Earnings Labs

State Street Corporation (STT)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, Oct 23, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to State Street Corporation's Third Quarter of 2015 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Today's discussion is being broadcast live on State Street's website at www.statestreet.com/stockholder. This conference call is also being recorded for replay. State Street's conference call is copyrighted and all rights are reserved. This call may not be recorded for rebroadcast or distribution in whole or in part without the express written authorization from State Street Corporation. The only authorized broadcast of this call will be housed on the State Street's website. Now, I would like to introduce Anthony Ostler, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations at State Street. Anthony G. Ostler - SVP & Global Head-Global Investor Relations: Thanks, Stephanie. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us. On our call today are Chairman and CEO, Jay Hooley, who will speak first. Then Mike Bell, our CFO, will take you through our third quarter 2015 earnings slide presentation, which is available for download in the Investor Relations section of our website, www.statestreet.com. Afterwards, we'll be happy to take questions. During the Q&A, please limit your questions to two questions and then requeue. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that today's presentation will include operating basis and other measures presented on a non-GAAP basis. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP or regulatory measure are available in the appendix to our 3Q 2015 slide presentation. In addition, today's presentation will contain forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those statements due to a variety of important factors, such as those factors referenced in our discussion today in our 3Q 2015 slide presentation under the heading, Forward-Looking Statements, and in our SEC filings, including the risk factors section of our 2014 Form 10-K. Our forward-looking…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your first question is from the line of Luke Montgomery with Bernstein Research. Luke Montgomery - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Hey. Good morning. I think last quarter you gave or – are you declined to give a target on the amount of excess deposits you hope to shed, but you did say you had a range in mind. Was the decline within that range? And what does that indicate about your potential need for incremental preferred issuance? And then I think you said deposits declined $35 billion adjusted for the lower quarter end spike, so where do excess deposits stand now? Michael W. Bell - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure. Luke, it's Mike. First of all, one clarification before answering your specific question and that is that we estimate that the deposits if you exclude the quarter end spike were actually down $30 billion to $35 billion. So something in that range of $30 billion to $35 billion rather than explicitly $35 billion. But to answer the main part of your question, first, specifically, yes we're pleased with the progress that we made. We did in fact hit the objective that we had for full year 2015 as of the point in time into the quarter – third quarter 2015. Now, I would point out in reference to your pref question, the main priority we're focused on here is positioning for the next CCAR. So the 2016 CCAR will likely be our near-term binding constraint and will likely be the most important factor in terms of pref issuance in the near-term. And if you recall our CCAR results from the last go-round, the Tier 1 leverage was our binding constraint and it's likely to be our binding constraint again. So as you can…

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Glenn Schorr with Evercore ISI.

Glenn Paul Schorr - Evercore ISI

Management

Hi, there. I guess just a follow-up to that is the markets can move up and down and as we've seen already in October, markets are up 8% to10%. So curious on a sidebar, how much do you think of the weakness in third quarter you might already have recouped some of that benefit in October if markets stayed here? And then the second part of it is much more important is similar to Luke's, how much of it falls to the bottom line. Should we be, is an easier question or harder question to ask you, where should margins be for your business? In other words, down to 28.9% is below where you've been historically with these various cost programs, ops and IT and now this one. Is there a goal to be riding at a certain level? Like how are you going to measure profitability for yourselves in the next couple of years? Michael W. Bell - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure, Glenn. It's Mike. Good morning. First on your first question on the markets, it's certainly a positive that markets have rebounded month-to-date here in October. I would point out just for completeness that emerging markets now are pretty close on a month-to-date basis back to the third quarter average. They had really dipped in late September, and what's particularly important to us is the average over the whole quarter. So I would – I'd hesitate to try to claim any kind of victory based on the first three weeks of October, and obviously we've got another couple months to go. But I would agree with you that it's certainly been helpful to see the equity market positive news on the first three weeks of the month. Jay, do you want to talk about…

Glenn Paul Schorr - Evercore ISI

Management

Understood. And it is a small thing, but is the $50 million in annualized savings from the head count actions you took part of the $500 million, or is that a separate? Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: That is separate. That is explicit to this quarters actions we took. The $500 million is incremental to the $50 million.

Glenn Paul Schorr - Evercore ISI

Management

Got it. Okay. Thank you very much. Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Ken Usdin with Jefferies.

