Good morning. My name is Ruth, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Huntington Bancshares Third Quarter 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.
Thank you. Mark Neus, you may begin your conference.
Thank you, Ruth, and welcome, everyone. I'm Mark Moose, Director of Investor Relations for Huntington. Copies of the slides we will be reviewing can be found on our IR website at www.huntingtonir.com or by following the Investor Relations link on www.huntington.com. This call is being recorded and will be available as a rebroadcast starting about an hour from the close of the call. Our presenters today are Steve Steinauer, Chairman, President and CEO and Mac McCullough, Chief Financial Officer.
Dan Neumeyer, our Chief Credit Officer, will also be participating in the Q And A portion of the call. As noted on Slide 2, today's discussion, including the Q And A period, will contain forward looking statements. Such statements are based on information and assumptions available at this time and are subject to changes, risks, and uncertainties which may cause actual results to differ materially. We assume no obligation to update such statements. For a complete discussion of risks and uncertainties, please refer to this slide and material filed with the SEC, including our most recent Forms 10 K, 10 Q and 8 K filings.
Let's get started. Returning to Slide 3 and an overview of the financials.
Thanks, Mark, and thanks to everyone for joining the call today. We appreciate your interest and support. Let me start by acknowledging that the third quarter was noisy, but underneath the noise, we're very pleased with the core financial performance. As you know, the FirstMerit acquisition closed on August 16th. Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, shareholders of FirstMerit received 1.72 shares of Huntington common stock, and $5 in cash for each share of Huntington of FirstMerit common stock.
The aggregate purchase price was $3,700,000,000, including $800,000,000 of cash, $2,800,000,000 of common stock and $100,000,000 of preferred stock. Huntington issued 284,000,000 shares of common stock that had a total fair value of $2,800,000,000 based on the closing market price of $9.68 per share on August 15 2016. We are extremely pleased with the progress we are making in bringing the 2 companies together as 1. We believe the combination strengthens our company by improving efficiency accelerating our long term growth rate differentiated product set and industry leading customer service and new geographies and to new customers. Integration is moving along as expected and our new colleagues are embracing our fair play philosophy and welcome culture.
Turning to Slide 3, let's review the financial highlights of our third quarter. Huntington reported earnings per common share of $0.11. Inclusive of $0.11 per share of significant items related to the FirstMerit acquisition, which also impacted the financial metrics I will highlight on this slide. Tangible book value per share decreased 6 percent from the year ago quarter to $6.48 per share. Return on tangible common equity was 7%, while return on assets was 0.58%.
Except where noted, all comparisons to previous quarters are inclusive of FirstMerit, but I want to emphasize that core organic performance continue to meet our expectations. Compared to the third quarter of 2015, revenue grew by 24% with net interest income of 26% and non interest income up 19%. Non interest expense increased $186,000,000 or 35% year over year. Non interest expense adjusted for the year over year change in significant items increased $70,000,000 or 14% year over year. Reflecting the addition of FirstMerit, the accelerated build out of our in store channel last fall and ongoing technology investments.
Our reported efficiency ratio for the quarter was stemming from the FirstMerit transaction added 17 percentage points to the efficiency ratio. While revenue strength in the quarter, including mortgage banking, capital markets, and a large interest recovery, combined with a $4,000,000 expense benefit from retiring trust preferred debt, lowered the core efficiency ratio by approximately 150 basis points. We are pleased with the progress toward achieving our long term efficiency ratio goal of 56% to 59%. Balance sheet growth in the 3rd quarter showed continued organic strength which was enhanced by the addition of FirstMerit's loan and deposit base. Average total loans grew 24% year over year with growth excluding FirstMerit coming in at 8%.
Average core deposits grew 22% year over year with average core deposit growth excluding FirstMerit registering 3%. Our 3rd quarter credit performance reflects Huntington's commitment to an aggregate moderate to low risk profile. Net charge offs of 26 basis points remain below our long term financial target of 35 to 55 basis points. Nonperforming assets improved 21 basis points to 0.72% compared with the linked quarter. Criticized assets and delinquencies have remained in a relatively tight range for the past several quarters.
