I would recommend that all serious bbt investors read the 3rd qtr. 09 transcript. Corno posted the link.

I believe that Kelly King is a good ceo and honest individual. Overall, he has done a good job.

After listening to the conference call and reading the transcript, I believe that King often fails to emphasize to the analyst community and investors key points. Instead he gets caught up in the data spending too much time go over many performance metrics which are not particularly relevant.

For example, in the recent conference call he spent too much time talking about:

* non-performing asset metrics with and without CNB
* rate of increase in non-performing loans by quarter throughout 09.
* 3rd qtr. eps of $.23 was up 3 cents from 2nd qtr which shows "some nice progress". I thought that comment was stupid because $.23 is unacceptable. Of course, King knows that. Sometimes all of us say things we really don't mean to say.

Perhaps, I'm being too critical. But a ceo needs to be focusing in on the big picture and not getting lost in the forest. What should King be talking about?

How about net interest income. In the 4th qtr. 09 interest earning assets will rise around $8 billion or around 8% because of the full quarterly effect of the CNB acquisition and improvements in deposit market share. As a result net interest income will likely increase by around $90 million vs. 3rd qtr. 09 (assuming a 4 bsp pt. increase in net margin as projected by the cfo). On a pretax basis this is worth $.13 per share or 60% of 3rd qtr. reported eps.

Or take adc loans. Gross balance is $6.3 billion. Reserve for bad loans is around $900 million including the 10% mark already booked in non-accruals. The average loss severity rate on adc loans being used by bbt is 35%. So the $900 million can cover the write-downs of around $2.6 billion of adc loans or 40% of the $6.3 billion. Conclusion - the end is in sight. If the bank provides the same provisioning for bad adc loans in the 4th qtr, the 40% is likely to increase to 60%. The vast majority of adc loans at 9/30/09 will not default so we're getting to the point of unrealistic conservatism.

By the way, the actual loss severity rate is the 3rd qtr of 09 was 37% so the 35% used for adc valuation is a good estimate.