Prompt:
Human: This quarter's results continue to demonstrate the unique benefits of Western Alliance's National Commercial Business Strategy to position Western Alliance as one of the country's premier growth commercial banks that can consistently generate leading balance sheet and earnings growth with superior asset quality across economic cycles.
This quarter the bank produced record net revenues, PPNR and EPS, while expanding on net interest margin generating the highest return on tangible common equity in the bank's history and returning asset quality to pre-pandemic levels.
For the second quarter Western Alliance earned total net revenues of $506.5 million, net income before merger and restructuring charges of $236.5 million and adjusted earnings per share of $2.29, an increase of 20.5% from the prior quarter.
These results benefited from a $14.5 million reversal of credit loss provision consistent with our excellent asset quality results.
Strong balance sheet growth continued with loans rising $2 billion excluding PPP loans or 29% on a linked quarter annualized basis and deposits by $3.5 billion or 37%.
Our deposit and loan pipelines are very active and total assets now stand at $49.1 billion.
Net interest income totaled $370.5 million up $53.2 million or 16.8% for the quarter as robust balance sheet growth rising NIM and access liquidity deployment significantly moves the earnings needle.
Strong loan growth led to a 5.5% or $1.5 billion increase in average loan balances quarter-over-quarter.
Additionally, after closing the AmeriHome acquisition on April 7, we added $4.5 billion in held-for-sale mortgages primarily GSE qualified or 12.4% of our average interest earning assets yielding approximately 3.21% as an alternative to cash or mortgage backed securities.
Optimizing our interest earning assets mix helped NIM expand from 3.37% to 3.51% in the second quarter.
Fee income was a record $136 million, representing 27% of total revenue as it began to integrate and optimize AmeriHome's mortgage banking related activities throughout the rest of Western Alliance.
Mortgage banking related income was $111.2 million in the second quarter demonstrating our ability to adjust win share as gain on sale margins fluctuate to maintain earnings.
I think it's worth reemphasizing that what most attracted us to AmeriHome's business model was their low costs and flexible mortgage production and servicing ecosystem.
Their leverages are complementary corresponded and consumer direct channels to feed and enhance value throughout Western Alliance's commercial businesses while minimizing risk.
Business-to-business correspondent mortgage lenders have several business levers and the flexibility to sustain earnings throughout the rate or throughout rate and economic cycles.
Despite the evolving mortgage sector fundamentals AmeriHome continues to meet our expectations and contributed $0.39 to earnings per share in Q2.
We have optimized AmeriHome's balance sheet to Western Alliance capital levels with a servicing portfolio of $57.1 billion in unpaid balances.
No -- yeah, UPD, sorry.
Expanded the number of correspondent sellers by 57 to 819 and taken advantage of market dislocations to drive value.
In the second quarter since April when the transaction closed, AmeriHome generated $20.7 billion in loan production or 25% above levels for the full quarter period a year ago and only down 3.6% from Q1 with 47% from traditional home purchases.
Gain on sale margin was 64 basis points for the quarter in line with 2019, 63 basis points.
Given the flexibility of AmeriHome's business model, we continue to stand by our full-year guidance of $1.41.
Asset quality continued to improve this quarter as the economic recovery extended in breadth.
Total classified assets declined $43 million in Q2 to 49 basis points of total assets which is lower than Q1 '20s levels on both a relative and absolute dollar amount just as the pandemic impact was beginning to be felt.
For the quarter, net loan charge-offs were zero.
Finally, Western Alliance is one of the most profitable banks in the industry with a return on average assets and a record return an average tangible common equity of 1.86%, 28.1% respectively which will continue to support capital accumulation to strong capital levels.
Tangible book value per share modestly declined to $32.86 from $33.2 as goodwill and intangibles doubled to $611 million in Q2 mainly from recognizing the AMH platform value.
At this time, Dale will take you through the financial performance.
For the quarter, Western Alliance generated adjusted net income of $236 million or $229 million adjusted earnings per share up 22.9% and 20.5% from the prior quarter.
This is inclusive of a reversal credit provisions that Ken mentioned of $14.5 million.
It excludes pre-merger -- pre-tax merger and restructuring expenses of $15.7 million related to AmeriHome.
Additionally, pre-provision net revenue of $277 million rose 37% quarter over quarter, excluding those same charges.
After the AmeriHome acquisition, total net revenue grew $169.5 million during the quarter to $506.5 million, an increase of over 50% from the prior quarter.
Net interest income rose $53 million during the quarter to $370.5 million, an increase of 24% year-over-year, primarily a result of our significant balance sheet growth and deployment of liquidity into higher yielding assets.
Average earning assets increased $4.1 million, while lower yielding cash proportion held at the Fed fell to 4.4% from 15%.
Non-interest income increased $116.3 million to $136 million from the prior quarter and now represents 27% of total revenue due to mortgage banking-related income of $111 million from AmeriHome.
Within this category, net loan servicing revenue was a negative $20.8 million, as high refinance activity drove accelerated amortization of servicing rights but was far exceeded by gain on sale of mortgage loans.
Pre-AmeriHome WAL contributed 18% Non-interest income or $24.8 million in the second quarter compared to $19.7 million in the first quarter, supported by $7 million of income from equity investments.
Non-interest expense, including merger and restructuring charges increased $94.5 million mainly due to the acquisition of AmeriHome which increased compensation costs as we added approximately 1,000 new members to the WAL team, as well as new costs related to loan servicing and origination expenses.
Turning now to our net interest drivers, you can begin to see the benefit of AmeriHome to our strategy to expedite and optimize the deployment of excess liquidity into higher yielding assets as we added $4.5 billion in loans held for sale yielding 3.2% as opposed to cash yielding 10 basis points.
Investment yields improved to 10 basis points from the prior quarter to 2.47 while on a linked quarter basis loan yields excluding HFS declined 11 basis points following ongoing mix shift toward residential loans and a slight reduction in non-commercial real estate loan returns.
Interest bearing deposit costs were flat from the prior quarter at 22 basis points.
The total cost of funds increased 8 basis points to 27 based on the -- due to issuance of $600 million of subordinated debt and the assumption of AmeriHome borrowings.
The spot rate for total deposits, which includes non-interest bearing was 11 basis points.
We expect funding costs have generally stabilized at these levels.
As a result net interest income grew $53.2 million to $370.5 million during the quarter or 24% year-over-year as average earning assets increased $4.1 billion.
Cash as a portion of the average interest earning assets fell to 4.4% from 15% in the quarter, which drove expansion by 14 basis points to 3.51%.
Additionally excluding the impact of PPP loans the margin would have increased 22 basis points.
Our efficiency ratio rose to 44.5% from 39 in the first quarter mainly driven by the addition of AmeriHome employees and increase in incentive compensation costs.
As mentioned on our first quarter call we expected the efficiency ratio to rise to the mid-40s as a result of the acquisition.
Preprovision net revenue increased $75 million or 37% from the prior quarter and 35.4% from the same period last year.
This resulted in preprovision net revenue of return on assets of $231 million for the quarter an increase of 28 basis points compared to $203 million in the first quarter.
This continued strong performance and leading capital generation provides a significant flexibility to fund ongoing balance sheet growth, capital management actions or meet credit demands.
Balance sheet momentum continued during the quarter as loans held for investment increased to $1.3 billion or 4.6% to $30 billion and deposit growth of $3.5 billion brought balances to $41.9 billion at quarter end.
In all, total assets have grown 54% year-over-year as we approach the $50 billion asset level.
