The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE:BK) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Gerard Cassidy: We all know that, obviously, your bank is a fee based bank, it is not a bank than any of us are concerned about credit quality. But I would just like to get your guys’ thoughts. You had a small provision increase, again, nothing material. And again, I emphasize nobody is really concerned about Bank of New York’s credit quality. But with the expectation of a soft recession or a slowdown, whatever you want to call it, are you guys seeing any trends in the loan book that you’re just watching maybe a little more closely today than 12 months ago?

Emily Portney: So just as a reminder, and I think you’ve already alluded to it. The quality of our portfolio remains very high. So weighted average rating of A, A-minus, investment grade is over 90%, NPLs and delinquencies are stable. The only area that, of course, we’re monitoring very closely is the CRE portion of the portfolio and the office segment in particular. At the moment, occupancy and rent collections remain high but it is an area that we’re paying closer attention to.

Gerard Cassidy: And what percentage of the CRE of the loan book is that about, Emily?

Emily Portney: It’s about 9% of the funded loans.

Operator: Our next question comes from Ken Usdin

Ken Usdin: Robin, I know you talked earlier just about the general view for fees to increase and some thoughts on Asset Servicing. Just wondering if you have a view on just what you think organic growth can look like? And also, it’s nice to also see some of the movement in the fourth quarter in — specifically in Pershing and Collateral Management. Just wondering if you have a thumb now on what the outlook for those two areas is as well.

Robin Vince: So from an overall fees point of view, we are focused on this internal growth forgetting about M&A or any of those other ways to grow, just the blocking and tackling and execution of what we think we can do in the company over the course of the year. We haven’t given fee guidance because of the reasons that Emily alluded to, which is there are just so many things going on in the market. There are just too many puts and takes for that to be credible for us so that we are — but we, of course, have our internal budget, and that’s what we’ve been working through over the course of time. Look, you called out two businesses and those are businesses where we both — where we think those are bright spots for growth. And so we expect those to be above the average growth of the company.

They’re not the only ones that would be above the average, but they are two that would be. And we feel quite good about the prospects for a variety of the different underlying reasons that we’ve talked about already.

Ken Usdin: And then just one quick one in terms of that follow-up on the balance sheet mix. Emily, is there anything changing with regards to how you think about the mix of securities that you add from here in terms of as we get towards the peak of the rate cycle, whether you start thinking about putting on more fixed rate versus the floating type and what that means for the types of yields that you’re able to get on your kind of front book investments?

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