Truist Finl Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Truist Finl (NYSE:TFC) reported third-quarter financial results on Friday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

This transcript is brought to you by Benzinga APIs. For real-time access to our entire catalog, please visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ for a consultation.

View the webcast at https://app.webinar.net/BAM6O91OpkL

Summary

Truist Finl reported a 12% year-over-year increase in earnings per share, excluding impacts from asset sales and repositioning.

The company emphasized a strategic shift toward relationship-based businesses with a narrower focus, aiming to enhance client relationships and improve financial returns.

Operational improvements include simplifying processes, enhancing branch and ATM networks, and investing in digital and payment capabilities.

Truist Finl completed the sale of its RAC auto loan portfolio and announced the sale of LightStream, generating significant capital and improving risk profiles.

Management reiterated ROTC targets of 15% for 2027 and 16-18% long-term, focusing on strategic investments while maintaining expense discipline.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Truist Finl third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this event is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Brad Millsaps.

Brad Millsaps, Investor Relations

Thank you, Betsy, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Truist Finl’s third quarter 2026 earnings call. With us today are our CEO Mike Lyons and our CFO Michael Maguire. During this morning’s call, they will discuss Truist Finl’s third quarter 2026 results, share their perspectives on current business conditions, and provide an updated outlook for 2026. The accompanying presentation as well as our earnings release and supplemental financial information are available on the Truist Finl investor relations website, ir.truist.com.

Our presentation today will include forward-looking statements and certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please review the disclosures on slides 2 and 3 of the presentation regarding these statements and measures as well as the appendix for required reconciliations to GAAP. With that, I’ll turn it over to Mike Lyons.

Mike Lyons, President & CEO

Thanks, Brad, and good morning, everyone. It’s good to be with you on my first earnings call. I’ve long admired Truist Finl and its predecessor companies, and I’m excited about the opportunity to build on the company’s tremendous assets and attributes to drive better operating performance, faster growth, higher profitability, and greater shareholder value. Before we dig in, and on behalf of everyone at Truist Finl, I want to recognize Bill Rogers and thank him for his leadership and many contributions to the company over his 46-year career.

I’m especially grateful for the warm welcome he has shown me since the announcement in June. Turning to the quarter, we grew earnings per share 12% year on year, excluding the impact of the previously announced RAC sale and the associated capital-neutral AFS repositioning that we completed during the quarter. These results were broadly in line with our expectations. Wealth management performed ahead of plan, client deposit growth and asset quality were both better than expected, and we maintained expense discipline with costs coming in below plan.

On the flip side, amid broader market volatility, we had some investment banking revenue get pushed out late in the quarter. Our revenues also reflect lower loan balances, as our sharper focus on risk-adjusted returns in wholesale impacted volumes, and we saw higher-than-expected paydown. Mike will walk you through the quarter in detail in a moment, but first I wanted to share some of my early observations and how I’m thinking about the opportunity ahead.

As I’ve said to many of you, I came to Truist Finl because of its exceptionally strong foundation and my belief in what this company can become. In my first six weeks, I spent a lot of time meeting with teammates, clients, and investors. These conversations have only strengthened my conviction. In Truist Finl, we have all the raw materials to become one of the country’s top-performing banks, and this is our overwhelming number one objective. That said, it is no secret that we have not performed up to our potential over the last several years, including falling short of the financial goals set forth at the time of the merger.

While I believe that that history and context are important and we have learned from it, we are where we are today, and we know we can perform better. We’re now squarely focused on the future and are fortunate to move forward with some tremendous assets. Importantly, we do not need to reinvent Truist Finl to win from here. From a strategic perspective, while Truist Finl’s purpose has always been clear and at the forefront, we have fallen short in translating that purpose into a focused set of strategic priorities and consistently aligning our investment decisions to support them.

As a result, some important initiatives have not received the level of investment or attention required, which inevitably makes execution more challenging. Going forward, we are clear on and committed to a strategy which narrows our focus to relationship-based businesses where we are competitively advantaged and can earn attractive returns by becoming the most important financial partner to our clients, and we will invest deliberately and consistently to support that strategy.

Of course, the path to becoming this most important financial partner requires time and investment and differs across our two businesses. In our CSBB segment, it means striving to win the DDA of every client across our branch footprint. We will do this by increasing investment in the capabilities that matter most to our clients: great service, value-based products, multi-channel access, speed and safety of payments, durable technology, and trusted, personalized advice.

As part of this, we are shifting our consumer lending focus to areas that support a strong in-footprint DDA relationship, like credit cards, home lending, and unsecured loans. Contrast this approach to today, where we have operated too many nationally focused standalone single-product businesses like Marine and RV, RAC, and LightStream, which have diverted attention and resources from growing our core deposit franchise. In wholesale, it means delivering capital and ultimately a broad array of value-added solutions that allow our clients to run their businesses better.

We have an exceptional full-service franchise that offers Wall Street capabilities, industry vertical expertise, and a top-10 balance sheet which is uniquely combined and delivered through a relationship- and community-based model rooted in 150-plus years of history. While wholesale has performed well, we see meaningful opportunity to invest for growth. We’re continuing to build a full-service treasury management platform. We have the opportunity to meaningfully expand our sales teams in middle market banking, rates and FX brokerage, and wealth advisory.

And there are still a number of attractive lending businesses where we don’t yet participate either at all or at the scale that we should. Put simply, wholesale, including wealth management, has a strong foundation and solid momentum, but there is considerable runway for investment-led growth, and we’re already moving on some of this, recently adding over 40 bankers to our commercial middle market business. From an operational perspective, we need to get back to basics, simplify how we work, remove unnecessary complexity, and eliminate low-priority activities.

This is the straightforward operational framework that will support our strategy: simplify, focus, execute, and grow. So we start with a great foundation. We’ve now established a clear strategy and the operational framework to support it. From here, we have some important capital and resource allocation work to do to position ourselves to execute on this strategy successfully. This starts with reconfiguring and improving our balance sheet composition and reallocating parts of our expense base to drive growth through key investments.

With respect to the balance sheet, we plan to remix our securities away from long-dated MBS into a greater mix of U.S. Treasuries, limit the use of our deposits to core strategic lending areas where we can build deep, long-standing relationships, reduce wholesale borrowings, and maintain a strong through-the-cycle capital position. In terms of required investments, we are focused on closing key gaps and strengthening our branch and ATM networks, modernizing our technology including more AI capabilities, adding client-facing talent, and building digital and payments capabilities including mobile banking, treasury management, and credit cards.

