Itaú Unibanco Holding S.A. (NYSE:ITUB) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Itaú Unibanco Holding S.A. (NYSE:ITUB) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript May 7, 2024

Itaú Unibanco Holding S.A. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Renato Lulia: [Interpreted] Hello. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining this Video Conference to talk about our Earnings for the First Quarter of 2024. We’re broadcasting directly from our office in Avenida Faria Lima in Sao Paulo. As usual, today’s event will be divided into two parts. First, Milton will take you through our performance and earnings for the first quarter of 2024. And then we will have a Q&A session during which investors and analysts can ask us questions and get into the details with us. Before we get started, I’d like to give you a few pointers to help you make the most of today’s meeting. For those of you who access this via our website, there are three audio options on screen, the entire content in Portuguese, the entire content in English, or just the original audio.

For the first two options, you’ll have simultaneous translation. To choose your preferred option, just click on the flag on the top of your screen. Questions can be submitted via WhatsApp. Just click on the button on the screen on the website or simply send a message to +55-11-939-591877. The presentation we will be making today is available for download on the website screen and as usual, on our investor relations website. I’ll hand over the floor to Milton, who will begin the earnings presentation, and then I’ll be back to moderate the Q&A session. Milton, the floor is yours.

Milton Filho: [Interpreted] Hello everyone, good morning or good afternoon to those who are in a different time zone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to our earnings call for the first quarter of 2024. I’ll begin with a high level presentation outlining the bank’s earnings and providing more detail for certain items. At the end, I’ll also be making a special invitation for our Itau Day, which is just around the corner. So let’s get straight into the figures. Our earnings for the first quarter of 2024 totaled R$9.8 billion, representing growth of 3.9% compared to the previous quarter. Our consolidated recurring return on equity was 21.9%, meaning 70 basis points of growth quarter-over-quarter. It reached 22.7% in Brazil, growing 50 basis points quarter-over-quarter.

This RoE takes into account 13% of common equity Tier 1, which exceeds our capital appetite. This means that we would be posting even higher profitability, if we calculated it with our capital target. The cost of credit dropped nominally in the third consecutive quarter, reaching R$8.8 billion, a 3.9% decrease quarter-over-quarter. Our delinquency indicators remained stable with consolidated NPL over 90 days dropping 10 basis points quarter-over-quarter and the 90 day NPL for individuals falling 20 basis points in the same period. I’ll bring you more details about the cost of credit a bit later. OpEx fell by 6.2% in the quarter to R$14.4 billion in the first quarter of 2024, meaning another record quarter for the consolidated efficiency ratio, which reached 38.3%, a decrease of 200 basis points in the quarter for the consolidated figures and 36.8% in Brazil, a decrease of 130 basis points during the same period.

This is a very sound set of results, with a good overall portfolio quality, strong profitability and above all, high predictability. The individual loans portfolio grew by 2.6% year-on-year but decreased by 0.6% in the first quarter due to the normal seasonality of the credit card portfolio. We posted significant growth of personal loans portfolio and 11.3% for the year, while the payroll loan portfolio was flat, growing 0.1% in the quarter. In vehicle loans we grew 1.7% during the quarter and 5.4% during the year. We also saw flat growth in the mortgage portfolio in the quarter and 3.1% growth in the year.I’ll go into more detail about the individual’s loan portfolio later in the presentation. We saw a 1.9% growth in the SME’s portfolio in the quarter and 10.2% growth year-over-year.

See also 12 Best Gig Economy Stocks To Buy and Wall Street Analysts See Upside Potential for 10 Stocks with Rising Price Targets.

Q&A Session

The large corporates portfolio grew by 9.3% during the year, posting sound growth of 3.6% in the quarter. This was a strong and very active quarter for the capital markets as we have a significant market share. We’ve ranked very high in the capital market rankings. Our credit portfolio, excluding FX variations, grew by 5.6% year-over-year and taking into account FX variations, the portfolio grew by 2.8% in the same period. I’ll share further details in the next slide. I’d now like to draw your attention to the growth of the loans to individuals. I’m sure this is a topic of general interest that we’ll talk about in depth in our Q&A. If we look at the December 2022 to March 2024 series, our portfolio grew by roughly 4%. Adjusting the loan book to reflect the de-risking of the portfolio, which we’ve carried out proactively, the portfolio has grown by 7%.

This de-risking strategy involved reducing credit to some segments that did not prove resilient. This 7% growth is slightly below the market growth for the period. It’s worth noting that the credit card portfolio accounts for a significant share of our total portfolio. Thus, any appetite adjustment efforts have a major impact due to the credit card portfolio share in terms of the overall portfolio mix. We’d like to provide some additional clarification about this de-risking strategy, which we proactively implemented for clients who are less resilient to credit cycles. We believe that at this point we have roughly reached the valley of the curve for this portfolios downsizing. Since December 2022, we have reduced this portfolio by 83%, so there is little left to do to achieve a full reduction which is expected to happen by the end of the third quarter 2024.

