24.00

+1.05%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+0.56%

1 Week

+0.98%

1 Month

-3.99%

vs S&P

+1.98%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Old National Bancorp Second Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being recorded and has been made accessible to the public in accordance with the SEC’s Regulation FD. The call, along with corresponding presentation slides will be archived for 12 months on the Investor Relations page at oldnational.com. A replay of the call will also be available beginning at 1:00 P.M. Central on July 27, through August 10. To access the replay, dial 1-855-859-2056, conference ID code: 81832621. Those participating today will be analysts and members of the financial community. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following management’s prepared remarks, we will hold a question-and-answer session. At this time, the call will be turned over to Lynell Walton for opening remarks. Ms. Walton?

Lynell Walton

Management

Thank you, Lorry, and good morning, and welcome to Old National Bancorp Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today are Bob Jones; Chris Wolking; Daryl Moore; Jim Sandgren; Jim Ryan; and Joan Kissel. Some comments today may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause the company’s actual future results to materially differ from those discussed. Please refer to the forward-looking statement disclosure contained on slide three, as well as our SEC filings for a full discussion of the company’s risk factors. Additionally, as you review slide four, certain non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed on this call. References to non-GAAP measures are only provided to assist you in understanding Old National’s results and performance trends, and should not be relied upon as a financial measure of actual results. Reconciliations for such non-GAAP measures are appropriately referenced and included within the presentation. We are very pleased with our results in the second quarter. Please turn to slide five, I’ll begin the discussion of our positive second quarter performance. With the Founders integration completed in April, we were able to turn our full attention to the business of banking. Our loan balances increased over a $120 million or 7% annualized from the first quarter. We did not acquire any loans during the quarter, so this growth is entirely attributable to new production in both our legacy and newly acquired markets. We were also pleased with the improvement in our operating leverage. Our efficiency ratio adjusted to exclude acquisition and divestiture charges benefited from both improvements in our fee based business revenue, as well as a decline in our operational expenses. We consolidated 19 branches in the first half of the year and are on track to close on the sales of an additional 17…

A - James Sandgren

Management

Thank you, Lynell, and good morning, everyone. As Lynell touched upon in her opening remarks, one of the major headlines for the second quarter was our success in producing solid loan growth and I’ll provide more detail about these results in my comments. The quarter was also punctuated by continued strong commercial pipeline numbers and positive moment in our fee based businesses led once again by our mortgage business. If you’ll turn to slide eight, I’d like to start by focusing on loan growth for the quarter. This slide depicts end of period balances and you can see from the bar graph on the right, our associates generated a $120.7 million in loan growth for the quarter. These encouraging results are a 100% attributable to the hard work of our motivated associates working with clients and prospects within our footprint. As oppose to driving growth through partnership activity, syndicated deals, participations with the purchase of loan portfolios. Really just standard blocking and tackling for our basic bank strategy. Commercial and industrial and commercial real-estate lending accounted for $75.4 million of these gains, while consumer lending primarily indirect generated $56.5 million in new growth. A very strong June provided an excellent push to help us achieve the 7% annualized loan growth for the quarter. While we enjoyed good loan growth in a number of our markets, a few that I’d like to highlight are Indianapolis where we produced $25.3 million in total growth, Kalamazoo, Michigan with total growth of $22.7 million and Louisville region which includes our new Lexington satellite office where we experienced total loan growth of $21.1 million. Bob will talk more about our early success and the great moment that we currently have in Lexington in his comments later in the call. Moving to slide nine, you can…