Our goal is to make our branches more inviting, service more consistent, technology more resilient, our product set broader, operations simpler, and ensure our teammates are better supported. To fund these investments, we’re systematically reviewing all businesses, operations, and processes through a straightforward lens that asks three questions: Is it core to our strategy, is it generating targeted returns, and is it protecting the bank or helping our clients?

If something does not pass these tests, we’re redirecting resources and capital to fund strategic growth investments while maintaining expense discipline. Our sale of RAC and the associated repositioning of the balance sheet, and today’s announcement with LightStream, come directly from this process and reflect our new framework, accelerated pace, and enhanced shareholder focus. We’re aiming to finish this evaluation by the end of the year, and in early 2027 we’ll provide more details on our outlook for the year and our path to becoming a top-performing bank as the investments we’re making take shape over time.

Of course, making the right strategic and resource allocation decisions is only the first part of the equation. From there, we have to execute sharply on our day-to-day operations and a significant investment agenda. To that end, we made some important leadership changes in CSBB designed to ensure that we have the right breadth and depth of leadership to execute and achieve our ambitions. As part of this, Steve Bolan will join Truist Finl as Vice Chair, bringing more than three decades of consumer banking experience, including as the former President of Retail Banking at Bank of America.

Shim Samir, who we announced this summer as the head of Truist Finl wealth management, after a 20-plus-year career at Bank of America, will move over to become Chief Consumer Banking Officer. Shim has extensive experience leading large-scale consumer and branch businesses and operations and will play a critical role as we focus on growing deposits. And Jeff Warner will join Truist Finl to lead small business banking, a highly attractive segment where we are well positioned with significant upside.

Jeff brings over 25 years of business and corporate banking experience to us. In short, we’ve sharpened CSBB’s focus, added highly experienced leaders to complement our existing talent, and flattened the organization, all designed to drive the execution of our growth plan going forward. Across Truist Finl, we will bring disciplined management and deliver crisp execution and operational excellence, and we will hold ourselves accountable for outcomes measured against the industry’s top performers.

By doing so, we will become a consistently high performer ourselves, making our existing profitability targets look more like table stakes. We remain committed to delivering on our ROTC targets, which includes 15% in 2027 and 16% to 18% over the long term. Regarding returns, I should note that while some of the actions we’re taking in the near term, like RAC and LightStream, will necessarily reduce the balance sheet, our strategy is not about shrinking to achieve higher returns.

It’s about creating a stronger foundation for both sustainable growth and higher returns over time. We appreciate your support and feedback as we execute this strategic review and position Truist Finl to achieve its full potential. With that, I’ll turn it over to Mike to discuss the quarter.

Michael Maguire, Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Mike. As Mike discussed, we’ve been reviewing our businesses and lending portfolios with a focus on strategic fit, capital, efficiency, and risk-adjusted returns. As you can see on Slide 5, we completed the previously announced sale of our $5.5 billion RAC auto loan portfolio at the end of the third quarter and have exited that business. We received net proceeds of $5.2 billion from the sale, which we used to reduce borrowings. Of note, the sale meaningfully improved our credit risk profile, reducing consolidated nonperforming loans by 28% and expected annualized net charge-offs by 10 basis points.

The sale also generated approximately $1 billion, or 23 basis points, of CET1 capital, which we utilized to reposition a portion of our AFS securities portfolio. As we detail on the left-hand side of the slide, we sold $8.6 billion of book value lower-yielding agency MBS securities with a 2.67% book yield and a duration of 5.8 years, and then purchased $7.2 billion of investment securities effectively yielding approximately 5.6% with a duration of 2.3 years, adjusted for the new pay-fixed swaps that were added at the time of the purchases.

Taken together, these actions were immediately accretive to tangible book value per share and are expected to provide benefits to earnings per share and ROTCE beginning in the fourth quarter. As mentioned, in addition to these completed actions, we continue to evaluate other businesses based on strategic and financial potential. As part of this work, we are pleased to announce this morning that we have signed an agreement to sell $7.7 billion of loans, representing substantially all of the assets of LightStream, a national provider of direct unsecured personal loans.

Similar to our decision to sell RAC, the sale of LightStream represents an exit from a non-core, loan-only business that is generating returns well below our targets. Exiting LightStream will also improve our credit risk, liquidity, and funding profiles. The transaction, which we expect to close during the fourth quarter, is estimated to generate net proceeds of $7.2 billion, create $850 million, or 20 basis points, of CET1 capital, and reduce consolidated annual net charge-offs by approximately 7 basis points.

We will use the sale proceeds to repay wholesale funding and, based on market conditions at closing, we will evaluate potential uses of the incremental capital generated, including repositioning additional AFS securities. To the extent that we do reposition AFS securities, we will invest in securities that shorten the duration of the AFS portfolio and increase the proportion of the portfolio that is invested in U.S. Treasuries. Now turning to third quarter results on Slide 6, we reported GAAP net income available to common shareholders of $684 million, or $0.56 per diluted share.

As shown on the slide, the strategic actions we just discussed reduced reported EPS by a net $0.60 per share, reflecting $0.90 per share of losses from the AFS securities repositioning and $0.06 per share of RAC-related costs and losses. These were partially offset by a $0.36 per share benefit from the RAC-related reserve release. Excluding these items, adjusted EPS was $1.16 per share, which is up 12% versus the third quarter of 2025. Adjusted ROTCE was 14.6%, a 100 basis point improvement from the third quarter of 2025, driven by higher earnings and continued capital return.

Next, I’ll cover our balance sheet on Slide 7. As Mike highlighted, we are intensely focused on enhancing the composition of our balance sheet and maintaining a strong through-the-cycle capital position. The strategic actions we took in Q3 positively impacted our balance sheet composition and reduced our risk profile. As you can see on the slide, average loans declined $3.6 billion, or 1.1%, largely reflecting the impact of the RAC loan sale and reduced originations in prime auto and marine RV, while average investment securities at amortized cost were up modestly linked quarter; they were down $2.8 billion on a period-end basis. Deposit trends remained strong, with average deposits increasing 1.4% linked quarter and 3.6% versus a year ago, driven primarily by higher client deposit balances. This deposit growth, along with proceeds created from the RAC sale, allowed us to reduce brokered deposits and other short-term borrowings during the quarter. During the quarter, we returned $1.8 billion of capital to shareholders through our $632 million common dividend and share repurchases of $1.2 billion.

