Edward J. Resch
Analyst · Nomura
Thank you, Jay, and good morning, everyone. This morning, I'll review 3 areas. First, the results for the second quarter. Second, I'll summarize the performance of an outlook for the investment portfolio, as well as worldwide interest rates and the impact on our net interest margin. And finally, I'll review our strong capital ratios. I'll present some of the more significant results comparing the second quarter of 2012 to the second quarter of 2011, as well as to the first quarter of 2012. This morning, all of my comments will be based on our operating basis results as defined in today's earnings news release. Our total revenue was down 2% compared to the second quarter of 2011, and increased 1% compared to the first quarter of 2012. The year-over-year decline was primarily due to the effects of weaker international markets. The quarter-over-quarter increase was due to seasonality in securities finance and strength in net interest revenue, offset partially by weakness in international markets. Fee-based revenue in the second quarter was down 6% compared to the second quarter of 2011 and was approximately flat with the first quarter. Compared to the second quarter of 2011, servicing fee revenue declined 3%, primarily due to the impact of weakness in international markets and the effect of the weaker euro, offset partially by net new business and a 2% increase in the daily average of the S&P 500. Compared to the first quarter of 2012, servicing fees increased 1% due to net new business, offset partially by weaker international daily equity valuations. In our servicing business, clients derisked their investment preferences later in the second quarter, primarily moving from U.S. domestic and emerging market equity funds to fixed income and government funds. Management fees were down 2% from the second quarter of 2011, primarily due to weakness in month-end international equity valuations, offset partially by new business, and increased 4% from the first quarter due to new business, offset partially by weaker international month-end equity valuations. Given the continued weakness in international markets, we are adjusting our assumption for the 2012 EAFE average to decline to about 1,400 for the full year, down 12% from 1,590 in 2011 and revised from our assumption of 1,490 earlier this year. At SSgA, net new business was a negative $6 billion. This was composed of inflows into ETFs, adding about $7 billion in net inflows, with about $1 billion net into institutional and fixed-income funds, which were primarily passive, offset partially by $12 billion in cash outflows, primarily due to the reduced positions in securities lending collateral as the seasonal impact of the dividend season in Europe dissipated, and $2 billion of outflows from active and enhanced equity funds as clients derisked. Our money market fee waivers were $7 million, a decline from $9 million from the first quarter of 2012. Regarding trading services and securities finance, trading services in the second quarter of 2012 declined 18% compared to the second quarter of 2011 and declined 9% compared to the first quarter of 2012. Compared to the year ago quarter and the first quarter of 2012, second quarter foreign exchange revenue decreased 24% and 13%, respectively, with both declines due primarily to lower volatility reflecting weak capital markets, offset partially by slightly higher volumes. Compared to the second quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, brokerage and other fee revenue declined 11% and 4%, respectively, due primarily to weaker revenue from sales and trading. In foreign exchange, the second quarter of 2012, the percentage of total foreign exchange revenue generated by our indirect offering decreased about 12% from the first quarter compared to a 15% decline in revenue from the direct foreign exchange services, both of which reflected overall weakness in the capital markets. Compared to the second quarter of 2011, securities finance revenue increased 4% in the second quarter of 2012 due to higher spreads, offset partially by lower volumes, and increased 47% compared to the first quarter of 2012, due primarily to the normal second quarter seasonal increase. In the second quarter of 2012, the average 3-month LIBOR to Fed funds effective rate was 30.2 basis points, compared to 16.1 basis points in the second quarter of 2011 and to 39.9 basis points in the first quarter of 2012. Securities on loan averaged $337 billion for the second quarter of 2012, down from $379 billion for the second quarter of 2011 due to lower demand and up from $331 billion for the first quarter of 2012, due principally to seasonality. Average lendable assets for the second quarter of 2012 were about $2.36 trillion, down 0.5% from $2.37 trillion in the second quarter of 2011 and flat with the first quarter of 2012. As of June 30, 2012, the duration of the securities finance book was approximately 18 days, flat with the second quarter of 2011 and up slightly from 16 days in the first quarter of 2012. Processing fees and other revenue was $48 million, down 31% from $70 million in the second quarter of 2011, due primarily to a gain on a early termination of a lease in the second quarter of 2011 and additional amortization expense in the second quarter of 2012 related to our tax-advantaged investments. Compared to the first quarter of 2012, processing fees and other revenue decreased 49% from $94 million, due primarily to the positive first quarter 2012 impact of fair-value adjustments related to positions in the fixed-income trading initiative and second quarter 2012 amortization expense related to our tax-advantaged investments. Operating basis net interest revenue of $629 million in the second quarter of 2012 increased about 14% compared to the second quarter of 2011, primarily due to a higher level of earning assets, including a larger investment portfolio, as well as lower funding costs, partially offset by lower yields on our earning assets. Compared to the first quarter of 2012, operating basis net interest revenue increased 4%, primarily due to lower funding costs and a larger investment portfolio, partially offset by lower yields on assets generally. In the