Christopher Wolking

Management

Thank you, Jim. You know after 40 quarters of speaking after Bob and Lynell on these calls, it’s nice to follow the Chief Banking Officer and especially after a quarter of strong loan growth and strong revenue growth. Jim and his team are doing a great job, capitalizing on the investments we’ve made in new markets combined with the progress we made on our efficiency initiatives during the quarter, and I’m pleased with the course we are on. I’ll begin on slide 12 with the chart of our total revenue. Total revenue in the second quarter increased 18.5% from second quarter of last year. Net interest income was $7.6 million higher in the quarter compared to last year, due largely to the $1.5 billion increase in average total loans from the second quarter of 2014. Average total loans now represent 68% of our earning assets compared to only 61.5% in the second quarter of last year. Much of these loans came to our acquisitions, but the growth and the makeup of our earning assets is important as you consider the outlook for our net interest income. Non-interest income increased by $15.3 million from the second quarter of last year, key revenue areas showed significant improvement. Wealth management revenue was up $1.9 million over last year, mortgage revenue was up $3 million. Investment broker’s revenue was up $600,000 and insurance was up $400,000. We expect to be impacted by the Durbin amendment beginning in July, I believe Durbin will reduce our debit card revenue by $4 million to $6 million pre-tax in the second half of this year. Moving to slide 13, I’ve shown second quarter net interest margin compared to second quarter 2014 and first quarter of this year. Second quarter net interest margin increased five basis points from the…

Daryl Moore

Management

Thank you, Chris. On slide 20, we show provision expense and charge-off results for the two most recent quarters as well as the second quarter of 2014. On a consolidated basis, we posted net charge-offs in the quarter of a $1 million or 6 basis points of average loans. This compares to a net recovery of a $1 million last quarter and net charge-offs of a $1 million or 7 basis points of average loans in the second quarter of last year. Also on a consolidated basis, we recorded a provision expense of $2.3 million for the second quarter. As you can see, this level of provisioning is higher than both last quarter when we did not book a provision expense, as well as in the second quarter 2014 where we had a recapture from the allowance of $400,000. The increase in provision expense in the quarter was due to several factors including the significant growth in the loan portfolio already discussed, as well as impairment associated with an increased level of non-performing loans in the quarter which I will discuss shortly. On a consolidated basis, the allowance for loan losses as a percent of end of period pre-marked loans stood at 0.73% at June 30, compared to 0.72% at the end of last quarter. The combined allowance on loan marks as a percent of total pre-marked loan outstanding stood at 2.71% at the end of the current quarter, marginally lower than the 2.97% level at March 31. For the details for the allowance on loan marks can be found in the appendix on slide 32. In slide 21, we show you trends in criticized and classified loans over the past year, which include all legacy covered and acquired loans. As you can see at the top of the slide,…

A - Robert Jones

Management

Thank you, Daryl, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning. My remarks will be based on the information from slide 23. But before I begin [ph] those observations (25:01), I thought I would share with you some inside information as it relates to our preparation for this quarter’s call. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my team as excited as they were when Jamie Dimon made his comments about potentially not participating on Chase’s quarterly calls in the future. Lynell and Chris sprinted into my office and showed me the newsflash with great anticipation of me following suit. But I have met Jamie Dimon. I can guarantee that I am no Jamie Dimon. So, much to my team’s and your great disappointment, I’m still here. As I was preparing my comments for this quarter, I went back and reviewed the transcript from our first quarter’s call. During that call, I spoke of the solid foundation that I felt we had built for future growth. I also highlighted the strong loan pipeline that was in place which along with the early success of our referral program and the sales pipelines in our fee-based businesses added the strength of our revenue foundation. At the same time, I spoke of few areas that I described as shomi areas as it’s related to our performance, loan growth being one of those. While one quarter may not be enough to negate any of the skepticism that may exist, we were pleased with the 7% annualized loan growth achieved and remain very encouraged by the pipelines that exist along with the level of activity. Having recently spent the better part of last week in our Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo markets, I can tell you that our investment we have made in our…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Scott Siefers of Sandler O’Neill.

Scott Siefers

Analyst

Good morning, Steve.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Good morning, Scott. You took that lead again.

Scott Siefers

Analyst

Yeah. I got lucky this time. Bob, I enjoyed your introductory remarks there, but I hope to hear you for a long time to come. Let’s see, maybe, first question is for Chris. Just given all the moving parts in the expense number currently, and then the need to bring them down in the second half, I wonder if you could spend a moment just discussing sort of where we are with cost savings to date both from mergers and the FTE reductions and branch closures from the first part of the year, I think between LSBI and Founders will have $4 million or $5 million of annualized cost savings, and then ultimately, about $23 million to $25 million from the branch closures and sales. So how much of that is already embedded in the run rate and then how much is left for the second half of the year?

