KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Steven Alexopoulos: Okay. So, staying pretty flat? Okay, great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Clark Khayat: just was a little bit lower for seasonality, 32% in the fourth, on average.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Gerard Cassidy from RBC. Please go ahead.

Gerard Cassidy: Don, I think you mentioned in your remarks that there wasn’t any share repurchases completed in the fourth quarter. Maybe Chris or Don, what’s the outlook for stock buybacks? I may have missed your comments if you gave it, but what’s the outlook for stock repurchases in 2023?

Chris Gorman: Gerard, we’re not assuming that there’s going to be any meaningful stock repurchases. As we look at our balance sheet and supporting our clients and we look at our second priority, which is paying our dividend, I just don’t see us out there repurchasing a lot of shares based on our current modeling.

Gerard Cassidy: Very good. And then, you talked a lot about what went on with the deposit betas and the mix of deposits in the quarter. Obviously, your peers have had similar comments and the difference that we saw with Key was that the margin was essentially flat where others went up. How much of the borrowings — I noticed in your average balance sheet that you included in the press release, your short-term borrowings and long-term borrowings have gone up and they’re much more expensive, of course, than deposit funding. Can you share with us your thinking on how you’re using those and why they have been going up?

Don Kimble: Gerard, as far as the funding, what we’ve seen is that the loan growth throughout the second half of the year especially exceeded deposit growth. And so, we were using FHLB and some other issuances to help address the funding needs. I would say that our loan growth outlook and our deposit outlook wouldn’t suggest the continuation at the same pace as far as building that other funding sources. And so, we wouldn’t expect to see that same type of growth rate going forward. But near term, we’re fine with that. But I would say, traditionally, we would look at a loan-to-deposit ratio in the 90% to 95% range, and we’re still well below that. And so, we’ve got plenty of capacity to continue to leverage that funding source as needed.

Gerard Cassidy: Very good. And Don, good luck in your future endeavors. Thank you.

Don Kimble: Thanks, Gerard. I appreciate it.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Scott Siefers from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Scott Siefers: Don, with regard to the $1.1 billion of NII repricing benefits to which you guys alluded I was wondering if you could just sort of walk through the trajectory of when and how those kick in? I mean I see the repricing numbers in the appendix, which is very helpful. But just would be curious to hear kind of more vocally how you think about it, maybe put it another way or I wonder if there’s an easy frame of reference. What would first quarter €˜23 NII look like versus, say, fourth quarter €˜23 or first quarter €˜24? Not looking for specific numbers, but is there an easy way to say, hey, we sort of trough here and then start to accelerate meaningfully off of here? And if there’s a time frame around that, something like that?

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