M&T Bank Corporation (NYSE:MTB) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

And from that perspective, it’s going to — it’s just what’s happening now, people are going shorter. They aren’t going 10 years, they are going five years, try to get placement and all that. So all that being said, we think it’s very manageable. If rates even go up 100 basis points that we can get through and not have a significant impact on our credit performance.

Ebrahim Poonawala: That is a good color. Thanks for talking through. And then one question. In terms of buybacks, you have a lot of excess capital. You called out four things, macro, overall asset quality, stress test results, and the level of CRE. If the first three are okay and fast forward to July, no issues on the first three, is there something around the level of CRE that we should be mindful of when we think about potential for buybacks getting started in the back half of the year?

Daryl Bible: Yes. So there’s actually five. So let me go through them again. We — you might have missed when I was going through it.

Ebrahim Poonawala: My apologies.

Daryl Bible: That’s alright. No problem. Macroeconomic environment, baked capital generation, results from the stress test, the level of CRE, and then overall asset quality. I would say, we’re going to evaluate those at the end of second quarter from that perspective. There’s still a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace and we just want to be good stewards of our capital. The capital is not going anywhere, and this capital is for our investors. It’s going to come to the investors sooner or later. It’s just a matter of when we feel comfortable. Right now, we just don’t want to make sure that it’s — now is the right time and we can basically put it over. But it’s not going anywhere. I would feel that if we did decide, and I’m not saying we are, but if we did decide, I would say, we’d probably start off modestly and probably keep a 11% plus CET1 ratio and then kind of see how that goes.

But right now, what I can tell you is we’re going to review it in our earnings call three months from now, and we’ll let you know how we feel about share repurchase at that point in time, and then we’ll go from there. But it’s not going anywhere. The investors — it’s core to who we are. We buy back stock when we don’t deploy it in acquisitions and that’s what we’re going to do.

Ebrahim Poonawala: Got it. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator: Thank you. Ou next question comes from Ken Usdin with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Ken Usdin: Thanks. Good morning.

Daryl Bible: Good morning.

Ken Usdin: Daryl, I was wondering if you can elaborate a little bit more on deposits. So I think typically M&T see a little bit of a seasonal decline in the first Q. And I think quarter had like a weird ending date with a holiday and payroll, but really interesting to see your DDAs and interest-bearing up at period end versus the averages. Can you talk about your flows? What you’re seeing? And how that dynamic is changing with the higher-for-longer environment?

Daryl Bible: Ken, it’s really all around trying to make sure we grow our core deposits. And to be honest with you, some of our businesses, I mentioned it in the prepared remarks, but in our trust businesses, they’re growing nicely. Again, a lot of traction, and we had some nice wins in those businesses that added to our deposits in the second half of the first quarter, early part of the second quarter. So we have a lot of momentum in that business and doing really well. I can’t be more pleased though with the other areas. Our commercial bank is really focused on growing deposits as well, as well as the retail bank. So I mean, everybody is focused on doing the right thing and that’s where we are. Our bread and butter is really getting the operating account, and we’re really good at that. And once we get them, they tend not to leave us. So we’re happy with that as we move forward.

Ken Usdin: Got it. Great. And one question on the loan side. You talked about the benefit from securities yields grinding higher. Can you give us any color on your fixed rate loan repricing and what that looks like over the next year or two?

Daryl Bible: Yes. So if you look at the yields on the — to give you a couple of examples. So let’s just look at auto and RV and give you examples. So if you look at it on a spread basis, our spreads are higher, and this is to our marginal cost of funds, up 24 basis points in auto and 63 basis points in RV. But when you look at the yields, that we’re getting incrementally versus what’s rolling off. We’re getting a 192 basis point higher yields in auto and 140 basis point higher yield in RV. So that’s really what’s moving the yields in the consumer loan portfolios as an example. Does that help?

Ken Usdin: It does. And are those the two books that are the majority of where you’ll get that benefit over the next year or two?

Daryl Bible: I would say for the other businesses, it’s competitive in the middle market. But some of our other businesses that we’re in, I think we’re getting a little bit higher spreads and yields overall if you look at some of the businesses. So I think overall, we feel pretty good about that. And then on the securities portfolio, that’s going to reprice nicely. I talked a little bit with — with Manan. But with what we have maturing on the securities portfolio and what we plan to buy and repurchase, we could easily go up 20-plus basis points in the next couple of quarters in that whole yield on that portfolio.

Ken Usdin: Great. Thanks, Daryl.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question will come from Steven Alexopoulos with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Steven Alexopoulos: Hey, good morning, Daryl.

Daryl Bible: Hey, good morning.