Kenneth M. Usdin - Jefferies LLC

Management

Hi, thanks. Good morning. First question, Mike, for you on the NII front. So on an ex-rates basis, if we're at the kind of low end of the $2.16 billion, we're exiting the year just above maybe $510 million on NII in that circumstance. I think – I guess if you could just help us understand as you look ahead on an ex-rates basis when would you anticipate NII starting to stabilize out? I know the NIM will be a function as we saw this quarter of the excess deposit flows here and there, but when you're thinking about net interest revenue dollars, how do you start to think about seeing that through on an ex-rates basis? Michael W. Bell - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure, Ken. Good morning. First of all, it's largely dependent, Ken, as you can imagine, on what happens in terms of market interest rates, which will be tied very closely to what the Fed does in the near-term in terms of potentially increasing the administered rate. To focus on two different scenarios, if you'll recall at our Investor Day, we had said, look, if you exclude the excess deposits and assume that the Fed funds rate would ultimately get back to 2% and the U.S. Treasury at 10 years would get back to 3.5%, we would expect that the NIM, again, importantly, excluding the excess deposits, would be in the range of 150 basis points to 160 basis points approximately four years after the Fed stopped increasing those rates. Now again, there's a lot of assumptions in there, and all things equal, of course. But that gives you a sense that it could take a while, but it could be a meaningful increase because that 150 basis points to 160 basis points would compare to something in the low 120s basis points today on that same basis. So again, a fair amount of upside that would way more than offset the loss of the NIR from the excess deposits. Conversely, that low 120s basis points could fall to something like 95 basis points to 100 basis points, if you recall at the Investor Day presentation, if interest rates stayed static. So again, unfortunately, a fair amount of downside if rates stay exactly where they are. So it is a relatively unpredictable period, Ken, so I think it would be fair to say in net, it's too early to give you a specific thoughts around calendar year 2016, but in net, there could be continued grind if we don't get help on market interest rates, but we could get help over time if we could get some help there.

Kenneth M. Usdin - Jefferies LLC

Management

Okay. One follow-up on expenses. You're asked about this a lot, just underlying regulatory cost inflation, which has been a big burden of this year. Again, aside from the program, the $50 million to $500 million, what's your line of sight to at least seeing kind of the core rate of growth of expenses starting to slow, or are we still on the upward escalation part of that part of the spend? Michael W. Bell - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure, Ken. The way I think about it is in really a couple of different pieces. First of all, I would remind you that we're in a service business, so as we add additional net new business, as we have for 2015, I would expect that we'd have to add expenses to service that revenue. But obviously, we expect to get positive operating leverage on that additional revenue. So net-net, the revenue more than pays for the additional expenses. You're absolutely right, the burden that we have faced here in 2015 and also in 2014 was related to the regulatory and related priorities, and that expense came both in terms of adding full-time staff but also outside consultants. As we've talked to you about before, we do anticipate in Q4 and also in 2016 making more progress on replacing those outside consultants, which are very expensive, with additional full-time staff. And just as we've gotten better in terms of process improvement on these priorities, I think we get more efficient and smarter at how we're spending the money. So again, that's been upward pressure in 2014 and 2015. I think we'll be more productive in 2016. I still would anticipate, I wouldn't put a number on it at this point, that 2016 regulatory expenses would be higher than where they ended up for 2015 just based on the overall environment and the higher regulatory expectations worldwide. But I don't think we'll see the magnitude of increase and certainly we're working through the budgeting process to try to limit that year-over-year increase to something less than what it's been here in 2015. And then the only last comment I'd make and then see if Jay, wants to add anything is around we will continue to make additional efficiencies. We've made progress on that in 2015. The severance charge that we're announcing today is obviously, another near-term step, and then as we've laid out today, the significant focus on this multiyear plan to get the next tranche of the transformation savings. Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: No, I don't have anything to add, Ken.

Kenneth M. Usdin - Jefferies LLC

Management

Okay. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Jay.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from Betsy Graseck with Morgan Stanley. Elizabeth Lynn Graseck - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hi. Good morning. Michael W. Bell - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Morning. Elizabeth Lynn Graseck - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: I just wanted to dig in a little bit to the deposit strategy and I think it's great that you were able to bring the deposits down. I just wondered, you mentioned client conversations. We've seen the front end of the curve in the auctions and treasuries, go for zero rates. So I'm guessing that's part of the strategy to increase, move deposits or excess cash out maybe to the treasury market. But I'm just wondering what other kinds of discussions or conversations you're having? And how much did the pricing change that you discussed last call impact your success? And do you see pricing continuing from here to have a positive impact on your balances? Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Let me take that one up, Betsy. As I referenced before, this is, I think, probably the most important thing we did was had an extended conversation with customers making sure they understood through our eyes what was excess and what was more burdensome from the capital return standpoint. Once we got there, the customers, they get it. They understand the capital pressure. So it was really then more a matter of what's the execution plan. We had some vehicles within State Street that we're able to utilize to offload or relieve some of those excess deposits. They also chose to use other vehicles. I think the pricing, which I would say in Europe ratchet up three or four times and the U.S. less so, was us feeling our way to…

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Mike Mayo with CLSA.

