Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Mike Santomassimo: Yeah, I mean, sure. There’s plenty of little structural enhancements you can make to feel better about it. And then there are also, in a lot of cases, getting some partial paydowns. And then you look at and you’re trading those for refinancing term, And I think you give people a bit more time to work through these sets of issues. I think we try really hard not punt issues down the road. And so if there are real issues that we need to deal with, we try to deal with them in the moment. But there are a number of structural enhancements that we sort of work on with borrowers to get ourselves comfortable that we’re setting the loan up for success.

Gerard Cassidy: Very good. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. The next question will come from Erika Najarian of UBS. Your line is open.

Erika Najarian: Hi, thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask a question on how you’re interpreting the OCC and Fed joint statement that they put out on June 29, encouraging lenders to sign short-term or temporary loan accommodation solutions with their borrowers. Is that really anything new? Is that just standard operating procedure that they’re reiterating or can this sort of help provide solutions that would allow you to work with your borrowers and perhaps delay classification — deterioration and classification or classification to TDR?

Mike Santomassimo: Yeah, it’s Mike. I’ll take that. TDR doesn’t exist anymore, but the — that classification, but the guidance is very similar to what was issued originally back, I think, in 2009. Hasn’t really changed much. And doesn’t really change the way we’ve been interacting with our borrowers already in terms of really being proactive to work with them to find solutions to help them work through what could be difficult circumstances in some cases. So — and it doesn’t give you any leeway for how you classify criticized loans or other classification. So the intent is really to just be clear that people should continue to work with borrowers to find solutions, which is what we do all the time anyway.

Erika Najarian: Got it. And just a follow-up question here. Thank you for the disclosure again on Slide 6. With $22 billion of your loans in CIB, I think investors are wondering what is the average loan size there?

Mike Santomassimo: Yeah, I don’t think that’s something we give and there is a wide range. Average sometimes are very misleading. And so there’s a wide range. And what really matters is not the loan size, it really matters — what really matters is all the variables Charlie talked about earlier in terms of what’s happening with that property. So I think that would be — I think I would focus there.

Erika Najarian: Got it. And just squeezing in one more question. And before I ask this expense question, Charlie, I think your investors very much appreciate it that you’re not just doing whatever you can to hit an expense number and you’re reinvesting back into the company. So to that and I’m wondering if have you disclosed how much of the $800 million increase in the outlook for this year has to do with severance?

Mike Santomassimo: We didn’t give an exact number, but that is by far the single largest piece of it, that’s part of it. And there’s some other exit costs for properties as we to exit some lease space and other things. But that is — the severance is by far the largest piece.

Erika Najarian: Got it. Thank you.

Charlie Scharf: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Matt O’Connor of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Matt O’Connor: Good morning. I want to follow-up Charlie on some of your prepared remarks. You talked about there’s still some things that you’re implementing to address regulatory issues and wondering if you can give a couple of examples of what still needs to be done in terms of implementation and when you expect that to be completed?