Synovus Financial Corp. (NYSE:SNV) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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I think we will do it again on the other side and the contraction story will be one that’s kind of one of history. The other question mark, that I think is out there is credit. So when we get to the other side of whatever this cycle is and we prove out the credit cycle, and I have said from day one that I feel like there are going to be winners and losers in this environment based on where your portfolio sets, what geography and what asset classes you are in, and so when we get through that side, you hear a lot of the rhetoric that regional banks are carrying a lot of the CRE and a lot of negativity there. So between margin contraction and the credit story, I think, that just has to play out, and it feels like it is playing out and we get to the other side, it will be back to one of growth story and client primacy.

Stephen Scouten: That’s great. Great answer, Kevin. They will lay that out for CNBC later today, too, we will all appreciate it. Thanks for the time.

Kevin Blair: I will do that.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Kevin Fitzsimmons with D.A. Davidson. Kevin, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Kevin Fitzsimmons: Hey. Good morning, everyone.

Kevin Blair: Good morning, Kevin.

Kevin Fitzsimmons: I was just hoping one thing I noticed was in your prior guidance slide you addressed PPNR growth and you don’t have that in this slide. Is that simply because it’s sort of implied that, that’s going down with the revenue guidance or did you want to address that?

Jamie Gregory: That’s right. That’s right. I mean we — by giving the expense guide, the revenue guide, it’s implied and also it’s just, there are so many different iterations of what can happen between those two line items that we didn’t think it was as useful as it was last quarter. But I do want to — while we are talking about PPNR, I want to speak for a second about expenses, because our expense guide is important to us. And when you look at kind of how we progress through this year on expenses, we started the year with a guide that was a lot higher than where we are right now, is 5% to 9% and as we think about the growth there, in the very beginning of the year, we started to read the tea leaves, look forward and see that the environment was deteriorating.

And so we started cutting back on our initiatives, cutting back on our spend and that led to the reduction in the guide last quarter and then you see the reduction in the guide this quarter. And when I say reduction, it looks like it’s the same, but we are also including the approximate $10 million impact of Qualpay to the expense line this quarter that was not in the guide last quarter. So, we feel good about that component of our guide, especially when you take into account that about 5% of expense growth comes from growth initiatives and then other environmental costs like the FDIC increase this year and healthcare costs. And so that’s something that we spend a lot of time on working on our expense base be inefficient and I think that’s an important part of the story when you think about PPNR year-over-year.

Kevin Fitzsimmons: So, Jamie, when you are — so you are saying that 4% to 6%, it’s staying the same, but this bullet point over — this assumption over to the right of the new initiatives, FDIC and healthcare costs, and these other core operating expenses were not necessarily in the prior guide, but you finding ways to offset it, is that…

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