Mike L. Mayo - CLSA Americas LLC

Management

All right. Good morning. Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Morning.

Mike L. Mayo - CLSA Americas LLC

Management

So I just want to summarize what I think I heard. You're missing your targets for operating leverage and fee growth for 2015. There's a lot of reasons: lower rates, lower markets, lower dollar, lower EM, and higher regulatory costs. And part of the solution is to accelerate the plan to digitalize the operation. So if my understanding is correct, why a total of perhaps five years from now to get the benefits from the plan? I understand you won't tell us all the details until January, but we're talking I guess, the end of 2020 for some of these benefits. And can you reassure us that you guys have a sense of urgency after having less than ideal operating leverage this year? Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Let me start that, Mike, and then Mike can jump in if he chooses. I'd separate those two comments. I mean they're broadly related, but we set out a 4% to 7% revenue growth rate and 200 basis points at the beginning of the year, conditioned upon a certain set of market and rate environment. And as Mike reported, we haven't thrown in the towel on the 200 basis points. I guess that's important to say that we have probably a realistic view of the fourth quarter from a market standpoint. And we believe it's going to be pretty challenging to get to the bottom end of that 4% to 7% growth range. But we are turning over every rock in the fourth quarter to attempt to hit that 200 basis points. We're just saying it looks like a stretch as I sit here today. Related but separately, you know as well as anybody the business ops and IT journey that we went on, and I think you…

Mike L. Mayo - CLSA Americas LLC

Management

And then just one short follow-up. On page three of your slide, it says long-term shareholder value and it gives long-term goals, certainly not for this environment. Might you have to reconsider those long-term goals at some point? Michael W. Bell - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, Mike, I would say that we'll certainly each year continue to look at the long-term expectations that we have for this business. For now, certainly – and we went through this, if you recall, at our last Investor Day, we do believe that those goals are achievable as long as in particular that we get some help in terms of a return to more normal interest rates and the other items that we talked about at – backing those goals back in February.

Mike L. Mayo - CLSA Americas LLC

Management

All right. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Jim Mitchell with Buckingham Research.

James F. Mitchell - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Management

Hey. Good morning. Just maybe a quick question on the SLR. As you pointed out, a lot of the deposit declines came at the end of the quarter. So as we look to 4Q, since the SLR denominator is based on an average, if I do the math right, based on your indications, does that add – should we expect that that adds, all else being equal, around it seems like maybe 40 basis points to the SLR next quarter? Michael W. Bell - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, Jim, it's Mike. Yeah, certainly your arithmetic is in the ballpark. I would remind you that the – that implies that we continue in terms of those, the lower levels of deposit through the entirety of the average of fourth quarter, and also that nothing else materially changes. But again, subject to those caveats, your arithmetic is on the money. We'll get the benefit of the drop in the deposits in September, we'll get the full benefit of that in Q4 as long as it's maintained.

James F. Mitchell - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Management

Okay. So when we think about the conversation around preferred, you're reticent to kind of say that it's off the table, it's just because you don't know how it progresses from here. If we see another spike in the balance sheet, that might be a different discussion, but given that you could be getting much closer to 6%, it seems like there's a clear guide path to above 6% over the next couple of years. Is that a fair comment? Michael W. Bell - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Jim, yeah, I'd split it up into two pieces. First, your comments are fair as it relates to the SLR, and in fact, we've said all along that we are confident that we're going to be in compliance with SLR, which doesn't kick in until 1/1/2018, and that we'll be on a glide path to get there. So, yes, I continue to feel positive about our longer-term compliance with SLR. I would reinforce, though, Jim, what I said earlier, and that is near-term, the most important binding constraint is not the SLR, it's the upcoming CCAR test, and specifically based on our experience last year, it's the Tier 1 leverage calculation in the upcoming CCAR that's likely to be our near-term binding constraint. And I'm sure, that's going to be impacted by our Q4 balance sheet, but it's also going to be impacted by the parameters of the CCAR test. We don't know what those are yet, obviously, and we'll have to investigate those parameters and put it through our own capital management modeling. So there are just a lot of other things that – beyond the longer-term SLR compliance that could go into a decision in 2016 around prefs, and I just, I – not knowing those parameters, I can't say definitively, but obviously we plan to give an update here in – at the beginning of 2016.