Borrowings increased $1.2 billion over the prior quarter to $1.8 billion primarily due to $600 million subordinated debt issuance as well as the assumption of AmeriHome borrowings.
Finally tangible book value per share decreased $0.16 over the prior quarter to $0.3286 but increased 18% year-over-year again driven by the AmeriHome acquisition of intangible assets that were largely offset by Q2 earnings and the issuance of common stock from our ATM of 700,000 shares for $70 million.
Despite heightened competition and pricing pressure we continue to generate consistent strong organic loan growth from our flexible national commercial business strategy.
Loans held for investments grew $1.3 billion in the quarter or $2 billion excluding PPP payoffs of approximately $700 million.
A majority of growth this quarter was driven by an increase in residential real estate loans of $2 billion, which now comprise 17% of total loans as we look to deploy excess liquidity and integrated new flow arrangements from the recent Galton and AmeriHome transactions.
This was supplemented by growth in capital call lines of $162 million and construction and land loans of $89 million.
Turning to deposits, we continue to see broad-based core deposit growth across business channels.
Deposits grew $3.5 billion or 9.2% in the second quarter driven by increases in non-interest bearing DDA of $2.6 billion, which now comprise 48% of our deposit base and savings in money market deposits of $534 million.
Market share gains in mortgage warehouse continue to be significant drivers of deposit growth during the quarter along with strong performance from regional commercial clients, robust fund raising activity and tech innovation and seasonal inflows from the HOA banking relationships.
Our asset quality continued to significantly improve this quarter.
Total classified assets fell $43 million in the second quarter to $238 million to 49 basis points of total assets.
While our total classified assets ratio declined 16 basis points to 49 basis points due to continued improvement in COVID impacted clients.
Finally, special mention loans declined $69 million during the quarter to 1.35% of funded loans.
Similarly, quarterly net credit losses were negligible at $100,000 for the quarter or zero basis points of average loans compared to a $1.4 million net loss in the first quarter.
Our loan allowance for credit losses fell $16 million from the prior quarter to $264 million due to continued improvement in credit trends and macroeconomic forecasts and loan growth in portfolio segments with low expected loss rates.
In all, total loan ACL to funded loans declined 9 basis points to 88 basis points or 91 basis points when excluding PPP loans.
For comparison purposes the loan allowance for credit losses to funded loans was 84 basis points at year end 2019 before CECL was adopted.
Finally, given our industry-leading return on equity and assets, we continue to generate significant capital to fund organic growth and maintain regulatory capital ratios.
Our tangible common equity to total assets of 7.1% and Common Equity Tier 1 ratio of 9.2% were weighted down this quarter by the AmeriHome acquisition and strong asset growth.
However we issued 700,000 shares under our ATM shelf during this quarter and completed a $242 million in credit linked note transaction that reduced risk-weighted assets as we continue to look for ways to optimize our capital levels to support ongoing growth.
Additionally we completed $844 million in mortgage servicing rights dispositions and have already completed our expected Q3 mortgage servicing sales.
Capital levels should build from here.
Inclusive of our quarterly cash dividend payment of $0.25 per share our tangible book value per share declined $0.16 for the quarter to $0.3286 compared to an increase of 18% over the past 12 months.
I'll now hand the call back to Ken for closing comments.
At the midpoint of the year I thought I would take this opportunity to reflect back upon our performance.
We deployed excess liquidity and turbo charged our net interest income.
Year-to-date non PPP loans have grown $3.6 billion and deposits have grown $10 billion or 2.75 times the amount of loan growth providing us an opportunity to deploy liquidity and growth and grow net interest income AmeriHome's past Q2 guidance and is tracking to full year projections.
Asset quality improved with substandard special mention and non-accrual loans tracking downward with nearly no net charge-offs for the quarter.
Return on tangible common equity was 28.1% for the quarter.
PPNR, a key metric for the company earnings power was 37.1% -- grew 37.1% and we executed several capital raising transactions that Dale just mentioned.
So, for the second half of the year I think you can expect loan and deposits to continue to grow between $1 billion and $1.5 billion per quarter.
Net interest income to grow quarter-to-quarter with incremental liquidity deployed into loans and investments to overcome the interest drag of the new sub debt and credit linked note issuances.
NIM will continue to see some pressure as competition, interest rates and loan mix nudge loan yields downward.
PPNR will follow net interest income and fee income growth and will continue to rise throughout the year.
Asset quality will remain steady although with net charge-offs tracking to prior year -- prior year's performance or prior quarter's performance.
We continue to believe we will exit the year at a $9 earnings per share run rate level.
And lastly, we will deploy growth based capital strategy to support above trend balance sheet growth.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
q2 revenue $506.5 million versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $494 million.
net interest income was $370.5 million in q2 2021, an increase of $53.2 million from $317.3 million in q1 2021.


Prompt:
Human: I would like to start the call on Slide three by paying our respects to the founder of our company, Jim Waters, who passed away on May 17.
Jim was a brilliant and spirited scientist and a pioneer in liquid chromatography.
I met Jim the first time in 2019 when he came to talk to me about the merits of a technology we had acquired in a previous company.
We spent hours in front of a whiteboard debating how to manage innovation and, in particular, how the application of certain technology could deliver benefit.
Jim continued reaching out to me, not just on technology, but also on our mutual love for science education and then, more recently, on Waters.
Jim's legacy will live on with each and every one of our innovations as we continue to strive to deliver benefits.
Our teams around the globe have continued to manage admirably through the pandemic, which is still very much with us.
Most of all, we've kept the working environment safe for our employees and have remained flexible and resourceful as we continue to support our customers.
I remain grateful for the ongoing resilience, commitment and dedication that our team has shown.
Moving on to Slide 4.
During today's call, I will provide a brief overview of our second quarter operating results as well as some commentary on our end markets, geographies and technologies.
I will also update you on the progress of our transformation plan.
We continue to be focused on three primary objectives: number one, regaining our commercial momentum; number two, further strengthening our organization; and number three, building on a core -- on a strong core to access even higher growth areas.
Amol will then review our financial results in detail and provide comments on our updated third quarter and full year financial outlook.
As outlined on Slide 5, in the second quarter, our revenue grew 31% as reported and 27% on a constant currency basis, reflecting continued strength in our pharma and industrial end markets with strong demand for both our instrument systems and recurring revenue products across our major geographies.
Sales for this quarter represent a 6% compounded average yearly growth versus our 2019 results on a constant currency basis.
This translates to a 7% stacked CAGR versus 2019 for the first half of the year, again, on a constant currency basis.
Our strong top line growth resulted in year-over-year Q2 non-GAAP adjusted earnings-per-share growth of 24% to $2.60 per share.
Our top and bottom line performance translated into solid free cash flow performance and allowed us to strengthen our balance sheet.
Looking more closely at our top line results in the quarter on Slide 6.
First, by operating segment, our Waters Division grew 27%, while TA grew by 32% on a constant currency basis.
By end market, our largest market category, pharma, grew 31% in constant currency; industrial grew 28%; and academia and government grew 7%.
Continued strength in sales to pharma customers was broad-based across customer segments, geographies and applications.
Late-stage drug development activity drove sales of our tandem quad MS instrument systems such as the Xevo TQ-XS and Xevo TQ-S micro.
Small molecule applications in manufacturing QA and QC grew across Asia, Europe and North America and were particularly strong in India.
Industrial end market growth was also broad-based across geographies and applications, continuing its recovery so far this year.
Food testing and environmental demand grew nicely in the quarter, as did our thermal and geometric portfolios.
