Comerica Incorporated

Comerica Incorporated

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Comerica Incorporated (0I1P.L) Q3 2007 Earnings Call Transcript

Published at 2007-10-17 15:01:49
Executives
Darlene P. Persons - Director, IR Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and CEO Elizabeth S. Acton - EVP and CFO Dale E. Greene - EVP and Chief Credit Officer
Analysts
Gary Townsend - Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co Terry Mcevoy - Oppenheimer & Co Michael Mayo - Deutsche Bank Steven Alexopoulos - J.P. Morgan Manuel Ramirez - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Christopher Mutascio - Stifel Nicolaus & Company Heather Wolf - Merrill Lynch
Operator
Good morning. My name is Tierra and I will be the conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Comerica Inc. Third Quarter 2007 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to your host Ms. Darlene Persons. You may begin your conference. Darlene P. Persons - Director, Investor Relations: Thank you, Tierra. Good morning and welcome to Comerica third quarter 2007 earnings conference call. This is Darlene Persons, Director of Investor Relations. I am here with Ralph Babb, Chairman; Beth Acton, Chief Financial Officer; and Dale Greene, Chief Credit Officer. A copy of our earnings release, financial statements, and supplemental information is available in the Edgar section of the SEC's website as well as on our website. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that this conference call contains forward-looking statements and in that regard, you should be mindful of the risks and uncertainties that can cause future results to vary from expectations. I refer you to the Safe Harbor statement contained in the earnings release issued today, which I incorporate into this call as well as our filings with the SEC. Now, I will turn the call over to Ralph. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Good morning. This is our first earnings conference call from our new headquarters in Dallas Texas. Our executive management team is now in place at Comerica Bank Tower, which is on Main Street and downtown Dallas. We are very grateful for the warm Texas welcome we continue to receive. Our third quarter earnings per share was $1.17 from continuing operations was down from a $1 in the quarter in the second quarter and $1.20 in the third quarter 2006. Third quarter results reflected strong loan growth in our high growth markets. The net interest margin of 3.66% declined 10 basis points from the second quarter, reflecting a more competitive deposit environment, an increase in borrowings, and a larger investment securities portfolio. We increased the provision for loan losses by $9 million from the second quarter due to the continued commercial real estate challenges in Michigan and California. We had good fee income growth in the third quarter and our expenses were controlled. Even as we continued our banking center expansion program and relocated our corporate headquarters to Texas. We saw a strong loan growth in Texas of 20% on an annualized basis. Western market loan growth also was solid at 13% on an annualized basis, excluding financial services division loans and the seasonal decline in the national dealer services business. Our Michigan market leadership team continued to do a good job of maintaining our leadership position in that state, as evidenced in part by the increased deposits in the third quarter. As you know from recent news announcements, the third quarter was a challenging one for many companies in the financial services sector. The sector was hit hard across the board due to the challenging credit market conditions, higher borrowing costs, volatility in the mortgage baked securities market, and the continued deterioration in the consumer credit in the housing and subprime residential mortgage markets. The changes in market conditions were more severe and more sudden than many expected. While it is not an ideal environment we are navigating our way through these swift currents. Fortunately, the issues that have caused the greatest volatility fall largely outside of the parameters of Comerica’s business. We do not sponsor or participate in the asset backed commercial paper market or in structured investment vehicles. We do provide backup lines for securitization vehicles. However, these commitments are nominal and none are related to mortgage activity. Comerica’s loans to highly leveraged companies account for only about 3% of our total loans. With regard to shared national credits, Comerica is the agent on about 14% of these facilities. A very small percentage would be considered highly leveraged transactions, and we do not typically underwrite large or covenant light transactions. We do not compromise our credit standards, return expectations or our exposure guidelines in order to participate in a syndicated facility. Our risk management is another important differentiator. In recent years, we have invested significant resources into enhancing our credit process. This process was put to the test in the third quarter as a result of the increased stress on our commercial real estate portfolios. While we saw some continued deterioration in credit quality, we have taken additional, specific reserves and realigned internal resources to continue our active management of these credits in light of the tough commercial real estate environment; particularly in Michigan and California. We believe our enhanced credit process is assisting us in staying ahead of problems and has positioned us well to manage credit throughout cycles, including this current one. With regard to the consumer segment, less than 8% of the loan portfolio is in residential and consumer loans and we have no subprime programs. The de-stabilization of the mortgage market has had an impact on the non-interest bearing deposits in our financial services division. This has been partially offset by deposits we are generating in our new banking centers. We have obtained more than $1.5 billion in the new deposits in the 73 banking centers we have opened since beginning our expansion program in late 2004. We are still on pace to open about 30 banking centers in 2007. The banking centers that have opened are achieving the desired results. For example the New Century City Banking Center in California is experiencing strong deposit growth and became accretive to earnings in just three months, well ahead of the 18 month average. While we are advancing our strategy to diversify our customer base and extend our reach on our high grove markets, we continue to do what we do best, provide exceptional customer service. Recent surveys from Greenwich and Venus Act [ph] underscore our proven ability to meet the needs of small and middle market businesses respectively. As a banking company with a strong focus on relationships, we have brought solutions to our customers that have helped them to be successful in the marketplace. Our strategy is working. We are making new investment to move the needle in a meaningful way on the geographic balance of our earnings mix, and we expect those results to accelerate. We believe the balance gross strategy will produce more stable and consistent earnings over time. And now, I’ll turn the call over to Beth and Dale who will discuss our third quarter results in more detail. Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Thank you, Ralph. As I review our third quarter results, I will be referring to slides that we had prepared to provide additional detail on our earnings. Turning to slide three, we outlined the major components of our third quarter results compared to prior period. Today, we reported third quarter 2007 earnings per share from continuing operations of $1.17 compared to $1.25 in the second quarter. Turning to slide four and an overview of the financial highlights from the quarter. We continued to have strong loan growth in our high growth markets. On an annualized basis, average loans excluding the financial services division increased 4%, led by a 20% increase in Texas, 10% in Florida, and 6% in the Western market. Excluding the seasonal decline International Dealer Services loan, average annualized loan growth would be 7% in total, 29% in Florida, 22% in Texas, and 13% in the Western market. Then as interest margin decreased 10 basis points to 3.66% in the third quarter, primarily reflecting a more competitive deposit environment, increase in borrowings, and a larger investments securities portfolio. Credit quality remains sound, both non-performing assets and net credit related charge-offs showed modest increases from low levels. Provision for loan losses for the third quarter at $45 million was slightly more than charge-offs and compared to $36 million in the second quarter. We continued to carefully control expenses. Non-interest expenses increased $12 million, largely reflecting an $8 million litigation related insurance settlement received in the second quarter. Total employee headcount, again, remain virtually unchanged. We repurchased 2 million shares in the third quarter as we worked to bring our capital ratios to the middle of our target ranges. The third quarter payout was a 114% of earnings. As outlined on slide five, in spite of good loan growth, net interest income decreased modestly in the third quarter, primarily as a result of higher funding cost due to the volatility and the capital markets, and a decline in the non-interest bearing deposits in our financial services division. The decline in the margin from the second quarter reflected the change in funding mix including customer movement toward higher cost deposits as the O-curve steepened and an increase in borrowing. Maturities of interest rate swaps which carried a negative spread, provided a 3 basis points lift to the net interest margin, but was offset by the impact of $320 million increase in our securities portfolio. Finally, prior non-accrual interest recoveries in a second quarter and higher average non-accrual loans in the third quarter had a negative impact on the margins between quarters. Slide six shows the growth of our securities portfolio over the past few quarters. We have opportunistically increased our investment securities portfolio as spreads widened. While increasing the portfolio had a 3 basis point negative impact on the net interest margin in the three quarter, it is assisting us in managing our interest rate risk. Within our securities portfolio we have invested almost exclusively in AAA rated mortgage backed government sponsored agency securities specifically Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Slide seven shows non-interest income levels over the past several quarters. Third quarter non-interest income reflected positive trends in fee income with increases in a number of categories as detailed on the slide. In addition, net income from principal investing and warrants increased $5 million. Net securities gains of $4 million were recorded primarily consisted of a $3 million gain on the sale of put rights obtained in a non-accrual loan workout several years ago, similar to a loan recovery. These increases were partially offset by an $8 million decrease in deferred compensation plan asset returns. Note that this last item was completely offset by a decrease in salary’s expense. Moving to the balance sheet in slide eight. Compared to the prior period average loans excluding the financial services division increased $2.7 billion for 6%. We are steadily making progress toward our goal of achieving more geographic balance with markets upside in the Midwest now comprising 55% of average loans compared to 52% a year ago. Slide nine provides details on line of business loan growth excluding financial services division. All commercial business lines experience growth in the third quarter compared to the same period last year, even as we continue to reduce our automotive supplier exposure. The middle market, global corporate banking, and national dealer services portfolios showed growth in each of our major markets. The third quarter increase in specialty businesses compared to the prior year was centered in the technology and life sciences portfolio, which grew $357 million, and the energy portfolio, which grew $201 million. On a linked quarter basis, average loans excluding the financial services division increased $470 million to $48.7 billion due to increases in commercial real estate, a $155 million global corporate banking, a $138 million middle market, a $135 million and energy $132 million. Loans in international dealer services experienced a seasonal decline of $291 million. Now, Dale Greene, our Chief Credit Officer will discuss recent credit quality trends, starting on slide 10. Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Good morning. Credit quality continue to be sound in the third quarter, while there was modest deterioration in credit quality this quarter, our metric still remain at historically low levels. Our metrics in the Texas market were once again very strong. And while there are signs of some slowing in the Texas economy, on a relative basis, it is still showing good growth. All our business lines in Texas are displaying very strong credit quality. Overall, credit quality in the Western market continues to be quite good with historically strong metrics. That being said, the residential real estate development portfolio, as we have noted before, have seen the softening in select market and some markets and that trend continues. We are monitoring that portfolio very closely. The issues are measurable, but we do expect to see some deterioration in residential housing markets before recovery begins. The economic environment in Michigan continues to be difficult, which is having a particularly significant negative impact on the residential real estate development. The provision for the loan losses were $45 million, a $9 million increase from the second quarter, due to ongoing challenges and commercial real estates, specifically in Michigan and California. Our watch loans were 6.5% of total loans, an increase from the prior quarter and non-performing assets remained at a historically low level of 59 bases points of total loans and foreclosed property. We had a $13 million decline in a dollar amount of loans greater than $2 million that were transferred to non-accrual status in the third quarter as compared to the second quarter. Of this $94 million in transfers to non-accrual, all were in the Midwest and by industry, real estate account of $77 million of these transfers to non-accrual. There were no new non-accrual transfers over $ 2 million from the automotive supplier segment. There were two new loans of over $10 million transfer to non-accrual; both are real estate projects in Michigan. Gross charge-offs increased $4 million and recoveries declined $6 million from second quarter levels, resulting in $10 million increase to net creditable charge-offs to $40 million or 32 basis points of average total loans in the third quarter. Additional reserves from Michigan as well as California real estate were established this quarter. We have not seen any materializing in any material deterioration in other sectors. As far as the decline and recoveries, while we continue to work our files, there are fewer opportunities for recovery due to the very low charge-offs we have experienced for many quarters. Comerica’s allowance for all loan losses, which I will discuss, further in a moment, was 1.03% of total loans and 176% of non-performing assets. Net credit related charge-offs for the first nine month of 2007 were 24 basis points. We believe net charge-offs for the fourth quarter will be consistent with what we experienced in the third quarter. Slide 11 outlines the changes we have made in our loan loss reserve in the third quarter. Comerica’s loan loss reserve is based on an in depth credit quality review, which is performed at the end of each quarter. In addition, we are continuously reviewing the components of the reserve, analyzing