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Zions Bancorporation, National Association (ZION)

Q1 2015 Earnings Call· Mon, Apr 20, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Zions Bancorporation First Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being recorded. I will now turn the time over to James Abbott. Sir, you may begin. James Richard Abbott - SVP-Investor Relations & External Communications: Thank you, Sayyed, and good evening. We welcome you to this conference call to discuss our first quarter 2015 earnings. Our primary participants today will be Harris Simmons, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Doyle Arnold, Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer; and Scott McLean, President. I would like to remind you that during this call, we will be making forward-looking statements, although actual results may differ materially. We encourage you to review the disclaimer in the press release dealing with forward-looking information, which applies equally to statements made in this call. A copy of the full earnings release is available at zionsbancorporation.com. We intend to limit the length of this call to one hour, which will include time for you to ask questions. During that Q&A section, we ask you to limit your questions to one primary and one follow-up related question to enable other participants to ask questions. I will now turn the time over to Harris Simmons. Harris H. Simmons - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks very much, James, and I want to welcome all of you to the call today. Results for the first quarter 2015 were I think generally in line with our expectations and also those of, I think, most of the analyst community. Credit costs and operational expenses were somewhat better than expected, while revenue and loan growth experienced softer performance than were expected. I want to turn right to the energy lending for just a moment and highlight how we've been managing that portfolio. It's probably the business…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from Joe Morford from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Joseph Morford - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Thanks so much, and Doyle, congratulations on your retirement. Certainly, wish you the best. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Thank you, Joe.

Joseph Morford - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

I had a couple of quick questions. First, a clarification on the energy portfolio. It sounded like you took an additional $30 million of reserves or established additional $30 million reserves this quarter; did you also quantify any specific write-downs that were taken? And related to the downgrade at this point, are they coming more from the E&P book or the services, exposure and how does that compare versus your expectations? Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: No, there were no energy-related charge-offs this quarter. Not to say there won't be in future quarters but none, and more of the downgrades came from the serve...

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

From the reserve. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: From the reserve-based...

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

From the reserve-based portfolio. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: ...portfolio. We expect probably as we get through the – and those were kind of proactive adjustments on our part. Joe, we don't – we've not yet completed the reserve and borrowing base redetermination process, so a lot of those were based on the engineering reports from last fall and applying new pricing – current pricing to those reserves and they can proactively judging what may have happened. Some of that may, depending upon what they did in the way of new drilling in the fourth quarter, new reserves, we'll see. But they – we expect to keep that reserve base redertermine – reengineering and the borrowing base redetermination by late May, early June and then – and we'll also then start to get new financials from some of the services company. So there are more adjustments to come, but nothing that we've seen so far, I would say, is off-trend from what we were expecting when we – on our last earnings call.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Joe, this is Scott McLean. I would just echo Doyle's comments. This process of taking a reservoir analysis that's nearly 6 months old and putting new sensitivity pricing in it is a very imprecise process, but we did this really rigorously across the entire reserve-based portfolio and determined that there was a collection of reserve-based credits that we thought because of the degree that they were advanced and the science related with – associated with their reserves, the level of leverage, et cetera, et cetera, that it warranted downgrades. And I'll tell you, though, that having completed a portion of our reserve base redeterminations already that we've had about a handful of those redeterminations that have come in more favorably than the sensitivity analysis that we ran, which just simply makes the point of the crudeness of this process when you look at it prior to ... Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