James F. Mitchell - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Management

Okay. That's helpful. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank.

Brian B. Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Hi. Good morning, folks. Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Morning.

Brian B. Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Jay, just to take a step back on the business ops transformation program and your digitization program, just big picture, I guess, moving from the former program where you certainly had a technological lead versus your peers, and then to this program, is this something that in your mind was an evolution that you thought would have to happen even several years back, or is it more in a response to an increasingly competitive environment? Of course, BNY advanced their technological move a couple of years back, post the integration of Mellon, and just trying to get a sense of the competitive environment that's causing this versus how you feel about your leadership position? Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, let me give that a shot, Brian. The – I think it represents the inevitable endgame for this business, which is increasingly what we do even though we value some of the operational activities and pricing that we do at the end of the day. The value that the customer sees is the information and analytics that gets derived from all of the data and accounting that we do internally here. And that is impeded today for everybody by multiple systems, breaks, handoffs, reconciliations which causes an inherent delay in the information which lessens its usability. So not far into the future, I think we end up being the organization that delivers upstream analytics to portfolio managers, to risk managers, to compliance managers that provide that real-time insight into the information we hold on behalf of our customers. So that's where the puck's going. I think everybody is grappling with this in different ways. We have the good fortune, you could say good fortune or good management, to begin with common systems. And so the common…

Brian B. Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay. That's great color. Thanks very much for that. And then, Mike, just some couple of clarifications. Just your comments around the 120 basis point NIM, excluding excess deposits. What type of an environment do you need to get to that? And if you could just comment again. I think I may have missed this. The actual excess deposit level you have now, now that you've got $30 billion to $35 billion off. And then on regulatory expenses, you mentioned the pace slowing in 2016 versus 2015 you think. What was the increase in regulatory costs in 2015 so far versus 2014? Thanks. Michael W. Bell - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure, Brian. It's Mike. First of all, related to the net interest margin, the low 120s basis points, Brian, that I was mentioning in answer to the earlier question is approximately where we are right now. So we reported an overall NIM of 95 basis points. If we strip out the excess deposits and some other near-term items on the balance sheets like higher CD levels and look at, instead, the net interest margin on what we believe to be the long-term balance sheet, which includes the operational deposits and, again, more normal levels, we basically calculate a NIM today in the low 120s basis points. And as I was answering earlier, I think, to Ken's question, that could grind down further by, say, another 25 basis points or so. Or it could increase further or another 30 basis points, 35 basis points or so, depending upon where market interest rates go over the next few years. So your second question was around the excess deposits. On our historical method for calculating excess deposits, which we've given you now for the last couple of years. We…

Brian B. Bedell - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay. Good. That's great color. Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs. Alexander V. Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hi. Good morning, everybody. Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Morning. Alexander V. Blostein - Goldman Sachs & Co.: So another one on the expense program I guess. May be taken another way, but I guess the challenge that a lot of investors have with a lot of these cost initiatives is that when you look at a point-to-point from the time you guys have announced the original program, call it 2010 through the end of last year at least, you know, expenses are up 20%. Granted, the revenues grew as well, but I think it will help us understand what is the embedded core expense growth in your view that is reasonable for you to have in today's current regulatory environment in order to achieve your organic growth goals. Is it 3%, is it 5%, just to kind of get us somewhere, you know, help us better assess how much of an ultimate bottom-line impact we could have from this program? Thanks. Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Let me start that, Alex. This is Jay. Reflecting on your math from where we ended up the last program, I think the winds we've been sailing into have largely been regulatory expenditures and the grinding down of interest rates, which have affected net interest revenue I think. I don't have the math in front of me. And I think if you took those away, then you know – so we would – you know you can take your own view on where we are on the rate cycle. As Mike indicated, we think we are at least bending the curve on the…

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Adam Beatty with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Adam Q. Beatty - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Management

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I appreciate the detail on emerging markets exposure and the asset servicing business. Another area of the market that had challenges has been energy and commodities. So I just want to get your thoughts, maybe not specific figures around areas of the business where there's asset servicing or asset management that might be exposed to energy and commodities. And whether that's had an impact so far? Thanks. Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, I guess the only thing that I can think of, Adam, maybe by the nature of my hesitation here is it's not much. But I think about commodities and in particular, oil and some sovereign well funds that have downward pressure based on a $45 to $50 a barrel oil pricing and the need to continually fund ongoing operations. That's probably the place that it binds mostly. And I would say it's a discrete set of customers and important, but I'd say in the overall scheme of things, our exposure to commodity prices directly is not that material.

