vBlog: Bankers... What's Your Criteria for Your CEO Search?

Bankers and Credit Union executives and Board members, be careful when limiting your choices for your next leaders. Because you might get what you asked for.

What traits and experience do you think equates to success?

~ Jeff

YouTube link in case you can't view on your device...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weOl8ceXHzg

The Law of Large Numbers for Banks and Credit Unions

While a colleague and I sat patiently waiting for our flight, we were discussing an upcoming strategic planning session with a client. He asked what I thought were their chances of success. I thought their future was bright, but pointed to a couple of headwinds working against them. One of them was the law of large numbers.

The law of large numbers in banking requires ever more asset generation as the bank becomes larger to sustain growth. If a bank is publicly held and management tells their investors they shoot for 10% growth, the number gets harder to achieve as the bank grows larger.

This was true of our client, where I estimated they needed between $1.5 billion and $2.0 billion of new loan production to grow their balance sheet 10%. We have many clients that haven’t achieved that total loan size in their 100 year history.

Some banks have done it. One such bank that consistently stunned competitors and analysts with hefty growth was the former Commerce Bank of Cherry Hill, NJ. They did it through rapid branching, buying business in new markets particularly from municipalities, and their reputation (self-proclaimed) as America’s Most Convenient Bank. Their CEO was not as much concerned with top tier financial performance, quarter over quarter, so long as the bank was investing in the growth engine.

Many of us do not have that luxury. So how do we get 10% growth, or deliver double-digit total return to shareholders, as we get larger? Some do it through acquisition. Acquisition criteria gets looser as the bank gets larger and the need to “feed the beast” grows.

But could there be another way? It may be difficult because while the bank was growing, the CEO was touting the growth strategy to constituencies. So changing strategic course calls for strategic leadership.

As it gets more difficult to grow, and as potential acquisition targets decline, could it be time to turn this growth engine into a cash cow? It’s the natural evolution of business. If you’re management team is ideal for your current size and not much larger, and your markets are not yielding sufficient growth, why not maximize profits and reward shareholders, not in the form of robust capital appreciation, but in dividends? Mutuals and credit unions could reward depositors in the form of a special dividend. What a great benefit to bank with you!

The accompanying table shows banks that are growing slowly, yet have superior financial performance and a strong total return to shareholders, delivered in great part by a greater than 4% dividend yield.

Perhaps the bottom two are restrained more by their markets than the law of large numbers. I particularly wanted to throw in the sub $200 million in asset bank to show bankers that it can and is being done at this size. But I ask you, what is wrong with this strategy? If the answer relates to taxes, I’m not sure you’re getting my point.

And my point is this: staking your success to a growth strategy that your management team cannot deliver and your markets cannot support requires you to make acquisitions to deliver the total return demanded by your shareholders. Following this strategy will result in poorer acquisitions, diminished ability to manage a sprawling franchise, and ultimate erosion of franchise value.

Think Sovereign Bank. Do you want to join them?

What’s your number?

~ Jeff


Note: I make no investment recommendations in my blog. Please do not claim to invest in any security based on what you read here. You should make your own decisions in that regard. FINRA makes people take a test to ensure they know what they are doing before recommending securities. I'm sure that strategy works well.

Dear Mr./Ms. Bank Regulator

My firm will occasionally provide feedback on correspondence to our clients' regulators. Today we did just that. Our advice: don't come off as combative. Since hitting send on that e-mail, I reflected on how a half Italian, half Irish firebrand like myself became so melancholy. 

Truth is, I haven't. I thought about what we should have said to the regulator, versus the sweet words I was encouraging our client to use. I mentioned to him that we should keep two versions of the letter: one that we will send crafted to get our intended result, and one that says what we mean. Below is a sample letter to your regulator, saying it like you mean it.

August 2, 2014


Mr. John Whatshisname
Examiner In Charge
Bank Regulatory Body
1 Bureaucrat Way, NW
Washington, DC 20429

Mr. Whatshisname,

Below is our response to the Matters Requiring Attention ("MRA") that were included in your most recent examination report on Schmidlap National Bank ("Schmidlap"). 

Although our Tier 1 leverage ratio is greater than 10%, you criticized us for our stress scenarios contained in our capital plan. You opined they lacked analytic rigor. Aside from the clear lack of analytic rigor you exercised to come to this conclusion, it is important to remind you that estimating future negative events that impact our capital is guesswork. We like our guesses better than yours, and our spreadsheets are bigger than yours. So, no, we are not re-doing our capital plan.

Our level of investor commercial real estate is trending closer to your guidance levels. We get that. What you suggest we do is create greater diversity in our loan portfolio. We have a lot of small restaurants in our markets that can pledge pizza ovens as collateral. We are now training our lenders on pizza oven market valuations and setting a pizza oven loan to value limit in our loan policy. We will be dispatching lenders to pizza shops up and down our valley in the coming months. Mangia!