...the actual redetermination data. On the oil field service side, again, it's not nearly so easy to estimate. I mean, you really have to wait for financial information. And even though we have lots of anecdotal data and lots of communication with our clients, we'll need to look at March 31 data and then June 30 data and you'll start to see oil field service portfolio is adjusting in grade really in the second quarter and the third quarter, primarily. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: I'll add one final amplification. James, correct me if I'm wrong or Scott, but Harris mentioned on average down 12%, there's a wide dispersion around that. I think the worst was down close to 50% and the best was up over 40%. The median were on these reserve – that we were – that was – they were around in the 10% depending on whether you're talking mean, median, or whatever kind of high single-digits to low double-digits, as Harris mentioned. Harris H. Simmons - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: The other thing I'd probably mention is just as kind of interesting thing to me, this is Harris, is that delinquencies in that portfolio are negligible. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah. Harris H. Simmons - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Less than a quarter of a percent, dramatically less than a quarter of percentage point just more specific. So we are not seeing in the performance in the loans at this point any deterioration that's giving us concern. But just like a weather forecaster with a satellite image of what's coming, I mean, that's why we're grading these loans. We're really trying to be proactive and do what we, I think, we ought to be doing. But we're not seeing real evidence yet of the kind of deterioration that you might... Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Maybe. Harris H. Simmons - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Next question.

Joseph Morford - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

That's very helpful. I was looking as a follow-up to that. Similarly, any signs of deterioration yet in the non-energy piece in the Amegy book or is that – it's a bit early for that? Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: No.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

No, the answer is no.

Joseph Morford - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Okay. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: No, we're not.

Joseph Morford - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Thanks so much. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Too soon to tell if it's – too early for that.

Joseph Morford - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Okay, thought so. Okay, thanks very much. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jennifer Demba from SunTrust Robinson. Your line is open, please go ahead. Harris H. Simmons - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hi, Jennifer. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Jennifer?

Operator

Operator

If you had your phone on mute, can you unmute your phone, please? Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Why don't we take another question and then we come back to Jennifer if she's having difficulty?

Jennifer Demba - Suntrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Can you hear me now?

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from... Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Oh, got it. Yes. Okay. Hi, we got you now.

Jennifer Demba - Suntrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Sorry about that. Doyle, all the best. We're really going to miss you. Congratulations. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Thank you, Jennifer. Miss you, too.

Jennifer Demba - Suntrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah. So just a follow-up to Joe's question on non-energy loan deterioration specifically in Houston, just curious as to what you're seeing, Scott, in the economy there in Houston right now and in your commercial real estate credits. Could you just give us a little more color there?

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Sure, Jennifer. On the CRE side, you just have to go through each category, but obviously, we're watching office and multifamily most closely. The single-family construction, Houston will probably have 25,000 to 30,000 housing starts this year, and just because of the very conservative underwriting that came out of the 2008, 2009 downturn, I think residential will be very manageable in Texas and in Houston, specifically. Our office exposure is pretty manageable and we really only have a couple of credits that are less than $25 million in total exposure each and in one case, well less but they're with first-tier sponsors and great locations. So our office exposure is I think very manageable and multifamily is really the place where we're watching it closely. We had very few new originations in multifamily in 2014 and so our vintage component overall is favorable. And most of our multifamily projects that are coming online now are experiencing solid ramp on dynamics.

Jennifer Demba - Suntrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Thanks so much for the color. Appreciate it.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Yes. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question now comes from Paul Miller from FBR. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Paul J. Miller - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Yeah. Thank you very much. Talking a little bit about your expense controls, now that CCAR is over, what line items can we see materially go down? My guess be personal expenses, but were there also some expenses in the other expense line item? I noticed that was down in the quarter. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Well, as I mentioned, the biggest change in the other non-interest expense line was the fact that there was a pretty large litigation settlement that we accrued in that line in the fourth quarter of a much smaller number in the first quarter and we think that was a very abnormal expense. So the bulk of the CCAR-related expenses does show up in the professional and consulting. And it was both help on the stress testing, but also in model validation and flushing out our enterprise risk management. So most of what you're going to see in the way of reduction going forward we think will be in that line. It's CCAR-related. Paul J. Miller - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: And then how long will it take to get a lot of those expenses out? Are we talking about six months, nine months, a year? Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Well, the spend on the outside consultants is basically all out. Now, as I mentioned, I would expect that line for the year to average a bit higher than it was in the first quarter because effectively we made almost no use of consultants for those purposes in the first quarter, while we're awaiting the detailed results of the qualitative exam and whatever MRAs that we get and whatnot because that's what will give us the roadmap for what do we have to fix, build, what have you, for the coming year. But all indications are that effort will be substantially less than it was in each of the last two years. Paul J. Miller - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Okay. Hey, thank you very much.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · FBR

