Brookline Bancorp, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Brookline Bancorp Inc's second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brookline Bancorp's attorney, Laura Vaughan. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Alex, and good afternoon, everyone. 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. We will not be doing a slide flip this quarter. This afternoon's call will be hosted by Paul A. Perlt and Carl M. Carlson. This call may contain forward-looking statements with respect to the financial condition, results of operations, and business of Brookline Bank Corp. 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 needed 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 comparison and reconciliation to GAAP earnings, please see our earnings release. I'm pleased to introduce Brooklyn Bank Force Chairman and CEO, Paul Perl.

Thank you, Laura, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today on this earnings call. Yesterday, we reported net income for a quarter of $21.9 million. or 25 cents per share, excluding about a million dollars in merger charges. Non-GAAP operating earnings were 23.2 million with operating EPS of 26 cents. As we discussed during last quarter's call, in the first quarter, we added over half a billion dollars to our on-balance sheet liquidity in the form of cash and securities. During the second quarter, we prudently reduced most of this position. Our bankers remain very active in the markets. And while we continue to be prudent and attentive to our existing customers, we are seeing opportunities to bank strong new relationships. Loan portfolio grew $94 million this quarter and core deposits grew by $110 million. Non-performing assets increased in the quarter off historically low levels and remain less than half of 1% of total assets. Net charge-offs for the quarter were just five basis points annualized, while the allowance for loan losses increased to 135 basis points of total loss. I will now turn you over to Carl, who will review the company's second quarter results.