risk rating migration within industries and geographies and conducting stress testing of various segments. This quarter, we increased the reserve allocated to our commercial real estate portfolio in Michigan, and also added reserves for our California residential real estate developed exposure, due to negative migration and the results of our stress testing analysis. This was partially offset by reduction in other industries segments, primarily the automotive industry, where we saw evidence of improved results as we have reduced exposure over last several quarters. In addition, we have reduced the reserve for gasoline delivery where our refined analysis indicated less risk. In addition, we maintained an off balance sheet reserve for landing related commitments. In the third quarter, we had no change to the provision for credit losses on landing related commitments compared to a negative provision of $2 million in the second quarter. On slide 12, we provide a breakdown of our commercial real estate portfolio. A little less than two-thirds of commercial real estate portfolio are primarily commercial mortgages for owner occupied properties of our middle market and small business customers. The remainder consists of our commercial real estate line of business. This portfolio includes both local and national real estate developers, primarily involved in the residential development. On slight 13, we provide the detail breakdown by geography and project type of our commercial real estate line of business. There is further detail provided in the appendix to the slides. As I mentioned earlier, in this segment, we transferred $77 million in relationship over $2 million to non-performing loans. This encompasses several relationships all located in Midwest. One of these relationships is with a long time Michigan based developer, which has several projects in Florida. The largest exposure we have geographically is in the Western market California specifically. The sacramental market in general has been significantly affected by over building and the decline in demand. Like any real estate market, there are sub markets, but they are doing fine. But overall will be some time before sacramental is back to full health. We do have exposure in this market, but we believe the issues are manageable. Similarly, the San Diego market has been affected as well primarily by the decline in demand. While the market is still soft, we are seeing some signs of firming in demand. Again, we believe the problems have been identified and are manageable. We are monitoring the performance of our customers very closely, including their liquidity positions, inventory levels, and analyzing trends such as absorption rates and sales prices. In cases where there are issues, we are proactively restructuring facilities, for example, reducing exposure, taking additional security, and guaranties, and increasing the controls. Our large customer base in this segment assist us and evaluating market conditions and assessing the current performance of a project. In addition, we have extensive expertise and experience in this segment, and many of our managers and relationship officers have been through cycles. We have added additional reserves to our work out… excuse me… additional resources through our workout area to assist in working through the issues, and we are assessing the secondary loan sale market as appropriate. As you know, conditions in this segment have been deteriorating for over a year, but issues recently compounded by the subprime mortgage problems. As a result of ongoing softness, we have increased our reserves for this segment. Turning to slide 14, I would like to make a few comments on our shared national credits or SNC relationships. More than half of our SNC exposure is in areas where we maintain large corporate relationships, primarily in commercial real estate and global corporate banking. In other areas, particularly middle market, we have worked to manage our exposure to customers by arranging club facilities, inviting other banks into our facility. You recall that SNC loans are facilities that are greater than $20 million and shared by three or more financial institutions. We ages [ph] about 14% of these loans and have not experienced any significant issues in the syndication process. We have a policy that we must have direct contact with the management of the company and have identified potential products and services that we can provide in addition to our participation in the SNC facility. Our philosophy is that ancillary business not only provide supplemental income, but increases customer loyalty and provides opportunities for regular contact with the customer, increasing our knowledge and understanding of their business. We do not compromise our credit standards, return expectations or exposure guidelines in order to participate in any syndicated facility. Finally, this category is very granular consisting of over 1,000 borrowers. There is also well diversified by both line of business and geography. The category has better credit metrics than that of the total loan portfolio. There are currently no non-performing SNC loans and there have been no net loan charge-offs in 2007. Slide 15 provides an overview of our consumer loan portfolio, which includes the consumer and residential mortgage loan categories on the balance sheet. This portfolio is relatively small representing just 8% of our total loans. These loans are self originated and part of the full service relationship. We have broken the portfolio down in the three categories. A $1.9 billion in residential mortgage as we hold on our balance sheet are primarily associated with our private banking customers. The residential mortgages we originate through our banking centers are typically sold to a third party. Home equity lines and loans, which are predominantly secured by second mortgages, comprised 38% of the portfolio. And finally, the other category the 18% includes automobile, personal watercrafts, student and recreational vehicle loans. We are not in the subprime mortgage business and the performance of our consumer portfolio has been stable. The residential mortgage portfolio continues to perform very well. In fact, we have not had a charge-off in this portfolio in several years. We have seen a slight increase in delinquencies on the revolving home equity lines and have increased reserves in the third quarter. Turning to slide 16. We have outlined the few characteristics of our home equity portfolio. Roughly three quarters of our portfolio consists of revolving home equity lines and the remaining one quarter are amortizing home equity loans. These loans were originated by us as part of the full service customer relationship. The quality of the portfolio is reflected in the solid FICO and loan to value statistics. Slide 17 provides detail on the recent performance of the automotive portfolio. Our dealer business represents over 70% of the automotive outstanding. Two-thirds of this portfolio was located in the Western market and two-thirds of the portfolio is with dealerships selling foreign name plates. As the majority of the portfolio is of a well secured floor plan nature, we expect it will continue to perform well. We have not experienced a significant loss in the dealer portfolio in many years. Looking at our non-dealer automotive exposure, which we continually to… we continue to proactively manage to a lower level, outstanding are decreased 13% in the first eight months of 2007 after declining 19% in 2006. This portfolio now represents about 4% of total loans. Non-performing loans were down with no inflows to non-accrual for the third consecutive quarter, and we had no net credit related charge-offs in this portfolio in the third quarter. Performance of this portfolio has stabilized, but we remain cautious. Now, I’ll turn the call back to Beth. Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Thanks Dale. Slide 18 details average deposits average deposits by a line of business. Total average core deposits excluding financial services division of $31.1 billion increased 4% on an annualized basis in the third quarter. Average retail bank deposits declined slightly due primarily to a decrease in retail deposits in Michigan as we experienced a decrease in the average balance per consumer account. This was partially offset by an increase in small banking deposits in the Texas and Western markets. Within the business bank technology and life sciences report the largest increase with a $101 million increase in average deposits. On a geographical basis, excluding the national services division, annualized average deposits in the third quarter when compared to the second quarter, were up 9% in the Texas market, 5% in the West, and 3% in the Midwest. Competition for bank deposits remains strong. And while standard pricing rates remain stable, promotional rate offering intensified as the cost of alternative funding for banks increased. As yield curve improved, customer shifted into higher yielding, longer maturity time deposits. Non-interest bearing deposits account for about 26% of our average total deposits. These deposits declined in the third quarter due to a decrease in financial service division deposits. On slide 19, we provide an update to our financial services division business. Inline with the continuous cooling of the California housing market combined with the de-stabilization of the mortgage market, non-interest bearing deposits decreased $702 million in the third quarter. Interest bearing deposits, which bear interests at comparative rates were unchanged. Related average loan balance has decreased to approximately $389 million. While customer service expense was flat relative to the previous quarter. Our outlook for the financial services division as the deposits will continue to trend lower for the remainder of the year. Therefore, we expect fourth quarter non-interest bearing deposits of about $1.8 billion. This is a reduction from our previous outlook and is inline with the expectation. The housing market will remain depressed. We also expect that average loans will continue to fluctuate at the level of non-interest bearing deposits. As you can see on our slide 20, our banking center expansion is producing the desired results. Deposits attributed to our new banking centers totaled over $1.5 billion as of September 2007, up from $1.1 billion in June. These new deposits are well distributed with 48% generated by the Retail Bank, 39% by the Business Bank, and 13% by Wealth & Institutional Management. We continue to meet our goal having our new banking centers accretive within 18 months. We have opened 13 new banking centers year-to-date and planned to open about 17 more banking centers in the remainder of 2007, all of them in high growth markets. We expect about $55 million in new banking centers expense for full year 2007, up from $30 million for full year 2006. Turning to slide 21, you see here a picture of our new corporate headquarters. As Ralph indicated earlier our executive management team has relocated to the Comerica Bank Tower in downtown Dallas. Early next year, we expect to have a banking center on the ground floor and occupy the first five floors that we are leasing. I am pleased to report that we are meeting our timeline and expenses are tracking below our initial budget. Executive management is becoming engaged in the community and we are already starting to see new opportunities that will assist in accelerating our growth in this market. Our colleagues in Michigan continue to work to maintain our leadership position in the Michigan market, and we have not lost any significant business as a result of the relocation of our headquarters. Slide 22 updates our expectations for the full year 2007 compared to full year 2006. We continue to anticipate average total loan growth for the year to be in the mid to high single digit range, excluding financial services division loans. Growth in the Western and Texas markets is expected to be low double digit with the Midwest remaining flat in light of the continuing challenging economy. The average full year net interest margin is expected to be in the high 360s range, reflecting a net interest margin in the low 350 range for the fourth quarter. We have adjusted our margin outlook primarily in response to changes in the capital markets, specifically our outlook has decreased in light of our expected continued loan growth in the context of a more challenging funding and deposit environment. The deposit environment remain highly competitive as banks are only selectively lowering rates in conjunction with Fed easing as the cost of alternative funding sources remains relatively expensive. Also the competitive landscape of our financial services division has become even more intense as volumes have declined. On the positive side, the changes in the financial markets provided an opportunity to add to our securities portfolio in the third quarter, and we expect to continue adding to the portfolio in the fourth quarter as opportunities arrive. These security portfolio additions will be positive to earnings, but will have a negative impact on the margin in the fourth quarter. We believe the Federal Reserve will reduce rates one more time this year, specifically by 25 basis points at the end of October. Our outlook for credit qualities for average net credit related charge-offs were about 25 basis points for the full year. We believe that net charge-offs for the fourth quarter will be consistent with what we experienced in the third quarter. We are revising our non-interest income expectations upward to high single digit growth for the full year. Our outlook for flat non-interest expenses remains unchanged. We will continue our strategy of active capital management. We expect our sharing purchase for the year to be about 10 million shares up from 9 million communicated previously. Now, we will be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Question and Answer
Operator
[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line of Gary Townsend. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Hi, Gary. Gary Townsend - Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co: Good morning. Ralph, Beth, Darlene, and Dale too there. Maybe the first question for Dale. If you could discuss the residential construction work again and particularly the Michigan developer with projects in Florida, is the problem with that credit the Florida exposure or… what else can you add? Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Okay. I will do my best. The Michigan line of business… commercial real estate portfolio is roughly $900 million. So, it’s a relatively small piece of the overall commercial real estate line of business portfolio. Within that portfolio, we will have developers, who will do projects not only in Michigan, but elsewhere. And this particular case that I referenced, this is a long time customer of long time developer who we know very well, which is an important ingredient, particularly in a workout situation, who did our project… a couple of projects actually in Florida that has generally performed well, but has recently come into some tough time. So, we are working through that project with them as we would with anyone else who would get into trouble. The good news is that it’s in a location where continues to be good growth and we are hopeful that we can re-structure this and successfully exit it over time, but that is not an unusual situation for a number of our Michigan residential developers. Gary Townsend - Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co: So, you would be providing him finance that he would be using for construction in Florida. Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Correct. Gary Townsend - Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co: Okay. And Beth, very impressive slide 20, the new banking center deposits. But if you could discuss… you have got great growth year and if you project this into future, it’s certainly going to be helpful. But it seems to be masked currently at least by other things and the overall deposit growth has not been that impressive. So, could you also just speak to how you see this developing from here? Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Yes, well, I guess what I say generally speaking is a couple of things. One is, if you look at excluding our financial services business, our deposit growth was good in the quarter. And part of that was obviously bolstered by the new banking center additions, particularly you saw higher growth in Texas and Western and that still growth in Michigan too. What’s counter veiling a lot of that good growth, out of new banking centers obviously is the financial services division. Our deposits are down, $1.8 billion year-over-year in total in FSD. And so, in that 12 months period that is big decline that is hard to totally offset, but as we said other than FSD, we are getting growth in our core deposits and we feel positive about that as the new banking centers are contributing to that obviously. Gary Townsend - Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co: I see that loans were down the FSD in the quarter, and so, the margin impact, low yielding loans out of these somewhat reduced, do I have that right or not? Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Yes, you have exactly right. The deposits declined about $700 million, the loans were down about $400 million. So, the impact of the margin was negligible. But we did say our expectation is in the forth quarter that as this business has been shrinking that the competitive dynamics are getting more intense, and therefore, we may not be able to maintain that offsetting totally in the fourth quarter. Gary Townsend - Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co: Any thought to… any strategic choice with respect to the FSD operation? Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: I think we continue to realign it in terms of resources. We are down about 16%, 17% from a couple of years ago. And we are… we will be working to make sure that business is aligned from resource standpoint with a lower deposit as we go forward. Gary Townsend - Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co: Thanks for comments. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Thanks Gary.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Terry Mcevoy. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Terry. Terry Mcevoy - Oppenheimer & Co: Hi good morning. The 20% loan growth in Texas pretty impressive number, given I think Dale had mentioned some softness in the market. I think it was 6% last quarter. And then the deposit growth I think was 9% this quarter in Texas. Anything special going on in terms of aggressive marketing… maybe being aggressive on the pricing of products, given the relocation, or is it just the strategy is working? Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: I think the last point is the right one. I think the strategy is working. I think we’ve got… we’ve seen new opportunities. I think part of that’s because we’re now here and that does mean something in the market. Certainly, part of it… the growth of the energy sector itself which we’re an active participant. I think what I would say overall is all the businesses particularly in the middle market segment are experiencing good quality growth. We’re not seeing any stretch in terms of the metrics, if you will, or the structures of the pricing, it’s pretty much down the middle. Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: And I think to reinforce what Dale said, we actually, if you look at all of our lines of business saw improvement in the quarter. So, it’s not just isolated in one sector like energy, it’s across all of our business lines. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: I would emphasize one thing you said Terry and that as our management group has gotten here, we have all been very active in the community and making calls and opening doors that support Chuck Gummer and his Texas team, who’s been here about 20 years. So, we’re seeing that accelerate opportunities. Terry Mcevoy - Oppenheimer & Co.: Just one last question on the relocation expenses. I know the City of Dallas in the state of Texas offered some incentives and will that come through the tax line or will that just be… those incentives be netted against the expenses that we saw last quarter as well as in the most recent quarter? Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Yes, those are being netted against the expense so that the net result in the third quarter was $2 million net increase in expense related to the relocation. Terry Mcevoy - Oppenheimer & Co.: Thank you very much. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Mike Mayo. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Mike. Michael Mayo - Deutsche Bank: Good morning. Can you give a little more color on the margin outlook? I guess you said it could be down fourth quarter. So, spread revenues also down. And I guess related question, so that include the benefit of the maturity swaps and what’s your overall interest rate position? I know you’re modestly hurt by lower rates when the quarter started. Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Looking at the fourth quarter outlook we gave versus the third, we will have a positive impact from maturing swaps. We have $800 million maturing in the quarter. So, that will provide several basis points of positive lift. But there are couple of… there really is a continuation we see expect in the fourth quarter that the deposit environment will remain still very competitive that deposit rates just are not coming down. And even if there is a Fed decline, we think the opportunity for much of a decline in deposits is less. So, that will impact the fourth quarter. The wholesale funding cost to the extent, again, we are projecting lower deposits from FSD will be increasing our need for wholesale borrowings and obviously the cost of that for all participants is higher. And so, that’s reflected in our outlook. And the addition of securities I mentioned that we increased our securities portfolio in the third quarter we anticipate assuming that attractiveness remain doing more of that in the fourth and there will be a higher impact… negative impact on the margin in the fourth quarter versus the third in terms of what we added in the third and we anticipate adding in the fourth. And finally, I mentioned just a minute ago that we have an expectation that there will be more some margin pressure from the FSD business. So, it’s really all of those factors, deposits, wholesale funding, FSD, and securities purchases that have an impact on the margin in the fourth quarter. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: I would add to that, Mike that we have not really seen an upward pressure on pricing on the assets side at this point. It has still been a very competitive market. I would expect to see that in time, but at this point, can’t project it. Michael Mayo - Deutsche Bank: Which markets in particular because traditionally you have capital markets disruption more firms want to go to banks, and you would think you would have a little more pricing powers. So, what’s causing this ongoing heightened level of competition? Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: I think you see based on what you just said, just to carry on with that a little bit, at the higher end, you’ve seen some. At the lower end, you’ve seen a little bit, but at the middle market, we have seen that yet, because they are used to working with banks day-to-day as it is. Michael Mayo - Deutsche Bank: And are you… when you are talking at this competition, can you kind of rank your markets as it worse than Michigan, Texas, California. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: I would say it’s strong in all the markets. Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Yes, it is. Mike, I mean… and even in Michigan. