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WesBanco, Inc. (WSBC)

Q2 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 24, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to WesBanco’s Conference Call. My name is Patrick Wright and I will be your conference facilitator today. Today’s call will cover WesBanco’s discussion of results of operations for the quarter ended June 30, 2014. Please be advised all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer period. This call is also being recorded. If you object to the recording, please disconnect at this time. Forward-looking statements in the presentation relating to WesBanco’s plans, strategies, objectives, expectations, intentions and adequacy of resources are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The information contained herein should be read in a conjunction with WesBanco’s 2013 Annual Report on Form 10-K and other reports which are available on SEC’s Web site under www.sec.gov or at WesBanco’s Web site, www.wesbanco.com. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements, which are not historical fact involve risks and uncertainties, including these detailed in WesBanco’s 2013 Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC under the sections Risk Factors in Part I, Item 1A. Such statements are subject to important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by such statements. WesBanco does not assume any duty to update any forward-looking statements. WesBanco’s second quarter 2014 earnings release was issued yesterday and is available at www.wesbanco.com. This call will include about 25 to 30 minutes of prepared commentary, followed by a question-and-answer period, which I will facilitate. An archived webcast of this call will be available at www.wesbanco.com. WesBanco’s participants in today’s call will be Todd Clossin, President and Chief Executive Officer and Jim Gardill, Chairman of the Board and both will be available for questions following opening statements. Anthony Costantino, Senior Vice President and Controller will also be in the room to answer questions. Mr. Clossin, you may begin the conference.

Todd Clossin

Management

Good morning. Thank you for participating in WesBanco second quarter 2014 earnings call. We’re pleased you’ve joined us this morning to hear about our strong operating results. I’ll be making some opening comments, Jim Gardill our Chairman will moderate the question-and-answer period and as just mentioned Tony Constantino our Controller will also be in the room to answer any questions. Bob Young our CFO is recovering from outpatient eye surgery, I expect him back in the bank next week. A press release detailing the results for the second quarter was issued last evening. A copy of the entire press release is available on our Web site. We will assume all participants are familiar with WesBanco and we could begin our discussion of the second quarter financial results. I’ve enjoyed my first quarter as CEO, feel that the transition has gone well. Moving forward, I plan to continue to focus the bank on many of the same strategic things you have heard from us in the past. I have also been working with our leadership team to accelerate execution in several key areas that I will talk about in the few minutes. Serving as Chief Operating Officer for six months prior to becoming CEO, has allowed me time to learn the Company and has also me provided time to work with the team on the introduction the new processes and products that are helping to drive sales accountability and additional revenue. WesBanco had a very strong second quarter. Our results were better than the first quarter of this year and were also better than the second quarter of 2013. We’re able to increase second quarter earnings to 18.9 million as compared to 16.4 million for the first quarter of 2014, representing an increase of 14.9%. As compared to the second quarter…

Operator

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session (Operator Instructions). And the first question comes from Catherine Mealor - KBB Atlanta, Georgia. Please go ahead. Catherine Mealor - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: It was really nice to see the pickup in loan growth this quarter. Can you all talk a little bit about your outlook for growth for the rest of the year? Do you think that you’ll be able to maintain this level of higher growth, both in the commercial portfolio and on the home equity side? Thanks.

Jim Gardill

Analyst

Well, the pipelines are strong. The rebuilt during the second quarter and remain strong, so we’re optimistic about that. But as you also know, we’re also rebalancing the loan portfolio a little bit and making sure that we’re building C&I, building home equity loans and keeping overall concentration levels by product type, by market, in mind. So, we’ve got both of those, kind of factors, playing against each other. We could have seen higher loan growth in the second quarter but choose to participate some loans out to keep some concentration levels in line in some of the markets particularly non-owner occupied. So, we do feel bullish about loan growth for the rest of the year but I temper that a little bit with the need to continue to balance the portfolio. Catherine Mealor - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: Okay, thats helpful, and then Todd, you talked about a number of new management processes and scorecards and new sales processes. Do you see any increase in the expense dates as you embark on some of these new initiatives, or do you think you’re able to do these things without seeing a big increase in expenses as well?