In the management section, you had two items for us: our succession plan and strategic risk. If I win the lottery, Frank will take my slot. If Frank gets hit by a beer truck, Jane is up to the task. If Mary goes buh-bye, Alex will step in. There's our succession plan. The Board is a little more difficult, because getting local luminaries to get paid twenty five grand a year to put up with your bullsh*t is difficult. We're working on it.

In terms of strategic risk by the recent new products and delivery channels we have added, we will need further definition from you on "strategic risk". When sending your clarifying statement, also send your resume containing the qualifications you possess to dictate product and delivery channel strategies. Also, please clarify the definitions contained within CAMELS, because we didn't think the S meant strategic. If our memory serves correctly, and the S does not stand for strategic, then we don't give a rats a** what you think about our products and delivery channels.

We recognize that there are so many laws and regulations that apply to banks that you can couch any criticism you have for us under some law, such as the Truth in Lending Act. It reminds me of high school geometry, when the teacher asked me to solve for a triangle, I would say "CPCT", knowing it could be so. So you can say, "I don't like this checking account... BSA/AML", and I would have to enlist regulatory attorneys to investigate the matter only to come to the conclusion that "you can't fight Uncle Sam".

That, Mr. Whatshisname, is the definition of tyranny. And Schmidlap is not gonna take it.

Warm Regards,
Schmidlap National Bank

Guest Post: Second Quarter Economic Review by Dorothy Jaworski

Summer’s Here

We are all thankful that summer has arrived!  Heat and humidity!  And no one complains!  After the brutally cold and stormy winter, stuck in the perpetual polar vortex, no one dares to complain.

Our winter mood was brutally apparent in the GDP report that was released for the first quarter of 2014.

Actually the report comes out three times with a preliminary report, a revision, and a final report.  The Bureau of Economic Analysis, or “BEA,” a part of the Commerce Department provided their preliminary peak at 1Q GDP at the end of April.  GDP was reported at -.1%, they said.  Hey, great!  That winter wasn’t so bad after all…The second release at the end of May came in at -1.0%.  Wait!  That winter was bad.  Business just didn’t replenish inventories…Then came the shocking final report at the end of June showing -2.9%!  Wait!  The economy was so bad, the weather was so bad, consumers did not spend…

This is supposed to be an economic recovery.  In fact, it is now five years old.  And we get a terrible quarter like that?  What is going on here?  I will tell you that the change from -1.0% to -2.9% by the BEA was the largest downward revision since this GDP methodology was developed in 1976.  And do some math- if GDP grows at 3% (by some miracle) for the rest of 2014, GDP will average 1.5% for the year!  Plenty of excuses accompanied the final report, but I am not completely buying them.  I sum up the revisions by the BEA with a thought from Mike Flynn (06/30/14):  “If you torture economic statistics long enough, they will confess to anything.”

What’s Really Going On

I am still of the view that our economy will continue its growth path at 2% to 2.5%, well under its normal recovery speed and well below its potential.  Numerous regulations burdening all industries and higher capital requirements for the banking industry will weigh down growth.  Investors’ Business Daily has estimated the annual cost of regulation at $1.86 trillion.  Just think about that number as it relates to $17 trillion in annual GDP.  Consumer spending tanked in 1Q14, but should rebound in 2Q14.  Remember the spike in electricity prices in January and February?  That put consumers in a bad spending mood.  Gas prices began a slow climb in 1Q14 and the increases have not yet abated.  Gas prices have passed $3.70 per gallon and are up 12% year-to-date.  I’m outraged, aren’t you?

Having just read an article on Bloomberg that the US has now surpassed Saudi Arabia and Russia with average daily output of 11 million barrels of oil in 1Q14, I would have thought that the concepts of supply and demand were still alive.  Due to the fracking boom (extracting energy from shale rock by using high pressure liquid to split rocks and release oil or gas) has made the US competitive in the energy industry again and there is little impact to reduce our prices?  That leaves me outraged!  Will we approach our all time high gas prices of $4.11 per gallon from July, 2008 and $3.99 in May, 2011 soon?  At both of those times, consumers reached a tipping point where spending fell on most discretionary goods as a result.

Employment

Recent employment reports have been increasingly positive, showing the potential for GDP improvement. The June report showed that 288,000 jobs were created.  The unemployment rate fell to 6.1% in June from 7.5% one year earlier.  Many of the jobs being created are low paying ones or are part-time.  The proportion of part-time jobs to total jobs is now at 19% compared to 17% in 2008.  People dropping out of the labor force have certainly contributed to a falling unemployment rate; Those Not in the Labor Force rose again in June to a record 92.1 million.  The labor force participation rate is still at a 30 year low at 62.8%. These two statistics speak volumes- we are losing the productivity of a great number of persons, probably very experienced ones.