Our common equity Tier 1 ratio decreased 3 basis points year over year and 71 basis points linked quarter to 9.09 percent, reflecting the impact of the FirstMerit transaction. Turning to Slide 4 and getting more in-depth with the income statement, net interest income was up 26% from year ago quarter, as were average earning assets, reflecting strong organic loan growth and the impact of the FirstMerit acquisition. The net interest margin for the quarter came in at and up 12 basis points on a linked quarter basis. Purchased accounting had a favorable impact of 12 basis points on the margin, and we had an interest recovery in the quarter that added an additional 2 basis points. Non interest income increased $49,000,000 or 19 percent from the year ago quarter, primarily driven by the addition of FirstMerit but also driven by strong organic growth in Mortgage Banking, service charges on deposit accounts and capital markets.
Non interest expense increased $186,000,000 or 35 percent from a year ago, with significant items accounting for $116,000,000 of the increase. After adjusting for significant items, non interest expense increased 14% primarily reflecting the impact of bringing FirstMerit on confidence in achieving the $255,000,000 in total annual expense savings that we communicated when we announced the transaction. All the cost savings are identified, be an executed against and will be implemented within 1 year of the deal closing. With the vast majority implemented prior to or coincident with the branch and systems conversion over President's Day weekend in the first quarter of 2017. In total, we plan to consolidate 103 branches or roughly 9% of the combined post divestiture branch network.
In addition, in connection is unrelated to the FirstMerit acquisition during the first quarter of 2017. Turning to Slide 5, let's review operating leverage. As you would expect, the combined entity has significant positive operating leverage through 9 months. Positive operating leverage remains an important annual financial goal, which we delivered on in 2013, 2014 2015, and of course, we expect to deliver again in 2016. Turning to Slide 6, let's look at balance sheet trends.
Average total loans grew 24% year over year with growth excluding FirstMerit coming in at 8%. As you can see from the chart on the left side of the page, the addition of FirstMerit has not had a material impact on our earning asset mix. The chart on the right side of the page illustrates how the addition of FirstMerit has increased the proportion of low cost DDA in our funding mix. Average securities increased 32% year over year, primarily reflecting the addition of $7,400,000,000 from FirstMerit additional investment in LCR level 1 qualifying securities. And growth in direct purchase municipal securities in our commercial banking segment.
Our liquidity coverage ratio was approximately 110% at quarter end. Average total debt increased $2,900,000,000 or 42 percent as a result of the issuance of $3,300,000,000 in senior debt over the past five quarters. Turning to Slide 7. As previously discussed, we have continued to evaluate opportunities to optimize the balance sheet and while not affecting quarterly average balances, approximately $2,600,000,000 of total loans and leases comprised of $1,500,000,000 of auto loans $1,000,000,000 of predominantly non relationship C and I loans and leases and $1,000,000,000 of predominantly non relationship CRE loans. Were moved to loans held for sale at the end of the third quarter.
We are taking these actions to improve risk weighted asset efficiency and specific to the CNI and CRE assets for free up capital that was not generating acceptable returns. Regarding the $1,500,000,000 of auto loans moved to held for sale, our intention is to securitize these assets in the fourth quarter of 2016. Let me emphasize that we've remained steadfast in our commitment to our auto finance business, including our well established strategy, which is built upon deep long term relationships with our core dealer However, we're reducing our indirect auto concentration limit back down to 150 percent of capital, and we are adopting an operating guideline 125 percent of capital. You might remember that in mid 2015, before we had an agreement in place with FirstMerit, we increased our indirect auto concentration limit to 175 percent of capital. Given the larger capital base of the new combined organization, We cannot foresee any circumstance in which we would grow our indirect auto portfolio anywhere close to the 175 percent of capital.
In addition, with the new 125 percent operating guideline in mind, we expect to return to the securitization markets on an annual basis going forward. Moving to Slide 8. Our net interest margin was 3.18 percent for the 3rd quarter, up two basis points from the year ago quarter. This increase reflected a 10 basis point increase in earning asset yields, a 2 basis point increase in the benefit from non interest bearing deposits, and a 10 basis point increase in funding costs. Loan yields improved 16 basis points year over year, while securities yields declined to 12 basis points.