Robert Jones

Analyst

Yeah. Of course, all annualized numbers are two, Scott.

Scott Siefers

Analyst

Right.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Most of the activity around the branch closures happen mid to late in the quarter. So I think that to get a better handle on that, we’ll have to see how the third quarter numbers run, but I will tell you that everything’s happened right along the lines as we expect it way back in November when we were putting these numbers together. So I’ve been pleased with the success of our early retirement program, our branch closures and our sale, and obviously the sale we’ve got yet to consummate, but that should be mid next month. So, I believe we’re on track, and as Bob said, mid-90s in that fourth quarter. I knock on wood every time we talk about that, but it looks pretty good.

Scott Siefers

Analyst

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. And then maybe, Jim, if you could sort of go over your thoughts on the kind of linked quarter differences in the loan growth production. I think I missed what you might have said about them, the level of payoff last quarter versus this quarter. I think you are specifically referencing CRE payoffs that were a little more pronounced last quarter. Can you just kind of go really briefly again your thoughts on momentum first quarter versus second quarter, please?

James Sandgren

Analyst

Yeah. Sure, Scott. Yeah. We were up big from a production standpoint, $150 million over the first quarter. And traditionally first quarter production, you got some seasonality, weather, those kind of things, and we knew that a lot of deals we’re going to be closing in the second quarter, and I think that actually happened as we had expected. We were happy to see payoffs at a lower level than we’ve seen in the last two quarters. So that combination, I think, is what really drove the growth in the balance sheet. And so I continue to be encouraged by the pipeline. We’ve obviously closed a huge number of loans in the second quarter, but our accepted part of the pipeline, the discussion are as high as they’ve been, so good chances that most of those are going to hit the balance sheet. So really encouraged by the momentum. I did allude to the collaboration and cooperation with Daryl and his credit team. So everyone is kind of moving in the same direction, and we are having a beneficiary of a lot of great referrals from all over the bank. I think we received over 1,000 referrals just in the commercial lending group. So, lot of great momentum. Does that answer your question Scott?

Scott Siefers

Analyst

It does. It does. That’s perfect. So, thank you, guys, very much.

James Sandgren

Analyst

Sure.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Hey, Scott. I would just reinforce Chris’ point on expenses. To get to the mid-90s, we’ve really accomplished all of the tasks that need to get there. The branch closures really don’t reflect much in the second quarter. You’ll see a full run rate in the third quarter followed by the sale in another initiatives with the early retirements, but I think for modeling purposes, if you pointed that mid-90s for the fourth quarter, and again we’re going to continue to work through that, but it’s pretty well baked into our run rate to get to that mid-90s.

Scott Siefers

Analyst

Yes. Okay. That’s good color. Thank you again.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Perito of KBW.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Good morning, Michael. How are you?

Michael Perito

Analyst

Good morning. Good. How are you, guys?

Robert Jones

Analyst

Good. So you got to working, McGratty is out playing, right?

Michael Perito

Analyst

No comment.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Transcript reflects.

Michael Perito

Analyst

So, Bob, on the capital, I guess, how – this $1 million buyback authorization that the board kind of re-opt. I mean, how active are you guys just trying to be with that? Any reason why it’s just $1 million? Is that kind of reflective of your going-forward view of the buybacks that you guys are kind of after this $1 million can be done? Or, I guess, how we should be thinking about that, I mean, especially just trying to comment that it seems like M&A is still generally on pause for now?

Robert Jones

Analyst

It’s a great question, Michael. I would say, speaking for the board that they would prefer to look at this on a quarterly basis and see what the activity is as we begin to think through. A lot of it is dependent on share price. And a lot of it is dependent upon the M&A market. At this stage, we don’t see any in the immediate near future in M&A. And obviously, we’ll see what the share price does. But I think the board is being very prudent. Rather than authorizing a larger buyback, they prefer to look at it on a quarterly basis and continue to look. I just might add to that, just reflect on our board. As you all may have seen after the last quarter, insiders, mostly composed of board members, bought 30,000 shares themselves. So, I think that reinforces their commitment to what we’re doing.

