Columbia Banking System, Inc.

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Columbia Banking System's third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentations, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question at that time, please press star 11 on your telephone. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to introduce Jackie Boland, investor relations director for Columbia, to begin the call.

Thank you, Valerie. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us as we review our third quarter 2023 results, which we released shortly after the market closed today. The earnings released in corresponding presentation, which we will refer to during our remarks this afternoon, are available on our website at ColumbiaBankingSystem.com. With me this afternoon are Clint Stein, President and CEO of Columbia Banking System, Chris Meriwell and Tori Nixon, the presidents of Umpqua Bank, Ron Farnsworth, Chief Financial Officer, and Frank Namdar, Chief Credit Officer. After our prepared remarks, we will take your questions. During today's call, we will make forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties and are intended to be covered by the safe harbor provision of federal securities law. For a list of factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations, please refer to slide two of our earnings presentation, as well as the disclosures contained within our SAC filing. We will also reference non-GAAP financial measures alongside our discussion of GAAP results. We encourage you to review the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations provided in our earnings release and throughout the earnings presentation. I will now turn the call over to Clint.

Thanks, Jackie. Good afternoon, everyone. Columbia's third quarter results reflect our associates' emphasis on activities that generate business and drive efficiencies for our franchise. Our focus on balanced growth resulted in relationship-driven expansion in our loan portfolio and higher non-interest income. Despite industry headwinds, we continue to see stabilizing deposit trends. Integration activities are winding down as we are now in our eighth month since the merger closed. I'm pleased to report we achieved $140 million in annualized cost savings through quarter end, surpassing our originally announced target of $135 million. These savings are net of franchise reinvestment, which included investments in talent, products, technology, and strategic locations in the novel markets. While our formalized cost savings objectives related to the merger are coming to an end, our focus on efficient growth is not. We will continue to seek out offsets to our investments, driving our business forward in an efficient manner while enhancing shareholder value. Our talented associates, expanded footprint and customer-focused business model provide us with the resources and opportunities to profitably grow market share throughout the West. Our future is bright, and I look forward to providing updates on these objectives in subsequent quarters. I'll now turn the call over to Ron.