This de-risking strategy may have an additional negative impact of only 0.5% on our portfolio and this is already taken into consideration in the 2024 loan portfolio guidance that we’ve disclosed. Looking back, we see that the de-risking actions helped us reduce our delinquency ratio, measured based on the 90 days NPL by 103 basis points. Given the prudential adjustments that were made to the banks balance sheet to enable us to face this credit cycle, we were able to avoid delinquencies accounting for between 172 hundred basis points of NPL depending on the period analyzed. We were also able to make savings of R$3 billion per year in provisions for loan losses. I’d also like to point out that while growing, the portfolio indiscriminately generates earnings via NII and operating revenue in the short term, in the long run, these earnings could be entirely canceled out through the cost of credit.

We track our NIM and profitability very closely. These are two very important metrics in terms of our management and that have proven effective during the current period. This de-risking strategy has had a positive impact on 300 basis points on the profitability of the individual’s business, measured based on the risk adjusted return on capital. These results for profitability and earnings clearly indicate that our decision to reduce our exposure to clients who are less resilient to the credit cycle was the right one. Now, looking to the future growth of the credit portfolio, there remains very little left to do to complete this de-risking process and as such, we will start to experience a positive inertial effect from the growth of portfolios made up of clients who are more resilient to the credit cycle, which have never stopped growing.

This includes all individuals, in all segments, all channels and for all products. So we’re going to start to see growth within the range indicated in the 2024 guidance. Now, as regards the client NIM, we have great news. First, I’d like to explain the adjustment made to exclude the results of our operation in Argentina from our earnings for the first quarter of 2023. Given that the operation in Argentina was sold and was excluded from the balance sheet for the last five months of 2023, the first quarter still included the operations figures. If we compare the margin for the first quarter of 2024 with the margin for the first quarter of 2023, excluding the results for Argentina, you will see that we posted steep growth of 9.4%, equivalent to an additional margin of R$ 2.2 billion.

This is very positive news in terms of the client’s NIM momentum with top-line growth and the lower cost of credit indicating good credit quality and disciplined capital allocation. The drop in core clients NII was 1.7% quarter-over-quarter if you take a look at the Banks historic series, youll notice that this trend often occurs in the first quarter. On the other hand, we saw a minor effect of the change in product mix where the average volume is positive, and we also saw wider spreads and higher margins on liabilities. In terms of negative effects, we would note that around half of the drop can be explained by the lower number of calendar days in the quarter and the other half by the results for Latin America and from structured wholesale operations.

Aside from these effects, we’re managing to deliver high quality clients NII, especially if we look at our performance relative to comparable quarters. NIM remained virtually flat with a slight decrease due to the effects I mentioned earlier. And when we analyzed the risk adjusted NIM, which is the most important metric, it was flat compared to the previous quarter, reaching 5.8% on a consolidated basis, and saw a slight drop of ten basis points in the operations in Brazil, which is where the structured wholesale operations effect I’ve mentioned is accounted for. Thus, our clients NIM is extremely promising and we still believe we’ll be able to maintain a good development pace for the coming quarters. Our numbers for market NII in the quarter are sound without any major highlights.

We’ve been able to take and exit positions when this makes sense quarter on quarter and we always make such moves based on predictability, risk management and proper positioning, our market NII has remained very consistent. As a result, we posted yet another sound quarter in Brazil, reaching R$1.1 billion in Latin America. We also had a good quarter, posting an increase of R$100 million quarter-over-quarter and a flat cost of hedging capital Ratio capital index hedging has had a diminishing impact on earnings due to our management strategy and due to the decrease in the interest rate differential. Core market NII was R$1.3 billion but the total market NII was slightly lower due to the allocation of the cost of capital index hedging as shown in this chart.

We’ve presented the figures in this way for full transparency in terms of commission fees and results from insurance operations. We posted growth in the credit card portfolio of 4.6% year-over-year. It’s worth noting that the first quarter of the year tends to be weaker in both the issuance and acquiring businesses due to seasonality factors and the way we allocate these results for recording purposes in current accounts. We noted a more stable result for the quarter with a 5.8% drop year-over-year, but this is not a significant proportion of the bottom-line. We had a very strong quarter for advisory services and brokerage, which grew 7.1% quarter-over-quarter and 70.6% year-over-year. The first quarter of 2023 was affected by the poor performance of the capital market as a whole due to the fraud event that occurred during that quarter, which ended up cooling down capital market activities in Brazil in 2024.

