All right, great. Up next, we're excited to have Truist joining us once again. They've had a busy year exiting their Truist Insurance Holdings business, restructuring its securities portfolio, and rolling out medium-term targets, as well as beginning to return capital to shareholders. Here to tell us more about the road ahead is Chairman and CEO Bill Rogers. Today's presentation is going to be a fireside chat. Welcome, Bill.
Great, thanks. Great to be here.
So, Bill, you know there's been a lot of change since the last time we heard from you, the election, another Fed cut. As you think about next year, maybe start off with how you think the bank is positioned to win as we enter 2025?
Yeah, so I think you outlined a lot of the changes that we've been making and we've been underway, and we've just never been better positioned. So I'm going to be a little bit optimistic, and I think some of the animal spirits and some of that is real. We're starting to see some really good dialogue with our clients, and we've just never been better positioned for that. You know, that starts with the sale we made with TIH and creating capital for our company. You know, so we're in a great position to afford capital to our clients, create really good growth from that perspective. We've simplified our business pretty substantially, so creating a wholesale unit and a consumer and small business unit has really created the focus that we need from our teams.
We've been through a really good 18-month sort of strategic focus, so the timing is really good in terms of positioning, and we've invested a lot in our business, so we invest a lot in talent. We've invested a lot in technology. We've invested a lot in capability, so the ability to sort of launch and take advantage and be proactively front foot, you know, leaning forward athletic position for, you know, an improvement in the economy. I just don't think we could have. Timing couldn't be any better for Truist.
So, you know, a lot of strategic things to get into, but before we do, maybe Bill, just get the near term out of the way. You know, you gave fourth quarter guidance of revenues down one and a half, expenses up four, and some color on fees and NII. Maybe just talk about how the quarter is progressing and any updates you wanted to give before we move on to the next topic?
Yeah, just, you know, sort of where we're on the quarter, I feel good about that guidance, both for the quarter and for the year. So there'll always be, you know, small puts and takes, but feel really solid about where we are right now and again, back to the earlier question, and momentum, you know, platform for growth.
Easy enough. So, Bill, you know, we were talking at dinner last night. I know that you've been out in the markets talking to a lot of commercial clients. Maybe just talk about how they're thinking about their businesses post-election, what's changing on their end.
Yeah, I think, you know, the clients don't. I don't think they arbitrage elections as much as they arbitrage uncertainty, you know, is the way I think about it. So a lot of uncertainty was removed, you know, just the fact that we had an election. We had an outcome. It has been interesting because I have been out a lot post-election and actually even pre-election. That conversation, those dialogues are really happening. I mean, clients are interested. They're bringing things sort of, you know, back off the shelf, putting them on the front of the desk in terms of things that they're contemplating going forward. Back to your earlier question, the conversation with us is also really strong about how well we're positioned.
So, you know, the advice that we've been offering, the places that we're engaging with them, the capacity to sort of lead their transactions versus participate in their transactions, again, the great advice that we're bringing them, the specialization in their business. So not only are they feeling better about things, they're also feeling better about their relationship with Truist. And then also the fact that, you know, our Voice of the Client scores, I mean, our performance is higher, so they've got more confidence in us and ability to transfer and move more business to our company. So I think they're feeling better, but also really importantly, they're feeling better about Truist and how well we're positioned. I look at a couple of, you know, if you look at sort of what are their early indicators and early signs that you see.
So pipelines are growing, so we see that in terms of activity. But a couple of really good early signs, construction loans have increased. So people are, you know, requesting, you know, having a dialogue about construction loans or building that warehouse, so the things that may have considered. And then the other is increase in revolvers. So even though the activity hasn't sort of shown up yet, they want to increase their revolver and increase their capacity. So I think those are two pretty good sort of early signals from clients that they're, you know, they're ready to sort of roll up their sleeves and get back in it.
Bill, maybe to dig in on a couple of things as it pertains to loan growth. You know, I guess the first question is, how long do you think it's going to take until loan demand returns? What are your broad commercial expectations? And then more importantly, if you think back over the past few years, Truist has been underperforming given all the transformation that it's gone through, but we've seen that gap narrow over the past few quarters. What do you think that means in terms of your ability to perform relative to the industry?