Michael Perito

Analyst

So, is it fair to assume that that $1 million then, if they’re looking at quarterly basis, is for near-term use, I guess, just generally?

Robert Jones

Analyst

Yes.

Michael Perito

Analyst

Okay.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Very fair.

Michael Perito

Analyst

And then, maybe a question for Daryl on the credit side. I guess, can you guys speak maybe a little bit to where you’re providing for new loan growth and what the expectation is there? It sounds like the pipeline, the accepted part of the pipeline is just pretty strong and the growth should be pretty good in the back half of the year. I mean, could you maybe just make some general comments about what the provision expectation is surrounding that?

Daryl Moore

Management

Yeah. Michael, I don’t think that we have any firm dollars going forward. But as we meet quarterly as a committee and for each of those new loans that are added to the portfolio, we’ll assign obviously and as for the Radian probably at fall and that will follow through with a big amount of provision that we’re going to add in the quarter. As Bob said, I don’t think that – well, we won’t – if we have growth going forward in the next two quarters, I don’t think you’ll see zero provisions like we’re having over the past several quarters, so I think we need to build something then there. But as Bob reiterated, again, we do not today see any big loans that would lead to increased provisions. So, it would all be really dependent upon the level and the rate of growth in the next two quarters.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Daryl, it might be worthwhile just to talk about the shift in how we’re looking at provision versus times passed.

Daryl Moore

Management

Yeah. So, over the past numbers of years as we try to set our provision expense. We looked at a historical loss basis and just went over the past 6, 7, 10 years to look at what our losses had been in a particular category and projected those forward. In 2015, we have started with a probably default loss given default model that most banks are size use and I’m sure you’re all familiar with that. So it’s a more prospective forward-looking view on provisioning as opposed to historic loss. And so, that will be part of that provision in expense as we move forward and picking up those new loans.

Michael Perito

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thank you. And I have a one last quick one if I could squeeze it. In the trust revenues, I appreciate the color on the one large client. So that $9.4 million, is that a relatively good number to work off going forward then with that new client on board?

Robert Jones

Analyst

Yeah. Absolutely. The client funded mid-quarter, so I think – the pipeline in our wealth business is continuing to increase as well and we picked up on another couple nice corporate accounts even to latter half this quarter. But I think that’s a good number to work for, Michael.

Michael Perito

Analyst

All right. Great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Thank you. Tell McGratty to have fun.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Emlen Harmon of Jefferies.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Congratulations, Emlen.

Emlen Harmon

Analyst

Thank you very much, Bob. Appreciate it.

Robert Jones

Analyst

We’re waiting for our invitation as we speak.

Emlen Harmon

Analyst

Those are not quite [indiscernible]. You know how long it took me to get engaged and so the wedding could be a lot, too. But...

Robert Jones

Analyst

Yeah.

Emlen Harmon

Analyst

Question for Chris on the NIM expectation, because you said it was 308 to 310 on the core from 315 this quarter. As I think about – I mean there are a couple of ways to get there, right? It’s either kind of investment of inbound, liquidity at lower rates drives you down there or there’s actually a – anything in the securities about this kind of like rolling over and refunding. So, like, one, it’s just a matter of the yield changing, and then the other is actually lower interest income. So I’d just be curious what the NIM guidance says about the kind of core interest income trajectory, whether that’s actually there’s a drag coming or that’s just the investment yield that you’re getting this a little lower.

Christopher Wolking

Management

Well, I think they go hand in glove, in my opinion, Emlen, because as long as rates don’t change, and as long as we continue to maintain our rate sensitivity where it is, we wouldn’t expect to be reinvesting at higher rate securities, which implies these would be – new investments would be longer term. So as long as we continue to have low rates, the expectation of rates are going to increase, we’ll continue to reinvest those cash flows in short maturity securities largely, and they’ll be at lower rates. I think clearly that the marginal loan yield is better than that which I could reinvest securities in the securities portfolio. So I’m anxious to continue to see this nice loan growth that we had this quarter and that should help. But as long as rates stay the same, as long as we would be expected to reinvest cash flows at lower-yielding securities, shorter duration, we’d expect to see margin compression. But as I mentioned in my point, we don’t – I don’t have anything for increased rates. I believe they’re pending, but couldn’t tell you when, but we don’t have that in our outlook. And again, just kind of a steady grind as those yields, investment opportunities or at lower rates?

