Truist Financial Corporation (NYSE:TFC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

I mean as Clarke mentioned, our commercial portfolio looks fantastic. Our clients are in really good shape. But rents will come due, things will €“ payments will come due, things will change over time. So, I think it’s just a little more of trying to understand where the economy is puck’s going versus where it is today, because I think today, it actually looks pretty strong. Clarke, what would you add to that?

Clarke Starnes: Well, I would just say, to your point, Bill, clients’ balance sheets, their liquidity, their financial positions are very good going into this. Obviously, depending on what happens in the economy, the impact of the higher rates, input costs, all of these things, we are monitoring very closely with our clients. Gerard, we are looking at things like CRE and the term risk and things like office. So, I think we are just looking out what could be some of those impacts from the €“ if the economy does slow and obviously, that’s reflected in everyone’s provisioning models. But to your point, the actual performance to-date and the near-term outlook is still strong.

Bill Rogers: Consumer side, I mean on the consumer side, it is normalizing and in some cases, normalized to where we are right now. So, you do start to see some of that. We have done a lot of work looking at sort of our lower-income borrowers and some of the challenges that they may be facing from inflation. Maybe they are not facing it today, but that’s starting to build as they start to withdraw a little more deposits. So, it is more of a prospective thing than a current thing and we are all trying to find the right calibration of where things might land. And we don’t want to undershoot that runway. I mean we want to be conservative. We want to be appropriate and think through all the risk that could exist in the portfolio.

Gerard Cassidy: Thank you. Appreciate the color.

Bill Rogers: Great.

Operator: Your next question comes from Betsy Graseck with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Betsy Graseck: Hi. Good morning.

Bill Rogers: Hi Betsy.

Betsy Graseck: Hi. I just want to understand a little bit more. I know we touched in a couple of different ways, but you have got the revenue outlook for 2023, up 7% to 9%. And what I am hearing is loan growth slowing slightly from the 11% level you have now, but really not that much and that the fees €“ fee growth will be lower due to some of the things you have mentioned around mortgage. But that loan growth is likely to be a little bit above that adjusted revenue number with the pressure coming a little bit in fees and then also NIM pulling back in the back half of the year. Is that a fair summary?

Bill Rogers: Yes. Betsy, I think I would say it maybe a little bit differently. And I think Mike was trying to make this point. I mean we are sort of €“ if you look at sort of NII for the fourth quarter, and we are assuming that sort of stable through the year. So, that’s the big driver. I mean if you think about what’s the big bus and the revenue guidance, it’s NII being stable. And that’s not loan growth at the kind of revenue numbers. I mean the loan growth is going to pull back a little bit. Some of that’s going to be intentional on our part. A lot of it’s going to be return-oriented, just making sure that we have got really, really great relevance with our clients. And in some cases, the fee business is we expect to be up.