Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE:RY) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Derek Neldner: Sure. Thanks, Doug. I mean I’ll start just with the macro drivers. I mean I think overall, where we feel we had a benefit this quarter was really, one, the diversified nature of our platform that while we’ve seen ebbing and flowing and activity across different products, the diversified nature of our business has helped us overall with strength in some of the areas that have been a little bit more active. And then second, I think we continue to see benefits of some of the strategic changes and investments we’ve made over the last three years that are driving market share growth that’s helping to offset at least some of the weaker fee activity. So, if I touched on specific areas, obviously, a very solid quarter in our Sales & Trading business.

That was really driven by our macro business with the volatility we saw in interest rate and FX markets and then our credit business. And you may recall last year, we’ve got a sizable and very successful credit trading franchise. That was a headwind in 2022 as we saw credit spreads widening as we’ve seen a little more stabilization this year, that’s a business that has obviously benefited us and done well. I think within our corporate banking business, we’ve been very disciplined with a moderate growth strategy. So we have seen a moderate growth in that business. It’s a little more pronounced year-over-year given the growth that we saw through 2022. And then with the addition of the transaction banking business into the Capital Markets segment this year, that’s a business that has performed well against a higher interest rate environment and the spreads we’re earning.

And then finally, on investment banking, as Dave touched on, we have been successful in continuing to gain market share year-over-year. We’ve moved up to seventh place. We’ve gained share across really all of the core products, and so that has helped offset a slower fee pool overall. And then one franchise we don’t speak a lot about, but we have a very strong U.S. municipal finance franchise and activity was quite good in the muni market over the quarter. So that was a position of strength. So it wasn’t really one item. I think across the board. We had a number of businesses that gained share and performed well and the diversified nature of the business helped. To your question on the underwriting mark-to-market, obviously, again, last year, that was a headwind for us as we took some very significant marks as the market has improved, and we’ve been disciplined around our portfolio.

We have captured some of that back, which has been useful. If you look at — I don’t think we want to disclose the absolute mark-to-market change. But if you look at any quarter, there’s always some sort of one-off items that mark-to-market benefited us. We had some other things that were one-offs that hurt us. Directionally, I would say maybe that’s $50 million of revenue in aggregate that to the positive. So it certainly helped, but I don’t think it was overly consequential in terms of the results. We’re obviously pleased to hit the $1.1 billion target in terms of your final question, I think, on just the outlook Overall, we feel quite good about the business. The trading businesses are normalizing a little bit, but continue to operate at quite a healthy run rate.

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