Adam Q. Beatty - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Management

Thank you, Jay. These days not much a pretty good answer there. Turning to asset management and the growth of that business, you've introduced a lot of new ETF products. Just wanted to get a sense of which market segments and channels you're targeting to gain share. And maybe an update on the overall strategic plan with Ron O'Hanley at SSGA? Thanks. Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. Let me start with ETFs and then I'll broaden it out. Our ETF strategy is, you know, we've come from a place where most of our – originally our business was more institutionally oriented and we're moving to a more retail oriented business, which requires that you hire wholesalers in those country and intermediaries in Europe in order to distribute that product. And we've made pretty big investments over the last 18 months to 24 months to increase our distribution salesforce in the U.S. And we're doing something similar in Europe. So the strategy is multifold. One, it's to – in addition to the institutional world orient towards the retail world, and with that, bulk up our distribution. And that distribution would be to financial planners, advisors, broker-dealers, private banks. And then the other leg of the strategy is really around on the product side. So you noted in the beginning of your comment that we've introduced quite a few products. The orientation of the new products that we're bringing to market have the characteristic of less pure beta, more involved strategies and therefore higher fees. So the one that I spiked out in my comments was the product we did with DoubleLine. We have several other products, one with Blackstone, bank loan fund. So we're orienting towards maybe more sophisticated and higher-yielding products. And the last point I would make is we have been open and continue to be open to package somebody else's investment expertise in our ETF structuring here and distributed through the distribution force that I just mentioned. I guess if I broaden the question out, the other main emphasis of the SSGA's strategy that I would put a bright light on is the whole solutions world, which for us 401(k) has been a big area of success over the last couple of years. Ron has a big history on that. And even more broadly just Packaging Solutions for not only institutional, but the retail world, And we think with our combination of beta in many flavors, ETF's vehicles, that we're well positioned to succeed in both the ETF and the solutions world.

Adam Q. Beatty - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Management

That's great detail. Much appreciated.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Ashley Serrao with Credit Suisse. Ashley Neil Serrao - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Good morning. Jay, I just wanted to shift the conversation to your third pillar of your long-term plan. How will you be investing for growth during this program? Are you able to size the data and analytics opportunity you noted today? And are there any other revenue opportunities that could emerge from 2016 digitization plan? Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. I appreciate the question. Broadly, we have been – even though we don't talk about it a lot on these calls. We haven't lost our way with regard to continuing to invest in things that will be the future growth drivers of the business. The one I like to point to, enhanced custody. Four years or five years ago, a vision that took a couple of years for it to incubate. And now, as you know, it's driving most of the growth in our securities lending business. That's one example. There are several examples around. But if I go to the third pillar of the strategy, the data and analytics business, which we launched I think two years ago now. There are several strategies that we're focused on there. At the core, it's this data aggregation piece. So if we're dealing with an asset manager or an asset owner, the ability to aggregate up data not only our own data but data from other sources through a data warehouse, cleanse it, make sure that it's available real-time, is the foundational stage of that business. And then on the back of that, risk tools. We recently introduced a stress testing tool for fund products where it's really a big data application where we…

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Vivek Juneja with JPMorgan.

Vivek Juneja - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Jay and Mike, I just want to follow up on Alex's question, so the whole thought process of can we see this benefit come to the bottom line. You talked about the fact that – Alex mentioned the revenue is up as much as expense is up, and you talked about the fact that you were hurt by NIM, but rates are coming down, which is fair. But on the other hand, Jay, you also have a huge benefit from equity markets. I mean, if you look from 2010 onwards, your S&P 500 went from 1,250 to, even just go to the end of second quarter, over 2,000. Your NASDAQ almost doubled from 2,500-plus. So if we don't have that kind of huge market tailwind, should we still like – should we be able to expect to see this? And on the expense side, while you – obviously, regulatory expenses were a surprise. There is businesses – investment costs that have to go in too. So could you add some more color to that? Michael W. Bell - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Vivek, it's Mike. First of all, you're asking the kinds of levels of detail that we intend to cover as part of our Investor Day presentation, and I suspect we'll give some overview on the Q4 call. So I just think it's better laying out the entire plan to then talk about some of the specifics around things like equity market help or the market interest rate environment. I think that's better handled over the course of a multi-hour Investor Day than on this call.