Turning to academic and government, which is less than 10% of our business, growth in the U.S. and Europe was partially offset by lumpiness in China.
Year-to-date, our primary geographies have all returned to growth versus last year.
Moving now to our sales performance by geography on a constant currency basis.
Sales in Asia grew 28%, with China up almost 40% and India up almost 60%.
Sales in the Americas grew 28% with the U.S. growing 26%, and sales in Europe grew 25%.
In the U.S., all end markets had strong year-over-year performance led by pharma and industrial.
Academic and government saw a return to growth for the quarter as the market continues to recover.
Europe's growth was also broad-based across end markets and subregions.
Overall, pharma drove growth with strong demand in small molecule and large molecule applications.
Industrial and academic and government markets continued their recovery, with both having strong quarters and strong starts to the first half of the year.
China sales were up sharply in our pharma business, and we had solid growth in our industrial and applied end markets there as well.
We're encouraged by our continued strength in the contract labs business due to strong execution of our growth initiatives.
In India, sales for the quarter were again very strong even as the country continued to feel the effects from the pandemic.
We're really grateful for the hard work and dedication of our colleagues who persevered through these challenging and tragic conditions.
Trends in Q2 and year-to-date for our LC instrument portfolio is a positive indicator for sustainable growth in consumables and service plans.
In the second quarter, LC instruments grew across all major geographies with more than 40% growth, driven by our instrument replacement initiatives and new products, especially Arc HPLC and a strong uptake of our Premier instruments, both Arc and ACQUITY lines.
This week, I spent time with customers at our Immerse innovation lab in Cambridge discussing the separation and purification of mRNA and oligonucleotide molecules.
While mRNA vaccines have developed at a record pace, we are far from solving key issues such as aggregation and selective binding of plasmids and mRNA molecules to various surfaces, something that our Premier technology addresses really well.
Further strengthening our UPLC portfolio, the Arc system was launched earlier this year for customers who need ultimate sensitivity.
The Arc Premier delivered fivefold improvement in detector sensitivity and tenfold improvement in assay-to-assay precision, helping labs accelerate time to market.
Mass spec sales grew in excess of 30%, driven by demand from pharma research and development and food and environmental applications.
This included high-resolution systems used for research applications such as the Xevo QTof, tandem quad led by our Xevo TQ-XS and TQ-S micro systems and our SQD and QDa single quad detectors utilized in high-performance LC-MS applications.
We introduced the Waters SELECT SERIES MRT, a high-resolution mass spectrometer that combines multi-reflecting time-of-flight MRT technology with both enhanced DESI and new MALDI imaging sources.
The MRT provides scientists with a unique combination of speed, resolution and mass accuracy especially relevant for applications in proteomics.
We have been in conversations with customers to see how we can collaborate using MRT to analyze libraries of samples to create a database of proteins and metabolites to further understand the impact of therapeutics on a variety of tissues.
Sales of precision chemistry columns, sample prep kits and reagents grew 28%, driven by increased utilization by our pharma customers and improved industrial demand.
Demand for our Premier Columns continues to be strong.
The low double-digit 2-year stack growth of chemistry columns revenue in Q2 when compared to our 2019 base underscores the rebound in customer activity, the strong position of our portfolio and building momentum of our e-commerce initiative.
Service also showed strong double-digit growth.
Our service engineers continue to have good and improved access to our customer sites, and I'm grateful for the way they have served customers while continuing to navigate the challenges of the pandemic.
Finally, with respect to TA, demand continues to rebound and was balanced across all major geographies and product lines, with particular strength in the U.S. and Europe.
Let me now give you some highlights on our progress with the implementation of our transformation plan on Slide 7.
Starting with our first priority, regaining our commercial momentum.
We continue to see progress in our instrument replacement initiative.
Our recently released Arc HPLC has played an important role in the LC replacement initiative.
Its improved mechanical specs and ability to seamlessly transfer networks from Alliance HPLC or other HPLC platforms have been very well received by our customers.
We are already crossing a mid-single-digit stack growth versus 2019 on a year-to-date basis in LC.
With our CRO and CDMO customers, our ability to develop and provide method transfer support continues to be a strong driver of growth.
This segment grew 60% on a year-to-date basis versus the comparable period in 2019.
Early strength that we saw in China has now been replicated in Europe as well as in the U.S.
Our e-commerce and recurring revenue attachment initiatives are also starting to boost the momentum observed in our year-to-date 2-year stacked CAGR for chemistry and service revenue.
Moving on to our second priority on Slide 8.
We have strengthened our organization with the addition of Wei Jiang to our Board of Directors.
Wei currently serves as President of Bayer Pharmaceuticals for China and APAC.
His results-driven experience will further expand the perspective of the Board that directly aligns with what is the strategy to accelerate growth and innovation.
Dan joins us from Bristol Myers, where he was VP of Worldwide Commercialization Strategy and Innovation.
Dan joins several of our other technically trained Executive Committee members with experience in orchestrating transformations and M&A in relevant customer segments like pharma and diagnostics.
This brings me to our third priority of building our core to drive durable growth.
As you will see on Slide 9, Waters already has a strong foundation in large and growing end markets with a leading position of science and innovation in a roughly $65 billion market, a high exposure to end markets that grow around mid-single digits with a deep rooted presence in regulated end markets like QA/QC, a large installed base of instruments with over 50% recurring revenues, a diversified geographic base with over -- almost 40% sales in Asia and industry-leading margins with a strong financial flexibility.
So you'll agree with me that this is a solid base to build off.
Now I'm on Slide 10.
We built a team of leaders who have a strong track record of execution.
Both Jon Pratt and Jianqing Bennett, Heads of the Waters Division and the TA Division, respectively, are highly experienced commercial leaders and are now very focused on building capabilities to sustain our commercial momentum.
What gives me most pleasure is that we have started to hit our stride with new product introductions across the portfolio, and these are contributing to our sales momentum already.
The leadership that is focused on execution and innovation is preparing us well to further build our portfolio to access even faster-growing adjacencies.
We're exploring and nurturing opportunities both organic and inorganic to increase our exposure to biologics, be it bioprocessing reagents or novel modalities.
We're actively shaping the promise of LC-MS in diagnostics and proteomics discovery applications and advancing lab connectivity applications through our informatics portfolio.
High growth areas such as sustainable polymers and renewable energy are a focus of the TA division.
In summary, we've had a strong start to the year with a broad base -- with broad-based contributions from our end markets, product portfolio and geographies to our revenue growth.
In addition to the impressive growth versus our 2020 base of comparison, our business dynamics and customer demand look healthy on a 2-year run rate basis.
Markets we serve are in a healthy state, and our geographic regions are rebounding solidly from pandemic lows.
We remain focused on the continued progress and success of our short-term initiatives aimed at tactically strengthening our core business.
We're confident in the opportunities ahead to bring LC-MS products, separations expertise and compliant data management experience into high-growth biopharma and diagnostic applications.
I look forward to continuing to share more with you as we progress on these various fronts.
With that, I'd like to pass the call over to Amol for a deeper review of the second quarter financials and our outlook for the remainder of 2021.
As Udit outlined, we recorded net sales of $682 million in the second quarter, an increase of 27% in constant currency.
Currency translation increased sales growth by approximately 4%, resulting in reported sales growth of 31%.
Looking at the product line growth, our recurring revenue, which represents combination of chemistry and service revenue, increased by 18% for the quarter, while instrument sales increased 40%.
Chemistry revenues were up 28%, and service revenues were up 13%.