Our CET1 ratio declined 20 basis points linked quarter to 10.7%, driven by capital return to shareholders and the AFS securities repositioning, partially offset by earnings and the RAC loan sale. Now turning to average loans and leases on Slide 8, average loans held for investment declined $3.6 billion, or 1.1% linked quarter, to $326 billion, with the decline largely reflecting the strategic portfolio actions we’ve taken. As shown on the right-hand side of the slide, approximately $2.7 billion of the decline was the result of strategic runoff in our consumer and commercial loan portfolios.

That runoff reflects actions we began taking in the second quarter, including discontinuing marine RV loan originations and significantly reducing production in other less strategic, low-return consumer and commercial lending businesses. In addition, we transferred the $5.5 billion RAC portfolio to held for sale in September, reducing average loan balances by another $1.7 billion. The RAC portfolio was sold at the end of the quarter, so we’ll see the full impact on average loan balances in the fourth quarter.

Outside of these actions, core loan balances increased $0.8 billion linked quarter due to growth in consumer loans, including Service Finance, Sheffield, and residential mortgage, partially offset by lower C&I balances. Decline in C&I reflected both our focus on reducing exposure to lending segments that do not meet our ROTCE objectives and elevated paydowns experienced during the quarter in certain industry portfolios. Based on our current commercial loan pipeline, we would expect average commercial loan balances to increase in the fourth quarter, supporting mid-single-digit growth in commercial loan balances for the full year.

As a result, we remain confident in our ability to deliver average loan growth of 3% to 4% in 2026, excluding the impact of the sales of RAC and LightStream. Moving to deposit trends on Slide 9, average deposits increased 1.4% linked quarter and 3.6% year over year, driven primarily by growth in interest checking. The growth continues to reflect stronger client deposit balances, primarily in our wholesale segment. Compared with the third quarter of last year, average client deposits increased $16 billion, while other treasury and corporate managed deposits declined $2 billion, which is aligned with the goal Mike discussed earlier to change the composition of our balance sheet to more profitably fund and support long-term growth. We generated positive net new checking account growth in the quarter and year to date, and we’ll look to accelerate that growth with the investments Mike discussed. The growth in client deposits combined with the liquidity generated by the RAC sale allowed us to meaningfully reduce non-core funding. Average total borrowings declined $4.5 billion, or 6.6% year over year, including a significant reduction in short-term borrowings.

Deposit costs remained relatively stable on a linked quarter basis. Average interest-bearing deposit costs increased 2 basis points linked quarter to 2.12%, while total deposit costs increased 3 basis points to 1.59%. Moving to net interest income and net interest margin on Slide 10, taxable equivalent net interest income increased $40 million, or 1.1% linked quarter, to $3.7 billion, primarily reflecting the benefit of fixed-rate asset repricing and one additional day in the quarter, partially offset by lower loan balances.

Net interest margin increased 2 basis points to 3.00%, driven by fixed-rate asset repricing and a slightly smaller balance sheet. Looking ahead, we expect fourth quarter net interest income of $3.65 to $3.7 billion. That outlook reflects an approximately $125 million reduction in net interest income from the RAC loan sale, partially offset by an approximately $40 million increase due to the AFS securities repositioning completed at the end of the third quarter.

As a reminder, RAC was a roughly breakeven business. So while the sale reduces net interest income, we also expect lower associated noninterest expense and credit costs to provide an offset to lower net interest income. The combination of the RAC loan sale and the AFS securities repositioning are modestly accretive to EPS and ROTCE. Finally, as shown on the lower right-hand side of the slide, our swap portfolio was largely unchanged from the second quarter, while our interest rate sensitivity remains relatively neutral.

Turning to noninterest income now on Slide 11, noninterest income declined to $84 million in the third quarter of 2026 due to $1.4 billion of losses on the AFS securities sold during the quarter and $66 million of losses associated with the RAC sale recorded in other income. Excluding these items, adjusted noninterest income declined $47 million, or 2.9% linked quarter, to $1.6 billion, driven by $47 million of lower adjusted other income due primarily to a $30 million decline in NQDCP income, which is offset in personnel expense; $28 million of lower investment banking and trading income due to lower trading and M&A activity, partially offset by stronger equity and debt capital markets activity. These declines were partially offset by $32 million of higher wealth management income driven by favorable equity market performance. Third quarter wealth management income of $407 million represents our best quarter ever in wealth overall. Card and treasury management fees declined modestly linked quarter, primarily reflecting weakness in merchant, where we recently launched a new partnership aimed at improving performance.

Treasury management continues to be an important area of focus and investment, with fees continuing to grow, healthy pipelines, and continued product adoption. Compared with the third quarter of 2025, adjusted noninterest income increased 2.5%, driven by higher wealth management income, partially offset by lower other income. Excluding the impact of the investment securities losses and the RAC loan sale, we expect adjusted noninterest income to increase about 5% in the fourth quarter versus the third quarter of 2026, resulting in about 10% growth in adjusted noninterest income for the full year.

Next I’ll cover noninterest expense on Slide 12. Expense growth remained well controlled in the third quarter. Noninterest expense increased $50 million, or 1.6% linked quarter, to $3.1 billion. The increase was driven by $40 million of costs primarily related to severance, especially associated with the RAC sale. Excluding those costs, adjusted noninterest expense increased just 0.3% linked quarter. Compared to the third quarter of last year, noninterest expense increased 3%, also reflecting the RAC-related severance costs as well as higher salaries and incentives tied to performance in wealth and investment banking and trading.

Excluding the RAC-related costs, adjusted expenses increased 1.7% versus the third quarter of 2025. For the fourth quarter, we expect noninterest expense to increase 2.5% versus the third quarter reported noninterest expense of $3.1 billion. Fourth quarter expenses will still include approximately $25 million of RAC loan servicing costs, which are expected to be eliminated from the expense run rate in the first quarter. Next, I’ll discuss asset quality on Slide 13.