Yeah, maybe let me dissect loan growth in a couple of different categories. So, you know, generally sort of what we've seen on loan growth side is utilization has been pretty low. So if you look at sort of the two things that have impaired loan growth, one is pay downs, primarily in CRE, but also pay downs to refinance, so, you know, access to capital markets. And then the other, you know, is this lower utilization. Clients got really smart. You know, one thing sort of post-COVID when supply chains were disrupted, clients really understood their working capital. If you think about the things they've been investing in over the last several years, they're in efficiency things.
So they're not in the building the warehouse, but it's making the warehouse more efficient, you know, and keeping less, you know, less cars on the lot, less fewer days on hand, you know, more just-in-time inventory. So they've been investing in things to make them more efficient. I think that sort of troughing. So one of the components is I think utilization will start to come in. And we look at a lot of different businesses and we're starting to see that sort of hitting the low point and we'll come back from a certain standpoint. And then we've seen pay downs to capital markets. I mean, in the last third quarter, we had $7 billion of the pay downs going to capital markets. Now, the good news is we captured it on the fee side, so that was the good news.
We were advising them and we were helping them do that, and then a lot of the CRE pay down, and, you know, for our portfolio, we led a lot of that. You know, we've significantly reduced our CRE sort of office-specific portfolio, but then that creates capacity to participate in, you know, what would be the, you know, the next-gen sort of CRE business and data centers and other things that I think we can play a more relevant role in, so I think things are troughing. Loan growth is tectonic. It doesn't move month to month and quarter to quarter on the C&I side, but I do feel that it's troughing and we're seeing some positive sides. On the consumer side, compare and contrast, you know, we were in a, you know, capital conservation mode in 2022 and the, you know, part of 2023.
And so we saw the momentum from that capital constraint, but we were able to turn that dial on the consumer side. So you've seen the last couple of quarters, you know, particularly for us in indirect auto as part of our overall auto portfolio, margins are better. We can lean into that business a little bit on the things that we have really unique capability and sort of Sheffield, Service Finance and LightStream. We've leaned into those consumer businesses, really, really high credit quality. We've created better partnerships, better capital, and you've seen some growth in that. So the consumer side leaning in, we've got a little bit of momentum. C&I side, I think troughing, but that'll take a little bit longer to sort of get the organic growth that comes from that.
Bill, one thing that you've talked about has just been the transformation of the commercial business and how, given the decisions that you've made, you're well positioned to do more business with your clients. Can you maybe just spend a minute talking about that? Why do you think you're so well positioned relative to the competition and what do you think that means for the growth of the company over a medium-term timeframe?
Yeah, it's really fascinating. We were talking a little bit about this. I mean, the core commercial business today looks dramatically different than it did five years ago. And that dramatic difference is the advent and investment of private equity. So all of our commercial clients are in some sort of discussion. We were in a group like this, paneled with about this number of people in the room and, you know, asked clients, how many of you have been approached by private equity in the last month? Literally every single hand went up. You know, so the consolidation that's happening in that business, the investments that's happening in the core commercial business, I think we're really well positioned for that. So that's that transition. That's the talent transition. We've been investing a lot with our team.
We've been adding a lot of talent, but most importantly, we've been developing a lot of talent and retaining a lot of talent and teammates that understand that transition in the commercial market and are accessing all the capabilities we have. So accessing the leveraged finance capabilities we have, accessing the industry specialization we have, the corporate finance specialization we have. So they're sitting at the front end of that client. They're in the advice side of that client, and we see that show up for us in left-lead deals and transactions and activity. So I think the melding of the commercial and the melding of the investment banking capability and building out this middle market capability, I think is exactly sort of at the forefront of the transition that's happening in the commercial market.
I think we're just really, really well positioned for that, both in terms of assets we have and talent, but also in terms of culture. I mean, our team is one team united. That was part of putting it all under the wholesale umbrella, you know, under one leader to say, no, we actually all have the same mission and we're going to work together towards these objectives.
You know, you rolled out some targets, which we'll get to shortly, but one of the components of it was being more relevant with your customers from a deposit perspective. We've obviously seen deposits have been running off over the past few quarters. Maybe just talk about your outlook for deposits in terms of both balance and mix. And, you know, where do you think we go from here in terms of your relative performance versus the industry?
Yeah, I think similarly. I think deposits are troughing out. I think we should see deposit growth next year. So I think that would be part of our plan in terms of expectation, in terms of opportunities. A lot of different components in your question there. So you start with maybe deposit betas. You know, so we sort of said we saw in the fourth quarter deposit betas being sort of in the, you know, mid to high 30s. And I think that's pretty consistent with what we've talked about before. So our ability to manage rate paid is much more enhanced from where it was before. Our capabilities, the tools and the modeling we use, the way to be really client-specific versus product, you know, versus really wide, be really narrow, client-specific, be able to reprice and make that based on relationships. We've laddered sort of the CD portfolio.