Yeah. I would just add that there's a broad category of expenses that are in that other non-interest expense line. There's smaller items that you'll see providing favorable comparisons to this quarter and the previous quarter. And our salaries and our employment expense, there will naturally be favorable comparisons there as the number of FTEs comes down in the company. Paul J. Miller - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Hey, guys. Thank you. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ken Usdin from Jefferies. Your line is open, please go ahead. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Hi, Ken.

Kenneth Michael Usdin - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies

Hey, everybody. Doyle, best of luck again. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Thank you, Ken.

Kenneth Michael Usdin - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies

On the loan side, just wondering post-CCAR, how much more kind of protection against concentration limits do you guys have to work again? So when you talk about slight-to-modest loan growth on the outlook, how much is that related to what you guys are turning away or not doing, and how much is that related to organic improvement and just the natural growth trajectory? Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: I think it's fair to say there's a much stronger pipeline for CRE construction and development loans than you're ever going to see in our outstanding balance – I mean, I guess I should say demand. I mean, there's a lot, very high-quality demand for that product and we're – because the Federal Reserve's models appear to attribute pretty high losses under stress to that kind of portfolio, we have to be very cautious about picking our spots in that portfolio, in particular. And otherwise try to move further away from that 5.1% number, and we're working on a lot of ways to potentially address that. Moving the CDO portfolio, the remainder of it to AFS gives us the flexibility to sell that portfolio, the remainder of it, even though we think what's left is of high quality and paying down at par may be prudent to – although we don't know for sure, it may be prudent to sell that as a further risk mitigation given the – and we'd rather use capital to make loans than hold that portfolio if it comes to a choice between the two. But there is some constraint, particularly on the CRE side at the present time.

Kenneth Michael Usdin - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies

Okay. And as a second follow-up on CCAR, can you talk about just your expected timeframe around calling those preferreds the debt redemptions? And at what point would you just get more comfortable with a bigger buyback ask? Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Well, with regard to the debt, that's pretty calendared in. There are three issues and they all mature in the third or fourth quarter of this year. I forget whether it's two in one or one in two. So those require nothing other than writing a check, and that's the expectation. With regard to the preferred, the exact timing of any reduction and how we go about it, we'll not – obviously it's within the – the expectation is it's within the CCAR planning horizon, which does go out an extra quarter this year through the capital plan coverage through the second quarter of next year. I'm not saying it's all going to come at the very end, that's not what I'm trying to telegraph, but we have some flexibility in there. And then with regard to larger buybacks, et cetera, effectively, that's now – whatever the outlook for that might be, it's really a – starts with CCAR 2016, which will be submitted in early April of 2016. And it really won't become – you won't get the results back until early third quarter, I believe, or maybe the late second quarter. So it's a next big adjustment to our capital plan, unless things were to change dramatically. And we've resubmitted a whole new stress test and capital plan are – you're looking kind of mid-2016.

Kenneth Michael Usdin - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies

Okay. Thanks again, and best of luck. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Erika Najarian from Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Hi, Erika. Erika P. Najarian - Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc.: Yes. Hi, good afternoon. And, Doyle, good luck in lowering that handicap. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Thank you. Erika P. Najarian - Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc.: I just had a question, and I'm sorry if this is a basic one on the redetermination process. So if your E&P companies have hedges currently in place under production during the current redetermination process, are you basing any sort of allowance rebasing or credit line reduction based on that current hedge? And will the – you'll just have to – when that hedge rolls off, then that's when you'll reevaluate further? Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Well, the borrowing... Erika P. Najarian - Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc.: I am trying to see how forward – go ahead, sorry. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: The borrowing base in the reserve redetermination are looking out multiple years; and that's a discounted value; and hedges that are in place are taken into account. But generally, they do not last beyond a few quarters to two years. Erika P. Najarian - Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc.: Got it. And... Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: So, okay, where they're in place. I mean, they're taken into account for as long as the hedges for the term of the currently known hedge, but no potential future hedges. After that, you're just looking at the forward curve on our price deck.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · Bank of America