Todd Clossin

Management

Yes, it’s a great question. One of the things I was really pleased with when I got here in fourth quarter last year was how sophisticated a lot of the internal reporting tools are at WesBanco. And I did not need to go through multiyear heavy expense program to build the kind of reporting I needed to get performance scorecards across all the markets. It was here. It’s just a matter of formatting the information together, and then quite frankly setting up the calls and having the meetings. So, I only had to do monthly calls with all the presidents. And across every business line, I’ve got a series of seven or eight metrics that I use and I stack rank the markets by RM and by financial center. So it eliminates volume differences by market as per person, or per financial center so I’ve comparability across all eight markets. And I can then manage, who is at the top, who is at the bottom, and how do you share best practices. So it was actually fairly straight forward to set up. It probably took me longer to get the meeting schedule with meeting schedule then it did to actually prepare all the reporting because it was already here. Catherine Mealor - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: That’s great, thank you congrats on a good quarter.

Jim Gardill

Analyst

Thanks Catherine.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Scott Valentin with FBR & Co. Please go ahead.

Scott Valentin - FBR Capital Markets

Analyst · FBR & Co. Please go ahead.

Great, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Just with regard to loan growth, I know first quarter obviously impacted by weather, it was depressed. I thought there was a chance for a bigger snapback in the second quarter, but Todd, you did mention some payoffs in the commercial -- I assume it’s the commercial real estate side. Can you quantify maybe how much that was, and I don’t know if dollar amount or percentage-wise, but how much of an impact that had on overall loan growth? And was it material?

Todd Clossin

Management

I would we have an impact of above 0.5% to 1% for the quarter. And again there were number of loans and these were planned that we get refinanced in the long-term permanent market I was pleased to see that we were able to put enough loans on to grow pass that, that was a nice positive because of the pipeline. But I would say is if that hasn’t occurred, it would have been about 0.5% to 1%.

Scott Valentin - FBR Capital Markets

Analyst · FBR & Co. Please go ahead.

Okay, thanks. That’s helpful, and then just to follow up on credit. Credit metrics approved across the board, almost every credit metric got better, and you mentioned the strength of the shale area there. How much better do you think credit can get, given kind of the additional benefit you have from the shale relative to peers outside the market?

Todd Clossin

Management

I think it’s interesting we talk a lot about the deposit activities shale related in the investment management opportunities, which are robust. But there are loan opportunities from that as well too in our legacy markets as the companies that are involved in shale related activities need financing activities to grow. That’s double edge sword. On the one end there is a growth and they need financing. On the other hand some of these companies are growing rather rapidly and we need to make sure they’ve got the infrastructure in place from a financial perspective to manage their growth, so that they focus cash flow and not just net income. So we’re spending a lot of time with a lot of our customers on just that topic as they grow very quickly related to the shale related activities. I think we’ve been able to help lot of them. And I think a lot of them are listening and improving their infrastructure. A company going from $10 million to $40 million to $80 million in revenue over three time period has got to change their internal reporting. I’m finding a number of banks are not having those conversations with those customers. We are -- and I think that’s helping the customers but also I think it will keep our credit quality pristine during this whole time period of growing financing related the shale related activities.

Scott Valentin - FBR Capital Markets

Analyst · FBR & Co. Please go ahead.

Okay, then one final question and I’ll hop back in the queue. When we think about getting improving credit and decline the charge-offs, and I think you mentioned the outlook for at least the near-term future is pretty positive from a macro perspective. Can the reserved loans continue to decline with credit improving or do you guys want to kind of -- is there a static level where the model says you guys should hold, kind of regardless of what near-term credit trends are?

Jim Gardill

Analyst · FBR & Co. Please go ahead.

Scott, first of all on that, we talk in the press release about we’re reaching near normal level in credit quality and provision. And as we continue to grow loans, we’re going to have to have some provision and maintain a reserve. What we’ve seen is the significant improvement in credit quality year-over-year and the provision this quarter comparable to the same quarter last year. So, it gives you a playing field where you see we’re leveling. Todd any further comment?

Todd Clossin

Management

No, I think that’s a good answer. And we do look at the models, and Jim answered just same I would have. We do expect loan growth, organic loan growth, to continue and we’re going to have to reserve for that and we are approaching in the normalized levels.

Scott Valentin - FBR Capital Markets

Analyst · FBR & Co. Please go ahead.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Jim Gardill

Analyst · FBR & Co. Please go ahead.

Thanks Scott.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from John Moran of Macquarie. Please go ahead sir.