As we noted in our last earnings call, recurring revenues were not impacted by a difference in calendar days this quarter.
Looking ahead, there is no year-over-year difference in the number of days for the third quarter either.
However, please note there are six fewer days in the fourth quarter of this year compared to 2020.
Now I would like to comment on our second quarter non-GAAP financial performance versus the prior year.
Before I do so, a reminder that in the second quarter of 2020, we took decisive actions to manage our costs as part of our near-term cost savings plan in light of the pandemic.
While our COVID cost savings plan was successful totaling approximately $100 million for 2020, it does have some implications in our year-over-year comparisons as we normalize from an abnormally low expense base.
Gross margin for the quarter was 58.9%, down 10 basis points compared to the second quarter of 2020, driven by 80 basis points foreign exchange headwinds.
Excluding the impact of foreign exchange, gross margin improved by 70 basis points despite higher instrument mix and COVID cost actions in 2020.
This improvement was driven by volume leverage and productivity gains.
Moving down the P&L, operating expenses increased by approximately 39% on a constant currency basis and 42% on a reported basis.
The increase was primarily attributable to higher labor costs and variable compensation, the majority of which relates to normalization of the prior year cost actions.
In the quarter, our effective operating tax rate was 14.8%, a decrease from last year as the comparable period included some unfavorable discrete items.
Our average share count came in at 62.2 million shares, approximately flat versus the second quarter of last year.
Our non-GAAP earnings per fully diluted share for the second quarter increased 24% to $2.60 in comparison to $2.10 last year.
On a GAAP basis, our earnings per fully diluted share increased to $2.69 compared to $1.98 last year.
Turning to free cash flow, capital deployment and our balance sheet.
We define free cash flow as cash from operations less capital expenditures and excludes special items.
In the second quarter of 2021, free cash flow declined 12% year-over-year to $155 million after funding $37 million of capital expenditures.
Excluded from the free cash flow was $14 million related to the investment in our Taunton precision chemistry operations, a $38 million tax reform payment and a $3 million litigation settlement received.
In the second quarter, this resulted in $0.23 of each dollar of sales converted into free cash flow.
Year-to-date, free cash flow has increased 17% to $348 million.
In the second quarter, accounts receivable DSO came in at 73 days, down 14 days compared to the second quarter of last year.
Inventories increased slightly by $5 million in comparison to the prior year.
We maintain a strong balance sheet, access to liquidity and well-structured debt maturity profile.
In terms of returning capital to shareholders, we repurchased approximately 535,000 shares of our common stock for $168 million in the second quarter.
At the end of second quarter, our net debt position was $940 million and a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of about 1.
Our capital deployment priorities remain consistent: invest for growth, maintain balance sheet strength and flexibility and return capital to shareholders.
We remain committed to deploying capital against these priorities.
In addition, we will evaluate deploying capital to well thought out, attractive and adjacent growth opportunities.
As we look forward to the remainder of the year, I would like to provide you some update on our thoughts for 2021 on Slide 11.
In the first half of the year, we saw good momentum in our market segments driven by robust demand and strong commercial execution.
We believe that this momentum will continue in the second half of the year, but the comparisons are more challenging.
Fourth quarter of 2020 was the first quarter in our transformation journey and was further favorably impacted by higher year-end budget plus spending.
In addition, we have six fewer calendar days in the fourth quarter of this year.
We are also keeping a watchful eye on the potential impact of newer COVID variants and the likely disruption they may cause to both supply and demand.
We expect our near-term growth initiatives and commercial momentum to contribute meaningfully to our performance.
These dynamics support updated full year 2021 guidance of 13% to 15% constant currency sales growth.
At current rates, the positive currency translation is expected to add approximately one to two percentage points, resulting in a full year reported sales growth guidance of 14% to 17%.
Gross margin for the full year is expected to be approximately 58%, and operating margin is expected to be approximately 29%.
We expect our full year net interest expense to be $37 million and full year tax rate to be 15%.
Average diluted 2021 share count is expected to be approximately 62 million.
Throughout the year, we'll evaluate our share repurchase program and provide quarterly updates as appropriate.
Rolling all this together and on a non-GAAP basis, full year 2021 earnings per fully diluted share are now projected in the range $10.50 to $10.70.
This includes a positive currency impact of approximately three percentage points at today's rates and assumes no adverse demand or supply impact from COVID.
Looking at the third quarter of 2021, we expect constant currency sales growth to be 7% to 9%.
At today's rates, currency translation is expected to add approximately one percentage point, resulting in third quarter reported sales growth guidance of 8% to 10%.
Third quarter non-GAAP earnings per fully diluted share are estimated to be in the range $2.25 to $2.35.
This includes a positive currency impact of approximately three percentage point at today's rates and also assumes no adverse demand or supply impact from COVID.
In summary, there is much to be pleased about the first half of the year driven by strong growth across our major end markets.
Our transformation plan continues to progress with commercial momentum and strong leadership team in place.
We now turn toward deploying our strategy in large and growing end markets we operate through accelerating innovation, through our portfolio as well as progressively aligning our portfolio with higher growth areas in adjacent markets.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
compname posts q2 non-gaap earnings per share $2.60.
q2 non-gaap earnings per share $2.60.
q2 sales $682 million versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $622.2 million.
sees q3 non-gaap earnings per share $2.25 to $2.35.
sees fy non-gaap earnings per share $10.50 to $10.70.
q2 gaap earnings per share $2.69.
expects q3 2021 constant-currency sales growth in range of 7% to 9%.
expects full-year 2021 constant-currency sales growth in range of 13% to 15%.


Prompt:
Human: This conference is being recorded.
I'll now introduce Webster's President and CEO, John Ciulla.
CFO, Glenn MacInnes and I will review business and financial performance for the quarter.
I will also provide some additional information on the line of business performance and COVID-19 related activities across the bank.
I hope that all of you and your loved ones are healthy and safe.
And I want to let those whose health has been impacted by the crisis know that the Webster Bank family has you in our thoughts.
The way our bankers have taken care of each other, our customers and communities over the last two months is truly amazing.
I'm so proud of the entire Webster team.
Webster Bank and the entire banking industry has rallied to be part of the solution to this health crisis and the resulting economic fallout.
Consistent with the way our values based organization has operated since our founding during the Great Depression in 1935.
We immediately took action at the outset of the pandemic to support our employees, customers and the communities we serve.
The safety of our employees was and is our number one priority.
We swiftly moved 80% of our workforce to remote or at-home work thereby creating a safer socially distance work setup in our buildings for those who need to be on-site to execute the central operations.
We modified branch activities and hours to ensure the safety of our employees and customers, while being available to meet our customers' needs.
This included moving to drive through an ATM service with bank lobbies open by appointment only.
We established a no-interest loan program for our employees whose families had been financially impacted by the pandemic.
We've paid all of our employees at 100% of pay, including those who are home because of illness, quarantine, higher health risk or to take care of loved ones or kids home because of school closures.
We've increased the daily pay of those bankers on the front line and have added PTO time to those workers as a future benefit.
We have not reduced our workforce by a single FTE during the crisis.
And we've augmented and expanded our employee assistance programs to support our employees during the pandemic.
For our customers, just as we led the banking industry with our foreclosure avoidance program during the Great Recession, we immediately placed a moratorium on residential mortgage foreclosures relating to Webster-owned mortgages.
We waived fees on early CD withdrawals.
We increased availability and amount of funds for withdrawal by our customers, and we've worked with our customers adversely impacted by COVID-19 through the modification of loans, the deferral of loan payments and through participation in the SBA Paycheck Protection Program and the Fed's Main Street Lending Program.
