Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ:HBAN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Zach Wasserman: Yes. Thanks, Scott, for asking the question. I want to take the opportunity to clarify. The guidance we’ve given is 2% to 4% growth in underlying core. And then on top of that, the run rate for Capstone, which is around $60 million plus the FDIC surcharge we estimate to be $33 million to be relatively precise about that. We have not yet fully sized the potential restructuring costs from the organizational alignment actions that Steve mentioned. So that is yet to be included in that guidance, just to put a very specific point on that. And there I don’t expect it to be overly large, but we’ll have to see, ultimately, it will be a function of a number of factors, including the final nature of the changes and importantly, as Steve noted, we’re instituting a voluntary retirement program, which has a function of employee selection and take up on their own and so they’ll be some degree of variability until we have a sense of where that program lay in.

So that — more to come on that. There’s a few opportunities during the first quarter for us to provide additional updates around the nature of the program and the size of our on and we intend to do that as we to get further out in the Q1.

Scott Siefers: Perfect.

Zach Wasserman: There’s some pickup on that expense, that one-time expense that we would expect to see just in the run rate in ’23, and there may be other things we can do to absorb that also not the forecast.

Operator: The next question comes from the line of Matt O’Connor with Deutsche Bank.

Matt O’Connor: I just want to push on the buybacks. You’ve got almost 9.5% CET1 capital. You’ve got very strong reserves. You got a very strong capital generation, solid loan growth, but not good at consumer a ton of capital, seem pretty confident on credit. So I guess I’m just trying to better understand why you wouldn’t buy back stock in the first half and then just to kind of throw it out there, it feels like the uncertainty might increase as we look to the back half. So what would make you kind of more confident to buy back in the second half heading into maybe more macro uncertainty?

Zach Wasserman: Yes, Matt, it’s a good question. I think just take a step back to to frame it. the expectation now as we get out over the course of the totality of ’23 and certainly as we think about ’24 and beyond to get back to a more normal mix overall payout ratios between dividends and share purchases and retaining capital to grow. And so I think you could see this buyback is really just the program with the repurchase program as being indicative of that part of that, and I think a really healthy sign. And when we thought a little more tactically zooming in into the near term, I just really want to see the depth of the economic environment during the course of ’23 before you make any substantive or significant commitments.

And hopefully, the launch of that is understood. How long exactly does it take to get clarity to your point, is somewhat uncertain. I suspect we’ll know a bit more over the course of Q1 and as we get into Q2. It’s more resolved at that point than I think we’d be more active but still highly uncertain we’ll have to see and be dynamic. But generally speaking, the size of the program was designed to keep us in the middle of our CET1 operating range over the course of the proceeding periods. And so that will be our plan to generally manage in that way. More clarity in the near term.