So we, you know, we don't have all these big cliffs. We have individual decisions that we're making along the way. So I think we've got some, you know, opportunities in that regard. And then the strategic shift for us is several-fold. On the wholesale side, we're seeing really, you know, interesting deposit growth in terms of our capability on treasury management and being more relevant to our clients. So we can see some deposit growth from that. And then on the consumer side, you know, we're growing net new. You know, so the most important thing to have more deposits is to have more clients. You know, so you sort of have to start with that framework. And we're able to, you know, attract clients with our digital platform. We're able to retain clients with better client service. And then we're able to grow those clients.
So they start sort of smaller. We've transitioned the business. And then being able to focus on our Premier clients. So clients have got $100,000- $1 million in deposits for us. We're consolidating all the offerings that we have for those clients to be more relevant, to be more reward-oriented for those clients. They have a lot of off-us deposits as well. So they have a positive propensity to do business with Truist. They like the experience. Their client engagement scores are higher. Our Voice Client scores are higher. Their promoter scores are higher. So they have a positive propensity to do business with us. And then what we want to do is get those off-us deposits and be able to do that with, you know, credit card products, mortgage products, things that are bundled for them that have an advantage.
A couple of months ago, I think back in September, you rolled out a medium-term, mid-teens ROTCE target. Maybe just give the audience a little bit of background, how you came up with this target, what do you view as the most significant opportunities, and over what timeframe?
Yeah. So I think it was really important sort of post the TIH sale that we sort of reset, you know, said, okay, we're, you know, we've raised a lot of capital in our company. We have a different business mix in terms of the insurance business no longer being part of that. And so how do we reset the return profile? What's the starting point, which is interesting, but the more important part is where do we go from that starting point and how can we accelerate from that position? We set a medium-term target and sort of in the 15 range. We didn't define specifically what medium target is because we're going to depend upon rates and other things that factor into that. There's some foundational things that we think make that approach arguably reachable and achievable in a very confident manner.
And the first and foremost is we have a lot of fixed asset repricing. So that's sort of a natural, right? So you sort of create some opportunity there. We have a pretty good size opportunity in fixed asset repricing. Some of the curve benefits right now sort of help some of that. So that's, you know, we see that sort of positive in terms of return. We have some smaller things and sort of RWA, you know, maximization tools that you use for that. We've invested in that. So those will be things that sort of happen, you know, inorganically in terms of how we create that. And then as you talked about in your question, building the high-return components of our business. So focus on payments, focus on the middle market, focus on the Premier segment. These are high-return objectives where we've already invested capital, you know.
So, the ability to build that waterfall on those projections. So, these aren't things that have 10-year paybacks that we're going to, you know, we're investing in long for the future. These are things that are right in front of us that are part of those short-term and medium-term building blocks. And, you know, as we talked about last night, it's a trajectory. You know, we pick 15 along the trajectory just because you don't want to set something that's so out there and it's ethereal and it's hard to see, but just try to say, here's what's in front of us. Here are the building blocks. Hold us accountable as we create that momentum. And I think we've got, you know, arguably the, you know, the highest return opportunity in that medium term.
Just as to follow up on that, do you expect to make progression on an annual basis, and how important is growth to achieving these objectives?
Yeah, 100% we expect to make progress on. I'm going to say on a daily basis, but yes, on an annual basis, all the things that we're going to do. We're going to continue to invest in and improve, and growth is an accelerant. You know, growth is an enhancement. We don't have to have a lot of growth to achieve those objectives because a lot of it, as I talked about before, it's penetrating and expanding relationships that we already have, but growth will be an accelerant on the timeline and the slope of that curve.
So let's dig into some of these. You know, when I think about the key initiatives you outlined, they're all generally centered off doing more with your existing clients. Maybe just talk about what were some of the drivers of underperformance historically and what gives you the confidence that you can now get a greater share of wallet from your customers?
Well, a couple of things. One is, you know, coming out, you have much better performance on the Voice of the Client, client service. Remember, in a merger of equals, every single client went through a transition. Every single client went through a transition. So we're through that. That's sort of in the rearview mirror. In the windshield, what we're seeing and feeling from clients is, hey, we had a really good experience. We're through that. We've got confidence in you. You're giving us good advice. You're giving us good service. You've got products and capabilities. You've invested in your digital platform. So the propensity to want to do more business with us is significantly elevated. So that sort of is the overall framework of our confidence in that.