We managed to grow investment banking results and to maintain our leading position in a good number of the investment banking rankings. We are number one for debt capital markets with a market share of 32%. In M&A, we are in second place with a 39% market share as this is a market concentrated on a few players. In capital markets, with a market share of 13%. Another item worth drawing attention to is the results of insurance, pension plans and premium bond products in which we continued to post growth every year. We’ve managed to expand the results in this line. Structurally, we continued to grow 10% so we practically more than doubled the results of our insurance operations over a relatively short period. Commission fees and insurance thus grew by 6.7% during the year compared to the result excluding Argentina.

Disregarding Argentina adjustment, in the first quarter of 2023, growth was 5.8% for the period. In terms of the cost of credit, we had a very stable quarter. As you may recall, in the first quarter of the year. It’s common to see higher levels of delinquency as a reflection of the expenses at the end of the last year and the beginning of the next. Historically, weve seen some seasonality in the first quarter where shorter delinquencies in particular are more common. If you analyze the numbers from a consolidated perspective on Itau Unibanku as a whole, the increase was only ten basis points. I’d also remind you that this series saw some aberrations in the post pandemic period and thus some normalization can be seen in subsequent quarters. Analyzing a longer period, it can be seen that we are at the lowest delinquency levels.

Remember that there is also some negative inertia because the loan portfolio did not grow significantly due to all the adjustments we’ve made to the portfolio and yet we have still delivered very healthy indicators. In Brazil we saw an increase of ten basis points over longer timeframes. We’ve previously seen increases of between 30 and 40 basis points. So this slight increase in the first quarter of 2024, when the credit portfolio has already been normalizing for a reasonable period of time, is good news. The same analysis holds true for SME’s when we analyze our historical series of npls, it’s possible to see that last year the indicators were stable in line with what we’ve already been saying in 2022 and now we’ve seen a decrease for the second consecutive quarter in NPL, 90 for individuals and NPL for SME’s of 2.6% and not increasing during the period.

This shows once again our ability to manage these portfolios through adverse scenarios and how well we’ve been able to control the risk management process and delinquency levels as a result. This is the third consecutive quarter posting a nominal decline in the cost of credit and in the cost of credit as a percentage of the overall credit portfolio, which reached 3%. The renegotiation of the portfolio has also pulled the portfolio down. It’s worth remembering that the individual loans portfolio includes the renegotiated portfolio and since our strategy has been to ensure disciplined risk management, the portfolio was renegotiated to the right level and not excessively. We can therefore see that this portfolio has also been dropping nominally year-over-year.

The ratio of the renegotiated portfolio to the total credit portfolio was 3.2% following a nominal decrease. There were no surprises in terms of the coverage ratios, with a small increase overall, but some variations by line of business, reflecting everything we’ve been doing to protect our balance sheet with good credit quality. Going forward, we expect healthy indicators with good coverage by provisions and a healthy level of 90 days. NPL non-interest expenses, excluding the effects of the deconsolidation of Argentina, increased by 6.4% year-over-year. There was a 6.2% drop compared to the last quarter of 2023 as non-interest expenses for the first quarter of 2024 totaled R$14.4 billion. It’s worth noting the improvement in our efficiency ratio which reached 36.8% in Brazil and 38.3% in the consolidated in this first quarter of the year.

This meant that we had yet another record quarter in terms of our efficiency ratio, both for Brazil and on a consolidated basis. In the 2024 guidance, we reported that we expected to grow our core costs at less than inflation. The twelve month headline inflation rate was 3.9%, while our core costs grew by 2%, which is half of the inflation rate for the period. This result was delivered without stopping investing in the growth of our business and in our technology platform. Therefore, the growth in our total non-interest expenses is due to investments in our business. It’s also important to demonstrate that we have maintained strict cost discipline. For banks, inflationary pressures go beyond just interest rates. We are parties to collective agreements that put a lot of pressure on costs, but we have made major investments in the business and in the future of the bank, and we don’t abdicate our responsibility for actively managing our costs every day.

We also have very positive news regarding capital. We announced the payment of extraordinary dividends and that reduced our capital base during the last quarter. Since then, we’ve generated both more earnings and more capital. This quarter we reported capital consumption by risk weighted assets and due to regulatory changes that increased the risk weighting on some operations. Therefore, we had some non-recurring impacts that caused the set one ratio to reach 13%. It’s worth noting that our dividend policy establishes a set one level close to 12%. So how will this excess capital affect the dividend policy in the coming periods? We’re still grappling with some uncertainties, whether related to regulatory changes or future implementations of regulatory updates, including the new operational risk regulation and credit weightings that have been impacting the RWA, the impacts of the IFRS-9, and how it will affect tax credits and consequently capital.

