Cullen/Frost CFO says current mean of 2023 consensus EPS estimates ‘too low’

Cullen/Frost CFO Jerry Salinas said during the company’s Q3 call, according to a transcript: “Looking at our projection of full year 2023 total noninterest expenses, we continue to expect total noninterest expense for the full year ’23 to increase at a percentage rate in the mid-teens over our 2022 reported levels. This does not include the potential impact of the FDIC special assessment, which has not yet been finalized. The effective tax rate for the first 9 months of the year was 16.3%. Our current expectation is that our full year effective tax rate for 2023 should approximate 16.5% to 17%, and but that can be affected by discrete items during this fourth quarter. Regarding the estimates for full year 2023 earnings, our current projections don’t include any additional changes to the Fed funds rate through the rest of the year — to the rest of 2023. Given that rate assumption and our expectation of 2023 noninterest expense growth of mid-teens, which does not include the impact of the FDIC special assessment and given our strong performance this quarter, we believe that the current mean of analyst estimates of $9.22 is too low.”