Overall credit this quarter remains strong, and the RAC loan sale meaningfully improves our credit risk profile going forward. Our reported credit metrics this quarter do reflect the impact of completing the sale. Net charge-offs were $629 million, or 77 basis points, versus 50 basis points in the second quarter of 2026 and 48 basis points in the third quarter of 2025. However, adjusting for $317 million of RAC loan losses during the quarter, adjusted net charge-offs were $312 million, or 38 basis points of average loans held for investment.

Our provision for credit losses was a benefit of $253 million, reflecting a $581 million loan loss reserve recapture related to the RAC loan sale. Excluding RAC, our provision for credit losses was $328 million. The allowance for loan losses declined 26 basis points linked quarter to 1.25%, but ALL coverage of NPLs improved from 2.9x to 3.1x on a linked quarter basis. Nonperforming loans held for investment decreased 11 basis points linked quarter to 40 basis points of total loans, due primarily to the RAC loan sale, partially offset by an increase in C&I problem loans.

Now I’ll review our guidance for the fourth quarter of 2026. For the fourth quarter, we expect revenue of approximately $5.35 billion, which reflects the outlook for net interest income I discussed earlier and 5% linked quarter growth in adjusted noninterest income. We expect reported noninterest expense to increase approximately 2.5% linked quarter. On asset quality, we expect net charge-offs of 45 basis points, reflecting normal 4Q seasonality.

We expect an effective tax rate of 13.5% and an FTE tax rate of 15.5%. As it relates to buybacks, our outlook assumes share repurchases of approximately $1 billion during the fourth quarter, which is a modest reduction from the third quarter repurchases of $1.2 billion. This reflects recent changes in the interest rate environment, the ongoing strategic review, and our goal to maintain a strong through-the-cycle capital position. For the avoidance of doubt, our outlook excludes the impact of any potential additional strategic actions in the fourth quarter, including the sale of LightStream.

Overall, we enter the fourth quarter with a clear strategy, solid underlying financial performance, higher-quality balance sheet composition, a reduced credit risk profile, and a strong capital position. As Mike discussed, we’ll continue to evaluate opportunities to simplify the company and direct capital and resources toward businesses where we see the best opportunities for growth and attractive returns, and we look forward to providing you with a fulsome strategic and financial outlook in early 2027.

With that, I’ll turn it back to Brad for Q&A.

Brad Millsaps, Investor Relations

Thank you, Mike. Betsy, at this time will you please explain how our listeners can participate in the Q&A session?

OPERATOR

As you do that, I’d like to ask the participants to please limit yourself to one primary question and one related follow up in order to accommodate as many of you as possible today. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two.

We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow up. At this time we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question today comes from Ryan Nash with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Ryan Nash, Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Hey, good morning, guys. Welcome to the call, Mike. So you gave a lot of details on your view of the company and shared the lens that you’re going to be looking at things through, which was very helpful. Just as you think about the broader strategic realization review that is underway, what are some of the other areas that might not meet your criteria? And as you think about investing, where is the most increased investment needed? Maybe just expand a little bit on the strategy to grow DDA and where are you expecting to find areas to remix costs from?

Thank you.

Mike Lyons, President & CEO

Thank you. Sure. Thank you for the question. Six weeks in, had a chance to spend a lot of time with the team over the summer, so hit the ground running. But as I said in the prepared comments, excited about the opportunity in front of us and importantly, we’re moving with focus and urgency, but clear eyed about the work that needs to be done to make us a top performer. No major surprises so far, positive or negative. On the positive side, the great foundation that everybody knows about Truist Finl and all the positive attributes have been confirmed.

The branch footprint is unquestionably strong. Size and depth density would be hard, if not impossible, to replicate in these markets. We have some very high quality businesses as I’ve gone through the reviews: small business, DCM, commercial real estate, ABS, wealth, corporate banking—it’s just a long list. All of which, as I’ll talk about in a second, could perform better with even more incremental investment. And then importantly, spent a lot of time in the markets—deep client relationships—and it’s interesting, a lot of them really want a true southeastern Sunbelt winning bank and we want to obviously deliver that for them.

As recognized earlier, despite the positive attributes, we haven’t performed up to the potential or expectations. And I think going through the review—and I said it in the comments—we don’t need to reinvent Truist Finl to win. It’s an important point. The biggest opportunity I’ve seen is just be clear on the strategy and then align our capital and resources against it. We found capital spread to a lot of areas that don’t either support our core strategy or areas where we have a clear right to win.

And the strategic review exercise that we’re going through is trying to get after all of that. And it’s simply every—it’s not just businesses. It’s every process, every operation, every committee, every decision we make. Everything goes in. No sacred cows. We have a clear lens that I talked about: Is it strategic? Does it clear financial returns or does it separately do something to protect the bank, which we obviously need to do, or enhance client service?

And if it doesn’t, we’re moving it out. If it does, we’re assessing what does it need, and that’s really the essence of what we call the sources and uses exercise. And the goals are really twofold: to enhance the balance sheet, which Mike talked about a lot—we’re happy with the progress we made this quarter—and then really take our current expense base and create incremental capacity within it by stopping doing non-core, non-strategic things and funding strategic investments where we have the right to win and can grow.

And you know those decisions, some of those decisions are easy and some of those decisions are harder because you may pass one or two of the tests. You saw, as Mike talked about with RAC and LightStream earlier—examples where not very profitable or unprofitable and not strategic to what we’re trying to do—easy to do, and we moved those, and it’s accretive to earnings and to tangible book value and allows us to focus on the core. That work is ongoing.

As I said, that’ll run up—we have a schedule to run up near the end of the year—and then early in the year, as part of our fourth quarter earnings, we’ll explain, outline to you all what came out of that and the path to the longer term ROTC targets. The exercise—hopefully you’re able to capture from the comments—the exercise is twofold. It’s identifying the sources and uses, and we’re encouraged by what we’re seeing there. And then you have to go execute and make the investments.

And I think that goes to the second part of your question. You saw some of the changes we made today to the management team to better position us with increased experience and depth to execute on those. So we’re thinking about both angles of that. When you go through on the investment side, on the retail side we’ve got this great footprint and we’ve got a great branch franchise, but we haven’t invested appropriately in it. So a big part, as I said with the CSBB focus, is into the branch network, into the ATM network, our technology in the branches, mobile, digital, more performance-based marketing, enhanced client-focused credit card platform—you can go, there’s lots of different things that work—a rewards platform in there. On the wholesale side, we’re continuing our buildout in treasury management, which we’re pleased with the progress there. It’s a great business where our penetration of clients is still very small relative to peers. So we obviously want to stay focused on that. And then the bigger piece in wholesale is just adding more people. We’ve got a great platform. It’s a unique platform that, as we said, combines capital markets capabilities and core balance sheet lending—and more people selling more stuff across the country and taking care of our clients.