Here are some data points related to activities we've undertaken both as principal and what we've done through government programs.
As of April 16, we have modified over 2,000 units, representing $476 million of residential mortgages and home equities, that's approximately 6.5% of total home equity and mortgage balances, roughly 750 borrowers or $300 million of small business loans, representing approximately 17% of our small business portfolio outstandings, and over 300 borrowers and close to $1.6 billion of commercial loans or roughly 13% of the funded commercial loan portfolio.
With respect to the Paycheck Protection Program, we started accepting applications on day one, and despite technology and process challenges experienced by all banks, we were able to help many business clients in need.
When the SBA stopped accepting applications last Thursday, we had more than 2,000 SBA approved loans, representing approximately $650 million, most of which should be funded over the next week.
We've continued to process applications internally and will begin submitting those applications for approval when the SBA has additional funding and opens up the process, which it looks now like it will be later this week.
With respect to the Fed's Main Street Lending Program, we've worked with our industry organizations and directly with the Fed to be prepared to utilize these loan programs to help our larger commercial customers through the crisis.
And for our communities, we've increased the amount of our 2020 philanthropy budget and repositioned dollars to support those most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
We've made more than $375,000 in donations thus far to Feeding America, the American Red Cross and United Way's across our footprint to provide urgent basic needs.
I'll now turn to our financial highlights on Slide 3.
Webster's first quarter results continue to demonstrate our ongoing commitment to strong execution on strategic priorities through any and all operating environments.
Pre-provision net revenue of $125 million was up modestly from Q4, driven by a slight increase in total revenue and a slight decline in expenses.
Earnings per share were $0.39 in the quarter compared to $0.96 in Q4 of 2019 and $1.06 in the prior year's first quarter.
The declines resulted primarily from an increased provision resulting from the adoption of CECL, a weakening forward economic outlook and the impact of a significantly lower interest rate environment.
Glenn and I will walk you through the assumptions underlying our CECL process and ultimate provision number.
Our CECL process is strong, consistent with the requirements and controls of the accounting process.
In this quarter, that process included the appropriate amount of conservatism and thoughtful judgment to reflect the uncertainty of the environment and the behaviors in our portfolio with respect to onset of the pandemic.
Tangible book value per common share increased 8% from prior year.
Our first quarter return on common equity was 4.75%, and return on tangible common equity was 5.95%, with each reflecting the $68 million reserve build in the quarter.
The combination of a slight increase in total revenue and a slight decrease in expenses led to improvement in the efficiency ratio, which was 58% in Q1.
March 31st reported credit metrics remained strong, while our forward forecast of economic conditions deteriorated significantly with the onset of the pandemic.
Slide 4 presents loan and deposit trends.
Loan growth was strong as total loans grew 11%, and commercial loans grew almost 16% from a year ago or by more than $1.8 billion.
Strong organic growth in CRE was augmented by approximately $450 million in revolver drawdowns in the commercial portfolio in March and we saw a reduction in prepayment activity.
Deposits grew 7.7% year-over-year, driven by the inflow of HSA deposits and public funds, and transactional and HSA deposits now represent 60% of total deposits, up from 57% a year ago.
Also of note, footings at HSA Bank increased 9% from a year ago for growth of $679 million during the year.
Turning to Slide 5, I will spend a few minutes speaking to each of our three lines of business.
In Commercial Banking, loans were up nearly 7% linked quarter and 15.5% from a year ago, which includes the aforementioned $450 million in net revolver draws.
CRE drove the year-over-year growth, while Sponsor & Specialty loan balances, which saw the lion's share of the revolver draws drove the linked quarter increase.
Prepayments were lower in the quarter, partially attributable to lower economic and transaction activity in the second half of the quarter due to the emergence of the pandemic.
Deposits were up smartly some 15% linked quarter and 20% from a year ago, largely driven by the depositing of revolver draws into DDA.
Normalizing for revolver usage, deposits were up approximately 5% in Commercial Banking in the quarter.
Loan and deposit volumes in the quarter drove a 3% year-over-year increase in net interest income and Commercial Banking despite rate pressure.
Expenses were up 4.3% year-over-year, driven by investment in people and technology.
Commercial Banking PPNR was relatively flat year-over-year.
While we are appropriately cautious with new underwriting activities, I can tell you that we closed meaningful high-quality new business in the quarter in segments that are not experience -- experiencing a material adverse impact from the pandemic, segments such as software and technology infrastructure.
In fact, in early April, we closed our largest agency deal on a best efforts basis, a $350 million technology infrastructure deal where we held just over 10% of the risk after close.
Turning to Slide 6.
In HSA Bank, we are continuing to make great progress.
We concluded another successful first quarter as we opened 338,000 new accounts for a total of 734,000 new accounts opened over the last 12 months.
In addition, we added over 1,000 new employers in the quarter.
There was no material impact in the quarter related to the previously reported movement of accounts tied to the decision by two wholesale partners, custodial partners to in-source account administration.
Ending accounts were up 6.4% to $3.1 million, while deposits increased 8.5% to $6.7 billion.
The 2019 year-end Devenir report indicated an overall HSA market that slowed marginally as the market growth rate of accounts was flat and the deposit growth rate declined by three percentage points during the year.
One important point to note is that HSA Bank's funded account growth rate was 9.2% in 2019 compared to the industry rate of 5.6%.
In the first quarter, our funded account growth rate was 6.8% year-over-year, both reflective of our consistently low percentage of unfunded accounts when compared to industry data.
We had a good start to the year from a sales perspective as we signed several large employers in the quarter.
We also announced a major partnership with Jellyvision that will further enable our customers to make informed and smart healthcare choices.
We also launched partnerships with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Principal Financial Group.
These partnerships are all uniquely capable of delivering strong growth especially within the jumbo employer market.
In addition, as you may have seen, yesterday, we announced that we signed an agreement to acquire State Farm Bank's portfolio of seasoned HSA accounts, representing approximately $140 million in deposits.
We expect to close that transaction in the second or third quarter.
In response to the pandemic and consistent with all of Webster, we were able to quickly transition 96% of our HSA staff to work from home in less than three weeks, maintaining 24/7 customer support and continuing to meet service and quality metrics.
In addition, we are working closely to support our customers through the pandemic at a time when our services may be particularly critical, including capabilities we have deployed directly or via partnerships, such as eHealth, HSA FSA Store, GoodRx, Blink Health, Medical Cost Advocate and Healthcare Bluebook.
We feel that the current legislative and political landscape remains favorable for the HSA industry and the chances of a near-term Medicare for all national healthcare solution are even more remote than they were a year ago.
Our relationship with WEX, our technology partner and Cigna, our largest HSA partner have never been stronger.
I'm on Page 7.
In Community Banking, we've done a tremendous job keeping our employees and customers safe, while continuing to provide the standard of customer service our clients expect.
Total community bank loans grew by 5% year-over-year with business banking loans leading the way at 9%.
Deposits grew by 3%, again led by business banking.
Non-interest income was up 9% as a result of higher mortgage and investment services revenue.
Many more customers have transitioned to self-service channels as digitally active households crossed 50% in the quarter for the first time and we see that trend continuing given the pandemic.
As you can imagine, our Community Banking team along with the resources from across the bank are working digitally -- diligently in executing on the PPP loan program, which will help so many of our customers.
We've been focusing on customer outreach and support.
And I can't say enough about the way our community bankers, including all of those in our banking centers have delivered for our customers and communities during the first quarter and over the last several weeks.
