Webster Financial Corporation (NYSE:WBS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 8 of 8

John Ciulla: Closing date.

Glenn MacInnes: Closing date…

John Ciulla: And pro forma intangibles.

Glenn MacInnes: So, yeah, of the intangibles — of the $50 million expense, I think it’s about half of that. And then relatively soon.

John Ciulla: End of January is the estimate, plus or minus.

Glenn MacInnes: Yeah.

Laurie Hunsicker: And if there — okay, so just on the pro form intangibles. So your $2.835 billion grows by about $25 million. That’s it. Did I hear that right?

John Ciulla: I’m not sure. Say that again.

Laurie Hunsicker: So your $2.835 billion that you have in total intangibles on your balance sheet, your goodwill and other intangible assets, that grows by $25 million with this acquisition?

Glenn MacInnes: No, the intangible amortization is about $25 million in the year.

Laurie Hunsicker: Got it. Okay, so what is the dollar amount of…

Glenn MacInnes: So, yeah, so the intangibles are probably close to $300 million.

Laurie Hunsicker: $300 million. Great. Thank you. That was the number I was looking for. Okay, and then one last..

John Ciulla: We are not complete on that. I’m estimating that right now.

Laurie Hunsicker: Got you. Makes sense. And then just going back to office, what were the office charge-offs in the fourth quarter? And if you haven’t, what were the office charge-offs for your full year 2022?

John Ciulla: Let me see if I can get that for you, Laurie. It was — they weren’t meaningful in this quarter. I think charges, including all the proactive note sales, were roughly in the $25 million to $30 million range for the entire year. And that includes all of, as I said, the proactive note sales. So not sort of fully matured charge-offs. I mean, they’re losses nonetheless. And I think it wasn’t particularly a meaningful contribution to this quarter’s charge-offs. I’m still looking for the number, I apologize. But as I said, we’re getting to the point where that book, we feel pretty confident around kind of what’s left and the credit support we have underlying it. And we feel really good about how aggressively we’ve brought down that exposure.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Timur Braziler from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Timur Braziler: Hi, good morning.

John Ciulla: Hey, Timur.

Timur Braziler: Maybe circling back on Ametros. Just one more there. What’s the total addressable market for that space? And I guess as that business grows, what’s the risk of new competition coming in and maybe eating away at some of that 25% expected CAGR?

John Ciulla: Yeah, it’s obviously — they’re the market leader, but there’s a huge untapped, I think it’s $12 billion in total claims in their space right now. So there’s a lot of running room. It’s early days, and their value proposition, I think, is starting to be realized by more of the insurers and more account holders in the industry. So it’s very low penetrated from a professional administrator perspective, which is one of the things that we think is so exciting about the business.

Timur Braziler: Okay. And is there a risk that maybe some of that competition eats into your growth rate?

John Ciulla: Again, given the total addressable market and the good penetration that these guys have with respect to customer base, I think a lot of it is contractual. And so I think at least in terms of our projections now, we don’t see any risk from cannibalization from competitors. And it’s our opportunity, I think, to be a first mover across the industry and to continue to expand.

Timur Braziler: Great. And then my follow-up, just looking at New York City multifamily, can you give us the breakdown of rent-regulated versus market rate properties? And to the extent you have any exposure to pre-2019 HSTPA rule change.

John Ciulla: Yeah, very little exposure to pre-2019, I would say about, let’s see, after the — more than half of our loans are booked after the regulation. Multifamily $1.35 billion in 4Q of rent-regulated multifamily, down from the third Q level of $1.4 billion. This is an interesting stat for you, that the portfolio is obviously diversified, but the average commitment is $3.2 million. We only have seven loans with exposures over $15 million there. So a very granular and non-chunky portfolio with no tall trees, which I think makes us feel pretty comfortable. And criticized classified loans are kind of below the overall credit stats of the rest of the commercial book. And so there’s only one delinquent loan right now in that $1.35 billion. So we don’t see any credit story there right now.

Operator: We have no further questions in our queue at this time. I will now turn the call back over to John Ciulla for closing remarks.

John Ciulla: Thank you. Really appreciate everybody staying on the call and your engagement with the company. Have a great day.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation and you may now disconnect.

Follow Webster Financial Corp (NYSE:WBS)

Page 8 of 8