Emlen Harmon

Analyst

I got you. Okay. And then, I didn’t notice that the production yield increased this quarter, I mean, were that particular categories that are improving and driving that or is it just a matter of mix in terms of what’s coming onto the balance sheet that generated a better new production yield?

James Sandgren

Analyst

Yeah. As I look at the new loans that were put on the books about 65% of those were C&I and commercial real estate was kind of 35%. And as I talk about the average loan size with less than 400,000, so we’re underwriting a lot of these deals through our scoring model. And traditionally, we’ve been able to be a little bit higher yield on those smaller deals. Obviously, the big deals high-quality deals are extremely competitive. So we still had a few of those in the quarter but maybe a little bit more in the second quarter from the small business portfolio which allows us to get a little bit better yield.

Daryl Moore

Management

And I think, Emlen, the other thing I would add onto that, if you noticed on the slide, about 45% of our commercial clients are new business to us, new clients to us which also showed a lot about the yield we’re able to get on those clients.

Emlen Harmon

Analyst

Right. Got it. Okay. And then, a quick one going back to expenses, preferably the last quarter a couple of quarters ago, you’ve kind of laid out that you wanted to get to an efficiency ratio of around 63% on the legacy bank. So kind of ex-fee acquisition effects. Could you give me and just an updated on where you are on the progress toward reaching that? And ultimately, it sounds you guys are on pace in terms of expenses. So, I guess, ultimately it’s about – is it the revenue there that how we should get to that target?

Daryl Moore

Management

Yeah. At this stage, Emlen, I’d say, all things have been equal and we think we are on pace. Obviously, things can change but the expense is the one that – if you take the mid-90s with where we forecast our revenues to be, we should be at or very close to that 63%.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Yeah. Emlen, I’m going to add that we are really focused on the expense line. And as we thought, there are some opportunities and risk in margin. Loan growth is good. But as long as we stay focused on the expenses [indiscernible] revenue will get there.

Emlen Harmon

Analyst

All right. That’s great. Thank you very much for taking the questions.

Daryl Moore

Management

Thanks, Emlen. Congratulations.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from John Moran of Macquarie Securities.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Good morning, John.

John Moran

Analyst

Hey. Good morning. How’s it going?

Robert Jones

Analyst

Good.

John Moran

Analyst

Good. Hey, I missed the – I caught, I think, in Jim’s portion of the prepared remarks there the C&I and CRE production was pretty strong. The consumer – was that direct or indirect that drove that? And did – could you just repeat that dollar amount for me?

James Sandgren

Analyst

Yeah. Absolutely. So, C&I commercial accounted for about $75 million in gains during the quarter. And then $56.5 million was driven, and that’s primarily indirect.

John Moran

Analyst

Okay.

Robert Jones

Analyst

And just to remind you, John, all of our indirect is in franchise, and it’s really with dealers we’ve dealt with for a long time. Where we’ve had really good success in that business is up in our Michigan markets, particularly Kalamazoo and those areas.

John Moran

Analyst

Okay. That was just kind of a ticky-tacky thing that I missed in there. The other one was just on – and I know somebody already asked about pay downs. But you guys – it seems like a lot of banks got hit with pay downs this quarter. You guys – it was down linked quarter actually, so maybe you saw them a little bit earlier. Do you have a look on kind of where that activity is running so far this quarter, and does it still seem like it’s kind of abating?

James Sandgren

Analyst

Yeah. At this point, we’re reviewing that on a weekly basis. And at this point, we would continue to see that move down a little bit. You never know for sure if there’s a sale of a company or sale of a real estate, but what we anticipate going forward should be pretty consistent with where we were in the second quarter to save any big surprises that we hadn’t anticipated. But it’s something we look at and review on a weekly basis. And right now, it kind of seems to be consistent with where we run in the second quarter.