First, we are completely focused on internal execution, and other than opportunistic HSA transactions, bank M&A remains a low priority.
We have a strong capital position enabling us to support our customers and assist in the financial recovery in the country.
Also after a modest repurchase of approximately 2 million shares in early Q1 before the onset of the pandemic, we do not anticipate repurchasing additional shares until this pandemic is behind us.
I'll begin with our average balance sheet on Slide 8.
Average loans grew $516 million or 2.6% linked quarter.
Growth was led primarily by the commercial business.
A linked quarter increase of $329 million in commercial real estate was the result of strong originations and a reduction in pay-offs.
On a year-over-year basis, our commercial real estate loans grew more than $1 billion.
Commercial loans now represent 66% of total loans compared to 63% in prior year.
Consumer loan performance was driven by a $96 million increase in residential mortgages with some offset in home equity.
On the deposit side, our low-cost transactional and HSA deposits have increased more than $1.2 billion from last year and now represent 60% of total deposits with a combined cost of 13 basis points.
The Q1 seasonal inflow of HSA and government deposits funded loan growth, as well as a $200 million reduction in short-term borrowings.
With regard to capital, the modest average linked quarter reduction in common equity is reflective of a day one CECL adjustment of $58 million and approximately $77 million as a result of share repurchases in the quarter.
Likewise, modest reductions in the common equity Tier 1 and tangible common equity ratios are also reflective of CECL, share repurchases and asset growth.
We have elected to phase in the CECL impact on regulatory capital, which favorably impacts our ratios by 20 basis points to 25 basis points.
Even excluding the phase-in in capital treatment, our capital ratios would remain very strong and well in excess of regulatory well-capitalized levels.
Slide 9 summarizes our Q1 income statement and drivers of quarterly earnings.
Net interest income was flat to prior quarter as the $6 million benefit from loan growth was offset by the effect of a lower rate environment.
This is reflective in our net interest margin, which was lower by four basis points versus Q4, 16 basis points due to lower loan yield, which was partially offset by nine basis points from lower deposit costs and three basis points from lower borrowing costs.
Versus prior year, net interest income declined $11 million, $31 million of the decline was due to lower market rates with a partial offset of $20 million from earning asset growth.
Non-interest income increased $2.5 million linked quarter and $4.8 million from prior year.
HSA fee income increased $3.4 million as a result of account growth and the seasonal increase in interchange.
In addition, our mark-to-market on hedging activity increased $2.6 million, which was offset by a decline in syndication and client swap revenue.
The increase in non-interest income from prior year reflects the mark-to-market on hedging activity, as well as higher mortgage banking revenue.
Reported non-interest expense of $179 million declined modestly linked quarter and grew less than 2% from prior year.
Pre-provision net revenue of $125 million increased $3 million from Q4 and decreased $9 million from prior year.
Provision for credit losses for the quarter was $76 million, which I will explain in more detail shortly.
The efficiency ratio improved to 58% from 58.5% in Q4, reflecting a modest increase in revenue and a slight decrease in non-interest expense.
And our effective tax rate was 22.6% compared to 22.3% in Q4.
Turning to Slide 10, I will review our results of our CECL adoption and the first quarter allowance.
As we look at the walk, the day one CECL adoption was $58 million, a 28% increase in the allowance, resulting in a starting coverage ratio of 1.33%.
During the quarter, we had $7.8 million in net charge-offs.
We recorded a $12 million provision as a result of loan growth of $855 million during the quarter.
Loan growth primarily came from the commercial categories and included $450 million in line draws in March, slower prepayment activity and loans funded from our strong fourth quarter pipeline.
The remaining Q1 provision was $64 million, bringing our allowance to $335 million or a coverage of 1.6%.
The provision is reflective of our economic outlook, including GDP, unemployment and housing prices and a qualitative assessment of our loan portfolio and how it will perform through the pandemic.
This was accomplished by reviewing higher-risk sectors, loans participating in modification programs and potential risk-rating migration based on a granular bottoms-up credit review.
At the time we closed the books in early April, our outlook included a second quarter GDP decline of nearly 20% with unemployment peaking just under 10% and a recovery beginning in the second half of 2020.
As we move into the second quarter, we will refine our assessment in three critical areas.
First, would be an update of our outlook on macroeconomic variables, second, an updated review of higher-risk sectors and our loan modification programs, and third, the assessment of the impact of government stimulus programs on our portfolio.
Initial April economic forecast are projected to be more severe as the second quarter GDP decline could exceed 30% with unemployment peaking near 15%.
All of these areas are still developing making it difficult to project how the pandemic will impact the provision in the second quarter and over the remainder of the year.
That being said, our provision in the second quarter will be driven more heavily by the expected duration and severity of the pandemic.
Slide 11 highlights our key asset quality metrics at March 31 prior to the effects of the current environment.
Non-performing loans in the upper left increased $12 million from Q4.
C&I represented $9 million of the increase.
Net charge-offs in the upper right increased slightly from Q4 and totaled $7.8 million in the quarter.
Commercial classified loans in the lower left represented 287 basis points of total commercial loans.
This compares to a 20-quarter average of 317 basis points.
The allowance for credit losses increased to $335 million, resulting in a coverage ratio of 1.6%.
Slide 12 highlights our key liquidity metrics.
Our diverse deposit gathering sources continue to provide us with a strong competitive advantage.
More than $1.1 billion of core deposit growth in Q1 has maintained our favorable loan to deposit ratio of 85%.
We are predominantly core deposit funded with brokerage CDs representing less than 0.5% of total deposits at March 31.
In addition, our sources of secured borrowing capacity remain intact, totaling over $9 billion at March 31.
Slide 13 highlights our key capital metrics.
Our regulatory capital ratios exceed well-capitalized levels by substantial amounts.
The common equity Tier 1 ratio of 11% exceeds well-capitalized by $1 billion, while the excess for the Tier 1 risk-based capital ratio is $809 million.
The unprecedented environment makes it difficult to provide formal guidance at this time.
What I can tell you is, we expect average earning assets to grow in the range of 4% over Q1, driven primarily by loan growth.
We expect net interest income to be flat to Q1 as a result of loan growth, Paycheck Protection Program volume and lower deposit and borrowing costs to be somewhat offset by lower asset yields as average market rates have come down since Q1.
Non-interest income will likely be flat to modestly down given the mark we recognized in Q1, and non-interest expense will likely be flat to Q1's level.
Our share count will be about 1.3 million shares lower on average due to buybacks completed in Q1.
With that, I'll turn things back over to John for a review of our credit profile.
Many of you know that I'm deeply involved in our credit execution as I grew up in commercial lending and credit and served as Webster's Chief Credit Risk Officer during the financial crisis.
As I said many times, I'm proud of the credit risk framework that we have built over the last dozen years with respect to risk selection, underwriting portfolio management and credit reporting.
The nearly $21 billion loan portfolio we have today has been thoughtfully and purposefully built.
While I never predict credit performance, the ultimate outcome of which will be determined by the depth and duration of this crisis.
I can say that we have been true to our underwriting guidelines and I'm very proud of our line of business and credit professionals, who always put risk management first.
Starting on Slide 14, you'll see an outline for this discussion.
As I mentioned Jason and I will comment on our exposure to those segments most directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
I'll then provide what I hope to be a clear and concise comparison of our current loan and securities portfolios with our 2007 pre-Great Recession portfolios.
And then I'll briefly walk through each of our loan portfolios allowing Jason to provide some context with key metrics, so hopefully, you'll get a sense, have a clear granular view of the $21 billion we have in loans.