second quarter, excess client deposits averaged about $15 billion compared to $18 billion in the first quarter. Our operating basis net interest margin was 154 basis points in the second quarter of 2012, up slightly from 152 basis points in the first quarter of 2012. Now turning to expenses. Compensation and benefit expenses decreased 7%, or $67 million, to $942 million from the second quarter of 2011, primarily due to the impact of cost savings resulting from lower incentive compensation, and 11% or $122 million from the first quarter of 2012, primarily due to the impact of the seasonal accounting effects of approximately $105 million of equity compensation for retirement-eligible employees and payroll taxes in the first quarter. Additionally, both periods benefited from the Business Operations and Information Technology Transformation Program savings, which were offset partially by the effect of merit increases effective April 1, 2012. In the second quarter of 2012, compensation and benefits expenses were approximately 38.8% of total operating basis revenue, down from 44.3% in the first quarter. For the full year, we continue to target a reduction of the ratio of compensation and benefits expenses to total operating basis revenue by about 100 basis points compared to 40.2% in 2011, assuming a modest increase in total operating basis revenue, an outlook which appears less certain now than in the first quarter. The increases of 5% and 9% in information systems and communications expenses compared to the second quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, respectively, were due primarily to the transfer of certain IT functions to our service providers as part of the Business Operations and Information Technology Transformation Program. Operating basis other expenses were $291 million, up 20% compared to the second quarter of 2011 and up 19% compared to the first quarter of 2012. Both increases were due to higher securities processing costs and increased professional fees driven by regulatory initiatives. Our Business Operations and Information Technology Transformation Program is on track. You can particularly see the progress we are making in the reductions in compensation and benefits expenses. In our operating basis expenses, we incurred $25 million of nonrecurring costs related to the program, consisting of $20 million in compensation and benefits expenses and $5 million in several other expense lines in the income statement. As you may recall, we have previously indicated that we expect our nonrecurring costs to peak in 2012 at an average of about $25 million per quarter. Now let me turn to the investment portfolio. Our investment portfolio as of June 30, 2012, of $114.4 billion increased about $8 billion compared to June 30, 2011. During the second quarter, we invested about $7.9 billion in highly rated securities at an average price of $102.5 and with an average yield of 1.95% and a duration of approximately 2.54 years. During the quarter, we invested about $3.3 billion in agency mortgage-backed securities and $2.7 billion in asset-backed securities. The remainder was primarily invested in small denominations of commercial mortgage-backed securities and in corporate and municipal bonds. The aggregate net unrealized after-tax loss in our available-for-sale and held-to-maturity portfolios as of June 30, 2012, was $54 million compared to a net unrealized after-tax loss of $81 million as of March 31, 2012. The improvement in the net unrealized after-tax position compared to March 31, 2012, was due primarily to the benefit of lower rates, offset partially by the impact of wider spreads. In our investment portfolio presentation, we have updated the data through quarter-end for you to review. As of June 30, 2012, our portfolio was 89% AAA or AA-rated. The duration of the investment portfolio was 1.59 years at June 30, 2012, up slightly from 1.57 years at March 31, 2012. The duration gap of the entire balance sheet was 0.41 years, down from 0.49 years at March 31, 2012. And this duration gap is in line with our guidelines. As of June 30, 2012, 57% of our investment portfolio was invested in floating-rate securities and 43% in fixed rate securities. Regarding the European assets. We have no direct sovereign debt exposure to the peripheral countries of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy or Ireland in our investment portfolio. Of our non-U.S. assets, we hold about $900 million in securities from 4 of those peripheral countries, primarily RMBS and all floating-rate securities. These entail $400 million of securities from Italy; $300 million from Spain; and about $100 million each from Ireland and Portugal. All of these securities are performing well, except for a few bonds. We sold all of our Greek securities during the second quarter, about $91 million worth, and recorded a non-operating pre-tax loss of about $46 million. On Page 7 of the investment portfolio presentation, we list all of our non U.S. investments and show the average rating, as well as the types of assets we hold. Our primary non-U.S. holdings are British, Australian, German, Canadian and Netherlands securities, totaling 91% of the non-U.S. investment portfolio. At SSgA, our Eurozone exposure in the investment funds is consistent with client mandates. We hold the non-U.S. fixed income portfolios in line with our benchmark weightings and our actively managed cash portfolios have no direct exposure to the peripheral countries. Regarding pre-tax conduit-related accretion. We recorded $123 million in the first half of 2012. Looking forward, we expect to record a total of about $900 million in interest revenue from July 1, 2012, through the remaining terms of the former conduit securities. These expectations are based on numerous assumptions, including holding the securities to maturity, anticipated prepayment speeds, credit quality and sales. Now for our outlook for net interest margin. First of all, let me emphasize that we continue to believe that we should invest through the cycle. We also intend to invest almost exclusively in highly rated AAA or AA agency mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities. I'll now review some of the assumptions we use in