Wells Fargo & Company (WFC)
Q4 2009 Earnings Call Transcript
January 20, 2010 10:30 a.m. ET

Executives

Robert Strickland – Investor Relations
John G. Stumpf - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Howard I. Atkins - Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

Matthew O’Connor - Deutsche Bank Securities
Nancy Bush – NAB Research
Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley
Paul Miller - FBR Capital Markets & Co.
Andrew Marquardt - Macquarie Research Equities
(Ron Mandel – GIC)
John McDonald - Sanford Bernstein
Joe Morford - RBC Capital Markets

Presentation

Operator

Good morning. My name is Saleste and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Wells Fargo Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. Thank you. I would now like to turn today’s call over to Mr. Bob Strickland. Please go ahead, sir.

Robert Strickland

Good morning. This is Bob Strickland, Director of Investor Relations at Wells Fargo. Thank you for joining us on our call today where John Stumpf and Howard Atkins will review fourth quarter and full-year 2009 results and answer your questions.

Before we get started, I would like to remind you that our fourth quarter earnings release and financial supplement are available on our website. I’d also like to caution you that we may make forward-looking statements during today’s call and that those forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are detailed in our SEC filings, including the Form 8-K filed today and the earnings release and financial supplement included as exhibits. In addition, some of the discussion today about the company’s performance will include references to non-GAAP financial measures.

Information about those measures, including a reconciliation of those measures to GAAP measures, can be found in our SEC filings and in the earnings release and financial supplement available on our website at wellsfargo.com. I will now turn the call over to Chairman and CEO, John Stumpf.

John G. Stumpf

Thanks, Bob and thanks to everyone who has joined us this morning on this call. We appreciate your interest in Wells Fargo and look forward to reviewing our results and answering your questions.

First, let me say how proud I am of all of the dedicated Wells Fargo team members across the nation who put forth tremendous effort to help us achieve strong results throughout the year. In my 28 years at Wells Fargo, I believe 2009 was the best year we ever had in terms of positioning us for future growth.

Looking back at where we were last year at this time, I believe our business is better in virtually every aspect. We generated record earnings, strengthened our balance sheet and removed a great deal of risk from our businesses.

We generated significant capital, both internally and externally, ending the year with capital ratios higher than they were before we completed the Wachovia merger. I couldn’t feel better about the opportunities ahead. With a company that is twice the size it was in 2008, we see tremendous opportunity ahead as we continue to integrate our two companies.

The merger with Wachovia is exceeding all of our expectations in terms of expense savings, successfully meeting integration milestones, the quality of our team members and customers and the opportunities we see together going forward. Now to be sure, we have had -- we’ve all had to manage through a lot of change and uncertainty over the past year.

While the economy is starting to show some signs, positive signs and pockets of stability, the unemployment rate is still too high and housing price improvement continues to be spotty, no doubt there will be surprises ahead. But the business model that has served Wells Fargo well for over two decades focused on diversification and satisfying all of our customers’ financial needs continues to serve us well in the current environment and will guide us through 2010 and beyond.

In fact, if you liked Wells Fargo in the past, you should love us today. As a result of the merger with Wachovia, our business model is even stronger. We have more geographic diversity and twice the number of customers who we can better serve with a more diverse and powerful set of products.