Robert Jones

Analyst

John, I would just say, just an observation, the maturity of our partnerships allows us that number that not to get us dramatic because at this point, we’re able to retain and grow those markets versus running off business.

John Moran

Analyst

Okay. And the last one I have is just the duration and the extension in the securities book on the – it sounds like you guys did some intermediate term muni bonds. Could you give us a little more detail in terms of what exactly you bought and when that came on and then sort of what your preference would be or thinking in terms of liquidity redeployment in the securities book for the balance of this year?

James Sandgren

Analyst

Your scratching a little bit here, John. But because of our movement up in the Michigan, A, we wanted to have owned some Michigan municipal bonds. So we had the opportunity to do that in the quarter. That probably will continue. We’ll continue to take opportunities in the municipal book when we can. As you know, we’ve always had a pretty big muni book and it’s always had bit of duration, offset by a large percentage of short-term securities in short-term agencies, that kind of thing. So, it’s always been a little bit barbell. So, we’re not afraid to do that. It’s been successful for us for years and years and years and we’ll continue to. And also when we move into new markets, it’s an opportunity for us to establish our presence in that market in a larger way, frankly, than some of our acquired banks have been able to do. So we will continue to do that. We’re still – generally speaking, though, as portfolio cash flows come out of the portfolio, we’re looking at shorter-term stuff, some short callable agencies, very benign kind of short-term investment. The fact that rates went up so much from the end of March to the end of June really caused a little bit of extension in that which we have in our mortgage portfolio, just the more option-driven investments. And that probably caused, I would guess, 25% or so of the duration extension that we had quarter-over-quarter, not something that just happens, right? So I don’t see that that change in the duration total really materially impacts our rate sensitivity, particularly as we have a larger percentage of our total assets and our earning assets in loans.

John Moran

Analyst

Got you. Thank you very much. That’s helpful.

James Sandgren

Analyst

Thanks, John.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Andy Stapp of Hilliard, Lyons.

Robert Jones

Analyst

How’re you’re doing?

Andrew Stapp

Analyst

Good. Good. How are you guys?

Daryl Moore

Management

We’re doing great.

Andrew Stapp

Analyst

Good. Are you still looking for a GAAP effective tax rate of 20% for the year?

Christopher Wolking

Management

Let me look here [indiscernible]. 28%, roughly 28.5% for the year, Andy.

Andrew Stapp

Analyst

Okay.

Christopher Wolking

Management

And just again, as obviously with accretion income and that kind of thing, our taxable income as a percentage of our total income has increased a bit from a few years back.

Andrew Stapp

Analyst

Okay. And what was your refi purchase mix in your Q2 mortgage banking production?

James Sandgren

Analyst

Yeah. I think for the – this is Jim Ryan. For the second quarter, it was probably roughly half and half refi versus purchase in the production side.

Andrew Stapp

Analyst

Okay. Great. The rest of my questions had been answered.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Okay. Thanks, Andy.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Terry McEvoy of Stephens, Inc.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Welcome, Terry. We’re glad to have you here.

Terry McEvoy

Analyst

Thank you very much. Good morning. First question, I guess, for Jim. The 45% of the new loan production or the production coming from new clients, could you talk about what else is coming with that relationship, whether it’s deposits, fees. It doesn’t look like giving your production yields, you’re literally competing on price given the increase. But how should we think about that full relationship?

James Sandgren

Analyst

Yeah. And that’s we’re all about. So when we bring on a new customer to the bank from commercial loans standpoint, we have our cash management folks involved. We’re bringing in deposits. If there’s an approximately to sell insurance, we’re talking about that as well. But we really focus with our relationship managers that we are not transactional. So we’ll start certainly with deposits and loans and then we really focus on other areas whether it’d insurance, wealth management, 401(k), those kind of relationships. So, I think having the referral plan as we’ve alluded to a number of times on this call and prior calls, it’s I think got us really focused on building and growing that entire relationship.

