U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript October 16, 2024 8:00 AM ET

Company Participants

George Andersen - SVP and Director of IR
Andy Cecere - Chairman and CEO
John Stern - CFO
Gunjan Kedia - President

Conference Call Participants

Scott Siefers - Piper Sandler
John Pancari - Evercore ISI
Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley
Erika Najarian - UBS
Mike Mayo - Wells Fargo Securities
Gerard Cassidy - RBC Capital Markets
Vivek Juneja - JPMorgan
Ebrahim Poonawala - Bank of America
Matt O'Connor - Deutsche Bank

Operator

Hello, and welcome to the U.S. Bancorp Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Following a review of the results, there will be a formal question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. This call will be recorded and be available for replay beginning today at approximately 10:00 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, Ellie, and good morning, everyone. Today, I'm joined by our Chairman and CEO, Andy Cecere; CAO, Terry Dolan; President, Gunjan Kedia; and CFO, John Stern. Together with their prepared remarks, Andy and John will be referencing a slide presentation. A copy of the presentation, our earnings release and supplemental analyst schedules can be found on our website at usbank.com.

Please note that any forward-looking statements made during today's call are subject to risks and uncertainty. Factors that could materially change our current forward-looking assumptions are described on Page 2 of today's presentation, our press release, and in reports on file with the SEC. Following our initial prepared remarks, Andy, Terry, Gunjan 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 diluted earnings per share of $1.03, and generated total net revenue of $6.9 billion. The quarter was highlighted by strong growth in net interest income, good momentum across several fee business initiatives, and continued expense discipline, which supported modest, positive operating leverage on an adjusted basis compared with the third-quarter of last year. Our return on tangible common equity was 17.9% this quarter.

Turning to Slide 4. Revenue growth on a linked-quarter basis was driven by improved spread income from more favorable loan mix, continued fixed asset repricing, proactive and disciplined liability management as well as strategic actions taken on our investment securities portfolio. John will provide more detail on these actions in his prepared remarks. On the upper right-hand side of the slide, you will see that non-performing assets, the net charge-off ratio, and late-stage delinquency metrics were all relatively stable compared with the second quarter levels. At September 30th, our common equity Tier 1 capital ratio was 10.5%, an increase of 20 basis points from last quarter, driven by continued earnings accretion. Our tangible book value per share increased to $24.71, a 6.7% improvement linked-quarter and an 18.5% higher than last year.