The increase in funding costs was almost entirely driven by the impact of the debt issuances over the past 5 quarters as the cost of deposits was unchanged year over year. On a linked quarter basis the net interest margin increased by 12 basis points driven by an 11 basis point improvement in earning asset yields and a 1 basis point decrease in the cost of interest bearing liabilities. Purchase accounting contributed 12 basis points to the margin in the 3rd quarter. Adjusting for the impact of purchase accounting, the core net interest margins were was 3.06 percent or unchanged from the prior quarter. In addition, similar to what we have seen in recent quarters, one large interest recovery added 2 basis points to the margin during the third quarter.
Finally, as we communicated previously, or NIM will stay above 3% in every quarter of 2016. Slide 9 illustrates the impact of our capital ratios. Effectively deploying capital through the acquisition of FirstMerit. Tangible Common Equity ended the quarter at 7.14 down 75 basis points year over year and 82 basis points linked quarter. Common Equity Tier 1 ended the quarter at 9.09%, down 63 basis points year over year and down 71 basis points sequentially.
Referring to Slide 10, we booked provision expense of $64,000,000 compared to net charge offs of $40,000,000. The higher provision expense compared to the prior quarter was reserves on the legacy FirstMerit portfolio in excess of the credit mark due to the rate mark partially offsetting the credit mark on certain portfolios. In addition, there was approximately $10,000,000 of incremental loan loss provision expense in the third quarter associated with the previously discussed movement of loans to held for sale. Net charge offs while higher represented an annualized 26 basis points of average loans and leases, which remains below our long term target of 35 to 55 basis points. The allowance for credit losses as a percentage of loans decreased to 1.06% reflecting the addition of the FirstMerit loan portfolio to the dot denominator without additional reserves being added to the numerator due to the credit mark applied through the First accounting process.
The non accrual loan coverage ratio increased to 174% as a result of the continued decline in non accrual loans. On slide 11, the asset quality metrics remained favorable in the quarter as indicated. The non performing asset ratio increased further reaching its lowest level in 2 years at 0.72%. The criticized asset ratio increased modestly to 3.54%, but has remained in the 3.5% range for the past several quarters. Delinquencies were also well controlled ever to remain relatively flat for the past 6 quarters.
Let me now turn the presentation over to Steve.
Thanks Mac. Normally at this point in our quarterly discussion, I I would provide you with an update on our optimal customer relationship or OCR strategy. However, we've removed those slides from the presentation this quarter, given the recent addition of FirstMerit and our inability to produce similar data for legacy FirstMerit customers. We believe providing OCR data for just legacy Huntington customers would not provide you with complete picture. Let me assure you though that we remain fully committed to our Fairplay philosophy and OCR strategy.
Which is build upon the simple thesis of putting customers first, looking out for their needs and doing the right thing will result in more substantial long term customer relationships. Now for years, we focused on customer acquisition and relationship deepening with our Fairplay banking philosophy and our OCR strategy. Well, this was considered a contrarian approach when we started these actions back in 2009 and 10, The results paint a picture of resounding success. And I want to stress that we are not just seeking relationship growth but indeed are looking to deepen existing relationships. Our OCR strategy is also built upon the fundamental belief that we're here to understand and serve our customers' needs.
For our customers experience designed to fit their needs, not ours. For us, this strategy has remained consistent since it was put in place in 2010 and it continues to bear fruit. In light of the recent headline, some of you had asked about our sales and incentive compensation practices and complaint management, particularly with respect to our OCR strategy. The focus of our OCR model is on building deep, trusted and lasting relationships. And this is achieved by getting to know our customers, understanding their needs and helping them meet their financial needs with the appropriate products and services.
Further, Huntington is a company built upon a distinguished legacy of superior customer service. Our fair play philosophy and welcome culture are built upon the premise and promise of doing the right thing given the investor median regulatory interest in this matter, we've undertaken a detailed review of our practices, policies, and procedures for any signs of misalignment of incentives or other areas of risk or concern. While the review is ongoing to date, we've not uncovered any systemic cultural or operational areas concern. We will likely refine some of our monitoring, but we do not anticipate any material changes. To our practices or procedures and certainly not to our overall OCR strategy.
Moving to the economy. Slide 12 contains what we feel to be some of the more meaningful economic indicators for our foot The bottom left chart illustrates trends in the unemployment rates across our now 8 core Midwestern States. As you can see, the majority of our footprint remains at or below the national unemployment rates relative to the national average with Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, particularly showing resilience this past quarter. Charts on the top and bottom right showed coincident and leading economic indicators for the region. The bottom chart, which shows leading indexes for our footprint as of August, show that all 8 states in our footprint, expect positive economic growth over the next 6 months.