And when you think about some of the initiatives, you said middle market, Premier Banking and payments. Obviously, commercial payments is, you know, since I've known you, it's been a big focus of the company. Maybe just talk about how you're positioned in this business and can it be an area of outsized growth for the bank over time?
I do think it can be an area of outsized growth because it's been an area of undersized growth in the past. And so we're underpenetrated relative to that opportunity. And we've done some charts and graphs and demonstration of this. We're about 50% underpenetrated relative to the opportunity. So that's on the corpus. What I look at is what are we doing on the new side? So new clients that we're acquiring, our penetration rates are really high. You know, so what that says to me is we're relevant. We've got really good products. We've got really good capabilities. We've committed capital. We've given those clients advice and they've returned in giving us penetration in the treasury management business. So on the new side, that dial takes a long time to turn. So now we go back to the existing platform.
Those who, you know, have now been through the conversion with us are on the positive side and we start converting those, so those RFPs, we're winning more RFPs, we're winning more opportunities with those, and so that battleship starts to turn on that as well, but the leading indicator for me is new and our penetration on new is really good, so that means that we are relevant, we have product capabilities that clients care about and they're willing to give us that business, and then turning the overall part of that over time.
So there's a lot of good initiatives going on the revenue side. And, you know, on the other side, there's been a lot of simplification that's happened across the organization. Maybe just talk about how you've simplified the structure over the last year and what these changes mean for both growing your business and also achieving your long-term objectives.
Yeah, I mean, you know, we were, you know, flashback to, you know, September of last year, we said we've got to take a lot of cost out of the company. And I think it's sort of a natural outgrowth. And the way to take the cost out was to simplify the business. And we took about $750 million worth of cost out of the company, which we felt really good about. It was the areas of, you know, spans and layers, simplification, consolidation of, you know, operating units, support units, operations, all those things that go along with that. And now we operate on a much more efficient platform. We also operate on a much more effective platform. You see that show up in the scores that we talked about. So where we go from here is we're able to grow on a more efficient platform.
We have more confidence in, you know, how the revenue and the expenses align with each other and how we can, you know, support the, continue to invest in the business, continue to save. We still have efficiency opportunities, but all of those are redeployed into the opportunities to invest in the business, so a little bit of the save the dollar, spend the dollar kind of approach that we have in the business, and we have a very good understanding of sort of what's the next saving opportunity and what's the next spend opportunity. How do they align and what are the returns and what are the timing about all those?
So maybe switching to fees. So investment banking has had a strong year in 2024. 3Q was seasonally very strong. What are your general expectations for this business in 2025? And how are you positioning yourself to continue to gain share in capital markets?
Yeah, I mean, you know, remember capital markets for us has been a decade's, you know, journey and it's all been organic. And that's been really, really important. So it's all been organic. And the organic component of that is we've built a great culture. We've built a great culture that the investment bank is part of the franchise. It's not a separate thing. It's part of the franchise. It's there to support the franchise. Going back to our earlier question on the dramatic change in commercial clients and expectations around advice and all that's driven from the industry expertise and advice that we've created in the investment bank. We've been able to grow that business in terms of share. I mean, arguably off a small share, but across virtually every product line in the last several quarters, we've continued to increase share. And I would see that continuing.
We've been able to attract, retain, and develop really good talent. The franchise is feeding that business. So that connectivity is really strong. So, you know, high single-digit, low double-digit kind of CAGRs, I think it should be an expectation for that kind of business. Of course, it gets harder as it gets bigger. We want the rest of the franchise to grow, you know, in concert with that. But it's a part of our business that we've built over decades. We've got a really good, consistent, great leadership and a model that, quite frankly, works.
So, you know, you've stated an expectation for positive operating leverage in 2025 and achieving that goal, I guess, after having costs slightly down in 2024. How are you thinking about expense growth and how are you also thinking about balancing expense discipline while ensuring that you're making the right investments for the long-term success of the company?
Yeah, I mean, I said at the third quarter and it's been, you know, more actualized since then. You know, I'm staring right now and the board stared at plans that have positive operating leverage for our two businesses. And so that's the expectation. They do have growth embedded in them. Not a lot of growth necessarily, but they do have growth embedded in them. So part of the positive operating leverage is achieving some level of growth. As I mentioned earlier, I think we've got a really good understanding of the expense and the revenue correlations and sort of how we can invest and how we can create those opportunities. We've got a really good understanding of the timing and the paybacks.
