CFG - Citizens Financial Group Inc. (CFG) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

2024-04-17 14:10:02 ET

Citizens Financial Group, Inc. (CFG)

Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call

April 17, 2024 09:00 ET

Company Participants

Kristin Silberberg - Executive Vice President, Investor Relations

Bruce Van Saun - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

John Woods - Chief Financial Officer

Brendan Coughlin - Head, Consumer Banking

Don McCree - Head, Commercial Banking

Conference Call Participants

Ryan Nash - Goldman Sachs

Scott Siefers - Piper Sandler

John Pancari - Evercore

Peter Winter - D.A. Davidson

Ken Usdin - Jefferies

Matt O’Connor - Deutsche Bank

Dave Rochester - Compass Point

David Konrad - KBW

Manan Gosalia - Morgan Stanley

Presentation

Operator

Good morning, everyone and welcome to Citizens Financial Group First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. My name is Alan and I’ll be your operator today. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a brief question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this event is being recorded. Now I’ll turn the call over to Kristin Silberberg, Executive Vice President, Investor Relations. Kristin, you may begin.

Kristin Silberberg

Thank you, Alan. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us. First, this morning, our Chairman and CEO, Bruce Van Saun; and CFO, John Woods, will provide an overview of our first quarter results. Brendan Coughlin, Head of Consumer Banking; and Don McCree, Head of Commercial Banking, are also here to provide additional color.

We will be referencing our first quarter earnings presentation located on our Investor Relations website. After the presentation, we will be happy to take questions. Our comments today will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause our results to differ materially from expectations. These are outlined for your review on Page 2 of the presentation. We also reference non-GAAP financial measures, so it’s important to review our GAAP results on Page 3 of the presentation and the reconciliations in the appendix.

With that, I will hand over to you, Bruce.

Bruce Van Saun

Thank you, Kristen. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining our call today. We were pleased to start the year with a solid quarter. We continue to play strong defense through an uncertain environment with a CET1 ratio of 10.6%, our LDR at 81%, our allowance for loan loss ratio of 161%, and general office reserves now at 10.6%. On the P&L, we are still seeing a modest decline in NII though our NIM was stable at 2.91%. Fees picked up by 3% sequential quarter, led by capital markets and card and expenses were flat.

Our credit trends are in line with expectations. We repurchased $300 million of shares during the quarter as we free up capital from our non-core rundown. Our guide for Q2 and full year remain consistent with our expectations at the outset of the year. Our strategic initiatives are making good progress. The Private Bank is off to a good start, reaching $2.4 billion in deposits at quarter end. We expect momentum to accelerate further over the course of the year. We are also focused on building out private wealth management through further investment in Clarfeld plus several imminent team lift-outs....

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