Slide 13 focuses on trends and unemployment rates in our largest metropolitan areas and many of the large MSAs in the footprint remain at or near 15 year lows for unemployment at the end of August. Also notable 11 of the top 15 MSAs experienced declining unemployment rates in the last 3 months. The auto industry is still strong and is a major economic contributor within our footprint, but the housing markets are also strong. Labor market in our footprint where we are at structural and our customers are too. State and local governments continue to operate with surpluses.
Ohio, Indiana and Michigan continue to outpace overall U. S. Growth since the recovery. We remain confident in our footprint Midwest economies based on the sustained job growth and economic production since the recovery that began after the great recession. Turning to Slide 14.
I'd like to give you some closing remarks and important messages. We remain focused on delivering consistent through the cycle shareholder returns. The strategy entails reducing short term volatility, achieving top tier performance over the long term, and maintaining our aggregate moderate to low risk profile throughout. As you heard, Mac mentioned earlier, the acquisition and integration of FirstMerit provides what we believe is an opportunity to achieve significant cost savings and improve our overall efficiency. We're committed to and progressing as planned toward realizing our targeted $255,000,000 of annual cost savings from the acquisition, We continue to win new customers through a strong and recognizable consumer brand with differentiated products and superior customer service.
The new customers and dynamic markets offered from the FirstMerit acquisition provided deeper and more vibrant pools to deliver our value proposition and add customers and deepen relationships. We have invested and will continue to invest in our businesses, particularly around enhanced sales management, mobile and digital technologies, data analytics, and optimizing our retail distribution network. Importantly, we plan to continue to manage our expenses appropriately within our revenue outlook We always like to include a reminder that there's a high level of alignment between the board, management, our employees, and our shareholders. The board and our colleagues are collectively among the largest shareholders of Huntington. We have hold the retirement requirements on certain shares and are appropriately focused on driving sustained long term performance.
We're highly focused on our commitment to being good stewards of shareholder capital. Looking forward to full year 2016 results, excluding the impact of significant items, We expect total revenues to increase 16% to 18% and non interest expenses to increase 13% to 15%. We expect to deliver positive operating leverage to remain near current levels, including net charge offs remaining below our long term target of 35 to 55 basis points. Now consistent with our historical practice, we anticipate will provide initial expectations for 2017 at an investor conference later this quarter. Finally, we're very pleased with the smooth integration process with FirstMerit, which we acquired on August 16th.
The divestiture of 13 branches, primarily in the Canton Ohio market, will occur this quarter. We've completed the onboarding and initial training of our new colleagues and fully implemented the organizational changes for the combined entity that we announced last summer. 103 branch consolidations will occur coincident with the branch conversion in February of 2017. Our systems conversion planning efforts continue to progress as our IT teams have completed all product and data mapping and are now managing system testing and preparing for mock conversions. So now turn it back over to Mark so we can get to your questions.
Thank you.
Operator, we will now take questions. We ask that as a courtesy of your peers, each person asked only one question and one related follow-up. And then if that person has additional questions, he or she can add himself back into the queue. Thank you.
Your first question comes from the line of Scott Ciefers. Please state your firm. A quick
question on the provision
appreciate the color on the roughly $10,000,000 or so of provision that might have been kind of unusual related to the move of loans for held to sale. But was hoping you might be able to give just a little more color on, the rationale behind such an elevated provision And kind of whether or not I guess if we were to exclude the $10,000,000 going forward, if something in the $55,000,000 range represents kind of a new perhaps more elevated run rates than has been the case more recently. So just, I guess, really any color that you can provide, please?
Sure, Scott. This is Dan. So there's a couple of things going on in the quarter. First, we did have higher charge offs than what we have been experiencing, although still below our long term expectation. So replenishing the $40,000,000 of charge offs was one piece of that.
Second, as you've already noted, we had the movement of loans to held for sale. We also had the organic originations from FirstMerit post closing. So the new loans that are generated have, allowance associated with them. And then we did have a portfolio where we had a positive rate mark that offset the credit mark. So, it's recorded at a premium.
