Brookline Bancorp, Inc.

Welcome to today's Brookline Bancorp Inc Q4 2021 earnings call. My name is Jordan and I'll be coordinating your call today. If you'd like to register a question, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I'm now going to hand over to Marissa Martin, General Counsel, to begin. Marissa, the line is yours.

Thank you, Jordan, and good afternoon, everyone. As a reminder, all participants will be in listen-only mode during today's call. And please note that today's call is being recorded. Yesterday, we issued our earnings release and presentation, which is available on the investor relations page of our website, brooklinebankcorp.com, and has been filed with the SEC. This afternoon's call will be hosted by Paul A. Peralt and Carl M. Carlson. This call may contain forward-looking statements with respect to the financial condition, results of operations, and business of Brookline Bancorp. please refer to page two of our earnings presentation for our forward-looking statement disclaimer. Also, please refer to our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which contain risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Any references made during this presentation to non-GAAP measures are only made to assist you in understanding Brookline Bancorp's results and performance trends. and should not be relied on as financial measures of actual results or future predictions. For a comparison and reconciliation to GAAP earnings, please see our earnings release. If you can join us on page three of the earnings presentation, I'm pleased to introduce Brooklyn Bancorp's Chairman and CEO, Paul Perrault.

Paul Perrault Thanks, Marisa, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's earnings call. I'm pleased to report we had another quarter of solid earnings of $28.5 million, or 37 cents per share, capping off a record year for earnings of $115.4 million, with EPS at $1.48. We had strong growth in our core loan portfolio of $315 million, and deposits, excluding brokered, grew by almost $200 million for the quarter. Our margin was stable and our credit quality and the economic environment continues to improve. Fee income was also very strong this quarter as loan activity drove customer swaps and gains on loan participations that we originated. CARES Act loan modifications dropped to $38 million and PPP loans declined by $93 million to end the year at $68 million. Our pipelines continue to be very strong, and trends remain positive as we enter this new year. I will now turn you over to Carl, who will review the company's fourth quarter.