00:00Well, talk about this transition, then, because over the past few years, I mean, people will look at what you've
00:05done over the last few years and call that a turnaround story.
00:08Although we should point out, Wells was in relatively good shape, even when that asset cap was placed back in
00:132018.
00:14Was that a turnaround story or was that just kind of regulatory rehab?
00:18Well, I think I wouldn't call it. I think you're right. It's not a turnaround story.
00:21The company was always very strong. We always had a great franchise, but we had to fix things that needed
00:29to get fixed inside the company.
00:30But from our customer standpoint, we were serving them every day. We were making loans. We were taking deposits.
00:36We were constrained on growth, but we were there providing what we did day in and day out.
00:40And financially, we were still doing OK. And when we looked at what we were able to deliver, we were
00:46not able to grow our balance sheet.
00:48We've been focused a lot on efficiency inside the company. We've been focused a lot on growing our fees inside
00:54the business.
00:54So our corporate investment bank has grown very nicely. Our credit card business and credit card spend is growing very,
01:00very nicely.
01:01Focused on building treasury services. And now we can grow the balance sheet so we can more holistically serve customers.
01:07And that's what you see when you look at the results of this past quarter with earnings per share up
01:1025 percent, revenue growth double digits,
01:14growth across every one of our businesses in terms of revenue. We're certainly in a different place.
01:20And our goal is to be viewed as the best financial services provider in these businesses in the country.
01:25How much of that is because of Charlie Scharf and the executive team? And how much of that is because
01:31of market conditions and economic conditions?
01:33Well, I think it's predominantly because of the quality of the franchise and the broad group of people that work
01:38at the company.
01:39Listen, what I and the new management team have been able to do is get people focused, create a different
01:44set of priorities.
01:44But a lot of people execute day in and day out. And the fact is, the markets do help.
01:50So there's no question that, I mean, these times are really good for banks.
01:54And so if you're not doing really well as a bank today, there's something not quite right with either how
01:58you're executing or what your strategy is.
02:00And that's not lost on us. But again, we look at the underlying metrics of each business.
02:05Are we growing? We're growing our consumer checking accounts. We're growing commercial banking customers.
02:10We're growing the kinds of loans that we want to grow.
02:13We're taking the risks that we want to take that we think will provide strong returns over cycles and not
02:19get over our skis and not pretend that it's all us.
02:22Some of it is the markets for sure.
02:23You just reported earnings and the number that I think jumped out for a lot of folks was the growth
02:29in the investment banking business.
02:30You've been on a hiring spree there. Does that continue, that build out?
02:34Yeah. So we've been on, I'll call it a disciplined path to growth in our corporate investment bank.
02:39We're a huge lender to corporates of all sizes in this country, large corporates down to middle market companies.
02:45We provide treasury services.
02:47And what we're doing is building on those relationships with a stronger set of products and services, coverage groups, M
02:54&A, underwriting capabilities.
02:56And so we've been very disciplined about adding resources in a sequential way, seeing that they're paying off, and we're
03:01seeing the results.
03:02And so, yeah, we can expect that to continue as we move towards our ambition of being top five.
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