determining our 2012 outlook for net interest revenue and net interest margin. We believe that the Federal Reserve will leave interest rates on hold through the end of 2014. The ECB has recently cut rates to 75 basis points and adjusted its deposit facility rate to 0%. We expect these 2 actions to reduce our net interest revenue in the second half of 2012 by about $20 million. We expect the ECB to hold these rates through the end of 2012. We believe the Bank of England will hold its base rate at 50 basis points through 2012. If the Bank of England were to lower its base rate by 25 basis points, it would lower our net interest revenue by about $5 million annually, assuming market rates fall in relation to administered rates. Based on these rate assumptions and our second quarter results, if our excess deposits remain at the current level, our net interest margin for the full year 2012 will likely be in the middle of our 145 to 155 basis point range. Finally, I'll briefly review our capital ratios. In the second quarter, State Street Corporation's capital ratios under Basel I remained very strong. As of June 30, 2012, they were -- our Tier 1 risk-based capital ratios stood at 19.9%, our total capital ratio stood at 21.5%, and our Tier 1 common ratio was 17.9%. Our Tier 1 leverage ratio stood at 7.7% and our tangible common equity ratio was 7.2%. The impact under Basel I of the acquisition of Goldman Sachs' hedge fund administration business is expected to reduce our June 30, 2012, Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio by 75 to 80 basis points. I'll now direct your attention to the last page of the addendum including in this morning's news release. Column A shows our Basel I capital ratios. Column B shows our estimated Basel III ratios applying the rules effective as of January 1, 2013, to our balance sheet on June 30, 2012, and are calculated consistently with our disclosure of these ratios in prior quarters. Our Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio was estimated to be 13.9%; our total capital ratio, 15.5%; our Tier 1 common ratio, 12.7%; and our Tier 1 leverage ratio, 6.1%. For ease in the following discussion, I will just refer to our Tier 1 common ratio, unless otherwise noted, although Basel III will have an impact on all the ratios. The Federal Reserve recently published 830 pages of notices of proposed rulemaking, or NPRs, to implement Basel III in the United States. Like our peers, we are still reviewing the potential impact of these proposals, and the table on the last page of the addendum and my comments reflect our best estimates as of June 30, 2012, of the impact of these proposed rules. It is important to note that the rules recently proposed in the NPRs are not final, and once finalized, are expected to be phased in over several years. The regulators have specifically asked for comments regarding the inclusion of the mark-to-market on certain available-for-sale securities in other comprehensive income for the purposes of calculating regulatory capital. We intend to comment on this proposal. Based on our understanding of the proposals, we believe that the simplified supervisory formula approach, or SSFA, that deals with the risk weighting of securitized assets is expected to be implemented on January 1, 2015. These proposed regulations have both positive and negative implications. As written today, higher quality assets are being disproportionately penalized in that they receive a higher risk weighting compared to the previous Basel III proposals, moving from 7% to 20% or higher depending on the securities. In contrast, those securitized assets with lower ratings, such as those rated below BB- received more favorable treatment under the NPRs than under the previous Basel III proposals, adjusting the risk weightings from 1,250% to as low as 20%. During the comment period, we intend to present the regulatory authorities the disproportionate effect of these rules. In Column C on the last page of the addendum, we display the estimated impact of these proposed changes to our Tier 1 common ratio under Basel III, including our estimate of the proposed impact of the SSFA as we understand it today. These estimates are subject to change based on regulatory clarification and further analysis. The implementation of the SSFA, without giving effect to asset run-off in the investment portfolio or any management actions, is expected to reduce our Tier 1 common ratio to 9.8%, approximately 290 basis points lower than the 12.7% ratio as calculated prior to the recently published NPRs and as shown in Column B. Column D shows our estimate of our Tier 1 common ratio after getting effect to both the SSFA and the investment portfolio runoff and assumes reinvestment of $16 billion of relevant securitized assets. As you can see, runoff alone is expected to bring the ratio back up to 12.0%. Finally, Column E shows that management actions, if needed, are expected to lower our risk-weighted assets to approximately $96.2 billion and fully restore our Tier 1 common ratio to 12.7%. Therefore, based on our current understanding of the proposed rules, the net effect of the risk weighting of the securitized assets under the SSFA, after investment portfolio runoff and with the potential management actions, is expected to be neutral to our Tier 1 common ratio by the assumed implementation date of January 1, 2015. We believe that 10% continues to be a reasonable long-term target for our Basel III Tier 1 common ratio using the same assumptions we outlined at our investor and analyst forum in February of this year. This 10% ratio is the foundation for our 12% to 15% target range for our operating basis return on common equity goal. In conclusion, while we saw signs of improvement in the U.S. during the first quarter, that improvement seemed to slow a bit during the second quarter given the uncertainty that exists in the Eurozone. We still face a low interest rate environment, new regulatory requirements and increased compliance costs. We remain focused on growing our revenue modestly, controlling expenses and executing on our Business Operations and Information Technology Transformation Program. Now I'll turn the call over to Jay to conclude our remarks.