Company: KEY-PI
Filing Date: 2025-02-21
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000091576-25-000038
Chunk: 192

Company: KEYCORP /NEW/
Filing Date: 2025-02-21
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 192
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 skilled people.

Our success depends on our ability to attract, retain, motivate, and develop a high performing, inclusive, and collaborative workforce. Competition for talent in our business is strong and requires us to make investments to provide compensation and benefits at market levels. Rising wages, as well as inflation, may cause us to increase these investments. Such investments cause compensation and benefits to represent our greatest expense.

Additionally, we increasingly compete for talent outside of the core financial services industry. Non-financial institutions may be subject to different pay and hiring expectations than us, which may make it more difficult for us to attract qualified teammates. For example, we are required to deliver a substantial portion of the variable compensation of certain teammates in the form of awards tied to our financial performance and/or share price performance. Our failure to achieve our long-term financial goals and/or our share price performance may cause the value of these awards to decline or fall to zero, which would impact our ability to retain and incentivize qualified teammates. Similarly, our pay practices are subject to scrutiny by our regulators who may identify deficiencies in the structure of, or issue additional guidance on our compensation practices, causing us to make changes that may affect our ability to offer competitive pay to these individuals or that place us at a disadvantage to non-financial service industry competitors.

Finally, while remote work opportunities allow us to hire outside of our traditional footprint, it also increases competition. These factors individually, or collectively, may constrain our ability to hire or retain a sufficient number of qualified employees, which could impact our ability to serve our customers and clients.

Acquisitions or strategic partnerships may disrupt our business and dilute shareholder value.

Acquiring other banks, bank branches, or other businesses involves various risks commonly associated with acquisitions or partnerships, including exposure to unknown or contingent liabilities of the acquired company; diversion of our management’s time and attention; significant integration risk with respect to employees, accounting systems, and technology platforms; increased regulatory scrutiny; and the possible loss of key employees and customers of the acquired company. We regularly evaluate merger and acquisition and strategic partnership opportunities and conduct due diligence activities related to possible transactions. As a result, mergers or acquisitions involving cash, debt or equity securities may occur at any time. Acquisitions may involve the payment of a premium over book and market values. Therefore, some dilution of our tangible book value and net income per common share could occur in connection with any future transaction.

Scotiabank holds a significant equity interest in our business and may exercise influence over us, including through its ability to designate