Vivek Juneja - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Okay. And Jay, how much of this digitization – since you're doing – this is coming over five years. How much of this is more what I would think of as business as usual because the world is changing, we're going to more passive assets, more ETFs from active, and so this is just needed given that you've got obviously, lower fees coming on the other side, as opposed to just given that it's such a long timeframe? How much of that is more that – whatever's coming anyway that you had to... Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, I – in some respects, Vivek, it doesn't matter the asset type, the asset class, the geography. To me, it's really reflective of this pretty cumbersome western world financial landscape that we've created. What we're talking about enhances the value of a passive fund, an alternative fund, a private equity fund. If we can move things through here without human touch it benefits everybody. To the point of – this is where the world is going. Not just financial services. Everybody's looking to digitize their environment and it's hard to do. And I think that – I think we have a huge benefit and that we're a large global company, but we've laid the foundation long ago, common systems, common processes to get there first and this, today's announcement is really a reflection of needing to pull it in so that we can get there first because of the, somewhat, the environment which puts pressure on cost. So I think it has the intended benefit of cost saves at the same time, it accelerates our product strategy and should make us more valuable counterparty to our customers.

Vivek Juneja - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your final question is from the line of Geoffrey Elliott with Autonomous Research.

Geoffrey Elliott - Autonomous Research LLP

Management

Hi. It's Geoff Elliott from Autonomous Research. Thank you for taking the question. The singular event that you talked about driving up processing expenses, what was that? Michael W. Bell - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I'd rather not go into a huge amount of detail, but it's fair to say that we did have a processing error related to a significant once in many, many years, maybe a decades kind of class action situation. And so as a result, of course, we reimbursed the funds that were impacted so that it was our loss, not theirs. Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: And, Geoffrey, I'd just say that the losses or gains get extreme scrutiny around here, not just to – there are two things to figure out what happened but also to make sure that it can happen again. And so we take great pride in our record of low operating losses. So when an event like this happens, we turned the place upside down to make sure that everybody understands what happened and why it won't happen again.

Geoffrey Elliott - Autonomous Research LLP

Management

And then on the $500 million, I know you're still kind of working through the fine detail, but can you just explain how you get to that number? Is it a bottom-up exercise? Is it a top-down exercise? Just to kind of get some comfort around the ability to deliver on that without giving us all of the information you're going to work through at the Investor Day. Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. Geoffrey, this is Jay and Mike can add to this. It is very much a bottoms-up exercise. We have hundreds of people and hundreds of work streams that are looking at – I'll take the simple one, when an electronic trade comes in, that end-to-end process how many breaks are there in it, what technology needs to be applied, what process needs to change in order to affect what outcome. We have measured the breaks, the outcomes, the cost saves, the people, the systems, so it's in a lot of detail. And very much bottoms-up. You can't just dictate top-down a number and expect that people are going to figure it out. So we've spent the better part of a year in doing the analysis that leads to today's announcement. Mike, you want to add anything? Michael W. Bell - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, Geoff, what I would add is that remember this does build off the backbone of the IT and ops transformation program. So one of the infrastructures that was created as part of that is as we move to, for example centers of excellence and as we did the detailed process improvement at work from that program. As Jay indicated, we got very specific, very granular on our unit cost for providing different services along the chain. And as Jay indicated, the $500 million stems from a review of those different links in the chain, if you will, and how much we expect to save through critically applying additional technology to those various links. Again, the piece that is specifically we're going to focus on over the next three months will be the pacing and sequencing. So again, I know several of you are interested in, well what does that mean for 2016? And that is work that we need to do some additional vetting around. And then there will also be some additional investment cost, restructuring programs et cetera that we've got some additional detail to build up as well.

Geoffrey Elliott - Autonomous Research LLP

Management

Great. Thank you very much. Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

That does conclude the Q&A session for today's conference. I will turn the call back over to Jay for any further statements or closing remarks. Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, thanks, Stephanie. I'd want to thank, everybody, for their questions and attention today, and we look forward to speaking with you after the fourth quarter. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes State Street Corporation's Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. You may now disconnect.