And that's an industry norm. Erika P. Najarian - Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc.: Got it. But just so – so for example, if a client hedges are rolling off in a year, that's taking into account in terms of the current allowance that you're setting aside, if needed?

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · Bank of America

It's taken into account in terms of the borrowing base calculation, which would then inform us as to how we feel about the exposure we have against that borrowing base. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: So it directly affects the value we place on the reserves and therefore the size of the commitment that we're willing to make, when indirectly, all of that's taken into account in setting the allowance. Erika P. Najarian - Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc.: Got it. Okay. Thank you and, Doyle, good luck again. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Ken Zerbe from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open, please go ahead. Ken Zerbe - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great, thank you. Just a question on the TruPS CDOs. Doyle, I think, you mentioned in prior answer that sort of if push comes to shove and you had to choose between the two. But aren't we already there, I mean, don't you – you do have to choose whether or not you want to sell these TruPS CDOs, receive capital credit, and take the loss or not to sell them? What exactly are you guys waiting for to make that determination? Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: That's a judgment about market conditions and other things, and I think it is a market; it's not a highly liquid market. I'd like you to just defer to us on when to make that judgment and actually make that call. But clearly, I don't – I mean, your general sentiment that that appears to be – for one thing I'll just tell you the Fed's results are for securities losses, it doesn't say CDO losses there. One has to make an informed judgment about, is that where they come from, it's – we think that's probably the case, just because look at the rest of our portfolio, it's hard to figure out where else it might be coming from. But it's not a slam – it's just not a slam dunk. We'll be – and again, there – we think there is zero stress loss in it ourselves, but someone else may not have agreed. Ken Zerbe - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Got it. Okay. Following the question just in terms of the loan growth outlook I think I did hear you refer to the fact that other markets would be stronger and Texas would be a little bit weaker. But just want to make sure that is the weaker Texas loan growth, is that all energy-related or is it energy obviously going down but also all other loans in Texas also under pressure?

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

I would primarily relate the softness obviously to the energy sector. We're seeing – as we noted last quarter, we're seeing pay downs coming in the energy sector that are offsetting the growth in non-energy sectors, the CRE underwriting. We started slowing down, as I mentioned, in multifamily early last year and likewise in office towards the middle 'til the end of last year. And so those are two pretty large portfolios in Texas and they have both – we've enhanced our approval – we haven't enhanced our approval process, but we're just slowing the underwriting there. But our middle-market business activity is there; and the upper-end, the small business, continue to do moderately well, they're growing nicely. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: I'd just add that for the first few weeks of this quarter, loan growth in the company is actually stronger to Amegy than anywhere else. But it's the – looking out again our guidance is over the kind of the – looking out the next year and we think we're pretty confident that borrowing base are going to come down as a result of the reserve, reengineering, and the redetermination process. And that we'll be exercising more caution there as the year – the fact that we're exercising more caution will be reflected in loan growth for the rest of the year there. It's not that Texas is falling off a cliff. It's not.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Not at all. In fact, the 1-4 family business there, there's a little bit of a refinancing boom going on at the moment, has been for the last three, four months. And so we're experiencing that around the company but especially in Texas and so we should see some nice 1-4 family growth there as well. Ken Zerbe - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Dave Rochester from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Dave Rochester - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Hey, Dave.