To know if interest rates will rise soon, or sooner than the market expects, my advice would be to watch the Yellen Dashboard on employment and pay attention to whether the measures are improving over pre-crisis ones.  The markets expect the first short term rate increase in mid-2015 and this is built into the futures markets.  The Fed has already indicated that they will be ending the QE program by the fall of 2014.  It is my view that the program initially worked, but in 2013, the Fed lost credibility with it and had to begin to unwind it.  And, as always, watch inflation, too.  It is still tame and at or below Fed targets.

The Economy

Yes, our economy is resilient, but five years into a recovery, growth of about 2% is well under our potential. Since the recovery began in June, 2009, real GDP has averaged +2.2%.  In the ten previous recessions, real GDP averaged +4.6%.  I do think we will continue to grow around 2%.  Hiring is up, albeit with lots of part-time jobs.  Average hourly earnings are up to $24.45, which is an increase of 2% in the past year. Consumer spending may not be much higher than 2% as borrowing to supplement spending is not as prevalent as it was before the 2008 crisis.  Technology is advancing and aiding productivity growth.  Stock markets are reaching new highs with the Dow Jones average at 17,000 and the S&P 500 approaching 2,000, with a PE ratio of 15.7 times.

We would love to grow exports but Europe and Asia’s economies are fairly weak.  I may have to personally go to Europe and investigate!  The European Central Bank, or “ECB,” just lowered rates again and this time tested negative interest rates, at -.10%, on bank reserve deposits.  Speaking of other parts of the world, the unrest and fighting in Iraq, Syria, Israel, and over in the Ukraine make for a very uncertain world indeed.  In the US, children and immigrants from South America are flooding through our borders in huge unmanageable numbers.  Uncertainty is often the enemy of economic growth.

As always, take heed of the roadblocks to higher growth (the Fed calls them headwinds) - high gas prices, regulatory burden, weak world economies, low income growth, uncertainty, and bad pothole repair!  Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading and Happy Summer!  DJ 07/09/14

Dorothy Jaworski has worked at large and small banks for over 30 years; much of that time has been spent in investment portfolio management, risk management, and financial analysis. Dorothy has been with First Federal of Bucks County since November, 2004. She is the author of Just Another Good Soldier, which details the 11th Infantry Regiment's WWII crossing of the Moselle River where her uncle, Pfc. Stephen W. Jaworski, gave his last full measure.

Will Bigger Lead to a More Efficient Bank?

A friendly competitor of ours, Anita Newcomb, spoke about strategic planning and economies of scale in banking at the recent Maryland Bankers Association annual convention. She led attendees through the increasing regulatory burden and the need for some level of scale to remain competitive.

This got me thinking, if Anita's premise is correct, that bigger is necessary to compete, then what is bigger? And what has changed since before the dawn of Dodd-Frank? So I went to the numbers. As I have often said, it always comes down to a spreadsheet.

I searched for all banks and thrifts that have existed since at least 2007. Any institution that had "NA" in their efficiency ratio for either 2007 or year to date (YTD) 2014 I eliminated. So the sample size was fairly large, nearly all financial institutions in existence today. I then parsed them into seven asset size categories, and compared their efficiency ratios in 2007 and today. The result is the below tables.

For both periods, the lowest efficiency ratios come from the $20B - $100B asset class. In 2007, this asset class had 60% of their members achieve an efficiency ratio lower than 55%. That number has shrunk from 60% to 30% YTD, a dramatic fall from glory. Yet the asset class retains the honor of the highest percent of banks that achieve the under 55% honor.

All asset classes suffered declines in the percent that have efficiency ratios lower than 55%. In 2007, however, you can see the steep dropoff in efficiency between the $500MM - $1B and the $1B - $5B classes. In 2014, the dropoff moved upstream to the larger banks, with 24% of the $5B - $10B banks achieving < 55%, and the $1B - $5B asset class only having 15% under 55%.

So, at least statistically, it appears as though it is becoming more difficult for banks with less than $5B in assets to achieve superior efficiency.  But it is difficult for everybody, not just the under $5B class.

One of my working theories regarding the "you must be bigger" argument was that the number of smaller institutions that achieve superior efficiency is shrinking. So the anecdotes about how this small bank or that small bank do it (achieve superior efficiency) are declining. But the anecdotes about all banks achieving superior efficiency are also in decline, according to the statistics.

Even though only 11% of banks with less than $500MM in assets achieve a sub 55% efficiency ratio, it still represents the greatest amount of banks that achieve the feat. So, if you are sitting around your Board table or in senior management meetings lamenting about rising costs relating to regulation and technology, perhaps instead of calling your investment banker, you should ask how the 11% of small financial institutions do it.