I'll highlight on each slide without reading every detail, but I will provide you with what I believe to be the key takeaways.
Slide 15, you've seen this disclosure from other banks as they have reported.
This attempts to capture our loan outstandings in each of the most impacted sectors, including rating of categories, modification and line draw activity through 3/31, which Jason will update in a moment.
I want to make clear, we wanted to be transparent with this disclosure, but this doesn't represent all of the loans that we think are at risk.
Many of these loans are not at risk.
These are simply the categories that the industry has been reporting that are obviously most impacted in the first order [Phonetic] by the pandemic.
In fact, 94% of these loans are pass-rated and you'll see here that there has been limited modification and revolver draw activities, so I want to provide a little context there.
The key takeaway on this slide is that our direct exposure to these segments is modest on both an absolute and relative basis.
94% as I said are in pass-rated categories, most representing 1% or maybe 2% of our total loan portfolio.
We are fortunate as our strategies have over the long-term been focused on less cyclical industries with recurring cash flows.
So on a relative basis, we've not really pushed hard on sectors like energy, transportation, discretionary retail as focuses.
The other point I want to make before letting Jason provide some context is that you'll see retail in -- as broadly defined represents 5% of our loan portfolio.
In this category, more than 50% of those loans are in high-quality investor CRE, and those are mostly in non-discretionary pharmacy or grocery anchored.
And for those of you who've heard me talk about Bill Wrang over 25 years, with his retail exposure, he's always looking for non-discretionary.
I'll also tell you that an additional 20% of that retail exposure is fully followed in our ABL Group, where credits are borrowing base secured and often have cash dominion.
And I've been working with Warren Mino in that group for the entire 15 years I've been here and they have an unbelievable track record in managing even struggling large retail exposure.
So we've got a lot of confidence within that pocket of retail.
To provide an update on the information on the slide as of late last week, the overall pace of modification request has slowed the last couple of weeks.
Modifications are up to $692 million versus the $517 million.
Revolver draws in these sectors are up modestly to $130 million versus $122 million.
That said, as John mentioned early, commercial modifications in total have been roughly $1.85 billion as of late last week.
So we're clearly seeing modification activity beyond just these sectors.
Reality is that many of the companies being impacted may have a portion of their revenue tied to these sectors or otherwise feeling the ripple effect of the current environment.
It's a bit hard to capture all that with a straight top-down approach by sector.
And so for that reason, we're using a more granular bottoms-up approach to identify the exposure to borrowers that we believe may be more impacted in the current environment.
By exposure, we've reviewed over 80% of the accounts in the portfolio and have reached out to the majority of those where we have direct relationships.
We created a common framework to rate the potential level of impact to the borrowers, we roll that up weekly and have a call to review updates.
Based on this, I believe we have a good handle on the exposure to borrowers that may need some accommodation in the near-term.
I will also say that 90% of the borrowers that have requested modifications are pass-rated and many have low loan to values, junior capital, owner and sponsor support and liquidity.
So assuming we start to see a resumption of economic activity throughout 2020, we're optimistic that the majority of these borrowers will recover and we will certainly do our part to support them in a prudent way.
Turning to Page 16, these next three slides demonstrate the purposeful strategic shifts in our portfolio since the Great Recession.
This is the execution that I talked about earlier.
The reason I think these three slides are so important is that I've seen so many people use credit performance by asset class during the Great Recession as a proxy for loss prediction during the next credit downturn like the one we are entering into right now.
Again, I'll never promise or predict ultimate credit outcomes.
But I can tell you that our portfolio today is vastly different than what we had in 2007.
Not only are the portfolio dynamics different, but the way we underwrite, manage and report on risk is light-years ahead of where we were in 2007 when we had only a few years earlier transitioned to be an OCC regulated commercial bank.
A key takeaway on this slide comparing consumer and business banking loan portfolios and performance is that the overwhelming majority of losses here come from broker-originated non-centrally underwritten out of market mortgage and home equity loans and from a small portfolio of business banking unsecured loans.
We no longer originate out of market mortgages and home equity loans with few exceptions.
We centrally underwrite everything internally even correspondent in market loans, and we have been very disciplined on underwriting guidelines over the last 10 years.
Moreover, we have virtually no unsecured business banking loans and we do not originate that product.
On Page 17, it shows the same analysis for our Commercial Banking portfolios.
We had outsized losses in a discrete residential development portfolio and a discretionary aviation portfolio and equipment finance.
Consistent with my earlier comments, we have focused since the Great Recession on less cyclical verticals and businesses and you can see here that our exposure in those two areas is minimal as a result.
Another key point on this slide is the fact that sponsor and specialty and leveraged loans within our C&I business in general performed at the same level or better than our other portfolios in the commercial bank, a point I have made several times over earnings call -- calls when asked about the nature of our leveraged loans.
While our sponsor and leveraged loan portfolios are larger today on an absolute basis, I'll remind you that they represent roughly the same percentage of C&I loans as they represented in 2007, and they represent roughly the same percentage of Tier 1 capital plus reserves that they represented in 2007.
On Page 18, this is a critical slide.
You've heard me talk about the geography of our capital losses during the Great Recession.
Here you can see that the single biggest category of losses or writedowns for us during the financial crisis was not in the loan portfolios, but in trust preferred securities in our investment portfolio.
Today, only 18% of our $8.5 billion securities portfolio is credit-sensitive compared to 44% in 2007.
And the nature of those credit-sensitive instruments today is higher rated and higher quality.
Again, this was a purposeful strategy shift from lessons learned during the Great Recession.
So the natural question after these three slides is, so you've eliminated those activities that drove the highest losses, but are there other portfolios hidden in the port -- in your overall loan portfolio that could blow up and have losses.
And again I can't tell you that there's not going to be a specific segment or industry that will not have credit losses depending on the depth and duration.
But I can tell you, our ability to monitor our portfolio, the surveillance we have, the ability to look at correlated risk to cross portfolios, the quality of our risk management team is light-years ahead of what it was before.
And I can tell you that we've pivoted over time in the last 12 years on things like contractors or traditional advertising-based media, so that we're able to make decisions quickly to reduce emphasis in certain portfolios over time and we've done that.
So my confidence that there aren't hidden pockets of risk is much higher than it would have been during the Great Recession.
And I hope that those three slides provide some perspective on how thoughtful we've been about building our portfolio and the fact that we did take to heart lessons learned during the last downturn.
On Slide 19, you'll see just an overview of the portfolio.
And the truth is, it's a straightforward mid-sized bank typical portfolio with obviously a sponsor book in there where we have industry expertise.
You can see a high-level breakdown here of the $21 billion, and in the carats on the right, you'll see where those exposures reside.
So for consumer finance, the $7.2 billion portfolio, $7 billion of that are prime in-market residential mortgages and home equity loans, and then a small pocket of consumer finance, which includes Lending Club.
I will speak to each of these on the following slides.
Our commercial real estate is comprised of a majority of it in our Commercial Banking Investor CRE book run by Bill Wrang for over 21 years here, who's had great asset performance even during the Great Recession.
That also encapsulates our business banking investor CRE and owner-occupied CRE, and it also includes owner-occupied middle market commercial real estate loans, as well as some technology infrastructure data center like real estate secured businesses.
The C&I is typical C&I in middle market, in sponsor and specialty, it includes our enterprise leveraged loans, asset-based lending and equipment finance, and then you'll see the investment securities where we make the point again on the breakdown between non-credit and credit-sensitive instruments.