Dave Rochester - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Regarding the cash, you deployed a decent amount of that into securities this quarter. How much of that are you expecting you'll ultimately shift over to that securities bucket over the next couple of years? Is the goal to shift most of it over to securities over time? Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Yes. Yes. I mean we expect – I mean, we're kind of on close to $2 billion a year net run rate; maybe $1.7 billion to $2 billion. Again, the stuff is short-to-medium duration; so it does pay down, but fairly quickly as well. But that is the goal, yes.

Dave Rochester - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Great. And then, Doyle... Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: It's to give up the – it's to pick-up the yield but give up the asset sensitivity gradually, and not run significant duration risk by even when we're buying securities by those that have less duration expense than 30-year fixed-rate MBS.

Dave Rochester - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Right. That makes sense. And then, one last one, Doyle. If the $50 billion threshold, asset threshold were raised, how much excess capital do you think you would have? And then, how could that possibly change how you might opt to grow the loan book whether it would be more growth in construction or anything else, just any comments there? Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Well. I guess, I don't want to say Ollie Ollie in come free because that's not the case. But the gap – but if you look at our stress test results, which are public for the results of our models and our process, we came up with an 8.6% number under what we thought were fairly conservative models, compared to 5.1%. So there is a very large gap there when you apply over 3% to risk-weighted assets of about $48 billion. Dave?

Dave Rochester - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Great. Doyle, once again, real pleasure working with you over the years. Congrats again. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Likewise. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from David Eads from UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

David Eads - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Hi, guys. Just kind of following up on the redetermination process. You talked about that there's a pretty decent decline in the commitment, and you said mostly it's related to non-reserve-based commitments. Should we think about that as being mostly the energy services?

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Yes. I'll be happy to give you a couple of examples because they speak to what we talked about in December and then again in January. But just some examples. We had a number of companies that are supported by sponsors that had classified loans with us, or loans that we had taken to a classification; and they came in proactively based on our negotiations with them to literally pay the loans off. In one case, a sponsor paid a line of credit off totally to merge this particular company into another portfolio company. So you see that happening. Also you see natural working capital contraction going on. And that can be quite significant in one client whose credit facility was well over $100 million. You saw a reduction from working capital contraction, a projection of close to 40% of the credit facility. And so that's going to bring outstandings down, commitments down. And so, again, you're seeing proactivity on the part of sponsors. You're seeing... Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Seeing others go to the public market.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead

You're seeing others go to the public markets. A great example of that in our reserve-based portfolio, the commitment that we had that was about $35 million, that was reduced to the low-teens largely because of a significant capital raise in the public subordinated debt markets. And so, again, what we saw in the last downturn and what we talked about, which is a significant amount of proactive work in the oil field service sector and it's beginning in the reserve-based sector to right size borrowing bases and credit facilities.

David Eads - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead

That's really helpful there. And is that kind of what gives you confidence that this kind of proactivity that you do have your arms around what's kind of going on in the services portfolio even before you get the updated financials?

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Without a question. We did a sensitivity analysis on the energy services portfolio in November and December where we took every client, literally every client we knew, their product mix by geography and product, and we stressed their EBITDAs based on geography and product and the history of the company. We also – again, as we've noted before, we have about six private equity firms that we work with on the energy services side and about six on the reserve-based side. So we don't work with every private equity firm that walks in the door. These are extremely experienced energy private equity firms; and we watched what they did in the last downturn and they're doing it again at a much quicker rate than they did it in the last downturn.

David Eads - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Great. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from John Pancari from Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

John Pancari - Evercore Partners, Inc.

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Good afternoon, guys. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Hi, John.

John Pancari - Evercore Partners, Inc.

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Hi. And, Doyle, best of luck. Certainly, end of an era. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Jesus.

John Pancari - Evercore Partners, Inc.

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Not that you're that old. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: The stretcher is waiting right outside the door.

John Pancari - Evercore Partners, Inc.

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead

That's all right. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Not the gurney, but the stretcher.

John Pancari - Evercore Partners, Inc.