It's a legitimate question, right?

~ Jeff

Five Bank Marketing Leadership Takeaways from the ABA School of Bank Marketing Management

Lance Kessler introduced a new subject to the ABA School of Bank Marketing Management (SBMM) this week... Marketing Leadership.

A few months ago, he asked me and two other marketing experts to be on a panel for the class. I rejected the moniker "marketing expert". I may be an expert on a couple of topics, but marketing is not one of them. But I applaud Lance and the school for putting a finance and strategy wonk on the panel to get some outside perspectives on how the marketing function can be a significant contributor to the evolution of our respective banks from what we were to what we can be.

The class was a combination of lecture, questionnaire, and panel. So there was not a list of key takeaways displayed in a slick PowerPoint presentation. But I was taking notes on key items identified as critical takeaways for marketing leadership. Unfortunately, I left my notes back in Atlanta. So you, my readers, are stuck with my memory.

Key takeaways for marketing leadership:

1. Speak the language of the C-Suite. As much as marketers read and discuss the increased number of "impressions" they get from a witty Facebook post, your CFO could care less. If you talk social media impressions, you better know how that translates to greater unaided brand awareness, and ultimately more at-bats for your sales force that leads to greater balances than you would have otherwise achieved without the increased impressions. Tell the CEO/CFO how you will drive volume, increase margin, or drive down costs, and their ears will spike like a German Shepard that heard a rabbit shuffling in a thicket. Otherwise, check the marketing-speak at the door.

2. Take your CFO to lunch. But first take heed of (1) above. Building internal relationships will be critical to improving the marketer's influence on the future direction of your bank. Having stronger relationships with bank executives will give you the opportunity to demonstrate you do more than run the ad budget and branch merchandising. 

3.  Be analytical. Many if not most marketers got into the profession to leverage their creative nature. But the marketing function is evolving to be more analytical. Correlating organizational actions to outcomes based on statistical analysis gives the marketer far greater internal credibility than a discussion on how different primary colors impact the senses. You're going to have to trust me on this one.

4. Don't wait to be asked for help. It grates me when marketers focus on retail account acquisition when the bank's strategy is to grow commercial customers. I have not yet concluded that this is because it is within the marketer's comfort zone or that commercial bankers simply don't think they need marketing's help. Maybe a combination of both. If marketers' want to be an integral part of executing bank strategy, then go to the senior commercial banker and show them how marketing will be helping them achieve their objectives.

 5. Grow revenue. Position marketing expenditures as the fuel that grows organizational revenue. Having a well thought out campaign that shows multiple financial outcomes should result in funding. Delivering on the results improves your internal credibility and will make it easier to fund your next project, reducing the need to "whine for dollars" (i.e. can I puhleeezzzz have $50,000 for a direct mail campaign?).

Five is all that my memory will allow. There was a lot of great discussion, and marketers had excellent questions for panelists. 

What else is critical to marketing leadership?

~ Jeff

Barriers to Entry In Banking Spell Opportunity. But Do We Seize It?

There are numerous and significant barriers to entry in banking. Regulation, capital requirements, competition, and the concentration of customers at the largest institutions have all contributed to only one bank charter being granted over the past three years. 

But I rarely hear of opportunity as a result of high barriers to entry in bank strategy sessions. I mostly hear lamentations and gnashing of teeth over the sluggish economy, aggressive regulatory environment, and irrational competition.

We are missing an opportunity, in my opinion. Here are the 10 strategic issues banks should address to position themselves to take advantage of high barriers to entry:

1.  We have thousands of customers, but do we understand who they are and what they want? Don’t believe me, ask your head of retail or commercial for an analysis of your customer base, including trend. If you get it immediately, good for you. I have my doubts.

2.  Do we have employees that grip old habits with white knuckles?  And, if yes, have failed to move them forward or out?

3.  We speak of relationships, but have we defined in detail what that means?

4.  We spend tens of millions in operating expenses, but do we direct expenditures to strategic priorities? Or have we failed to identify strategic priorities?

5.  We talk of service, but have we communicated service expectations?

6.  We expect customer contact staff to reach out to customers, but do we train them to do so?

7.  We speak of sales, but what percent of our staff have sales responsibilities?

8.  We spend millions on technology. But breaking it down, does our budget look like we are more focused on replacing Windows XP than building the distribution network of the future?

9.  Do we focus more on building the bank of the future or making budget?

10.  Do we identify the bank of the future, and the bank we want to become? Or do we remain some slightly modified version of the bank we were in 1950.

It is time for bold thinking to break from our past. We can no longer be some slightly modified version of what we once were. If we don’t bust our business model, someone else will.

And hey, I need community banks to thrive. So do your communities. So let’s get to it.

~ Jeff