So we have an allowance build there. So I wouldn't say that this is a situation where this is the new normal. Was a bit of an outlier. And I think on a go forward basis, we will have, provision expense that is more in line with charge offs and with an allowance for some growth. I also would note that in the quarter, charge offs were up partially due to the fact that we had lower recoveries in the C and I portfolio that added about $5,000,000 of additional charge off over what we have been experiencing.
So had quite a number of factors that would have resulted in the higher provision this quarter. And Scott,
I think this is where we see the volatility that we've been talking about in terms of charge offs because of the low levels that we're running at. As Dan mentioned, it's a creditor too on the commercial side without the recoveries to offset that So clearly, the volatility is as we expected. And I would say that there's probably about $12,000,000 that Dan mentioned associated with the loans held for sale and, kind of the Day 2 FirstMerit provision for the portfolios that he mentioned that had higher interest marks.
Okay. And Scott, just one other comment. I think just as you're looking at a go forward, The asset quality metrics in terms of the criticized, we had a reduction in non accruals, etcetera. So very steady delinquent So there's nothing out there that would indicate that we expect a turn here. So just in terms of you thinking about provisioning going forward.
Okay. That's good color. Thank you guys very much.
Your next question comes from the line of Bob Ramsey. Please state your firm. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning guys with FBR. I wanted to touch base on net interest margin. Is the 11 basis points some sort of one time thing from accelerated payoffs on acquired loans or is this more the level that we'll gradually amortized lower over time? And then maybe could you sort of tell us what the marginal was in the month of September so we can think about a starting point headed into the 4th quarter?
So, Bob, I would think about that core margin as being 3.04. Right. The 3.06, absolutely purchase accounting impact, and it's 2 basis points the interest recovery that we had in the quarter that added 2 basis points to it. There probably was about $4,000,000 or $5,000,000 in the quarter related to accelerated accretion for early payoffs and those types of things. But I think thinking about the rest of it from a purchase accounting perspective and thinking about projecting that forward would be the right way to think about it.
We are comfortable with the core margin staying above 3% for the remainder of the year. And I think it's also important to note that on a core basis, FirstMerit was accretive to the core margin, simply because of asset mix and the fact that they brought, more DEA to the funding mix as well.
Okay. And I guess given the full quarter impact next quarter. So should we really be thinking about something above the 3.04 on a core basis? And do you know sort of what the core was I guess at the end of the quarter as we head into the 4th?
Yes, I think 304 is the right way to think about the core. The purchase accounting piece is a bit difficult because of what could happen from an accelerated accretion perspective. But I think you're pretty safe thinking about that core of 304.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thanks, Pavel.
Your next question comes from the line of Steven, Alexopoulos. Your line is open. Please state your firm.
J. P. Morgan, hey, good morning, everybody. Wanted to 1st follow-up on Steve's comments regarding the customer acquisition and cross sell strategies being under review. Do you guys currently use sales quotas and the incentive comp calculation for branches front line folks?
And do you think you'll need to more broadly change the incentive systems?
We don't anticipate any meaningful change in incentive systems. There are certain things that we measure top of the house that are not not pushed down at the account level, so at the officer level. So that would include We focus our branches and officers on revenue, not product specific or product required sales, Steven. So we don't anticipate any meaningful change on the incentive plans from where we are now. And, I do think we'll put more, sort of oversight analysis in, but but we've already been doing
a fair amount of that.
Okay. That's helpful. And then maybe a follow-up. A lot of moving pieces to the loan balances in the quarter you give us a sense of what organic loan growth look like in the quarter, if we just think about Huntington on its own, maybe adjusting out some of the movements into held for sale?
Yes. So Steven, it'd be about 8% year over year. And it would be, the categories that we've talked about previously that we're driving the growth. It's indirect auto. It's equipment finance and lease on the Huntington side.
I think we continue to see good pipelines on the commercial side of the business. And I think Resi probably had growth in the quarter as well. So those are the categories that have been good for us this year. And the 8% is not out of bounds maybe a little bit higher than where we've been, so far quarter by quarter this year.
Pipelines look strong at this point as we go into the 4th quarter, in those categories, Steven, as well.
Your next question comes from the line of Ken Usdin. Please state your firm. Your line is open.
Thanks. Good morning. Ken from Jefferies. Yes, Michael, I was wondering if you could walk us a little bit through the landing point for the balance sheet, meaning that it looks like you've got a whole bunch of pending and future loan sales. You got the divestitures.
