“The transformative work we announced in the third quarter to improve our financial performance is well underway. We are driving swift and meaningful actions to simplify our organization and reduce expenses. Our continued focus on core clients, paring back non-core and lower- return portfolios, and paying down higher-cost borrowings has made our balance sheet more efficient and helped drive a modest improvement in our net interest margin.
Adjusted expenses decreased 50 basis points sequentially, reflecting our expense discipline, while our $750 million cost saves program aimed at holding expense growth to flat to up 1% in 2024 is well underway. We are able to accomplish this while investing in our core franchise and risk management systems, reflecting today’s environment.
We’re strongly committed to improving our capital position, which increased 29 basis points in the third quarter. Asset quality continues to normalize but remains in-line relative to our outlook and allowance coverage ratios.
As we continue to diligently execute on this critical work to capitalize on our competitive advantages and drive efficiencies, we’re fundamentally changing how we operate to drive revenue growth, franchise value and increased benefit to our shareholders, now and into the future.”
— Bill Rogers, Truist Chairman & CEO
21 replies (most recent on top)
Bills next trick is going to be the pension, just like he did at SunTrust.
About to retest the 2023 lows despite selling off TIS and announcing a major re-organization/RIF..... What does Bill have next in his bag of tricks in an attempt to fool the market?
Buy the dip, amirite?
Troll face
The market is still speaking. Down another 3% so far today.
I went back and listened to the earnings call this morning. Two things stood out.
First, in the face of obvious and undeniably poor results since the merger, Bill’s was almost pathetically whining “give us more time, trust me, we are building a “truly transformative” (?????) company that cares”. He came across like a clueless rich kid given the family business that not only doesn’t have the answers, but doesn’t even know the questions to ask; so he defaults to the good ‘ol “trust me”.
Second, the analysts seemed to really focus on the trees vs the forest. Way too much emphasis on marginally material accounting quirks versus addressing demonstrable fundamental strategic issues.
Some “real” questions never asked: “You promised X, but results show Y, what happened”? “How does a leadership team that considers themselves capable of building a “transformative” bank perform in the lowest quartile”? “At an earlier conference, you spoke about very large cuts to technology, and yet, on this call you consider technology one of your big opportunities - please reconcile”.
I could go on and on, but it boggles my mind that the glaring issues were ignored.
Simple. The market takes management at their word but if burned enough times they lose faith. Leadership is reorging which means laying off the pawns but acting as if they are cutting upper management. The goal is to create noise and buy time hoping that the market will offer a positive correction for banks. Fact is most Institutional shareholders are asleep at the wheel but hey we keep placing money with them cause of their huge AUM. They simply sell when they lose faith but will never advocate for change.
Why did analysts not dig deeper on the $87MM fee refund accrual? Supposedly this is an isolated 3Q expense item. What was it for? Could it be related to the card activation fiasco? And why wasn’t that fiasco not even mentioned?
The market reacted by dropping the share price another 2.5%.
Fantastic!
Now, how about getting the systems to work. Apparently there is a complete system outage across the entire 18 state foot print.
This is not great.
Truist stand for better!
Why does everyone keep saying Truist beat expectations? EPS estimate was $.81 and we came in at $.80? What am I missing here?
Beat all you like, stock’s still below $30
Good point. Also, look at today’s stock price movement. Up immediately this morning, then falling into the afternoon as investors start separating the wheat from the chaff.
As mentioned below, going forward the new “trimmed down” Truist will be even more reliant on core banking (and client service). Based on the mess I see around me, that is a very sobering thought.
Beat all you like, stock’s still below $30.
I simply don’t understand the analysts inability to address the elephant in the room. Selling insurance and redeploying the capital would make sense if there was accelerating strength in Truist’s fundamental banking business.
As it is, future performance now becomes reliant on a core business that ranks last in customer satisfaction, has a horrible online customer experience, can’t roll out an updated credit card without major disruptions, and is suffering significant client attrition.
I understand the need to ask about current operating issues, but shouldn’t the analysts also address strategic issues impacting us long-term stockholders?
Meeting or slightly beating lowered expectations is quite an accomplishment. Great job by Bill and the gang in achieving their purpose of continuing their care and commitment to communities and Teammates.
Sinking ship. Wait and see.
Blah blah blah…buzzwords and bs. Bill Rogers is fully responsible for the mess that Truist has become. Yes you can beat expectations when the bar is so low.
So at 6/30 we had 52,564 employees and at 9/30 we had 51,943.
Mike Mayo “how will you move shareholders further up the pecking order”.
What a mo--nic comment. They already are at the top. This guy is a joke. He owes us a debt for what happened to 401k
Maybe the execs took the train instead of the company jets this quarter.
We beat expectations. Nothing to stir
Wow, do I smell a major leak or what?