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Right, right. Okay, so back to energy, the – I just want to see, do you have the quantifications of the criticized or classified ratios by oil service versus E&P and the same for the NPL ratio?

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead

The answer is, we do, yeah. I'm not sure I can do it a cappello. I've got notes in front of me and I bet we can come up with that number as a follow-up item. James Richard Abbott - SVP-Investor Relations & External Communications: Yeah. I'll get it for you, John, here. I'll just work on it for a second.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Yeah, I'd rather not...

John Pancari - Evercore Partners, Inc.

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Okay. I appreciate it. And then, I guess, getting back to the topic you just discussed, as you continue to – as you complete the assessment of the oil service portfolio, Scott, as you said that you're just getting into finishing that. Is it fair to assume that the pace of additions to the loan loss reserve could actually accelerate because of the higher inherent loss content of oil service or is that not the way to think about it?

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Yeah. I want to make sure I clarify. We have been continuously looking at the energy services portfolio, but we've not experienced much in the way of downgrades there yet, and we don't anticipate that until, quite frankly, the third quarter and the fourth quarter, but we'll some deterioration in the second quarter. And so we'll see some additional classifieds and special mention as a result of that, which will attract reserves. But recall too that we have – our qualitative reserve is – I don't know that we've mentioned it on the call yet, but our qualitative reserve and our ACL, we did not reduce it this quarter. So as we had migration and the quantitative reserve is increased, we've left our qualitative reserve at the same size and actually I think we've built it a bit. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Increase, yeah.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead

We increased it. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead

So as we see migration starting to attract more quantitative reserve at some point, we'll pull down on the qualitative reserve. So it's kind of hard to know. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah. The actual total energy-related reserves at Amegy actually built more than the $55 million. That was the net add at Amegy during the quarter. I don't know that I would expect an acceleration. I forgot exactly what your question was about criticized and classified, but the oil and gas total portfolio criticized is 15.7%, which is inclusive of classified of just over 9%. The upstream portion is higher; the lowest is downstream, another E&P, and kind of services and midstream are in between. If that helps you.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead

I would just add that we've not seen anything yet that has surprised us. So I know you'd expect us to say that, but we really haven't. And we've actually seen more positives occurring quicker than we would have anticipated or that we saw in the last downturn.

John Pancari - Evercore Partners, Inc.

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Got it. Got it. And if I could just ask one more topic. On loan growth, I know you indicated slight-to-moderate loan growth. Is it fair to assume that it remains in this recent range, so low-single digit 1% to 3% annualized range? Is that fair to assume? Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah. Below 5% probably I don't know, but maybe not down – maybe – hopefully not 1% but somewhere in between 2% to 4%...

John Pancari - Evercore Partners, Inc.

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Okay. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Would be a rough guess. I think we need to go into our – we're at time here. We've got a few questioners still holding. We'll run over by the amount of my valedictory farewell there and take a – go into a lightning round: one question, no follow-up, quick answers.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Kevin Barker, Compass Point. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Kevin James Barker - Compass Point Research & Trading LLC: Thank you for taking my questions. On the energy portfolio, what was the peak classified levels that you experienced in the last downturn? And what level of reserves did you put against those, not only on the commercial loans but also on the commercial real estate lending?

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Well, the peak on energy for classifieds was about 20%, and recall that our peak loss rate in any 12-month period was 1%. The aggregate charge-offs to-date in that portfolio through the end of the year from the inception of the business which was in the mid-1990s was about $60 million. The last question you asked, I... Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: The CRE, we don't know even know.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Yeah. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: The composition of the CRE at Amegy was dramatically different. There was a lot more earlier-stage land development residential purposes than there is today. That's all gone for all intents and purposes, so...

