- Charlie only sounds in-the-know when reading from a script in opening comments.
- Mike does most of the talking, and the analysts direct most of their questions to Mike - rarely Charlie.
- Charlie, who knows he should contribute more, clumsily jumps in on various questions and then babbles. Good example on a question regarding tightening credit, “And just on -- and just to be clear, I mean, it's -- and it's the very basic stuff. It's just upping the lower FICO boundaries. It's layered risks. And so it's just as you continue to make these changes, you just -- we're just continuing to do the same types of things without just wholesale exits or anything like that.”
- No questions this quarter regarding progress on the Asset Cap, like last quarter. Guessing they were warned not to bring it up. The analyst who did press for answers last quarter was not on this call.
- Mike gloats about reducing headcount and said there is more to come. “We've reduced headcount every quarter since the third quarter of 2020 and was down 3% from the second quarter and 5% from a year ago. We believe we still have additional opportunities to reduce headcount, and attrition has remained low which will likely result in additional severance expense for actions in 2024. We are working through our efficiency plans now as part of the budget process.” and. “We continue to reduce headcount in home lending in the third quarter, down 37% from a year ago, and we expect staffing levels will continue to decline.”
- Charlie warned that we are at risk for further regulatory actions on known issues. Also warned they could find new issues that need to be remediated, and these may result in additional regulatory actions. (I interpret that as “it’s already happening.”)
- Less questions this quarter (either analysts showed little interest or Wells limited the questions and/or topics).
So just a reminder, we are nothing more to these guys than “headcount” and “an expense”. Give them the bare minimum and then cut that back some.