U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB) Q3 2023 Results Conference Call October 18, 2023 8:00 AM ET

Company Participants

George Andersen - Investor Relations

Andy Cecere - Chairman, President & CEO

Terry Dolan - Vice Chair & CFO

John Stern - SVP & Head of Finance

Conference Call Participants

Ebrahim Poonawala - Bank of America

John McDonald - Autonomous Research

Mike Mayo - Wells Fargo Security

John Pancari - Evercore

Scott Siefers - Piper Sandler

Erika Najarian - UBS

Gerard Cassidy - RBC

Vivek Juneja - JPMorgan

Matt O'Connor - Deutsche Bank

Ken Usdin - Jefferies

Operator

Welcome to the U.S. Bancorp Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Following review of the results, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] This call will be recorded and available for replay beginning today at approximately 9:00 a.m. Central Time.

I will now turn the conference call over to George Andersen, Senior Vice President and Director of Investor Relations for U.S. Bancorp.

George Andersen

Thank you, Brad, and good morning, everyone. With me today are Andy Cecere, our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; Terry Dolan, Vice Chair and Chief Administration Officer; and John Stern, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. During their initial prepared remarks, Andy and John will be referencing a slide presentation. A copy of the presentation, our earnings release and supplemental analyst schedules are available on our website at usbank.com.

Please note that any forward-looking statements made during today's call are subject to risk and uncertainty. Factors materially change our current forward-looking assumptions are described on Page 2 of today's presentation, our press release, our Form 10-K and in subsequent reports on file with the SEC. Following our prepared remarks, Andy, Terry and John will take any questions that you have.

I will now turn the call over to Andy.

Andy Cecere

Thanks, George. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. I'll begin on Slide 3. In the third quarter, we reported earnings per share of $0.91, which included $0.14 per share of notable items related to merger and integration charges. Excluding those notable items, we delivered earnings per share of $1.05 for the quarter. Third quarter results were highlighted by linked quarter and year-over-year fee revenue growth that benefited from our acquisition of Union Bank, deepening client relationships and strong underlying business activity.

We are achieving the cost synergies we anticipated from Union Bank and continue to prudently manage core expense as we identify operational efficiencies across the business. As of September 30, our Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio was 9.7%, an increase of 60 basis points this quarter. This is the same level that it was prior to our acquisition of Union Bank. Total average deposits increased 3% or $15 billion on a linked-quarter basis.