So those are the big highlights and a review of the process we’re going through.

Ryan Nash, Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Awesome. And as my follow up, you reiterated the return targets, which I think was great to hear. Just given some of the skepticism in the market, I guess just in order to achieve these—while I know there’s a lot of uncertainty because you’re still going through the review—just any broad strokes, how long and far do you expect the balance sheet to shrink, and as you sell these businesses, how do you think about the ability to do it without meaningfully eroding tangible book value?

Thank you.

Mike Lyons, President & CEO

Sure. I’ll start with the last piece. The decisions we made so far, certainly with RAC, when you combine it with the AFS repositioning, it’s accretive to tangible book value. And I think we have that lens when we consider any of these. And I think what’s really important to consider—what we did with RAC and LightStream—is we have meaningfully changed the stressed credit loss profile of the company, in addition to other changes on the balance sheet that Mike talked about: reduced wholesale borrowings, reduced duration of the securities portfolio.

I think it’s really important. So we’re growing tangible book value as part of these transactions. Obviously you got some movement in AOCI this quarter that shows up in the reported numbers, but the transactions themselves are accretive to tangible value. And we’ll keep that lens as we go through all of the actions. This isn’t about going through—we may find some opportunities to spend a little to save perpetually—but this isn’t about taking, you know, a big charge and destroying tangible book value and rebuilding over time.

It’s creating capacity within our own financial wherewithal. On the reiteration of the financial targets, you know, we’re on track to do what we said we would do in 2026. In January we’ll give you obviously a very specific outline for the 15% target next year, and then the whole strategic review will build that bridge for you to the 16% to 18% over time. Comfortable reiterating it because we believe—and it is over time, it’s a long-term target—that the company has every right to be one of the top performers.

And if you look at the best performers in our industry, they’re all at or above that range, and so we believe we could get there. If you go through again, what are the drivers on that bridge? Clear strategy, focused investments, better and world-class execution, reduced bureaucracy and distractions, much crisper and more urgent speed in the company, obviously have some key financial levers like the HTM book pulling back to par. And then, as I said earlier, there are incredible opportunities to go throughout the bank: low penetration in treasury management, lending areas that we aren’t fully scaled in or don’t even participate in today—plus FX and rates—huge opportunity. So that’s some of the stuff we’ll take you through, but we need some time to finish the review.

Ryan Nash, Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Awesome. Thanks for all the call, Mike.

OPERATOR

The next question comes from Scott Siefers with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Scott Siefers, Analyst at TD Cowen

Morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question, and Mike, congratulations. So I guess a little bit of a follow up on sort of what to do with the proceeds from some of these decisions, like the loan sales. It certainly feels like you’re moving with pace to position the company where you want it to be. When you think about what you have done, what you might do with capital created by things like the loan and business line sales, I guess one of the things that comes up quite a bit in investor conversations is just this tension in that there are obvious places to clean up and reposition, theoretically, like the securities portfolio, but it is a steep cost to doing so—like long earn backs on security sales, for instance. So maybe just at a very top level, if you could speak to the balance between near-term costs and long-term benefits as you look for sort of where to reallocate the capital, whether it’s financial engineering, long-term business opportunities, et cetera.

Mike Lyons, President & CEO

Sure. And I’d start out—and Mike said it—a hallmark of the company going forward is going to be a high-quality balance sheet with strong through-the-cycle capital position. Mike talked about the stuff: reducing duration in the securities portfolio, reducing wholesale borrowings. And then I mentioned meaningful reduction in stressed credit loss profile with moving out some unprofitable or marginally profitable assets with high risk profiles, especially as you go through a cycle.

So as an overarching view, take that as the hallmark of the company. There is no—the path we’re going down is focusing resources to drive process execution. No financial engineering. And the work that we’re doing—and, you know, we’re looking through, as Mike will go through—we’re looking through to the future Basel III rules, and you know, whether the AOCI comes through the Tier 1 common or not, it sort of changes the dynamic of how you think about earn backs and the like, because it’ll be in your capital soon enough anyway.

So why don’t you go through, Mike?

Michael Maguire, Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, good morning, Scott. Maybe just to add to that, we do think it is, as we’ve demonstrated with RAC, a sensible thing to sort of pair these capital creation events with our ambition to improve the duration of the balance sheet. Mike mentioned, with Basel III really coming into focus and in sight, we do feel like it’s sensible to take action around the securities portfolio. It’s not an endless population of actionable AFS bonds. The securities that we targeted with the RAC sale were the most obvious population to pursue.

I think I mentioned this fall at a conference we felt like there could be another 17 or 18 billion dollars of AFS securities that we think could be actionable. We think the opportunity to again reduce duration especially is a worthwhile endeavor. And so look, we need to get LightStream completed. We’re going to continue to evaluate these other businesses and products and operations and let that all settle. But that maybe gives you some insight into our, into our thinking in the overarching theme we keep saying is creating incremental capacity within our existing resources.

So the capital-neutral, generated capital from selling an unprofitable, higher-risk business, capital-neutral trade. We’ll think about the same way on LightStream and as we’re going through the sources and uses, we’re thinking about the same thing from an expense perspective.

Scott Siefers, Analyst at TD Cowen

Perfect, thank you. And then maybe as a follow-up, just sort of qualitatively, I think there’s this sense in the market that in the immediate few years after the BB&T–SunTrust deal, Truist spent a lot of time sort of on its back feet as you went through kind of extended integration, et cetera, and had gotten back on its front feet over the last couple of years. But just now that you’re sort of a fresh set of eyes, I guess what’s your sense for the internal perception of the kind of momentum that Truist has sort of culturally versus where you want or need it to be?

Mike Lyons, President & CEO

Well, I think we’re fortunate to have a terrific leadership team, a terrific base of employees here. I mentioned the comment on our clients. I don’t think it’s internally different. People want to be on a winning team, and to be on a winning team, to take this great franchise, all the great foundation that was built through the merger, and make it a winning team. We’re making tough decisions, moving with pace. We’re communicating clearly with our people, and I think you can ask them yourselves, but I think they’re responding well.

