Webster Financial Corporation (NYSE:WBS) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Timur Braziler: Hi. Good morning. I’m just wondering what the remaining credit mark is on the sterling book? And then if you look at the linked quarter increase in allowance, how much of that is commensurate with the linked quarter increase in classified loans. And I’m just wondering kind of your expectation for allowing trajectory here given the macro backdrop?

John Ciulla: Yes, good question. I was kind of like and just like answering these CECL questions because there’s obviously a huge amount of work that goes into the modeling. Obviously, a classified loan has a higher reserve on it. So the dynamics in the quarter for CECL would be a higher level of classified overall lower loan balances stable nonaccruals and charge-off levels and economic outlook for us as we’re moving forward. It’s why you still see a build in most of the industry right now because of concerns of office and others. And then qualitative overlays on what you believe is going on in any particular portfolio, like an office portfolio. So the classified certainly would have been a component to add more reserves, but there are some offsets like lower loan balances and stability in other areas.

And then obviously, the economic outlook is still uncertain, which drives to a few basis point increase and I’m giving you kind of the qualitative high level because, obviously, it’s all model driven at the end of the day.

Glenn MacInnes: And Timur it’s Glenn. The only thing I would point out is we sort of laid this out on page 15 of the slides, right? So you can see the impact of lower loan balances was $8 million. And then the macro — third quarter macro and credit environment was a build of 43. If you look at the chart below, there hasn’t been that much movement really an unemployment and GDP growth and stuff like that. So a portion of that is risk migration, which you see in the classifieds, and that’s how I’d sort of characterize it.

Operator: Thank you. And your last question comes from the line of Laurie Hunsicker of Seaport Research Partners. Your line is open.

Laurie Hunsicker: Great. Hi, thanks. John and Glenn, good morning. So just wanted to circle back to office here. So slide four is great. But just wondered a couple of things. Number one, can you help us think about specifically in New York City and Boston of that $1.17 billion. How much of that is New York City Class A versus B? How much is Boston, Class A versus B? And then also your slide four is only investor. Can you help us think about the owner-occupied book, how big that is? Any concerns that you’re seeing there? Obviously owner-occupied is lower risk, but there’s still some of the same risk. And then the last part of the office question, the jump in past due loans from $46 million to $71 million, roughly, how much of that $20 million jump was office related? Thank you.

John Ciulla: All right. I may ask you to come back on the last question but the — so the mix of A and B is pretty similar around 50-50 in all the markets, which also ladders up to the overall. We have about 23% right of that remaining offices in New York City, and that’s about 50-50 Class A and Class B. Boston is smaller in the geography under 10% of that, and it’s also about 50-50 in terms of Class A and Class B. You asked about non-investor CRE, owner-occupied CRE. So those would be C&I companies that we lend to where we have office collateral, that’s a relatively small portion of our overall portfolio, it’s around $250 million, which is pretty small. Regulatorily and internally, we underwrite those as C&I loans based on the cash flows of the company with having just the enhanced secondary source of repayment in the office, we’ve seen no deterioration in that portfolio at all. And what was the last question, Laurie?

Laurie Hunsicker: Yeah, just the — and thanks for that, the jump in the past due loans, the $46 million to $71 million, how much of that, if any, was office?

John Ciulla: That’s a great question. I don’t know if I know the answer to that off hand. But I will tell you one thing, is that there was a $15 million payment made on the 2nd of October. So one of them was an administrative delinquency. And so that would tell you that we’re down from $42 million to whatever that would be, $27 million, if I can do my math right. Mostly equipment finance loans in there. So it really wasn’t commercial real estate.

Glenn MacInnes: Yes, it’s not.

Laurie Hunsicker: Great. Thanks.

John Ciulla: You got it.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to John Ciulla, CEO, for closing remarks.

John Ciulla: Thank you very much for joining us on this long call this morning. Enjoy the day.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.

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