For this reason, we’re always careful to maintain a capital buffer to anticipate future events in order to ensure proper capital management and avoid any issues. Any excess capital beyond that will be distributed, and the closer we get to the end of the year, the greater our visibility on this. Our goal is not to retain capital beyond what is required to run the bank and grow our operations. Considering a horizon of twelve to 24 months, which gives us considerable security regarding our current and future capital generation in the coming quarters, we do not release the guidance on a quarterly basis and this is already known to the market. The idea of bringing the guidance framework is to share with you our view of the year of 2024 and the bank.

The first relevant piece of information is that the 2024 guidance estimates a growth of the credit portfolio between 6.5% and 9.5%. The year-over-year growth of the credit portfolio was 2.8% but adjusting for FX that impacts the Latin American credit portfolio growth is 5.6%, which is still below the 2024 guidance. As we are currently in the valley of the de-risking portfolio adjustment curve, we remain very comfortable with the 2024 credit portfolio growth guidance that was released at the beginning of the year. We believe that we’ll recover to a position in the range of the loan portfolio growth throughout the year and are reaffirming our 2024 loan portfolio growth guidance. Our clients NII grew by 7.4% year-on-year, but when we exclude Argentina from 2023 results, we grew by 9.4% in the period.

This growth of 9.4% is above the guidance range. However, this is not an indication of where well be at the end of the year. We are simply sharing with you as evidence that we have been able to grow close to the ceiling set out in our 2024 guidance. As such, we remain comfortable with our clients NII guidance. The market NII is a simplification because we take the result of the first quarter and multiply it by four, since this is only nominal guidance, we know that the unpredictability level of the margin is high, but we also know that we must work hard throughout the year and deliver results within the established guidance. The cost of credit follows the same rationale with the first quarter of 2024 amount being multiplied by four. The guidance supports this credit cost momentum commission and fees excluding Argentina grew by 6.7% during the year, which is also within the guidance.

We disclosed the guidance figures both including and excluding Argentina from 2023 results to better understand the performance in the period. Non-interest expenses increased by 4.3% during the year, while inflation was 3.9% for the period. If we exclude the figures for Argentina, growth is 6.4% for the year, also within the range of the guidance. The tax rate is also within the guidance range. We believe that the predictability is as important as good guidance for the market to calculate earnings expectations. So it’s important to share how we are managing the bank. Let me say once again that we are reaffirming our 2024 guidance and we are very comfortable with the numbers we are achieving. Going forward, we believe we’ll deliver the expected earnings and that the guidance range accommodates potential changes.

We’re very confident that the growth of the credit portfolio will be within the guidance range by the end of the year. This is the general message. We will not track the guidance during every quarterly presentation, but we think it’s important to share our views at this time. Finally, I’d like to take the opportunity to extend an invitation. This has been a very high level executive presentation only with some updates on our credit portfolio, NII capital costs and guidance details. But on June 19, from 9 a.m to 11:30 a.m, Sao Paulo time, we will host Itau Day. The event will have the same format as previous years, with the participation of the executive committee, Pedro and Roberto at the beginning, and also myself. Although I promise not to take up much of your time and to give the executive committee the opportunity to explain our strategy and what’s behind the headline numbers.

Of course, the numbers are important, but behind them there is a lot going as appropriate. We will organize with great care and dedication. And it will also be the time for you to understand how we’ve conducted our business and the vision we have for the future. This concludes my presentation. I’d like to thank. I’ll now join Renato to start our traditional Q&A session.

Renato Lulia: Thank you very much. Milton, thank you for the presentation. So let’s start the second part of our meeting, which is a Q&A session. This is a bilingual session, so we’re going to answer your question. If you need any, either English or Portuguese, or you can submit as well your questions via WhatsApp. The number is 11-939-59-1877. Milton, we have a list of questions to address for both of you. But before I would like to give message for everyone here.

Milton Filho: Thank you very much. Renato. Well, guys, once again, thank you for your participation. I’d like to break the protocol of our call and that the bank is going through. But we wanted to also seize the moment to bring our solidarity of the state of Rio. A difficult moment of crisis attract on the press. A lot of initiatives that we’ve done to help the population of Rio Grande do Sul. But the government warfare that it is, the city, the capitals, the cities and the population. The moment of solidarity and we have to work citizens as a company and Itau well, we want to do the best that we can. We subdivided with our actions with the collaborators. We have 170 branches in the agency, 52 are closed and impacted. 16 of you know, our collaborators and associated companies is in good conditions.

Family members are impacted. So this is a moment of the strength of the — Because in the end, we have to be together in a moment of difficulties and also joy, so that our employees can also to the community and our clients. So we have a series of actions that we are. We’ve been very proactive in the offering of insurance for our clients. We know that there is a policy that protects them. We’ve proactively called our — We are at the granularity, at the individuals to see what are the processes that we need to help them in this great moment of pain. We did initially a donation to Union Brazil, an NGO. But the big [Technical difficulty] It’s not only resources, but mainly the war plan at this very difficult moment. So yesterday, the invitation of Azul.