Wells Fargo & Company
Q2 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 22 Jul 2009

[Bob Strickland:]

This is Bob Strickland. Thank you for participating in the Wells Fargo second quarter 2009 earnings review pre-recorded call. Before we discuss our second quarter results, we need to make the standard securities law disclosure. In this call we will make forward-looking statements about specific income statement and balance sheet items and other measures of our future financial results and condition, including statements about future loss content of and cash flows from the legacy Wachovia impaired loan portfolios, expected credit losses and credit performance generally and in specific loan portfolios, the adequacy of our allowance for credit losses, future levels of nonperforming assets, future levels of capital, the timing and amount of expected cost savings and business and revenue synergies related to the Wachovia merger and other initiatives, and our ability to generate revenue growth and earnings. These forward-looking statements are based on our expectations, and they are not guarantees of future performance. They speak only as of the date they are made, and we do not undertake to update them to reflect changes that occur after that date. Actual results may differ materially from expectations due to a number of factors, including our ability to successfully integrate Wachovia and realize the expected cost savings and benefits from the merger. There is no assurance that our allowance for credit losses will be adequate to cover future credit losses, especially if credit markets, housing prices and unemployment do not stabilize or improve. For a discussion of factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations, refer to our SEC filings, including the Form 8K filed today, which includes the press release announcing our second quarter results, and our First Quarter 10Q and our 2008 annual report on Form 10K, each available on the SEC’s website at www.SEC.gov. In this call we will also discuss our tangible common equity, tier I common equity and related ratios as well as pretax, pre-provision profit. For more information about these measures, refer to our second quarter earnings press release which is accessible on our website www.WellsFargo.com by clicking on about us, then investor relations, then quarter earnings. We’ve also posted on our website a second quarter 2009 credit supplement that provides performance information for specific loan portfolios. I will now turn the call over to CFO Howard Atkins.

[Howard I. Atkins:]

Wells Fargo earned another record profit this quarter $3.17 billion. While many banks are struggling to earn consistent operating profits we’ve had back-to-back quarterly record profits totaling $6.22 billion so far this year. Our second quarter profit which was up 81% from a year ago was after incurring a $565 million pretax FDIC special assessment, $244 million of merger related costs and a $700 million credit reserve build. The strength of our results should not be particularly surprising. Wells Fargo has a long track record of building its franchise in all economic environments by profitably growing its 80 plus businesses and this quarter was no exception. In fact, the number of businesses that contributed to the overall result was even larger and even more broad based than usual. We saw strong contributions from businesses as diverse as regional and commercial banking, mortgage originations and mortgage servicing, investment banking, wealth management, card services, insurance and international. Of our 30 or so largest businesses, more than half produced revenue growth of at least 8% annualized sequentially, the broadest mix of businesses with such strong growth in at least the last two years. In addition to the profits that come from successfully executing our uniquely diverse and well positioned business model, we are gaining new customers, gaining more of our existing customers business and gaining market share in any businesses. This inflow of new customers and additional business has the potential to continue to add to earnings well beyond the turn in the credit cycle. We also are beginning to benefit from the business synergies and new opportunities we have from acquiring Wachovia which has already begun to add to our earnings. Our earnings this quarter were driven by numerous accomplishments including the following