Webster Financial Corporation (NYSE:WBS) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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John Ciulla: And Casey, it’s John. I think your last — one of your questions in there was what are your assumptions if what happens to beta if the cycle is longer? I think our view is, could it tick up a little more, I guess, but that most of it, they stay flat and higher for longer that most of the beta and most of the increase will be captured by 1Q. You could have a little drift up over time, but we think that the behavior is moderate.

Casey Haire: Yes. Okay. Got it. That’s fair on DDA mix, too, on the interLINK growth. Last one for me, just on the capital management front. Did you guys buy back any shares? The share count was lower, but I didn’t see any mention of it. And then just any updated thoughts on appetite for buyback activity going forward?

John Ciulla: Yes. Casey, I just mentioned answering McGratty’s question that we did about $50 million of share repurchases in the quarter to offset grants to employees. So yes, we did. And I mentioned that we’ll have the same sort of disciplined approach. We are generating capital, a good amount of capital, obviously, annually, and we’re slightly above our CET1 target. So to the extent we don’t have internal opportunities to deploy capital or a really compelling balance sheet restructuring we would look as long as there weren’t signs of significant credit deterioration, we would look to deploy some level of capital and share repurchases as we look to the second half of the year.

Operator: Your next question comes from Matthew Breese with Stephens Inc.

Matthew Breese: Maybe to start, could you just give us some idea of what incremental loan yields are today and assuming they’re higher, how has that impacted originations and pipeline on a month-to-month basis?

John Ciulla: Yes. It’s a complex question. While we get the yields, let me start with credit spreads could be an interesting way to start. So there’s no question that I think us like most of the industry are being kind of more demanding and more disciplined in terms of where we’re generating loans and how we’re generating loans. We have seen increases in credit spreads. So if you think of, obviously, the reference rates and SOFR and prime continue to move up. But we’re also seeing a level of expansion. I was talking to the team yesterday in kind of construction-related Cre, you can get 75 basis points plus with respect to additional credit spread from pre-March on other sort of more traditional and predictable Cre outside of office, which obviously people aren’t doing.

It’s more like 50 basis points. And then on C&I, the teams seeing kind of 25 to 50 basis point expansion in credit spreads. So take those credit spreads over the expanding reference rates, and Glenn can give you the yields.

Glenn MacInnes: Yes. So Matt, the yields on both the quarter-to-date and for the month of June were sort of mid-7s right? So obviously, that’s going to be driven by mix and product mix. But generally, when we look at the quarter and you look at the months, it’s in the mid-7s.

Matthew Breese: Great. And then I was curious on the $80 million in office loans that you divested. I’m just curious how that process went? How liquid was the market for office loan buyers? What kind of comfort does that give you on potential loss content on the rest of the office book? And is there any more you’re looking to do there?

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