Richard J. Johnson
Analyst · Sandler O'Neill
Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. Third quarter net income was $925 million or $1.64 per diluted common share. This resulted in a return on average assets of 1.23% and a return on tangible common equity of 14.3%. In my remarks today, I will focus on our loan growth and the favorable shift in our deposit mix, the impact of purchase accounting accretion on our net interest income and margin, our growth in quality fee income, our overall improvement in credit quality and our disciplined expense, capital and liquidity management. As you can see on Slide 6, total loans increased by $1.5 billion, or 1%, on a linked quarter basis. The primary driver was total commercial loan growth, which increased by $1 billion, or 1%, due to expanding relationships in the health care industry and commercial real estate. On the consumer side, loan increased by nearly $400 million, or 1%, linked quarter. Gains in indirect auto lending of $1.2 billion were partially offset by runoffs in residential real estate and lower education loans. The growth in indirect auto loans included a portfolio purchased in September of approximately $500 million. Now turning to liabilities. Transaction deposits were up by $2.3 billion linked quarter, reflecting increases in both consumer and commercial liquidity. Retail CDs declined by $1.2 billion due to the runoff of maturing accounts, and time deposits decreased by $1.7 billion, primarily reflecting lower Eurodollar deposits. Transaction deposits now account for 82% of total deposits, reflecting our strong customer focus, and our overall deposits remained stable linked quarter, resulting in a loan-to-deposit ratio of 88%. Our Tier 1 common capital ratio improved by 20 basis points due to growth in retained earnings and is estimated to be 9.5% as of September 30, 2012. Now let's turn to net interest income on Slide 7. Third quarter net interest income was $2.4 billion, a decline of $127 million from last quarter, reflecting an expected decline in purchase accounting accretion as core net interest income remained relatively stable. Purchase accounting accretion decreased due to -- by $98 million due to lower cash recoveries on impaired loans of $30 million, lower accretion on performing loans of $40 million and lower accretion on CDs of $30 million. Going forward, we should not expect further material declines related to cash recoveries and CDs, and the decline related to performing loans should be marginally lower. As you can see from the graph on Slide 7, while overall net interest margin contracted by 26 basis points on a linked quarter basis, the majority of this decline, over 16 basis points, was driven by the runoff of purchase accounting accretion. In addition, core margin declined by 10 basis points, 3 basis points of this decline coming from a $17 million charge in the third quarter on debt hedge ineffectiveness and a 7 basis point core margin contraction. Compared to the prior year quarter, net interest income increased $224 million, or 10%, due to strong growth in core net interest income, driven by strong organic loan growth, the RBC Bank acquisition and a 6 basis point improvement in core net interest margin. On a 9-month basis, our core net interest income is up $715 million, or 11%, due to strong growth in core net interest income due to strong organic loan growth and the impact of the RBC Bank acquisition, as our NIM remained relatively stable at 3.93%. Now looking ahead to the fourth quarter, we expect net interest income will remain stable, as we anticipate an improvement in core net interest income will be partially offset by a $30 million to $35 million decline in purchase accounting accretion related to performing loans. We also expect our core margin contraction to ease, possibly resulting in a stable core interest margin from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. As we said before, we expect purchase accounting accretion in 2013 of $650 million will be approximately $400 million less than the full year 2012 accretion of approximately $1,050,000,000. Despite this decline, we expect total revenues in 2013 to exceed total revenues in 2012. As you can see on Slide 8, third quarter noninterest income reflected strong performances in several fee categories. Asset Management fees were up $27 million, or 10%, on a linked quarter basis due to growth in primary clients, improvements in the equity markets and fee income growth. Consumer and corporate service fees remained stable compared to second quarter results. Residential Mortgage banking fees were driven by higher origination activity and higher spreads. These results were offset by lower hedge gains on mortgage servicing rights. On mortgage repurchase activity, GSE demands continue to track expectations. The $37 million recorded for the Residential Mortgage repurchase provisions in the third quarter reflects new origination activity and modest refinements to our life of the loan reserve estimates. Service charges on deposits were up $8 million, or 6%, linked quarter due to increased customer activity. Other fee income was higher, primarily due to pretax gain of $137 million on our sale of $5 million of our Visa common shares. Our Visa holdings had increased in value by nearly 16 -- 60% during the past 12 months, and we felt it was time to monetize some of this gain. We continue to hold approximately 18 million shares of Visa Class B common stock with an estimated market value of more than $1 billion as