Terry McEvoy

Analyst

Great. And then as a follow-up, the service charge is down about 4.6% year-over-year. I guess you closed two deals in the second half of last year, consolidate some branches. But it seems to be down a little bit more than I had forecasted. Could you talk about what’s going on there whether you’re changing some fee policies, overdraft policies and how should we think about the third and the fourth quarter in light of some of the moving pieces, branch sales, et cetera?

Robert Jones

Analyst

Yeah. Some of that, Terry, is based on our new products we’ve introduced, we went away from pre-checking. We led the pack and probably we’re a little too aggressive so we’ve put in place a checking product that allows you to waive fees so I think a portion of that is related to that. The other thing quite frankly is the strength of the economy has reduced to presentments on the overdraft side. And we continue to see those numbers drop and that’s really been the largest impact to the decrease. Quite frankly and that’s a good thing because you’re seeing people be a little smart by how they use their money. And as you bring on the new accounts, obviously, as we change our fee structure, it does present some challenges there, so.

Terry McEvoy

Analyst

And then just lastly the consumer in direct, the due production yield up 18 basis points. Is that a function of mix shift, new markets, what was driving the increase?

James Sandgren

Analyst

Yeah. Actually that was just a meaningful discussion with our group to say that we need to raise rates pretty much across the board. So we did a, I think it was 25-basis-point increase pretty early on in the quarter and we’re really happy to see that we were able to maintain pretty close to that same level or production at a higher spread. So we continue to really look at the market from a competitive pricing standpoint and we felt like we were able to take advantage of a little bit higher spread on that production. So it was certainly a nice boost in the second quarter.

Terry McEvoy

Analyst

Very helpful. Thank you.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Great. Terry, glad to have you on the team

Terry McEvoy

Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Michael Perito of KBW.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Michael you only get one follow-up.

Michael Perito

Analyst

Actually, I didn’t hit the button, guys, so I’m not sure what the error was there. But thanks anyway.

Robert Jones

Analyst

All right [indiscernible].

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Will Curtiss of SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Hey, Will. How are you doing?

Will Curtiss

Analyst

Good. Good morning. Just really quickly back to the expenses, and I think the guidance has been pretty clear. But you did mention coming up with some other ideas for improving expenses and just thought – see if you could give us some insight as to some of the other ideas you guys are kicking around.

Robert Jones

Analyst

It ranges from contract renegotiation as we become larger, and it’s programs in our IT world to get rid of some of the bureaucracy and multiple systems we’ve got. It’s to continue to look at head count and as we become more efficient by technology to reducing head count. So, I would argue, Chris has probably got 60 to 75 to 80 ideas at a time we’re looking at. We’ve given targets to each of our business units that those targets – we wouldn’t be good leaders if we didn’t have those targets to be lower than what’s in our forecast. So, everyone’s keenly focused on that. As Chris said, you – and you’ve heard me say in the past, revenue is great. But if it comes, it’s there. You really have to focus on the expense. And quite frankly, I’m tired of talking about expenses. And so whatever we can do to move that number down, we’re all just going to work hard to do that.

Christopher Wolking

Management

Bob has mentioned this in the past, too, that the more you work with expenses, the more you work with individual business lines, it becomes more just a way of life. And I’ve been encouraged by the ideas that our team has generated, and it’s consistent with what they did last year. They just – quarter after quarter, they’re looking at opportunities to be more efficient, have harder conversations with our vendors about contract terms, to look at facilities management opportunities. Just one thing after the other. And it’s really throughout the organization.

Will Curtiss

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. That’s it for me.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

At this time, there are no further questions. I will now return the call to management for any additional or closing remarks.

Robert Jones

Analyst

Great. Thank you, everybody, for participating. As always, any follow-up questions to Lynell, and we’ll get right back to you. Hope everybody has a great day.

Operator

Operator

This concludes Old National’s call. Once again, a replay along with the presentation slides will be available for 12 months on the Investor Relations page of Old National’s website, oldnational.com. A replay of the call will also be available by dialing 1-855-859-2056, conference ID code 81832621. This replay will be available through August 10. If anyone has any additional questions, please contact Lynell Walton at 812-464-1366. Thank you for your participation in today’s conference call.