Camden National Corporation

good day and welcome to camden national corporation's fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call my name is elliot and i'll be your operator for today's call all participants will be in this anonymous during today's presentation following the presentation we will conduct a question and answer session if you require operator assistance at any time during the call please press star then zero and i'll turn the call over to renee smith executive vice Vice President, Chief Experience, and Marketing Officer.

Thank you, Elliot. Elliot, good afternoon and welcome to Camden National Corporation's conference call for the fourth quarter of 2024. Joining this afternoon are members of Camden National Corporation's executive team, Simon Griffiths, President and CEO, and Mike Archer, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please note that today's presentation contains forward-looking statements and actual results could differ materially from what is discussed on today's call. Cautionary language regarding these forward-looking statements is contained in our fourth quarter 2024 earnings release issued this morning and in other reports we file with the SEC. All of these materials and public filings are available on our investor relations website at camdennational.bank. Camden National Corporation trades on the NASDAQ under the symbol CAC. In addition, today's presentation includes a discussion of non-GAAP financial measures. Any references to non-GAAP financial measures are intended to provide meaningful insights and are reconciled with GAAP and our earnings relief, which is also available on our Investor Relations site. I am pleased to introduce our host, President and Chief Executive Officer, Simon Griffith.

Thank you, Renee. Good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining our call today. I will provide a few comments on our most recent quarter and then turn it over to Mike to discuss our fourth quarter financial performance. We'll then open for Q&A. However, before discussing the fourth quarter, I want to remark on a transformational moment in Camden National's history. On January 2nd, we successfully closed our merger with Northway Financial in less than four months from our announcement in early September. As of the closing of the merger, the combined institution had total assets of approximately 7 billion and 73 branches in Maine and New Hampshire. This combination represents a powerful step forward in bolstering our New Hampshire presence in a growing, contiguous market and positioning us as a premier publicly traded bank headquartered in northern New England. We are on track to successfully achieve the merger-related financial targets announced in September. We are confident in our ability to unlock meaningful growth opportunities and swiftly expand our market presence. The business development teams have already identified opportunities to leverage our significant technology investments, larger balance sheet, and advice-based capabilities across an expanded customer base. I deeply appreciate the dedication of all team members, their thorough due diligence, commitment to aligning cultures, and focus on our strategic vision were all instrumental in the success of this transaction. The conversion of Northway's banking products and services to Canada National System is on target and expected to occur in mid-March. We look forward to the future as a newly combined, more robust organization. As we look back at the fourth quarter and full year, it can only be described as incredible momentum. In the midst of our significant acquisition of Northway, we produced another quarter with strong operating results. Earlier this morning, we reported gap net income of $14.7 million, or $1 of diluted earnings per share, for the fourth quarter of 2024, an increase of 12% and 11%, respectively, over the third quarter of 2024. Excluding merger and acquisition costs incurred through December 31st, 2024, net income for the fourth quarter of 2024 was $15.1 million, and EPS was $1.25. an increase of 9% and 8% respectively over the third quarter of 2024. Our strong fourth quarter financial performance was marked by another quarter of strong net interest margin expansion, growing 11 basis points compared to the third quarter, coupled with continued disciplined expense management and robust asset quality, which are Camden National's key strengths. We proactively managed deposit costs lower in response to recent Fed rate cuts in the second half of 24, including the fourth quarter, and this directly translated into further net interest margin expansion quarter over quarter, all while continuing to grow our deposit base 1% in the fourth quarter. In particular, I would highlight the success in our high-yield savings product introduced earlier this year, which reached $201 million in deposits at December 31st, to 2024 and has been a key catalyst for us to attract new deposits and customers. Our commercial team ended the year with strong momentum and a solid pipeline leading into 2025. We continue to see strong activity throughout our markets but remain selective and measured. In particular, our pre-acquisition New Hampshire team realized 18% growth in their market during 2024 with a limited group of lenders. We are opportunistic as we enter 2025 as we have now expanded that group to eight commercial lenders in New Hampshire with the addition of the Northway team. We're experiencing strong momentum in fee income driven by our strategic focus and investments in wealth management and brokerage services. Our assets under administration reached $2.1 billion as of December 31st, 2024, reflecting a 12% increase compared to December 31st, 2023. With our new wealth operating platform and mobile app, we are well positioned to expand our advisory distribution, further supporting our commitment to full relationship banking and the growth and diversification of our fee income. We continue to feel very good about our overall asset quality. Our credit and special asset team continue to monitor our loan portfolio actively, and we have not seen any meaningful signs of credit deterioration across any sectors or industries at the end of 2024. Our experienced lending and credit team's proactive approach seeks to address potential challenges immediately, a strategy that has consistently benefited our organization and our customers. During the fourth quarter, we completed the strategic transformation of our online consumer business account opening process. After a successful soft launch in December, it was broadly available in early January. This completes the first step towards enhancing our deposit account opening process across all channels. We have already begun to leverage the platform's operational efficiencies and enhanced fraud protection capabilities. This platform will assist us in welcoming new customers in our expanded geography with a seamless account opening platform backed by human-backed service excellence. Our technology momentum continues to prevail forward with our investments in process automation, which enhances operational efficiency by streamlining repetitive tasks. These efforts increase productivity, reduce errors, improve compliance, and provide greater agility in responding to market changes. In December, we celebrated our bots processing a record 1.7 million transactions that humans used to perform. Notably, less than 13,000 of the transactions were sent to manual review, or less than 1% of the total. Looking ahead, we are very excited to celebrate our 150th anniversary. Over the past century and a half, we have built a legacy of trust, innovation, and dedication driven by a passion for continually evolving to meet the needs of our customers and our communities. Of course, delivering all this requires a total team effort from all my incredibly experienced and caring colleagues at Camden National. Their hard work, dedication, and commitment to our customers and each other make these results possible, delivering greater value for our shareholders and support for our communities. Now Mike will provide more details about our financial results. Thank you, Simon.