So, you know, the things that we have a really good understanding of the investment and the payback part of that formula so we can stack them on top of each other, create the small J curves as you go through that process. So expenses will be more correlated to where we are on the revenue side. Positive operating leverage. We'll have a growth component to it. There's just no doubt about that. We'll have some expense growth next year, but that expense growth will be relative to the opportunities that we see on the revenue side. And then the opportunity to continue to invest and the importance. That's part of the system of creating the efficiency and then investing in the opportunity.
As I said earlier, I think we've got a really good format and strategy to understand sort of the next step on savings and the next step on spending such that we can get those correlated to maximize client impact and shareholder return.
So you've made a handful of new leadership hires and changes over the course of this year. Maybe just talk about some of the new leaders you've added and how you think their expertise will help drive your business going forward?
One of the foundational elements of our strategy is to attract, develop, and retain great teammates. So there are all sorts of parts of that. So the attract is really part of that. That's what we're talking about. We've brought a lot of really great talent into our company. They've got fantastic perspective. They wanted to come work for a purpose-led company. They wanted to work for a company that, you know, the pitch is, Truist is a lot like a startup. You know, you get to be part of the growth of this company. You get to put your fingerprints on it. So that's a great way to attract teammates, but also developing our existing teammates. You know, so we've invested a lot in their personal development.
So not only are we bringing new people into our company, we're also developing and then retaining and then creating an environment where, you know, people want to work, where people want to grow their careers and want to have meaningful careers. So it's all three parts of that stool are really important. And we're creating together, you know, a culture of high performance, a culture of growth, all embedded in our foundation of purpose.
So maybe shifting gears a little bit to credit. You know, both your NPLs and charge-offs have stabilized over the past few quarters. Maybe just talk about what are your expectations for the trajectory of both charge-offs and the allowance over the next few quarters. Do you think we've kind of seen the peak in charge-offs and we could start to see some improvement? How are you thinking about that?
Credit has been very resilient. I mean, I think, you know, most of us see, you know, credit being incredibly resilient and has held up really well. If we sort of look through the spectrum on the commercial side, our clients are, you know, relatively well positioned, less leverage, more liquidity, higher margins. Our consumers still have a bunch of liquidity. We see different strains along the spectrum of the consumer, and so we understand that, but overall, the consumer's really healthy, so I don't think we see sort of a dramatic change. We'll have some seasonality. Fourth quarter had some seasonality into it, particularly in some of the consumer businesses, but I think in terms of sort of relative charge-offs and NPLs, I think we see some stability in that range, but now we're also at lower levels, right, so we're, you know, over time those things change.
But if I look sort of in the near and medium term, I see a lot of good stability on the credit side. I don't see a lot of cracks on the credit risk side of the company.
So maybe to shift gears a little bit to talk about capital, right? So you mentioned earlier that you made the strategic sale of TIH to really shore up the capital. You now have capital well in excess of 11.5. You know, on an adjusted basis, it's approaching 10. Maybe just talk a little bit about, you know, what you're most focused on from a capital ratio perspective when you're determining your capital deployment strategy. And maybe just outline for us, what are your capital priorities at this point?
Yeah, the capital priorities one, two, and three are investing in our company and growing our company. So that ends up being the, you know, the top priority for our company. You know, continuing to pay a really good, strong dividend, which we've consistently done. So those are the top two priorities. And then share buybacks, we've incorporated that as part of our strategy sort of post-TIH. I think they'll sort of stay in the same kind of range they are now because we want to ensure that we've got capital to invest in the business. I mean, I think the work that we did to raise capital incredibly efficiently through the sale of TIH, we want to deploy that back into the business. So if we have, you know, a bit more capital today, that's good. We want to be in that position.
We want to be in that athletic position. We want to respond. Our teammates are really confident. You know, they're really confident that they've got the company behind them. They're not under a capital constraint. We'll have a diversified business model. We'll have great risk controls, all the things that we need to do. But our strategy today is deploy that capital against our franchise and against our opportunity, and we see lots of those, lots of places to do that.
So Bill, it's clear that the hope, as you articulated, that you'll be able to deploy it in the business as we start to see some pickup in growth. However, you know, the environment is still somewhat uncertain. And, you know, if we don't actually see loan demand return, how do you think about just other uses of capital, whether it's higher share repurchases, purchasing loan portfolios, maybe even another securities restructuring? How do all of these types of things fit into the overall use of capital for Truist?