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: In Michigan, it’s very. Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: I think actually… and we keep saying and is surprisingly very competitive. So, we really haven’t really seen the opportunity there to do much on the margin side. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Michigan would probably be at the top on the deposit side. And then California and Texas would be follow that, probably Texas is next and then California. On the loan side, I would say that we see that competition really it kind of crossed the board. Michael Mayo - Deutsche Bank: And then unrelated, you are saying charge-offs should be kind of flat, which would, I guess it would be good for the fourth quarter. What’s your expectation for next year? And why do you expect losses to stay so low, given the environment that we are in? Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Well, I think that there’s a lot of… it’s sort of a complex answer. The fundamental thing is that we believe that we have added additional resources on our workout area that can help us, particularly real estate experienced workout resources. We are working with developers who we have known for years. We think we have taken all of the appropriate steps to structure these appropriately, reserve for them appropriately, and take charge-offs as necessary. We are from time-to-time accessing the secondary market, which does exist for real estate transactions. And so, that’s a helpful strategy. And what we learn on the auto side, i.e. quick actions staying in front, gearing up resources and workout, accessing the secondary market et cetera. There are a lot of things that are transferable to the real estate side, which I think is helping us. But it’s a little longer process… a little longer workout process on a real estate side. So, we are hopeful that the market stabilizes a bit, but even if it doesn’t I think we have identified and drawn some fences around our issues. Michael Mayo - Deutsche Bank: And last question, just your feel for the environment, I mean, it’s obviously getting worse. Or is it getting worse at increasing rate or things just the same as they have been? How do you characterize that? Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Well, I think it depends on the market. To a certain extent, I think in Michigan that market has softened for sometime. It probably will get softer, but I think we haven’t really added anything in Michigan for sometime. So, we are working through. It’s already out there and we are already, I think well in front of that problem, and hopefully, we have done the right things there and I think we have. California is probably still the market that’s still showing some deterioration. Depending on those, the particular sub-markets you want to talk about. But even there, there’s still positive job growth or still growth in the economy, which you don’t really see in Michigan and that will help us workout of the issues we have got there. I think more quickly and more successfully, then at a certain extent then you will see Michigan. And Texas continues knock on wood to do pretty well. We don’t see any issues there at all. Michael Mayo - Deutsche Bank: All right. Thank you. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Mike.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Steven Alexopoulos Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Good Morning Steven. Steven Alexopoulos - J.P. Morgan: Hi. Good morning everyone. Just to follow-up on the margin commentary, you just gave, now do you see a longer term benefit from the Fed cut steeping of the curve or is that 350 marginally you would expect on beyond the fourth quarter. Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: We haven’t finished actually our budget for next year. We would give an outlook in January for the full year of ’08. But for us the key item right now is really what… how the market reacting on the positive side that as the Fed is going to cut rates and it’s are further cuts to come. We are seeing banks being pretty sticky in lowering rate, because the alternative is to go out and raise other funding which potentially could be more expensive. And so, I think that dynamic that we, not just we, but of many banks, all banks will be dealing with. And so, in some sense regardless what the Fed cut in the next… in this quarter that will be a dynamic that we all have to be dealing with. Steven Alexopoulos - J.P. Morgan: That’s helpful. Dale, you help me reconcile the increase in non-performers? They are up I guess it was $32 million sequentially. In the release, you are saying you moved $94 million loan into non-accrual. Did you sell non- performers in the quarter? Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Well, we have sold some obviously took charge-offs against some others. So, when you take a look at that what we added over $2 million. And basically, it was payments charge-offs and so forth that did all tied out. So, it’s all reconciles. And it does relate directly to the amount of write-downs and charge-offs we have taken. Steven Alexopoulos - J.P. Morgan: Do you have the amount of non-performers that were sold in the quarter? Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: It is $11 million. It was all real estate. Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Yes, all real estate. Steven Alexopoulos - J.P. Morgan: Okay. And just a final question. Beth, are you able to provide the annualized loan growth metrics in the four major markets without the impact to the shared national credit? Do you have that available? Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Well, I don’t have that on the top of my head, but I can say that the shared national credit growth really can vary from quarter-to-quarter. This quarter was about 57% of our growth was related to shared national credit. In prior quarters, we have had a much lower, in other quarters, we have had higher. So, it really is something that isn’t a managed number, it’s just a functional what opportunities are in the market. So, that was… as I said about 57% of our loan growth was SNC this quarter. Steven Alexopoulos - J.P. Morgan: Is it safe to say if we look at the Texas growth, which you talked that at 20% annualized? It looks likes a lot of that is the increased in the shared national credits and energy lending. So, that would be significantly lower x that item. Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Well… and I guess on a little… well, how I do address that is I don’t think of it that way, because the SNC strategy is not a fixed strategy . it’s not we go out and say this is the… how much we want this business to be and to the exact loan growth isn’t being achieving non-SNC related things that we do something to manage to SNC target. So, that’s not how we think of it. The reality is for a lot of the businesses we are in weather it’s Texas or elsewhere commercial real estate transactions turned to be often in SNC. Energy transactions offered and syndicated credit, middle market tends to be less. But so, it’s really… it’s the full complement of accessing that key those various customer rates that were going after. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: And it’s really based on relationships an either existing relationships or building relationships or we are not interested. It is not just putting assets on the balance sheet. And that’s a very important difference, because it allows us to a properly balance our credit and our risk in any given transaction as we were talking about earlier. It’s across all our businesses. And we look very carefully and many times we invite other institutions in, in order to balance that risk. Do you have any thoughts on that, Ralph? Steven Alexopoulos - J.P. Morgan: We ended the quarter at $10 billion in our portfolio. To follow-up on that, could you give what the deposits might be for those followers? Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: I don’t have that of the top of my head. Steven Alexopoulos - J.P. Morgan: Okay. Thanks. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: It’s in the mix. And that’s one of the things we look at. We not only look at the deposits, cash management, but we look at other areas where we can provide services and we have the product since services to do that. So, we look at the overall returns on those particular clients. And if it is one, we are trying to develop over time, and I think we have said this in the past, we will look one to two years if we can develop it, then we will move on to other customers. Many of our biggest customers, we have considerable other business with them, because a bank our size can provide what I would call kind of extra business because we are quick and we can move quickly, but we have the products and services as well to compete with the largest customers. Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Steve, I would also add as you referenced the Taxes and SNC and the energy business in particular, but I would say that the number one that we do participate in larger high quality energy credits where we don’t certainly won our exposure. And virtually everyone of those we have a full relationship including deposits and treasury management. So it’s a heavily emphasized piece of our strategy. Steven Alexopoulos - J.P. Morgan: Thanks. Those are my questions. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Manuel Ramirez. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Manny Manuel Ramirez - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: Hi, good morning. How are you? Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Good. Manuel Ramirez - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: I want to start from the margin, just to follow-up on one of the earlier questions Beth, that maybe you crystallized the margin issue a little bit more. If you could talk about the margin in this low 350s in the forth quarter versus I guess 377 in the second quarter. If you had to guess at the moving parts on that, how much of that is the Fed? How much of that is deposits, how much of that is FSD? And all the factors that you sighted as well as hedges. I don’t know if you can get into that level of detail, but just try to square my own head. Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Yes, well, actually in terms of thinking about it from the third… second or third, so down 10 bases points in the quarter. If you look at it, we mentioned that, first of all, the dynamics in that quarter a little… were impacted by our decisions to do additional securities. And so, that had a 3 basis point impact on the third quarter. So, as we think about what happened in the third and then our outlook for the fourth, we are saying we see a continuation of pressure on the margin related to the deposit clement that I described earlier that wholesale… given the decline in FSD deposits, we are now projecting in the fourth quarter that we will be doing more wholesale funding, which is more expensive, because of the credit turmoil in the third quarter. So, those are factors that really continue from the backend of the third quarter. So, deposit pricing, the wholesale funding, securities purchases will be in incremental negative impact, incremental to the third quarter in the fourth quarter at least that’s our expectation. And lastly, there is… we have been… we are able in the third quarter to successfully navigate lower FSD deposits and lower… low rate loans. As this business has been shrinking, it is becoming even more competitive, and therefore, we think there will be an incremental… there will be a net… negative impact on the margin in the fourth quarter from that. So, it is really… it is all those pieces that I just described, securities, deposits, wholesale funding, and FSD. Manuel Ramirez - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: Okay. If I focus on the two pieces that are easiest to probably dissect from 3Q to 4Q focusing on that, the additional securities, and then, I think the Fed actions, leases relates to the asset side of your balance sheet. Can you give me a ballpark estimate of the impact from the 366 to the… let’s say it’s 351 and 352. Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Well. the Fed action itself is an interesting one to think about but it’s more…I put it into the bucket thinking about deposit pricing and into the buckets of in turn what I need to raise on the wholesale funding side. So, it’s really those together that are not an insignificant part of the decline quarter-to-quarter. Manuel Ramirez - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: Okay. Great. And then two other questions. One is, obviously on the venture capital gains, they were elevated this quarter. What should we think about it as a normal four quarter average run rate on that beside from just taking the four quarter average? Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: That’s a tricky number, year-to-date, our income was $13 million. If you look at the last three full years prior to that we range between $10 million and $20 million. So, the 13 year-to-date is kind of in the space where it’s been frankly over the last several years. So, I think… but it’s very difficult to project. Manuel Ramirez - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: Okay. So, a few million in a quarter and what’s built into your full year guidance and what would be the implicit assumption be for the fourth quarter? Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: I think, your thought of the kind of the several million is good assumption. Manuel Ramirez - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: Okay. Great. And then thing and this is for Dale. If you look… at your comments on the increase non-accrual coming from the Midwest of the most part. But then I look at your provisions in your Western business line increasing pretty dramatically, should I refer from that or we should start to see some NPA’s coming through probably on a construction side, perhaps in California over the next couple of quarters. Just we know NPA’s are going up for the industry, but it seems like they might actually be some baked into the cake for you going forward? Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: I think that’s a reasonable assumption I mean clearly there is still as you said before there is still stress out there. We are seeing regular migration and we have seen it for the last few quarters. So, I think in the for sale housing side, the construction lending side, you are likely to see some inflow there without question. Manuel Ramirez - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: Okay. And I am sorry to hog the time, one last question. If we looked at you historically, if we looked at reserves to NPA’s. Dale, you can argue whether or not that’s a meaningful metric most of your NPA's in the past were seen C&I loans right. But if I look at where your NPA’s are today, a lot of real statement and it seems like might increasingly be real estate. So, I think about reserve adequacy relative collateral you might have versus on a credit, any real firm that we should consider just how do you think about it on the credit side? Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: I don’t think about it in terms of rule of firm. We obviously… we talked about like every quarter, go through a very elaborate process with all credit to access. Charge-offs, reserves, action plans, and so forth and we look at the value of the underlying assets of secure loans. We look at the value of guarantees of individuals who guarantee loans, and we look at a number of other factors. We have a very active back office of construction monitoring. We monitor budgets carefully. So, it’s quite the process to make sure we are adequately addressing the issues. And so, we are comfortable obviously with where we are in that regard, but every quarter it’s… you go back to it again and see what’s changed and to the extent values would client further obviously that would have an impact on what we do. Manuel Ramirez - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: And do you think you fully take into account for decline in home prices, it’s likely happening in the last couple of months? Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Definitely. I think we have… I think we have appropriately reserved and charged off. And I think we are taking the appropriate actions. We do look at sale prices all the time, no matter what the market is, every market is different, absorption rates are different and so forth. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Currently Dale, the percentage write-down, it’s in the non-performing. It’s about 70%? Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Yes, I think the value of what’s there is about 65% or 67%. Manuel Ramirez - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: So, 35… 30% to 35% write-down you mean? Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Yes, with 70% in the third quarter. Manuel Ramirez - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: Okay. Got you. Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: 30% write-down. Manuel Ramirez - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: Thank you very much. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Chris Mutascio Christopher Mutascio - Stifel Nicolaus & Company: Good morning all. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Chris. Christopher Mutascio - Stifel Nicolaus & Company: Quick question, more from a macro prospective. You mentioned I think that the average departed balances for the consumer fell during the quarter. In your view, is that seasonal or could that be more ominous of things to come for the consumer, maybe the drawn down cash reserves? I am actually kind of curious to get your thought on that. Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Yes, the comment I made actually was specifically related to Michigan. We are saying because of the economic climate there, we are going on now to the fourth year of our recession in Michigan, that we have consumers being drawing down liquidity reserves, if you will, and dealing with economic situation there. You see that manifested in our home equity draw downs, they are down 5% year-over-year. So, we are not seeing activity there. So, consumers are being cautious about doing any more borrowing. And in addition, we are seeing them drawing down balances, but again, it’s Michigan related. Christopher Mutascio - Stifel Nicolaus & Company: Thanks. Okay. I appreciate the color.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Heather Wolf. Heather Wolf - Merrill Lynch: Hi, good morning. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Good morning. Heather Wolf - Merrill Lynch: Dale, a quick question for you. You have talked about building reserves in the different categories. I’m just wondering why that didn’t come through if we’re just looking at those REIT consolidated reserves to loan ratio? Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Yes. As I indicated the reserves that we have built have been primarily real estate related. If you look at the reserves we have for the automotive exposure or automotive supplier exposure where we’ve had great results over the last few quarters, no inflows and charge-offs, and where we reduce the absolute level down to a $1.9 billion. The level of reserves acquired there is reduced rather substantially. We also looked at some of the other segments where we had reserves, bigger reserves and done in-depth analysis of certain industry segments on national gasoline delivery. And because of that analysis determined that the level of reserves we had there wasn’t necessary where we had it. So, on a net basis, it’s come down because of the way we look at our reserves. Real estate clearly has gone up, a fair amount for obvious reasons. And that’s how you sort of reconcile the numbers. Heather Wolf - Merrill Lynch: Okay. So, it was almost a full offset. Okay. And then also on… forgive me if you’ve mentioned this already but on the increase in the delinquencies, that was primarily real estate driven as well? Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Well, the delinquency… Heather Wolf - Merrill Lynch: Go ahead. Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Well, delinquency would be… there’s been some home equity delinquencies increases that hasn’t been material but nonetheless there have been delinquency increases there which have caused us to increase some reserves on the home equity portfolio. Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Are you talking about the path 2 Heather? Heather Wolf - Merrill Lynch: Yes, on the… I think it was--? Dale E. Greene - Executive Vice President and Chief Credit Officer: Excuse me, that’s a… there is a component of that, that is real estate, there’s a component of it that is in middle market. Almost all of it’s related to timing issues, in most cases putting forbearance agreements together and/or getting payouts, in some cases that’s already occurred after the end of the month. So all of those are generally well secured in the process of a workout or being refinanced in some way. So I don’t see any – there’s no real issue there and as I said it’s a mix between real estate and sort of middle market type credits. Heather Wolf - Merrill Lynch: Okay. And then that’s just one last question for you on margin on credit EBITDA force here but, you talk a lot about the deposit environment and I’m just curious, have you hedged out a lot of the floating rate aspect of your loan portfolio or should we expect some of that re-pricing to start flowing through in the fourth quarter in FY’08? Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: We… part of the opportunity in the marketplace provided itself for looking at the attractiveness of increasing our securities portfolio and obviously an element of that is in helping us better manage looking forward the interest rate environment. And so, those are similar to just as if we are putting on interest rates swaps where we received a fixed interest rate and pay-off loading. So, all part of what we have been doing on the last couple of quarters is increasing that portfolio and have intentions to increase it further in the fourth quarter to protect ourselves against further downside in interest rates. Heather Wolf - Merrill Lynch: Do you able to know anything including your swaps better or what percentage of your earning assets are floating rates? Want to include all the off balance sheet? Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Yes, about 85%, well 85% of our loans are floating rate. Heather Wolf - Merrill Lynch: And that includes any off balance sheet hedges? Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: No. That just be the explicit loan dynamics and the rest of our earnings assets really are either cash or investments securities, the investment securities are largely fixed rates, are fixed rate portfolio. Heather Wolf - Merrill Lynch: Okay. So it sounds like what we see is kind of what we get as we are looking at the on balance sheet earning assets and the off balance sheet may not alter that number all that much? Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Yes, the off balance sheet is we have $3.2 billion of swaps that mature next year and another $800 million this quarter and you see that in the net interest income reconciliation the impact of that. Heather Wolf - Merrill Lynch: Okay. All right. Thanks very much. Elizabeth S. Acton - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Okay. Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.
Operator
There are no further questions in queue. Do you have any closing remarks? Ralph W. Babb, Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer: Okay. I would like to thank all of you for joining us today and for your continued interest in Comerica. Thanks very much.
Operator
This concludes today’s Comerica Inc third quarter 2007 earnings call. You may now disconnect.