And certainly what I see in the markets, when I’m out with the team, they’re on their front feet. They want investment in the businesses, and with investment in the businesses they can win. We have great markets that attract great competition, and if we don’t invest, it’s hard to compete. Our people want to win and compete, but we can’t just ask them to work harder without the right level of investment. So the sources and uses exercise — it’s a balance.

It’s a balance inside the company. You’ve heard about some of the earlier sources and uses where you have an unprofitable business where we can change and create a lot of positive benefits. It gets tougher as we go. So people will have to give up some stuff to put us in a position to win. But when you look at primary measures of how people are, we look at top-performing turnover, which is down on a year-over-year basis. So you see some indications like that.

But I think I’d just summarize it by saying people want to win, and so do we, and we want to do the right things to drive that.

Scott Siefers, Analyst at TD Cowen

Perfect. All right, good. Thank you very much.

OPERATOR

The next question comes from Manon Ghassalia with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Manon Ghassalia, Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Hey, good morning and welcome. Mike, I was wondering if you can give us more color on some of the lending businesses you noted were attractive for Truist but that you don’t participate in right now. I think you noted some of the hiring efforts are also already underway. If you can talk to how much more there is to do and how quickly you think the production can show up on the balance sheet.

Mike Lyons, President & CEO

Sure. Go back to two things I mentioned in Ryan’s question. We have a great small business platform. It’s a complete deposit machine. We’re underpenetrated in lending there, so good opportunities there. And then you go through the major consumer lending categories. We obviously have competitively national platforms with Service Finance and Sheffield, but we see opportunity to grow home equity for our clients, indirect auto for our clients, certainly credit card for our clients, and continue, even with the national decision on LightStream, we’re still going to do unsecured for our clients where it helps the relationship.

So good growth opportunities on the consumer side, great lending opportunity on the small business side. On the wealth side, relative to peers, our lending penetration is very low. So great opportunity there. And then, as I mentioned earlier, we have an absolutely outstanding wholesale platform, great leadership team, we’re attracting talent in the business. It’s unique to have, as I said, the Wall Street capabilities, big balance sheet, great DCM platform, and be as penetrated into the markets as we are.

That business would benefit, as I said, from more salespeople and more investments in some certain key products. Treasury management obviously is clear there, more feet on the ground in FX, rates, middle market lending. Then we’re underpenetrated in areas like any of the asset-based or asset-backed platforms, securities-based lending, as I talked to on the wealth side, equipment finance, capcoms in the full relationship on the private equity side.

And those are incremental areas. You go to every market we’re in, we have more opportunity there. And Chris and her team have done a great job building out really over the last year with hires in our corporate banking business where we’re underpenetrated. Nationally we’re less than 3% share of commercial lending. So feel good about all the opportunities to put money to work there. And that’s not a long investment cycle on the retail side. As you go and start thinking about reinvigorating the branch franchise and the like, we’ll get some immediate returns from better execution and immediate investment, but it’s a longer investment cycle.

On the commercial side, it’s a much shorter investment cycle, and we’ve been at it for several years on treasury management. So excited about our opportunities there.

Manon Ghassalia, Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Actually that was going to be my follow-up question on the branch strategy, because you mentioned that there’s some work to do in strengthening the branch footprint, making the branches more inviting, I guess. What is the pace at which you can make these investments, and is there more opportunity to either optimize the branch footprint or grow the branch footprint and bring in those DDAs in the medium term?

Mike Lyons, President & CEO

Yes, there is, and that’s a big focus of the exercise we’re going through. We think we’ve got a great footprint. It’s not about going into other markets. We’re in the best markets in the country. We haven’t virtually opened any branches. Our branches need refurbishment, lots of room to take on the ATM strategy. We haven’t built a rewards platform — that’s become table stakes for the best-performing banks who are winning the most net new accounts.

We have a good mobile and digital platform but have to constantly invest there to stay competitive. Performance-based marketing’s been light for us. Workplace banking has been light for us. So each of those have a slightly different investment cycle. You’ve obviously seen a lot of stats out there as people open branches. It takes time, but the esprit de corps and the momentum that it builds within our franchise by just starting is important. I’ve spent a lot of time in the branches since I started, and we’re already after some of the basic revitalization of the network.

But as we go through the remainder of the year and work on the sources and uses, this is a big part of it. And as you saw in the moves we made this morning on the measurement side, there’s a big execution for this too, and we’re building a team that has deep experience doing this, seeing what works, what hasn’t worked before, to complement the team we have here.

Manon Ghassalia, Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Great, thank you.

OPERATOR

Ladies and gentlemen, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question. The next question comes from Erika Narjarian with UBS. Please go ahead.

Erika Narjarian, Analyst at UBS

Hi, good morning. Just on the ROTCE outlook, a lot of discussions with your investors have sort of centered around the idea that they are confident that over time you’ll get to that 16 to 18%. But there is a nervousness that that’s going to cost you in terms of earnings power. And as we think about that natural tension between growth versus — and of course, the premise of this MOE years ago was that this was going to be the bank, the growthiest footprint in the United States.

Mike, I’m curious how you’re thinking about that through time. Additionally, as you think about 2027, you mentioned investments — appropriately so — many times. Is there enough cost to recycle here over the near term, or you’re just really dead focused on getting the businesses sort of the investment oxygen it needs so you can not only get to the 16 to 18% but also, you know, appropriate earnings power for the company?

Mike Lyons, President & CEO

I’d say yes to everything. Yes, there’s investment that’s needed, and we’ve started that. A lot of this investment that we’re talking about has to naturally be sequenced over time. You can’t just, even if you had the money, you can’t just wake up and snap your finger and spend all of the money. So there’s a natural sequencing to it over time with, you know, with respect to ’27 and, you know, the specific numbers there. We’re doing the work now. We’re going as fast as we can.

And as soon as there’s anything to tell you, as we find sources along the way, we’ve been telling it to you. I think, you know, considering — I mean, I just showed up, so I don’t have a lot of the past history — but when you take a hard look at the businesses we have, the processes we have, and what we’re doing, we’re encouraged. You’re either discouraged or encouraged, but we’re encouraged by the opportunity we’re finding to reallocate existing expenses that aren’t adding to the strategy of being the most important financial partner to your clients and the ability to redirect those into strategic investments.