Yeah, if I went through those, securities reposition would be pretty low on the spectrum. I think we did, you know, arguably one of the largest securities repositioning. And I think we did it with the right return characteristics. And if you start evaluating that portfolio differently, that becomes a little more challenging. And we have a lot of that fixed asset repricing happening naturally. So we're going to get the benefit of that. And we'd rather sort of get that over the longer term in a consistent way. We'll consistently evaluate share repurchase. But it would take a lot to make us blink at this particular juncture to say, "Oh gosh, we don't see the opportunities for additional growth." I mean, I think we want to be long-term players.
We want to be focused on the, you know, perspective that's, you know, a little less than a quarter or a year. So I think we'll still be in the mode of wanting to invest. And there would take sort of a dramatic event to say, "We don't see loan growth for an extended period of time," and to reevaluate the priorities of how we'd use capital.
So, you know, in terms of using capital, one of the things that we've seen a handful of banks of similar sizes move to really expand their branch network, right, across various geographies. You know, how are you thinking about, you know, your branch network and your footprint from a growth perspective? Do you see opportunities to grow either inside the footprint or outside the footprint? How are you thinking about that as an organic investment?
Yeah, it's a great question. Of course, we did the most consolidation of the branch network, you know, to sort of get the maximum efficiency. And we're now entering into a new phase in terms of how we think about branches. And maybe I'll expand this a little bit because you sort of asked about it in terms of growth markets. Not branching outside of our markets, but if you take markets like for us, take Texas and Philadelphia and New Jersey as an example. So those will be markets we've been in about a decade. We have smaller shares related to those markets, but really good growth dynamics. So they've been growing. We've been investing in those markets. We've been hiring talent. We've been creating capacity. They've been growing loans and deposits at sort of double-digit kind of basis. We're really winning.
We're adding a lot of talent in those markets. We're winning a lot of left-lead transactions, sort of new to Truist. So those are places where we've seen really, really good growth. I think those are places where you'll see the branch networks expand. So that would sort of be within the franchise, but within growth opportunities where we see an opportunity to be in the, you know, take share mode.
So two more questions for you, Bill, before we wrap it up. You know, there's obviously been, you know, a lot of enthusiasm in the markets for bank stocks post the election. You know, while we don't know, you know, what the final outcomes are going to be, what changes we're going to see, I guess, what from a regulatory perspective are you most focused on that you think will have an impact, whether on just, you know, your ability to allocate or invest in the business?
Yeah, I don't think things change dramatically from a regulatory standpoint. I mean, we're building a great risk infrastructure that reflects the size and scope of our company. So I think we have sort of a clear objective of the things that we want to build in terms of capabilities that will allow us to do all the things that we need to do for our business. So I don't see sort of this dramatic change. Things that sit out there like Basel and TLAC and all those things, Basel I think sort of has a small impact on our company from an RWA standpoint. So I think, you know, that gets wherever that gets resolved. TLAC is sort of taking a, you know, different view, sort of the 6%, I think gets leveraged differently. We get to use liquidity differently, maybe capital differently.
So I don't see those as particular impediments to achieving our objectives. And we are going to continue to invest in the risk infrastructure that reflects the, you know, the opportunity and the ability to create a great platform to grow from.
And, you know, we've talked a lot of it in conclusion here over the last few years that, you know, undertaking the merger was a bigger ordeal than you thought. And that's resulted in underperformance in the stock over a handful of years. You've obviously made a ton of changes in recent times to position the bank to succeed. Maybe just in closing, tell us about why you think investors should be investing in Truist and what is different about the story today relative to the last few years?
Yeah, I mean, I think we're on the proverbial launching pad. You know, I mean, I think we're extremely well positioned. We have very, very strong, you know, client penetration. We're in great markets. We've added super talent. We've got great product and capability. You look at all the incremental early signs, we sort of see those in terms of net new growth, in terms of client acquisition, in terms of left-lead deals, all the things that we see that are early markers that we're making a difference and we're on a growth trajectory and we're positioned in a different place, I think are all there, so I mean, I literally think I'm as confident as I can possibly express about the positioning of our company, and we just need a little bit of growth to take advantage of it, you know.
I think we're in the best markets and have the best opportunity to do that.
Well, the shot clock has expired, so we're out of time. So please join me in thanking Bill.
Thank you.