And on page 36 in the supplemental information, please don't turn to it now, you'll see a detailed breakdown of the investment securities portfolio, which I will not cover here.
On Page 20, residential mortgage.
The key takeaway on this slide is that our $5 billion mortgage portfolio is a high-quality prime in-market centrally underwritten portfolio with high FICO scores and modest LTVs, both at origination and when updated for today.
Credit performance not surprisingly has been outstanding.
And I told you that we've only had a modest level of modification and payment deferral request to-date on this portfolio.
On Page 21, home equities, pretty much the same story as mortgages.
In-market prime, strong FICO and LTV metrics at origination and even slightly improved when updated today.
We manage this book effectively through end of draw on much of the portfolio and we have not seen interestingly any defensive drawdown activities on the unfunded portion of these home equity loans thus far into the crisis.
I also want to highlight one carat there that close to 50%, 50 of this portfolio is in a first-lien position.
On Slide 22, personal lending, a very small $220 million.
80% of it represents Lending Club.
And as you know, it's about $176.2 million and has been coming down since the peak of about $230 million, $240 million.
We stopped purchasing lower tranches in 2017, purchasing just As and Bs, and recently just As.
And we are no longer purchasing Lending Club.
If you look at it, the FICO scores are strong and has been improving and we have not seen credit performance in this small portfolio deteriorate yet.
We'll obviously watch it closely.
We've got good geographic diversity in the portfolio.
And over the time we've been involved with Lending Club, we have seen performance in the portfolio that meets or exceeds expectations.
On Page 23, in commercial real estate, our total CRE portfolio.
We've had meaningful and targeted growth over the last few years as we are good at it and we've been underweight compared to peers and when compared to regulatory concentration hurdles.
Majority of this business is in our investor CRE line within the commercial bank led by the same management team for many years and through cycles.
I'll provide more detail on that $3.8 billion representing the 62% you see in the top chart there on the next page.
The overall portfolio was well diversified with limited exposure in more volatile sectors, and very little hotel exposure, very little discretionary retail exposure.
We've had less office exposure as well than we did 10 years ago.
So on the next page, let's do a deep dive on our largest exposures and our largest part of the retail -- portfolio.
Focusing on Investor CRE, we've had a targeted strategy of growing multifamily and industrial, selectively financing office projects in strong markets.
It's more of an institutional quality real estate portfolio.
It performed exceptionally well during the last downturn.
It tends to be lower yielding, but more resilient during a tough credit time.
We partner with experienced sponsors on equity partners and provide well-structured solutions with sufficient cushion to withstand volatility.
If you look here at the origination metrics, they've been very steady over the last few years despite competing in a highly competitive lending environment and that discipline tends to serve us well.
It's also translated into very strong updated portfolio statistics, which are the bottom chart there.
So we're not talking about 80% loan-to-value real estate loans.
We're talking about a portfolio of 60% loan-to-value real estate loans with an average debt service coverage ratio of nearly two times.
Overall and not surprisingly, asset quality is really strong in this portfolio and we've been reaching out to our customers aggressively and we will be managing through whatever the crisis brings us, but we feel really good about this portfolio.
On Page 25, you'll see the C&I portfolio balanced and diversified.
This includes our sponsor and leveraged portfolios, which are primarily industry-focused, collaterally focused businesses in ABL and equipment finance, core input [Phonetic] businesses in middle market and business banking.
Most meaningful concentrations are in broad diversified categories, such as services and communications, a good portion of which is software, technology and infrastructure originated in our sponsor business.
And we've maintained lower exposure in construction and retail, as well as finance companies, which we feel could represent correlated risk with our broader portfolio, so we have deemphasized over time those segments.
On Page 26, we'll talk about sponsor and specialty and leveraged on these last two pages, and I'll ask Jason to provide a little more color and context.
One of the important things that we always talk about and I'm not sure is fully understood is that our sponsor and specialty business is $3.3 billion or something.
Only a third of that is leveraged loans.
We're reporting here leveraged loans, which are leveraged at origination based on regulatory definitions generally three by four senior to total leverage.
So, a full two-thirds of our sponsor and specialty portfolio is acquisition and industry-specific financing that does not qualify as leveraged loans.
Most of our leveraged loans are in this book over 80%.
We've been lending the sponsor-backed and leveraged companies since 2004 when Chris Motl and I arrived at the bank.
We've meaningful shift -- meaningfully shifted this book over time to make sure that we're lending to non-cyclical end-markets that have recurring protectable, predictable streams of cash flow.
You'll see that software, tech and infrastructure has grown from about one-third of the portfolio to almost 50%, again that's because of the nature of the transactions in the underlying companies, and these companies seem to be less susceptible to this particular crisis as well.
Healthcare is another defined vertical, where we seek to support routine medical services that will benefit from demographic trends.
And at the same time, we've shifted away from some segments that are less predictable and less protectable from a cash flow perspective.
And the last slide, I'll cover before I let Jason provide a little context on sponsor and specialty is Slide 27.
And this is something that I talked about a little over a year ago on an earnings call when we talked about leveraged lending.
This page shows comparative metrics between what we're originating in sponsor and specialty and the broader leveraged loan capital markets.
On average, we have a turn to a turn and a half less leverage on the deals we do versus the market, that's less risk.
We've maintained discipline on covenants with only 7% of our book being covenant-lite, where the general market is almost 84% covenant-lite.
The leveraged deals we have those that are leveraged loans are still half a turn to a turn inside the broader leverage market and non-leverages are almost two turns inside the market.
When we look at the borrower's ability to service debt, we have a very strong profile with 85% to 90% having fixed charge coverage ratios of greater than one and a half times.
And on average for both leveraged and non-leveraged deals in sponsor, our loan-to-value, that's the loan to the enterprise value is between 35% and 40% on average.
In most cases with significant cash equity or junior debt beneath us.
And the sponsors that we have worked with through financial crisis with relationships over a long time have deep financial and management resources to help us through a downturn.
We saw that during the 2008 crisis.
Jason, can you put maybe a finer point on some of those or fill in something I might have missed.
Look, John, I think you hit all the key points.
I guess the only thing I would say is, we've really increased the percentage of direct deals that we've done over the last four, five years from about half to about two-thirds, which we think is important.
And I guess the last thing I'd probably add and I think it just speaks to the credit culture here at the bank is, our strategy in sponsor and leveraged has not only been deliberate, but it also has been very collaborative between the lines of business and credit.
We've been particularly disciplined in moving away from the areas that you mentioned like traditional media and restaurants, as well as smaller cyclical credits, where we've had some historical losses.
And we've also been very clear about our underwriting parameters as we've grown.
And for example, we -- in tech and infrastructure, which is the largest segment.
When we talk about financing recurring revenue business models, 90% of the exposure in that book has over 70% recurring revenue.
There is only one deal that has less than 50% of recurring revenue in that book, which again represents almost half of the sponsor book.
If deals come in outside those parameters, our commercial leaders generally just pass.
And again it's not to say that those deals will be bulletproof, right.
It really depends on the end-markets those customers serve and the competitive dynamics.
But our thesis is that the services and software being provided are making customers more efficient and smarter about their businesses.
So we expect that once installed, the revenue will be sticky.
The insights, direction and dedication that Jim and John have given to Webster over so many years have helped to make this organization what it is today and will continue to influence us into the future.
They are both personal mentors to me and I'm proud to call them friends.
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Chosen response:
compname reports q1 earnings per share $0.39.
compname reports first quarter 2020 earnings of $0.39 per diluted share.
q1 earnings per share $0.39.