But the work we’re doing, you know, we’re still early in it. You identify the source, the use. We’re clear — I just answered some of the uses we do — how those uses play out over time and how those investment dollars come out over time. But the goal is to continue as best we can to work within our existing expense base to reallocate expenses and create incremental capacity for these investments. And I think it’s important. Just starting somewhere is important.

We haven’t invested in the branch franchise in a long time. We’ll start somewhere and then pace that out as we go. Yeah. And Erica, I would maybe just add, because you put the continuum of growth versus returns, I think we believe that we can grow and improve returns. And you think about some of the areas where Mike has talked about investing on the wholesale business. We want to grow those businesses from a footings perspective, but we want to do a much better job driving better returns through having broader relationships and delivering more products and services for those clients.

On the consumer side, a lot of the focus is going to be on creating even higher-quality funding portfolios over time to support that growth. So we see a scenario, at least that’s the design, to have the company again. Are we taking a couple of steps back here as we divest businesses that aren’t aligned to the strategy and that don’t have the profit potential that we desire? Yes, but we hope that sooner than later we’ll be back into growth mode. Frankly we’re in growth mode but it’s being offset by some of these small steps backward.

But we can grow, I think, and improve profitability. Goal is just where you started. We hope that the merger seven years ago now creates the best bank and the best footprints. But given the lack of investment in some deferred investments since then, we’re clear-eyed about the work we have to do and that’s what we’re going after now. I can assure you we’re doing it with focus, clarity and urgency.

OPERATOR

Thank you. The next question comes from Ken Usten with Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.

Ken Usten, Analyst at Autonomous Research

Hi, thanks. Good morning. Thanks for the update on the fourth quarter NII outlook and I just wanted to further follow that further and just ask. So that clearly reflects backlog and sale and the increase from the AFS securities repositioning. Is there a way you can kind of give us or box that for the incremental stream sale in terms of how that would impact I guess more 27 numbers given that we don’t exactly know when in fourth quarter that might close?

Michael Maguire, Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, sure. Ken, good morning. We don’t know precisely when LightStream will close. We do expect it to close during the quarter, perhaps mid quarter or so. If you look at the full quarter impact of LightStream from an NII perspective it would be in the, call it, $95 million area. So that business has about a nine and a quarter yield and, you know, apply funds against it. That gets you to 95, you know, and then—yes, I’m sorry, I assume you’re going, you know, what are you doing with the proceeds?

We’ve outlined, you know, you’ve seen what we’ve done with regional. We did mention that we’re going to evaluate an AFS repositioning here. The population of bonds, I mentioned this a little bit earlier in the call, that would be sort of next up to target has a different profile than what we just did with RAC. The RAC repositioning, we sold agency MBS that had a duration profile of, call it, close to six years or so and replaced it with securities—one swap with a higher proportion of Treasuries—had a duration profile closer to, closer to 3.

The population that would be next up is probably a mid-twos, you know, yielding again agency MBS, but it’s for the most part swapped. And so it has a duration profile that’s closer to, you know, call it three years. You know, as we look forward, and I mentioned this in our prepared remarks, we would take almost entirely the entire purchase ticket. On the other side of that would be Treasuries and we would swap those Treasuries. So that would take the effective duration, you know, closer to zero frankly.

So that, you know, again don’t know exactly what we’ll do or when we’ll do it. But that maybe gives you a couple of puzzle pieces.

Ken Usten, Analyst at Autonomous Research

It does. Thanks. And on the cost side, you know it seems like you’re going to spend to save to invest and obviously that’s a lot and we’re going to hear more in January. But maybe just top-down views of just how you think about that. Like, you know, are you going to try to hold the line on total costs at the end of the day, or is it a today versus tomorrow debate in terms of just how you look at ROI on save versus spend and invest? Thanks.

Michael Maguire, Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I would just say I think about it this way, and Mike’s gone into a fair amount of detail about it. The same strategic lens that we’re looking at our businesses and our products, we’re looking at every single dollar of expense in the company, and if it’s not aligned to where we’re headed and it doesn’t add value and it doesn’t protect the firm or serve clients in a meaningful way, we’re going to simply stop it. And so we think there’s going to be a significant opportunity to remix those dollars to support the investment agenda.

Look, you asked for a top down—like, we don’t expect there to be some seismic shift in the trajectory of our expense profile. But look, we got to get through the work and we’re going to come back in January and give you a fuller sense for what ’27 looks like and beyond. Again, I think it’s important that Mike did highlight that he’s comfortable with a 15% ROTCE and so hopefully that helps for next year. Pardon me.

Ken Usten, Analyst at Autonomous Research

Yep. Thanks, Mike.

OPERATOR

The next question comes from Mike Mayo with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Mike Mayo, Analyst at Wells Fargo

Hi. You said you want to become a top performing bank. So for investors five years from now, what does that mean and what message are you sending to employees about how you’d like to see them change the way they do business each day? Thanks.

Mike Lyons, President & CEO

I think the concept of being a top performing bank for us obviously impacts all of our constituencies: great place to work, great place to bank, and then a great return for our investors. As I said, I think we’ve gotten—I think people agree—we’ve got all the attributes to do this. We just haven’t put them in a package and put the execution around it to deliver on that. When we go through and look at what does that look like in the franchise, obviously from the shareholder view, Mike, we want to be a top returning bank.

From the customer perspective, we’d love to see much faster growth, reflective of some of our peers, in net new DDA accounts in the branches, great penetration of our lending products in the branches, strong net promoter scores across all the segments. Obviously that all coming to fruition in a strong competitive ROTCE in that 16 to 18% range where most of our peers, the top performing peers, are. On the commercial side, deep long-standing relationships, great treasury management penetration, net new flows in the wealth business.

So those are some of the attributes that you would expect to see of a top performing business. And when we come out in January, when we walk you through the thing, we’re going to narrow down and make it very clear for you—some of them I just mentioned—what the KPIs will be across the businesses, so it’d be clear to hold us accountable. It’s not going to be a shifting array of whatever’s working that quarter is the key measure to look at. So hopefully—and obviously a great place to work would be, I talked about top performer turnover and the like.

Those would be the attributes across the businesses.