You've got core growth going on. And so where do you see kind of pro form a ending up maybe as a fourth quarter start point, just so we can understand once you've moved through some of this additional cleanup underneath as a base?
Yes, let's see if there might be a page we can direct you to in the deck. I mean, if you take a look at page 30 of the slide deck might be the best place to look. It's a September 30 balance sheet. On the asset side. And you can see that total commercial loans are about 35,000,000,000 at a spot basis.
Consumer about $314,000,000. And total loans and leases are about $66,000,000.
Right? So with the pending sales though, does that in the that's in the loans are in the already moved to the held for sale, right? So period end, we should think about that whole loans for a sale bucket going away and then use the what's left, kind of as the new base for loans.
Exactly. So you can see loans held for sale of about 4 or 5 lines down there at $3,400,000,000. And so those are already taken out.
So that's actually a yes, go ahead.
That's fine. And then just in terms of just your the rest of liquidity and any changes to your funding mix going forward? What do you do you anticipate continuing to build the securities book or is that now on a pro form a basis also in the right zone?
The securities book will go up a bit from here because we are going to replace the auto loans with 0 weighted risk weighted assets. So think about maybe another $2,000,000,000 or so in securities. So that will come on, some of it's already come on, some will come on in the fourth quarter as well.
Okay.
From a funding perspective for the other loans that we're going to sell, we're going to pay down funding sources. I wouldn't see any material change in the way we're going to fund the balance sheet.
Okay. Thanks so much.
Kim, some of the puts and takes on the restructuring are on Slide 7. Or the optimizations.
That's a good chance. Give you a good evening.
Yes, I think so. Yes, thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Ken Zerbe. Your line is open.
Great, thanks. Good morning. Hi, Ken. Just have a question on the auto side. Obviously, reduce the concentration limits that you guys want to hold.
You want to do more securitizations. How much of that relates to the environment that we're in for auto? Like, are you seeing any deterioration in the broader industry auto credit that's leading you to get more conservative? Thanks.
Hey, Ken, this is Dan. We've commented on the past that we observe what's going on in the marketplace, but it really doesn't impact our business model or our performance. So we have not changed our view on the auto portfolio at all. And as we reference in the slides, we continue to show our history of performance and originations. Haven't moved off that.
We don't have a change in our go forward view of what we believe we're going to experience so while there may be, activities going on in the market that are, of concern, because of our prime super prime focus, because of our strong origination scores. Absence of risk layering, we have not changed our view at all with regard to the quality of the portfolio.
Got it. Okay. No, that helps. And then just to be clear on the comment that you guys made, if I understood the prepared remarks correctly, I thought I heard you said that you're reducing the limit to the 150 because sort of quote, you can't originate enough to get you up to 175. Did I I just wanna make sure I I fully understand the rationale of why your your limit are going down?
Thanks.
So yes, so the 175 was put in place before we had an agreement with FirstMerit. So it was put in place on a smaller capital base and we defined capital as Tier 1 capital plus the allowance. So there really wasn't an ability for us to get to the 175. We're not going to be a national player in auto We like the geography that we're in. We like the business model that we have in place.
We're not going to change the underwriting or the risk profile. And quite frankly, as we bring on FirstMerit, we have other opportunities to invest capital at that higher returns. So that's primarily why we did it. We've always been at 150 historically and we just feel that operating at 100 and 25 gives us flexibility to perhaps go over 100 and 25 from a timing perspective if we're getting the securitization done and we don't like the market conditions, we can, we can hold a bit above 125 until we like the market conditions. So that's the way we're thinking about it.
All right, great. Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time.
Okay. The 3rd quarter was highlighted by the closing of FirstMerit acquisition and our continued strong financial performance. With sound fundamentals in place, we're well positioned for solid performance in the coming quarters. And our strategies are working. Our execution remains Focused and strong.
We expect to continue to gain market share and improve share of wallet. The addition of FirstMerit's solid balance sheet strong credit performance, valuable customer base and dynamic new markets provide opportunity to further augment or accelerate the achievement of our long term financial goals. Finally, I want to close by reiterating that our board and this management team are all long term shareholders. Our top priority is integrating First Merrick growing our core business, while managing risks, reducing volatility and driving solid, consistent long term performance. So thank you for your interest in Huntington.
Appreciate you joining us today and have a great day.
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.