John Moran - Macquarie Capital Securities

Analyst

So hey, I appreciate quantifying the impact that the payoffs had on loan growth. It sounds like it was probably about a 0.5% or a 1%. And then I think in response to one of the other questions you mentioned that you participated out some investor CRE. Could you quantify if that shaved a meaningful amount off the linked-quarter growth rate too?

Jim Gardill

Analyst

No I don’t think that was meaningful and it’s lumpy. That 0.5% to 1% could be one quarter and you might not see it again for helping more quarters. It’s lumpy in terms of the way that it happens. We have participated out some loans with some other banks. But it wasn’t material enough to have a big change in the numbers.

John Moran - Macquarie Capital Securities

Analyst

Thanks. The next one I had was just on, I think Todd, in your prepared remarks you mentioned some branch optimization, and then balancing that with growth. Are there plans in addition to kind of the one that you’ve got open now in Pittsburgh, to de novo more in some of these urban markets? And if so, do you have a kind of a net number of branch ads in mind for this year?

Todd Clossin

Management

No, I really don’t have a net number. I mean historically, we’ve opened a branch or two every 12 or 18 months. I think one of the benefits we have with the strong deposit flow coming from the shale related activities, it’s a huge and enormous benefit, I think, to our organization. We don’t need to put up a lot of brick-and-mortar and wait for that to become profitable in order to generate deposits. We just open the doors every morning and the checks from the gas companies go to our customers and they deposit them in our bank. So with the royalty stream going out 50-60 years on some of that don’t have the lot of need to open branches from a funding perspective, now or in the longer term. But it does make sense strategically for us to have a presence in our key markets to support our commercial lending activity our business banking activity. Plus I really want to push more products through our distribution system that’s where the home equity product comes in, or our license securities brokers selling through the financial centers. So the bigger my network becomes of retail locations the more profitable I believe that our retail operation becomes. But it’s going to be driven by those fee types of business opportunities and supporting our other business lines will drive that more than a need for additional deposits.

Jim Gardill

Analyst

John, you remember, we started branch optimization a number of years ago and as we’ve acquired banks, we reposition within market and do consolidations. And that’s a regular and ongoing process within the Company as we do branch profitability analysis. So, we will continue to work on improving our branch network.

John Moran - Macquarie Capital Securities

Analyst

Great, that’s helpful and actually leads me into the next one on M&A. Todd, thoughts there? Chatter increasing, are you guys still looking around I mean, obviously you’ve got some excess capital that you could deploy, and I think you’ve had some really good success with one that you did in Pittsburgh. Maybe just a quick update there and in terms of how Pittsburgh is tracking and then thoughts going forward?

Todd Clossin

Management

The Pittsburgh is doing very well. It got kind of equated as that one plus one equals three in terms of the presence we had, the presence Fidelity had and combined together we didn’t miss a beat we just continue to grow after the merger took place, so that’s been a real success for us. And we lean heavily on the people that came with us as a result of that acquisition to help lead and grow that marketplace. So that’s been a great opportunity for us. We do see opportunities from time-to-time. We continue to be disciplined. One of things I really enjoyed about this Bank is we got a good strong focused effort on organic growth and we don’t have to stretch to do deals that maybe some others might have to do to show improvement in earnings from year-to-year. We want to build an organic growth engine that allows that to happen. But we are interested in M&A opportunities if they are the right fit and they bring the right attributes to our Company, whether it’d be in market or whether it’d be in urban markets contingent to our markets. We’re interested in all of those. But we’ve always been disciplined. And if you look back over the history of our Company and look what’s happened from shareholder value retention and creation standpoint, we’ve used capital very well. We see all the activity that’s occurring but we also want to stay disciplined in terms of what we’re doing.

John Moran - Macquarie Capital Securities

Analyst

Got it. Thanks very much for taking questions.

Todd Clossin

Management

Sure.

Jim Gardill

Analyst

Okay John thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) This concludes our question-and-answer answer. I would like to turn the conference back over to Todd Clossin for any closing remarks.

Jim Gardill

Analyst

Patrick, I will go ahead and close. Thank you very much. I did want to comment that we wore Todd out doing the entire presentation but I appreciated his role in presenting to you our conference call information this morning. It was a great quarter. We had an excellent quarter and the positive thing is we showed revenue growth, positive operating leverage, controlled expenses. And we had contributors across multiple business lines. So, it’s great to complete the first half of the year on such positive momentum. And we were pleased that you were all were able to participate in the call this morning and thank you very much for questions and participation. And we will close out Patrick. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.