Mike Mayo, Analyst at Wells Fargo

And to get to that top performing status, I guess Mike just said no seismic increase in expenses. But I am wondering about that trade-off, like spend more today to get to those higher performing levels sooner. Why create this constraint on expenses when you’ve only been there six, seven weeks, you’re looking out, I guess, over the next five to ten years? Why not spend more now? And there’s a trade-off there. I know we better earning. So how do you think about that?

Mike Lyons, President & CEO

Again, we’re going through the work now. We’re finding, we’re identifying sources and every source comes with a tough choice. As I said earlier, for everything we do there’s at least one person who likes it, and we got to make tough choices and those will impact some stuff internally. The ability, the pace at which we reinvest it, really comes down to where can you be sure of great execution and crisp execution against this. So that’s a balance of making sure we have experienced people capable of doing it, breaking our businesses down into digestible units that we can clearly hold accountable.

But I think at least what we’re seeing so far in the near term, to get the investments going that we need to get going, the constraint’s going to be more on whether we could actually do this stuff. Longer term we’re going to have to continue to source the expenses. But what we’re finding now is at least for the next couple years we can get the key investments we needed going by reallocating existing expenses. We’ll, you know, naturally grow expenses, you know, whatever the long term.

Michael Maguire, Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, I mean Mike, I would say, you know the word seismic was intentional. Right. That’s not intended to say there won’t be a change in our expense profile. We don’t know, we’re doing the work. We’re mindful of the profitability momentum and the profitability expectations. But I think there are some concerns out there that it’ll be a sort of step, functional change and that’s just not how we’re thinking about it.

Mike Lyons, President & CEO

And the constraint—I loved your point, Mike—is would you love to spend it all now to get there? You just can’t get it done on the investment side. They take time. You got to sequence them. And as I mentioned in my comments, adding feet on the ground in the corporate business, we’re already there. We had 40 bankers, you know, really top-ranked bankers so far. So we’ll keep doing on the stuff that you can get at but mindful of creating capacity within the base.

Mike Mayo, Analyst at Wells Fargo

Understood, thank you. Yeah.

OPERATOR

The next question comes from John Pankari with Evercore. Please go ahead.

John Pankari, Analyst at Evercore

Morning and Mike, welcome to the call. At the risk of beating a dead horse just around the confidence in the long-term ROTCE of 16 to 18, just any way to help us if that timing of that attainability of the 16 to 18 has changed under your purview as you look at these different levers that need to be pulled. And then when it comes to the expense side of it, any way to maybe help us with the long-term efficiency ratio that you envision for the company that is appropriate under that 16 to 18.

Is it fair to assume that there could be some upward pressure on the efficiency here in the next several quarters as you execute on this before it finds its way to that long-term level? Thanks.

Michael Maguire, Chief Financial Officer

Hey, good morning, John, it’s Mike. I’ll take it. When we initially published the ROTCE targets, I think we sort of talked about that 16 to 18 as a three to five year target. You know, a lot of moving parts here still. I don’t think we’re—you shouldn’t hear us say we’re changing that outlook. I think we view that as a sort of medium, long-term, you know, view. So, you know, more to come in January there. But again, hopefully you’re feeling us express confidence that that’s where we’re headed.

In terms of efficiency ratio, you know, I try to think about what’s the constellation of metrics that creates the profile that gets us there. You know, today we’re, you know, 56, 57%. I think you could see that improving a little bit more because we’re going to become more productive from a revenue perspective. We want to put more revenue through the platform—capital-efficient revenue—and I think that has a likelihood of improving our tangible efficiency ratio from where it is today, you know, call it maybe mid-50s.

Mike Lyons, President & CEO

And I think I’d just add, rather than looking at the absolute level of efficiency ratio, where the money’s being spent—and that’s where we’re finding more opportunity.

OPERATOR

The next question comes from Ibrahim Poonawalla with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Ibrahim Poonawalla, Analyst at Bank of America

Good morning. Welcome, Mike. And it sounds like I didn’t hear you push back on Mike Mayo’s question around this seeming like a five-year process. The what seems very clear. What you’re trying to do makes sense. The how is super difficult given the markets you operate in. So is it fair? I’m not trying to put this opinion down, but this does feel like a five-year process. If you have any reflections or thoughts on that. And secondly, should we expect more senior executive changes as we fast forward to Jan.?

I’m assuming there’s going to be a lot of line-of-business changes given the appointments of Steve and Shim, as you pointed out across both those businesses.

Mike Lyons, President & CEO

Thank you. Sure. I think the key point on the investments we have to start, we know exactly where we want to go and we’re going to start on those investments. And as I said in some of the retail areas, there’s a fair amount of deferred investment there and you got to start, and you start that process, and as you go through the different investments, yes, some are, I don’t think, branch refurbishments. We’ve got some catch-up work to do there, but that should be a constant maintenance investment perpetually through time.

Opening new branches to fill in gaps in our existing franchise, that obviously has a cycle to it. Other things like adding salespeople in key areas or finishing what started as a build in treasury management in 2023, you know, it’s just each investment has a separate timeline around it, so it won’t be a universal one spot in time. But the key point for us is we know the assets that we have, we know the attributes of the company. We’re in this great footprint.

You just don’t sit in the footprint and grow and be successful. You have to put money into it. You have to go compete, and our people are ready to do that if we give them the investment, and that’s what we’re doing. So, as Mike said, from the long-term ROTCE perspective, that was put out over the last year, and it’s three to five years out, and that’s the path we’re working on. Giving you a nice bridge to the beginning of next year. Got a great management team here.

I think in the opening comments made, this is a two-part process. You have to get the sources and then you have to make the investments. And we want to make sure we’re surrounded by people who have the experience and have done this before where we’re putting key investments in. So today’s changes were really to add to and complement the existing base of talent we have here, flatten that organization out some, add to the depth, and, as I said, might create more digestible units where you can really hold people accountable to key performance stats.

And if there are other opportunities to do that and add talent, people want to come work with us and we’ll do it. But we have a great team here and feel very good about the foundation we’re working off of.

OPERATOR

Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brad Millsaps for any closing remarks.

Brad Millsaps, Investor Relations

Okay, thank you, Betsy. That completes our earnings call. Apologies that we cannot accommodate all you guys today, but please feel free to reach out to the Investor Relations team with questions. Thank you for your interest in Truist Finl, and we hope you have a great day. Betsy may now disconnect the call.

OPERATOR

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company’s SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants’ and analysts’ statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.