BB&T Earnings Call Insights: Loan Growth Expectations and New Branch Openings

BB&T Corp (NYSE:BBT) recently reported its fourth quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call.

Loan Growth Expectations

Jefferson Harralson – Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: Thanks for my first question. I want to ask about the 2% to 4% loan growth expectation for our 2013. Can you talk with a mix of that little bit, how does the mortgage portfolio. I know at this year you were maybe substituting in some mortgages and replacing securities portfolio this year. Is that something reverse going to happen next year and within that 2% to 4% where you think C&I comes out?

Kelly S. King – Chairman and CEO: Last year, for much of the year, meaningful part of our growth was in holding mortgages because frankly, early part of the year make sense because of the rates as rates declined later in the year didn’t make sense. So we’ve started doing that. So that you’ve seen little bit of downward pressure on total loan growth because of that, you’ll see positive growth in this year in terms of C&I, in terms of sales finance, specialized lendings will be strong, CRE is going to be (comer) in terms of this year. So it is going to be a pretty broad-based and diversified. I think it will overall be very positive in terms of profitability because that kind of growth in this kind of market, given our discipline in terms of structure and price is really good growth.

Start 2013 better than ever by saving time and making money with your Limited Time Offer for our highly-acclaimed Stock Picker Newsletter. Click here for our fresh Feature Stock Pick now!

Jefferson Harralson – Keefe, Bruyette & Woods: From a follow-up, I just want to ask a mortgage question. How should I think about the huge mortgage origination volumes and how much extra profitability that’s given you now, (let’s say), risk to come out later in the year? I see the mortgage segment profitability sitting there that seems to also include the loans on the balance sheet, but with kind of record gains on sales and second originations, how should we think about how that plays out and the potential impact for you guys as kind of mortgage plays out next year?