of September 30, 2012. These shares are recorded on our books at about $300 million, resulting in an unrecognized value of nearly $700 million pretax. Another driver of other fee income in the third quarter was the increased value of hedges on deferred compensation obligations due to higher stock market prices. These higher prices also resulted in a similar increase in personnel expenses. Compared to the prior year quarter, fee income increased $320 million, or 23%. When the pretax gain for the sale of the Visa shares is excluded, fee income growth continues to be strong with an increase of $183 million, or 13%. On a year-to-date basis, and despite the impact of the Durbin Amendment, our noninterest income grew 6% when the residential mortgage repurchase provisions and Visa gain are excluded. As you can see at the bottom of the chart, the percentage of fee income to total revenue is moving from the high-30s to the low-40s. As we continue to cross-sell in our new markets, we expect to see the percentage increase as we continue to deepen our relationships with the growing number of customers we serve. Turning to Slide 9, total expenses were flat in the third quarter compared to the second. In the third quarter, personnel expenses increased partially due to the impact of higher equity markets on deferred compensation obligations. As I mentioned earlier, the impact of the increase was hedged and a gain was recorded in other noninterest income. Personnel expenses also increased due to higher business volumes and revenues in Residential Mortgage, Retail and Corporate Banking. Other expense declined primarily as a result of higher additions to legal reserves in the prior quarter. Our core expenses for the third quarter and year-to-date increased compared to the same period a year ago, primarily due to operating expenses related to the RBC Bank and several factors, which include costs to comply with mortgage foreclosure-related consent decrees and OREO-related costs. We also continued to invest in our businesses during this period, especially in our newer markets. Third quarter integration costs of $35 million, or $0.04 per share, were lower than prior quarter and lower than expected due to the timing of integration expenses. Looking ahead, we expect integration costs of approximately $51 million in the fourth quarter. We had noncash charges of $95 million, or $0.12 per share, in the third quarter related to redeeming nearly $1 billion in trust preferred securities. In the fourth quarter, we expect possible noncash charges of $67 million, assuming a redemption and remarketing of approximately $500 million in hybrid capital with a current all-in funding cost of 12%. If we complete the planned remarketing process, we will need to replace this funding with bank holding company debt in the near future. Turning to our continuous improvement targets in 2012. We are looking to exceed a total of $550 million in annualized cost savings at legacy PNC and in integration savings at RBC Bank. We have identified more than 600 initiatives to deliver these savings goals, capturing more than $417 million in estimated year-to-date savings. This gives us confidence that we will exceed our cost-saving targets. Our effective tax rate for the third quarter was 23.6%. As you know, this rate is generally lower than the statutory rate, primarily due to the tax credits we receive from our investments in low-income housing partnerships and other tax-exempt investments. Now overall credit quality continued to improve in the third quarter with the linked quarter declines in nonperforming assets and overall delinquencies. Our nonperforming assets and net charge-offs results would have been lower, except this quarter, in accordance with regulatory guidance, we classified certain accruing consumer loans post-Chapter 7 bankruptcy as nonperforming loans and charged the loan balance down to the value of the collateral. As a result, NPLs and charge-offs were higher by $112 million and $83 million, respectively. We also added $50 million to the provision and to our allowance for loan losses during the quarter to provide for these risks. Approximately 90% of these loans were current on their payments as of the end of the third quarter. As a result, we expect to see recoveries on these loans. As expected, our provision for the third quarter was $228 million, was in the range of $150 million to $250 million, and we expect the same in the fourth quarter. Overall, we expect continued improvement in asset quality in the fourth quarter as well. Turning to Slide 11. Our Tier 1 common ratio at the end of the third quarter is estimated to be 9.5%, up 20 basis points from the second quarter, primarily due to retained earnings. Our capital priorities for 2012 remain the same, and we continue to maintain strong bank and parent company liquidity. PNC's goal is to be within a Basel III Tier 1 common ratio range of 8% to 8.5% by year-end 2013 without the benefit of phase-ins. We believe we are well positioned to reach this goal. As Jim mentioned, we recently issued another $480 million of preferred stock. This brings our overall preferred position to $3.6 billion of qualifying capital under Basel III. This brings us to within $1 billion of our goal of $4.6 billion or 1.5% of the Tier 1 capital structure. As we get more clarity about the new Basel III rules and progress with our model development, we will increase our capital disclosures. Overall, this was a strong quarter for PNC, and with that, I'll hand it back to Jim.