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Yeah. Specifically, CRE exposure in Texas is about $1 billion – $1.3 billion less today than it was in 2008 and – going into that downturn, and the land exposure was – it peaked at about $985 million in the 2008 time period. It's well less than $200 million today, and most of it's performing very nicely and it's just very old vintage land loans. And so the bank was not a land lender before, it's just that's the way you've started a construction loan back in that cycle. And so it will... Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Not anymore.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead

(1:02:26) bank loans client process. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah. Okay. Next question?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Steven Alexopoulos from JPMorgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Steven Alexopoulos - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Everyone. I just wanted to follow up on the pricing pressure impacting loan production with the weighted coupon flat this quarter, does that imply that we should expect incremental downward pressure on loan yields coming in 2Q? Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Yes, but again offset we think by the continued securities purchases and loan growth and then in Q3 in addition to those items, you'll have the pay-off of the sub-debt that's very expensive.

Steven Alexopoulos - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Okay. Good luck, Doyle. Thank you. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Hey, Steve, thank you. Some good times we've had.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Gary Tenner from D.A. Davidson. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Gary Peter Tenner - D. A. Davidson & Co.: Thanks. Hi, guys. I think you said that as of 12/31, the reserve against energy portfolio was around 1.85% or 1.9%, if memory serves, can you tell us what that is as of March 31? Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Well, yeah, the 1.75% – it was actually 1.75% was the number at December 31. And today, we would estimate that it's about 2.5% or higher. It depends on really how you allocate the qualitative reserve at Amegy in their commercial and industrial portfolio. But if you were to put half of it into the energy portfolio, you're probably getting close to a 3% reserve ratio at that point. Gary Peter Tenner - D. A. Davidson & Co.: Okay. Thanks. Doyle, best of luck to you. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Geoffrey Elliott from Autonomous Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Geoffrey Elliott - Autonomous Research LLP

Analyst · Autonomous Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead

You mentioned that you will come back to us in two or three months with some thoughts on the cost saves you could get from technology initiatives. What sort of process you're going through internally to figure those out? What are sort of areas that you're looking at and how do you think about calculating the type of saves you could realize? Harris H. Simmons - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, it's – I'll tell you as we have a number of people involved in putting those numbers together and assessing both the magnitude and the expected timing of benefits we're expecting to see from some of those – from these projects but that's the best I can tell you. You just – you have to kind of stay tuned but I – we do think in the next two to three months, we'll be able to provide much better information. And both with respect to these savings coming out of these projects and other things that we're focused on.

Scott J. McLean - President

Analyst · Autonomous Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead

I would just add to that these projects, as you know, take place over 2000 – really the heavy implementation is late – mid to late this year, 2016, 2017 and even into 2018. So the process of identifying savings in 2017 and 2018 from technology that's being – continued to being developed today is pretty complicated, although the common – the theme is that we're adopting common practices across the entire company at a rapid pace. And we're generally focused on trying to accelerate that adoption well in advanced of these new technologies coming in to place. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: So the effort involves trying to understand without actually being in a position to do it yet, what some of the, for example, re-engineering of processes, opportunities that will present themselves as we get this stuff in place and then what might the cost savings be as a result of that. so that we're – when we do come out, it's not just pie in the sky, it's – there's actually a fair amount of thought behind it. And that's what I would say in regard to your, what's the process question, it's – we're actually digging down into this. Okay?

Geoffrey Elliott - Autonomous Research LLP

Analyst · Autonomous Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead

Thank you. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Next question? That's it.

Operator

Operator

I'm sorry. No further questions at this time, sir. Doyle L. Arnold - Vice Chairman & Chief Financial Officer: Well, with that, let me once again say thank you to all of you. I was sincere when I said that your questions have been thoughtful, sometimes tough. That's what you're supposed to do, and I've learned from them as well as from answering them most of the time at least and I really do appreciate the association. Wish you all well. James? James Richard Abbott - SVP-Investor Relations & External Communications: Thanks very much. That will conclude our first quarter 2015 earnings review and we look forward to seeing you at a future conference or at next earnings conference call in July. Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes our program. You may all disconnect and have a wonderful day.